I have been DIY since the early 70's. There is a learning curve not only with investments but also with your own risk tolerance. If you are retired, you have either gone through this or have left your investment choices to other advisors or pension funds, etc. Many advisors will want to offer hand holding guidance for your investments for a 1% annual fee. This can be a huge annual number. I have a friend who was a public service employee who had a negative view of the investors in general and since he would be receiving a defined benefit retirement package he never thought about investing. Life has a way of presenting the unexpected. He found himself through inheritance with a portfolio. He didn't know what to do, got the name of an adviser from somebody and happily pays him $20K a year to take this "burden" off his hands. It works for him. Personally, I can do a lot with $20K. Unless you have more complicated holding such as commercial real estate, limited partnerships, etc., you don't need an advisor. And if you have complicated assets that you don't understand you should probably liquidate them because one day they may bite you. Most advisors will play it safe but to convince you that they are special they will give you a complicated mix of investments (probably mutual funds or etfs) in the name of diversity (the investment kind). A simple plan is to maintain a 60:40 or 50:50 mix of equities and fixed incomes. You can do this all with index funds or go for the few managed funds that consistently do as well as or slightly beat the indexes. A few funds are all you need. To keep up with inflation don't go below 50% equities. If you want to play a little take out 5-10% for your own ideas in a brokerage account realizing that this may not do so well but then again it might surprise you. But then again at this point in life you already know whether you would enjoy investing. Have fun with the $XX,000 you save in advisor management fees.
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