• There has been a recent cluster of spammers accessing BARFer accounts and posting spam. To safeguard your account, please consider changing your password. It would be even better to take the additional step of enabling 2 Factor Authentication (2FA) on your BARF account. Read more here.

2025 / 2026 Investment Thread

I am just chucking this into the ether to get it off my chest. My wife and I just turned a sizable chunk of our net worth over to an "adviser" at Fidelity, which consists mostly of her 401(k) accounts. One objective was to simplify our investment spread, putting it under one roof. Another objective for me is to see how well they perform. My wife had two 401(k)'s with them that I neglected to roll into IRAs when she left her final two companies before retiring. We consolidated some smaller shared IRAs in the process. Although Fidelity wanted to bring "my" accounts on board, I chose not to do so. Our assets are commingled, but I don't want them to muck up my performance evaluation; it would make it difficult for me to assess their performance, if that makes sense.

Anyway, as I have oft stated, I am a cheap Englishman, ergo it is hard for me to pay someone to "manage" a portion of our portfolio, as I am quite pleased with our accomplishments and gains in that regard.

Seeing their Monte Carlo results was fun and informative at the very least. We will meet in October to assess our performance. I will have no problem firing the rep if I am not pleased with their performance. Continuing with the thought that I want to spend our son's inheritance..... :geek:
 
How many of you barfers have annuities?

Why isn't this talked about more? My aunt just briefly explained it and I am struggling to find ppl to talk about the pros/cons, my aunts all pros so
 
FXCLM5 said:
How many of you barfers have annuities?

Why isn't this talked about more? My aunt just briefly explained it and I am struggling to find ppl to talk about the pros/cons, my aunts all pros so
Click to expand...
We had them and sold them a few years back.

The performance reflected the fact that annuities are money makers for the vendor, not the client.
 
GAJ said:
We had them and sold them a few years back.

The performance reflected the fact that annuities are money makers for the vendor, not the client.
Click to expand...
Yea, but if I squirrel something away in there now, 20 years and it settles I get paid out like 18% of initial equity annually for the remainder of my life.

And that's like the basic set rate, if you go market indices it starts lower first 20 years and then climbs each year but has a floor still if market crashes

The funds was taxed already so when you do withdrawal you get weird tax breaks as well.

I don't understand the negatives and would like to be exposed to more pros/cons to make a decision meow, yes sp500 could make more, but this is the point about diversification and curious why it's rarely brought up
 
Rider fees, annual administration and maintenance fees, as well as commissions paid to the adviser who sold you the annuity......I don't see the point
 
Last edited:
900ss said:
I am just chucking this into the ether to get it off my chest. My wife and I just turned a sizable chunk of our net worth over to an "adviser" at Fidelity, which consists mostly of her 401(k) accounts. One objective was to simplify our investment spread, putting it under one roof. Another objective for me is to see how well they perform. My wife had two 401(k)'s with them that I neglected to roll into IRAs when she left her final two companies before retiring. We consolidated some smaller shared IRAs in the process. Although Fidelity wanted to bring "my" accounts on board, I chose not to do so. Our assets are commingled, but I don't want them to muck up my performance evaluation; it would make it difficult for me to assess their performance, if that makes sense.

Anyway, as I have oft stated, I am a cheap Englishman, ergo it is hard for me to pay someone to "manage" a portion of our portfolio, as I am quite pleased with our accomplishments and gains in that regard.

Seeing their Monte Carlo results was fun and informative at the very least. We will meet in October to assess our performance. I will have no problem firing the rep if I am not pleased with their performance. Continuing with the thought that I want to spend our son's inheritance..... :geek:
Click to expand...
I just dumped Fidelity and went to NIM
 
I don't know much, but somehow I have the same $$$ amount of stock after using said stock to find my life since 2024. Not complaining now, but I'm sure I will when it all crashes down.
 
Reli said:
Riders, annual administration and maintenance fees, as well as commissions paid to the adviser who sold you the annuity......I don't see the point
Click to expand...

What do you have against budman/Riders? we are all riders here. Or at least people who like motorcycles.


Annuities are great for.... people who suck at math.
 
So far I am not impressed with Fidelity, although it is early days with them. I doubled my wife's main portfolio in 5 years (dumb luck, not skill), but I will take it for what it is. I am astounded with the number of investment vehicles that we have been invested in. Thankfully (we have been told) they refund all of the investment fees / ERs, and are not double-dipping. I will see if this is true when the first monthly statement arrives. If true, they can churn all they want if they keep us positive growth net their fees. I feel there are tough times ahead re: the market, (thank you, Cockwomble), and I don't have the savvy to weather that storm and headwinds if correct. Hopefully they do. If not, look for me on season one of "The Apprentice", with its turd son, saying "Michelle, you are FIRED!"
 
I doubt Fidelity would do anything more exotic than split your money across the same Fidelity funds you could have purchased yourself. Not only that, but I really doubt they do anything besides "buy and hold", with a rebalance once or twice a year. No market timing, news timing, geopolitical research, charts/technicals, or options trading. So my line of thinking is, why pay someone who proposes to do LESS than what I do myself.
 
Last edited:
Blankpage said:
What annuity pays out 18% annually?
Sign me up, I could have retired a decade ago, if it actually existed
Click to expand...
Like I said I got shared info from my aunt, and when I looked it up they were the #1 annuities holder in usa for past few years.

This is the Athene Ascent Pro 10 annuity, you can choose what type of withdrawal you want once the term vests, if not you gotta pay fees to pull $ out just like any other set investments with guaranteed deposits that has a minimum floor, the 20 year vest was seriously almost 20% payback annually, and if you chose indices payout, it start low but you get market compounding
 
Reli said:
Rider fees, annual administration and maintenance fees, as well as commissions paid to the adviser who sold you the annuity......I don't see the point
Click to expand...
Please elaborate more, all these fees are paid out from the growth of earnings of your original vested amount, it's not like I get less $$$, I just need to leave it squirreled away for 20 years, and then you get all your $$$ back in the first few years (the growth is all theirs) but if you stay alive for like 20-30 more years, you definitely dipped into that growth they made off your initial investment

Also don't think about this investment vessel as a big % of your portfolio, I am only thinking 10-20% max of my net worth squirreled away here for 20 years, and if market poops the bed in the next 20, well at least this annuity payout will balance it out

I looked into % of retirement who have a annuity, it's around 5-6%, where 401k is 39% and ira is 29%< the remnants are fed/state and private pensions.

So as we all know like less then 1-2% of workforce does the max tax savings of loading 401k, HSA, Roth ira, so now I am not surprised that only 6% of ppl have this, it seems like this is a 4th investment vessel after you have great growth in other retirement investments which we know 98% of ppl don't ever do this, and lastly this is guaranteed income for the rest of your life, it's not for exponential growth
 
Last edited:
GAJ said:
We had them and sold them a few years back.

The performance reflected the fact that annuities are money makers for the vendor, not the client.
Click to expand...
I understand that completely, and it goes both ways, if the market shits the bed in the next 20, they get stuck paying me until I die, and if the market did fully crash, I'd be made hole within the first 6 years, and every other year I remain alive, I get that 18% again and get to say my annuity saved me from the last 2 decades of the market

It's a set distribution, it's not for growth, it's like a insurance policy the way I am looking at it, and I still suggest having other investments and not be more then 10-20% for this vessel
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top