🚗 A Roadside Sign, a Vasectomy, and a $504,800 Question 💰
- Brett Croft
- Mar 27, 2025
- 2 min read
Driving through South Florida recently, I saw a billboard that made an interesting financial comparison:
Vasectomy: $600 (one-time cost) vs.
Child Support: $600/month for 18 years = $129,600
One thought hit me: This is exactly how people overpay for financial advice.
Consider a hypothetical investor with a $1M portfolio paying the standard 1% AUM fee (assets under management)—that’s $10,000 per year. Over 30 years, that’s $300,000 in fees.
With a $2M portfolio, those fees often double to $20,000 per year—or a staggering $600,000 over 30 years. For this example, the portfolio values remain constant.
Now, let’s compare that to an advice-only approach where the hypothetical investor pays their advisor by the hour:
Year 1: $14,000 for a comprehensive financial plan and support to implement the plan (40 hours at $350/hour).
Years 2-30: 8 hours per year at $350/hour = $2,800 per year— 4 quarterly visits per year.
Total cost over 30 years? $95,200—no matter how much your portfolio grows (or decreases in value).
Hypothetical Savings:
$1M portfolio → $204,800 saved
$2M portfolio → $504,800 saved
And if your portfolio grows, the AUM fees grow with it—but with advice-only, you are in control. Simply pay for the amount of the advisor's time you need. A decrease in portfolio value means the AUM fee would also decrease until it hits the advisor's minimum fee (if applicable).
So, here’s the real question: What would you do with an extra $204K—or even $504K of hypothetical savings?
This is why advice-only planning works—for anyone willing to follow a plan and stick to it. More control, lower costs, and hundreds of thousands of dollars that stay in your pocket rather than your advisor’s.
