[pbkmaine]

Originally Posted by l2ridehd

Most if not all financial advisors do not have your best interest in mind. They have theirs. They will sell you products that pay them the highest commissions. No one will take care of your money like you will and it is really easy.

1. Determine the best asset allocation for you at your point in life based on your risk tolerance. There are many online tools that will help you do this. Age in bonds is a bit to simplistic for most people but not a bad place to start. I use 60% stocks and 40% bonds, but that is much higher risk then most retired folks should have. Try 50/50 or 40/60.
2. Buy a total stock market fund, a total international fund and a total bond fund from a very low expense mutual fund company. Vanguard, Fidelity or Schwab all have them. Buy them in a ratio of your desired asset allocation.
3. Re-balance once a year on your birthday.

Very simple, very low cost, and will beat the returns of all financial advisors. There are 100's of articles that will tell you that over any 10 year period in the history of the market that this approach will beat all actively managed portfolios and have lower downside risk. The only way you can achieve higher returns is to take higher risks and that will always have a down side.

I will be more than happy to help anyone set this type portfolio up for free. Have you do everything yourself so you know how to do it. I have managed mine like this for years. I do use some slight variations on this that add small cap and value funds, plus some international bonds, but I do not recommend that for others. Keep it simple with just 3 funds. Keep the bonds in tax deferred and the stocks in taxable if possible.

Agree on all points.