re: Northwestern Mutual - Should I?

Right on Shepherd. Term is so cheap, I don't really see why you wouldn't buy it. So what if she gets the $2M term benefit AND the retirement accounts?

Having said that, I think they are great for life and disability insurance

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I am basically illiterate when it comes to investing

Try to become literate?

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Exactly, if a person cannot explain in simple language how a investment works and why they think it is a good place to put their money they shouldn't be investing in it, "because some advisor said it was a good plan" does not pass this test.

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Don't buy term life simply because you watched Mutual of Omaha commercials throughout your childhood.

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Mutual of Omaha commercials were not advertising term life, from this and your "1950s product" comment, I am thinking you may have term "term" insurance confused with Whole/Universal Life or other cash value products.

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Maybe I'm the idiot but term life is like $37/mo combined for my wife and I with a total policy value of $850k. Seems like a no brainer.

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I am all for term life, and have nothing positive to say about cash value products, but have long given up arguing about it on here. I was just making the observation that from the other poster's comments it seems like they may have the two types of insurance confused.

I'm pretty certain of a few things...

* anything other than most basic term insurance is a rip off
* NW Mutual funds will get hammered by a very basic ETF (S&P or something) over the long term due to their exorbitant fees
* Spend a few hours a week for a few months learning about retirement planning/investing and you'll be far ahead of the game in 2-3 months

Dump the NW guy and do it yourself. someone like Fidelity will help you do all of the things you need for fraction of the fees.

If NW nicks you for only 1%, and matches market performance which I'd bet they won't, over 30 years with a 100k initial investment, you'll be out $250,000 !

investment 100,000 100,000
return 7% 8%
years 30 30
future value $761,226 $1,006,266


good luck

if an investment guy can't beat the index funds by more than his fee, an investment guy is completely useless.

This is why it's so important to get a good investment person, and why there are so few of them out there.

Let me pose a question here. So this guy says he's illiterate when it comes to investing, and y'all are recommending he do the investing on his own with Fidelity. So let's say he takes his ~100k and invest it and it grows, then we have a correction, recession whatever and his investment, his nest egg, his retirement plan drops to 75k all of the sudden because he's purely in indexed funds with no management.

What do you think someone who is illiterate to investing is going to do?

Exactly. That is why most here aren't actually advisers in any capacity. They are just enthusiasts. You don't use an adviser for the good times, you use them for the bad ones.

I find it funny how somehow it has become acceptable advice to say "just do it yourself" with something like investing. Every other specialized profession that would just be laughed at as advice.

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Let me pose a question here. So this guy says he's illiterate when it comes to investing, and y'all are recommending he do the investing on his own with Fidelity. So let's say he takes his ~100k and invest it and it grows, then we have a correction, recession whatever and his investment, his nest egg, his retirement plan drops to 75k all of the sudden because he's purely in indexed funds with no management.

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* 24% active fund managers outperformed s&p over last 10 years
* yes, there is a risk an newbie will do something dumb like buy a mix of specialty/high risk ETFs, but just buying the S&P index will give them a much better chance than having a 'pro' pick a mutual fund mix for them

You and gocrazyauburn are correct to some extent that a novice can really screw things up, but that's only if they try to get smart...it's very simple

1. buy cheap term insurance
2. max your IRA and/or 401K
3. total savings of 10% of income
4. put everything in SPY, no stocks, mutual funds, annuities, etc
5. never sell anything until retirement

doing above will almost certainly put 90% of people in a better position than going to an investment advisor or broker

yes, they could screw it up as I said earlier, but we're not talking about rocket science here...it doesn't take a professional to follow the above plan.

that being said, I do own stocks and mutual funds, don't own SPY, but some other ETFs. Investing is a full time job for me and I know more that 99% of the 'advisors' out there as they are forced to spend the vast majority of their time selling instead of researching.

cheers!