[Lee]

Have about 30k I want to invest into an easy fund. Trying to decide between Vanguard, Fidelity or anything else. What is the best in terms of lowest fees with a leave and let it sit model (I’m in my early 40s)?

I have IRAs (traditional and Roth) and investment accounts with a financial advisor, I have CDs and HYSAs with CapOne. I’m wanting to learn and start to manage myself to see if I can do better and save the 1% I’m paying my financial advisor.

Thanks your help and input!!

[Wayne]

So, we generally like to keep those fees down.

So, 1% to a lot of people is too much. But if you look to see that 1% in your case is $300, then, you are probably getting a great deal of value to have someone to work with. If you’d go fee only, you pay a lot more.

1%, at your level, if utilized well, seems like a tremendous value, from my perspective.

[Carl]

Oh good lord. 1% over the lifetime of your investments means that you could end up hundreds of thousands short of where you would have been if you managed on their own.

Time to divorce your advisor!

[Lexi]

You can get Vanguard/other low fee ETFs at Fidelity or no fee mutual funds but they use a proprietary index and are not portable. Maybe a good option for long term/low fees.. FZROX, FXAIX/VOO/VTI/SPLG have the lowest fees I could find (0-0.03%)

[Michelle]

Similar boat here. We use an advisor and 100% am happy to pay her for the help she provides so we lose that 1% for the accounts with her. But, I am looking at opening a brokerage on my own, too. I have a vanguard traditional IRA that was a rollover from my old 401ks. Their website is confusing. I have my kids’ custodial Roth accounts with fidelity.

It’s easier to navigate, but I am not sure I want to spread things out even more, just for simplicity I will likely go vanguard.

[Bill]

Just some terminology clarifications. There are brokerage houses. Those are the company names like vanguard and fidelity. At each of those, they offer different account types. Eg Ira, 401k, taxable brokerage. Within each of those accounts, you pick funds to invest in.

So, for the brokerage, vanguard, fidelity and Schwab are the big discounts brokers with low fees.

You’ll roll your iras and transfer your brokerage account to one of those.

Within those new accounts, you’ll want to buy broad based, low cost index funds. Each of those brokerages call them some variation of “total stock market fund”.

[Author]

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