re: Northwestern Mutual - Should I?

The other problem with term and invest the difference is the discipline to do so consistently.

quote:

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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!