[‎USER]

Hi all, I’m looking at hiring a financial advisor and would appreciate advice/thoughts on my need for an advisor/planning and if the cost is justified based on the following?

I’m 54 years old and was originally targeting retirement at 59. Due to some parental health issues, and honestly burnout on my job, I may be in the situation where I retire within the next 1 – 2 years.

I’m single, no kids, no debt other than my mortgage ($300k), live in a HCOL area in the US, current assets of $1.1M. I’m considering retiring to a LCOL area in the US or another country, and either selling or renting my current home. I’m in good health.

I think I can live reasonably on $50k – $60k per year. I’ve connected with a financial advisor in the area that is recommended to me by a friend of mine and gone over my situation with them (potential to need to leave my job in the next 1-2 years, maybe considering moving to a LCOL country, selling/renting my home, current assets, etc.).

They’ve estimated that it will take 19 hours to provide an initial financial plan for my retirement with two scenarios and cost will be $7,000.

They do not charge any other fees, unless I decide I want additional modifications or planning in the future and then it would be billed hourly.

I am very open to paying for the service and I have a lot of potential variables right now, but my situation is not as complex as many others.

They will provide a review of my assets and liabilities, review of cash flow, investment review and advice for allocating each account, account consolidation, and investment diversification, and retirement modeling for up to two scenarios.

Appreciate any insight or advice anyone may have.

[Eva]

Check out nectarine. You can get same service for $2500-3500 for full financial plan. Or $250-300/hr for hourly work / overview.

Madison Sharick has FI mindset on there and is COAST FI herself. It’s something like 1-3 month wait for an appointment with her but likely worth it.

Full disclosure, I had a meh experience but it’s because of me picking someone who said they have FIRE client experience but that’s not generally their area of work so they tried telling me I needed a 2% SWR so the meeting didn’t go so well.

I got reimbursed due to the satisfaction guarantee (I didn’t ask for/ expect a refund). And afterwards Madison was recommended to me.

[Karen]

Go to a bank of america Financial Solutions Advisor in a branch and ask for a personal wealth analysis. Shouldn’t cost a thing.

You can always choose to have them manage but don’t have to.

[Kevin]

If you just one a one-time plan, you can find plenty of advice only planners that will charge less.

I know exactly what it takes to create a comprehensive plan from but an expertise and a time perspective and I think 7k is a bit much.

I know for a fact there are some that charge less than 3k. And some of them will even give you ongoing access to their planning software.

[张扬]

There are cheaper options for financial advice. For example, SoFi offers free consultations with CFPs for their users, and SoFi Plus members (which requires as little as opening checking/savings accounts and setting up direct deposit, if you don’t want to pay a $10 monthly subscription fee) get unlimited access to financial planners.

I would educate myself and exhaust free resources first, before giving up nearly 1% of my nest egg for a plan.

[Rick]

$4-5k a month to live solo abroad is solid in easily half the world to starting on the lavish side for the lower third cost countries in the world.

I expect you will find $3k sufficient for a few years and then can decide if your want to change your style to modest to semi expensive counties.

And that reduction in budget has a big huge boost to your overall plan.

You may find that you are able to keep your net worth growing at a mid single digit return even while you live abroad from your portfolio.

I would sell the house. To me, hands down I want the less hassle and the reduced lumpy cash flow.

And nothing you mentioned nor what I potentially added to your plan should require a $7k plan design.

That is not knocking this advisor. The plan may be jaw droppingly detailed and sophisticated and worth it for others.

But your situation…I think you need something less over the top.
I would look elsewhere.

And I would consider Boldin or Projection Lab software if you like some DIY, if only to give to an hourly advisor as your starting point mentally.

Good luck. And go enjoy the world and travel!!

[Ron]

$50-60K a year is a luxury lifestyle in any LCOL country, including most of Asia, South America, Central America and Mexico and Eastern Europe.

I’d be concerned about where you can retire to without significant bureaucracy.

I have spent about 6.5 years of my 11 years of retirement, early retirement living low cost outside the US, but basically I was moving around according to visa regs.

Typically, except for US dependencies and around 8 specific countries you will have to move at least every three months.

There are some places, particularly islands, where you can extend your visa in country for a significant amount of time, or other places that allow you to do visa runs almost indefinitely, though things can change at any time.

So, I’d be a bit concerned about where specifically you will be retiring to. Besides that, some things can become complicated if you become tax resident in another country.

Very few countries, as an example, recognize Roth accounts. There are a handful that do in their tax treaties with the US.

Without this recognition, if you have a Roth it might be treated like any other taxable account you have if you file taxes with this other country.

I don’t have any direct experience, but being in the excellent US Expat Tax Questions FB group people there always indicated how hard it was to find tax/financial preparers who a really qualified to give advice on expat situations.

Yes, you can find them for a high fee if your overseas retirement location were the UK, for example, but expats in many other places seemed to have difficulty.

So, I guess I’m saying the financial advice you are looking for may not cover what you will experience depending upon what country you spend most of your retirement in. Yes, there are some general concerns and principals.

This is avoided if you don’t establish tax residency abroad while you are overseas, like I didn’t.

I accomplished this by moving about from one country to the next, 23 countries in total in the 6.5 years of living abroad.

These are the things I thought about when reading your post. Hope some of them lead you in a useful direction.

I left for my latest 5.5 years retired abroad experience with total liquid net worth of $380K at the beginning. As of yesterday (back in the US), my total liquid net worth is $566K.

Besides starting Social Security in fall 2024, having zero US side expenses and earning about $2-2.5K/year through online work my net worth increase is totally due to LCOL lifestyle while living in LCOL countries abroad and market gains in my retirement portfolio.

Good luck!!

[Ginna]

We met with Kelly Palmer from Hello Nectarine yesterday and we’re incredibly impressed.

We had a long list of questions and fully expected to need to book more sessions to get through all of them.

She was incredibly efficient and knowledgeable. We got through everything with 5 minutes to spare.

Highly recommend!

[Lisa]

Sell the house. Rental property even with a management company requires $ and isn’t worth the hassle.

Before the property owners in the group come for me…I own several rental properties, deal with a management company and hate it every single time there is a big ticket maintenance issue.

Sell the house, bank the $ into investments and cut the hassle.

[Author]

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