When you call about your investments, are you going crazy with the phone tree? How about navigating websites trying to find your statements? Do you feel like you’re getting the answers you need when you need them?
When you consider how confusing investing can be—and believe me, they do it on purpose, so you’ll need them—you can become frustrated. Frustration is a terrible feeling.
If you’re a regular reader of Your Survival Guy, congratulations, you have some money. You have some wealth. You didn’t get here by accident. We’re together because you have made it your goal to keep what you’ve made and to beat inflation by maintaining your purchasing power for your retirement life. This is not a get-rich-quick website. There’s no advertising except for you to act and make the move to meet me.
Your Survival Guy is about slow and steady success. One step in front of the other. And guess what? It works.
Why, when you call the big three, Vanguard, in this case, do you end up talking with a phone rep and not a principal of the firm? Isn’t your money the most important thing to you? Of course, it is, but instead of talking to someone who also believes your money is important, you’re left leaving a voicemail. And when they call back, it’s not convenient for you, it’s convenient for them. That’s no way to run a business or your money.
There’s a tectonic shift taking place at Vanguard with its new CEO starting next month who is from, of all places, ETF giant BlackRock. This is about throwing the old Vanguard business model in the trash and pushing more products on you, the customer. It’s the Amazon Priming of investments as you are the product rolling along the conveyor belt.
When my father-in-law wrote the forward to Jack Bogle’s book, Vanguard was still executing Bogle’s vision, not reaching for revenue. Dick wrote of the book, “Congratulations! You have made one of the wisest investment decisions of your life…Jack Bogle’s basic premise is the model of simplicity and integrity: Give investors clearly defined investment products at the right price.”
Read this part again, “the model of simplicity and integrity.” It was a different Vanguard back when Dick recommended the company’s funds month after month to his tens of thousands of readers in Richard C. Young’s Intelligence Report. The Vanguard of today is not what it used to be, and it isn’t a place for those who aren’t paying attention like a hawk. And why should you have to? You don’t need another job.
Action Line: The good news is that the grass is greener with a fiduciary who will shepherd you and your flock at Fidelity. When you’re ready to talk, I’m here. But only if you’re serious.
