How a Crooked Accountant and Pension Planner Led Me to Take Control of My Financial Future

My former adviser recommended that I, on the eve of retirement, take out a mortgage on my fully paid-for home to buy a variable annuity from her. I would have gone from having zero layers of humans between me and a valuable asset (100% equity in my home) to three layers of humans between me and my asset.

First layer was her (collecting the fat commission on that annuity). Second layer was the insurance company selling that notoriously questionable product, and lastly the fund managers of the mutual funds into which the insurance company would invest my annuity dollars. Everybody would be taking their cut, and I would be last in line for value. How did I fix the problem? You'll notice I began by describing that person as my former adviser.

Long story short, recently saw a Financial Planner as I was about to make my first home purchase. It was a stressful time and I was looking to consult a professional to make sure I could afford long-term. I'm not financially illiterate but I'm not an expert, especially with things like forecasting how finances can affect my future long-term. In retrospect, I really should have seemed multiple planners but ended up going with the one due to time restrictions in the property search (pre-approval and the like).

This planner wasn't exactly badly reviewed. The process seemed legit, starting off with an SOA (Statement of Advice) being issued and a good amount of questions and direction from me. I wasn't quite sure what this document would entail but basically, it had some basic general advice (skewed a little bit) followed by switching my super to their fund and buying some life insurance through them. I got the piece of paper with this advice and found out that they would cost 11% of my total super to engage for the entire year which is huge. There was more content of disclaimers than actual advice. Probably only 3 pages of actual numbers.

Basically, after a year of engagement, I'd be worse off financially than if I hadn't engaged them at all. I should have read between the lines but this wasn't clear during the engagement phase.

Anyway, I coughed up the amount for the SOA (a month's salary) because I had signed for it, but I feel like they shouldn't have engaged me if I was going to be financially worse off after their services. The percentages weren't made clear until the advice was issued which was basically a glorified fee proposal.Anyway, let this be a warning to you all to really hone in on what you're getting if you do seek it and decide if it's not something you can figure out yourself. It was a waste of time and money for me and can't help but feel I was tricked as I'm not an expert in this field. I've put it down to a hard lesson learnt.

We are invested with a big name financial investment company but have a good relationship with our financial advisor. Until today I never thought about how much it cost. The rate is 1.35%. I always thought that was 1.35% of the profit but apparently it’s the entire balance. Our rate of return last year was -8%. Yes that is negative.

Well on top of this we were charged our fee of $3600. I have no idea what to do. My husband and I both have IRAs a few stocks, a CD, 2 529s for our kids. How do I get this money out and how can I invest this. I had luck with vanguard in the past when I was single but had some tax issues once we got married that is when we went to the financial advisor. Edit: so the -8% is actually April 2022-April 2023. My actual rate for jan 2022-dec31 2022 was -23.4% plus they still charged the 1.35% so in actuality in 2022 I was down 24.75%!!!!! I feel like such an idiot.