Vanguard's Personal Advisor Service

Vanguard's Personal Advisor Service is similar to what I do.  It enables Vanguard clients to "partner" with a professional financial advisor.  Clients get a personalized financial plan built on a disciplined investment approach utilizing low-cost, well-diversified funds.  The approach emphasizes tax efficiency, rebalances as needed, and even transitions from the accumulation stage where the investor is building the nest egg to the decumulation stage where the investor begins drawing a paycheck on the nest egg.

Also, the fee is low at .3% of assets and (this is important!) the client can leave at any time!  In other words, there is no contract locking you in.  To me, the ability to leave is important because the hard part is getting set up - rolling over funds, selling and reinvesting in a tax efficient way, and locating the investments appropriately among qualified and non-qualified funds.  Once this is set up, then many investors can take over, especially if they understand the importance of sticking with the asset allocation plan and not allowing emotions to wreck their strategy.

At 0.3%, the service's fee is actually lower than the fee I charge of 0.4%--which in turn is way below the industy average.  In fact, if you have a little time you might want to verify this by googling "investment advisor" along with your zip code.  Call the first 10 that pop up, and tell them you've got a million bucks and need investment help.  You'll be hard put to find any that charge below1% and will likely find some that charge 2.50%!  Also, most will charge extra for doing a plan, and some will even invest you in load funds.

Mike Piper at Oblivious Investor did a good write up on Vanguard's Service in response to a reader's question that is worth reading at

"What's the Big Deal with Vanguard's Personal Advisor Service?"


Full disclosure and caveat:  I am not affiliated with Vanguard and have not used this service myself. This post is for educational purposes.