Skip to content

Real-Life Investing is

Cost Smart

Risk Smart

Tax Smart

Cash-Flow Smart

“Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”

― Bill Gates

Real-Life Investing

Is for the realities of life, taxes and the global financial markets.

Emphasizes evidence and facts, not hope or hype.

Prioritizes buying better, not selling higher.

Real-Life Investing is for people who want to delegate the strategic planning, asset allocation, tax placement, coordination of cash flows, charitable giving, loss harvesting, consolidated reporting and other aspects of their investment portfolio. It is for people who do not have time or desire to focus on the implementation, rebalancing, tax and other details.

Simple, Transparent
& Fee-Only

  • If your investments grow, we grow.
  • If you get hurt, we get hurt.
  • If you prosper, we prosper.
  • No commissions.
  • No hidden incentives.
  • No punitive costs or strings attached.

Real-Life Investing is intentionally boring, to minimize spectacular gains and devastating losses, because you cannot have one without the other.

  • It is not exciting, just reliable.
  • It is based on math and probability, not stories.
  • It may contain index-based and actively-managed investments.
  • It resembles a sophisticated endowment, foundation or pension plan.
  • It is globally diversified, like the global economy and financial markets.

Instead of arbitrary benchmarks, we focus on being globally-aware, historically-informed, value-conscious and tax-wise.

According to research by Vanguard, the estimated value of an effective investment professional is about 3% per year.

The Vanguard Advisor’s Alpha research attributes this annual value as follows:

1.5%

Behavioral Coaching

0.45%

Cost-Effective Implementation

0.45%

Rebalancing Asset Allocation

up to 0.75%

Asset Location (Tax Placement) 

up to 0.70%

Withdrawal Strategy

> 0%

Asset Allocation

Investing for Total Return, not simply Income, is also important.

This estimated annual value, and even just half of it (1.5%), is worth much more than you can reasonably expect from any stock or bond picker trying to “beat the market” on a consistent basis.

Consequently, I do not pick, ponder or discuss specific stocks or bonds.
We will focus on the areas above instead.

The various stocks, bonds and other investments for clients are commonly managed by more than one of these world-class investment management firms*:

* as of May 15, 2022 and subject to change.

Research

To help guide investment strategies and decisions, these and other exceptional firms are also relied on for research, analysis and thought-leadership on the global economy and financial markets:

  • Blackrock
  • DoubleLine
  • Goldman Sachs
  • JP Morgan
  • Morningstar
  • Rosenberg Research
  • Silicon Cloud Technologies

Custody

Investments and cash equivalents are held for clients by Fidelity Investments or a similar institution, not Advosion. With Fidelity, we offer institutional strength, open architecture, multiple professionals on a client-service team and veteran experts to handle complex situations or sophisticated technical issues. Clients enjoy relationship continuity, consistent expertise and proactive personal attention.

Compensation

Depending on the size of a portfolio, Real-Life Investing guidance fees are between 0.075% and 0.25% per calendar quarter. A fixed quarterly fee may be offered for portfolios above $10,000,000.

Real-Life Investing fees are paid quarterly in advance. Life-Centric Planning fees may be paid monthly or quarterly in advance. If both services are provided together, there may be an offset of fees in consideration for one combined fee.

Either service may be terminated by a client at their discretion, with a pro-rata refund of any unearned fee and no penalty costs.

Let's Talk