Originally Posted by
IPAs
I recommend learning enough to handle your own money. Nobody will ever care as much about your money as you.
It's not difficult. It will pay huge dividends.
I've thought the same thing, though I have some hesitation give the monikers "you wouldn't perform your own surgery"...etc.
However money management fascinates me, and I think I've got an elementary understanding. Would it be fair to say that there's basically (and this is very basic) 401k's, IRA's for retirement, 529's for college, and general brokerage accounts for all else? The former three having various rules/tax breaks/penalties, and the latter simply being taxed on gains?
Further, when it comes to those accounts, you diversify with various stocks, mutual funds, etc. Choosing risk, cost ratio, so on and so forth? I've dabbled with my wife and I's 401k's...instead of just doing the "Target Retirement 20xx" fund, I looked at others available and grabbed a few with low costs and high returns over 3, 5, and 10 year histories. It's easy to look at past/present performance, and I assume that a fund averaging 10% over the past 10 years is probably likely to be a solid bet moving forward, but I have no idea how to pick something before it takes off...aside from perhaps being excited about a given company.
So if that's pretty much all a financial advisor does, perhaps I should consider self management?