Investments Near Me: Are They Really Worth It– PillarWM

At Pillar Wealth Management, we offer investment services to high net worth and ultra-high net worth clients who have liquid investable assets ranging from $5 million to $500 million. They’ve searched for “investments near me.” Our investment services encompass research and due diligence, portfolio design, asset allocation analysis, monitoring and rebalancing, and tax-loss harvesting. To know more about the investment-related services we provide, click here to schedule a free consultation session with one of our team members.

10 Best Financial Advisors

Number	Broker	Fees	Account minimum
1	Facet	$2,000 and up per year (free initial consultation)	$0
2	Vanguard Personal Advisor Services	0.30% management fee	$50,000
3	Zoe Financial	Varies by Advisor (free initial consultation)	$100,000
4	Harness Wealth	Up to 1% per year	$250,000
5	Empower	0.49%-0.89% management fee	$100,000
6	Betterment Premium	0.40% management fee	$100,000
7	Ellevest Private Wealth Management	0.90%	$1,000,000
8	Schwab Intelligent Portfolios Premium™	$30 monthly	$25,000
9	Wealthramp	Varies by advisor	$0
10	Merrill Guided Investing with advisor	0.85% management fee	$20,000

Here are the top 10 financial advisors for 2023, according to NerdWallet.

1. Facet

Facet Wealth, founded in 2016, is based in Baltimore, MD. The firm works exclusively with individuals and has over $1 billion in assets under management.

At Facet Wealth, you’re assigned a dedicated CFP, who is necessarily a fiduciary advisor, to establish a financial plan. Your advisor is available whenever you need help, advice, or information.

Facet offers online financial services with a human element. It provides financial planning and consultation, with fees ranging from $2,000 to $8,000 per year on a flat fee basis, depending on the complexity of the provided services.

2. Vanguard Personal Advisor Services

The Vanguard Group was founded in 1975 and has its headquarters in Malvern, PA. It has $7.2 trillion in assets under management. Vanguard is the world’s largest provider of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) after BlackRock’s iShares and the largest provider of mutual funds. Vanguard has some of the best low-cost ETFs on the market.

Vanguard Personal Advisor Services is based on the client’s goals, so this product provides personalized advice. Vanguard offers education, investment tools, and market insights. The firm launched a digital advisor for 100% online investment management in 2020.

Vanguard is well-known for its mutual funds and ETFs, whose expense ratios are 82% less than the industry average.

3. Zoe Financial

Zoe Financial wants to help you grow your wealth. Zoe evaluates financial advisors so you don’t have to. They select only advisors with CFP, CFA, or CPA designations. Moreover, a Zoe advisor has at least five years of relevant experience.

A Zoe advisor must be unbiased and charge reasonable fees. Advisors are assessed on their knowledge and the client experience they offer.

Zoe claims to select only the top 5% of advisors.

4. Harness Wealth

Based on your profile, Harness Wealth’s technology will recommend tax, financial, or estate services advisors.

The Harness vetting process considers the advisor’s expertise, customer service, fiduciary status, and data security.

The Harness advisor marketplace covers the core pillars of financial strategies, such as wealth management, tax advice, equity services, and trust and estate planning.

Harness offers standalone financial planning starting at $1,200, using a vetted CFP.

5. Empower

Empower is a retirement plan recordkeeping financial holding company based in Greenwood Village, CO, and the second-largest retirement plan provider in the US. Empower provides both digital wealth management and traditional advisory services. It has more than 3 million users and more than $20 billion in assets under management. Personal Capital is now a subsidiary of Empower.

Empower offers a digital retirement planner with which you can run different retirement scenarios, anticipate big expenses, add other income, and view future spending.

With the Empower Personal Wealth app, by linking your financial accounts, you can create a budget, plan for retirement, and track your investments. A financial advisor will help you use this tool to stay on top of your retirement goals.

The firm’s wealth management services include three tiers: investment services with a minimum of $100K to $200K in assets, wealth management services with $200K to $1M in assets, and private client services with over $1M in investment assets.

Fees range from 0.49% to 0.89% of asset value—no hidden fees, no commissions.

6. Betterment Premium

Betterment offers investment advice primarily over the internet. The company manages investment portfolios of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and, in certain cases, mutual funds (traditional securities) or digital assets (crypto). Betterment also offers retirement planning and cash management.

As an investor, you use the Betterment online platform to provide information about your investing, and the software builds and manages your portfolio based on that information. The software monitors your account on an ongoing basis; it trades on your behalf based on asset allocation changes and account deposits or withdrawals.

Asset allocations are drawn from low-cost ETFs. Third-party providers have access to traditional securities.

The minimum initial deposit is $10.

Betterment provides automated advice with access to financial planning experts through its Premium plan, which has a team of CFPs to offer advice through unlimited calls and emails. Betterment Premium requires a balance of at least $100,000 in traditional securities and crypto.

The Premium offering and the Advice Packages provide advice from financial consultants via phone or email.

The fee for a Digital client is 0.25% annually, and for a Premium client, the fee is 0.40%.

7. Ellevest Private Wealth Management

Ellevest is an investment adviser dedicated to closing the gender investment gap by advising women on financial planning and investing. According to the SEC filing, “Ellevest does not engage in market timing, make active bets on certain asset or sector classes, or time the selection of individual securities for the purpose of pursuing excess returns.”

Ellevest provides its Ellevest Programs through its website ellevest.com and its mobile app. Ellevest used ETFs and mutual funds for client investments. Digital clients pay a single asset-based fee for brokerage, custodial, and investment advisory services. Premium clients additionally get financial planning guidance. Clients also pay brokerage fees related to IRAs, mutual funds, and ETFs.

An Ellevest Executive Plan costs $9 per month, which includes five accounts and portfolios, retirement planning, tax minimization, automatic rebalancing, and discounted one-to-one financial guidance. The Plus Plan, at $5 per month, includes a diversified investment portfolio, retirement planning, tax minimization, and automatic rebalancing.

8. Schwab Intelligent Portfolios Premium™

Founded in 1971 and headquartered in Westlake, TX, the Charles Schwab Corporation is one of the largest investment companies in the world, with assets under management valued at $7.13 trillion in 2022. The company acquired TD Ameritrade in 2020. In June 2022, the company was ordered by the SEC to pay $187 million to settle its failure to disclose its robo-advisor’s hidden fees to clients.

The company’s online stock and ETF trades are commission-free.

For a monthly fee, Schwab Intelligent Portfolios Premium offers automated investing with unlimited guidance from a CFP.

The digital planning tools help you stay on track, and with the help of your advisor, you can develop a customized road map to building wealth and reaching retirement in complete confidence. 

9. Wealthramp

Pam Krueger is the founder and CEO of Wealthramp. Pam is committed to ensuring every investor can find an advisor dedicated to meeting their needs. She received the 2021 NAPFA award for her work in educating the public about the value of fee-only advice.

By thoroughly vetting fee-only fiduciary advisors, Wealthramp can match you to a financial planner who meets your requirements. There is no fee for finding an advisor. By teaming up with an advisor in the Wealthramp network, you’ll take the guesswork out of retirement planning. Fees vary by advisor.

With Wealthramp, you can be certain that your advisor is fully transparent, with no hidden agendas or conflicts of interest.

10. Merrill Guided Investing with advisor

Merrill Guided Investing combines the Merrill Edge technology with the Merrill and Bank of America team of advisors.  Computer algorithms, despite their advantages, may miss the benefits of human experience. So, Merrill Guided combines the best that automation and people can offer to investing and portfolio management.

Merrill Guided Investing with an advisor is a program that offers the services of an advisor who will provide personalized advice and guidance to meet your retirement and other financial goals, with periodic reviews.

The minimum investment is $20,000, with an advisory fee of 0.85%, calculated monthly based on the prior month’s balance.

What Is A Financial Advisor?

A financial advisor is a person who is professionally concentrated and concerned about managing investment matters. In reality, people are a bit blurry in defining between the financial advisor and financial planner, which actually bring a different service to their client.

Financial advisor: the financial adviser is more focused on providing assistance starting from the portfolio, manage investment, and help you in reaching your goals. As their duty and capability, they also have to be able to bring the solution for the fundamental questions toward your financial plan such as the insurance and tax, even if it is not their main duty. Their duty is to manage and find the possible “investments near me” by providing advice as their professional dedication to their clients.

3 Powerful Reasons for Investing Your Money         

Before moving on to how to invest money, let’s first answer one of the most popular investment-related questions – Is it smart to invest money? There are plenty of people who are wary of investing their wealth in “investments near me” because they aren’t sure if it’s the right move to make.

If you’re one of those people, uncertain about tapping into “investments near me,” then let us tell you that investing money is a great step, especially if you have defined new long-term financial goals during COVID. This is because inflation can significantly depreciate the value of your cash savings over time. Here is a complete list of benefits that you can get by investing your wealth.

1.“Investments Near Me” Can Grow Your Wealth

One of the most significant advantages of “investments near me” is that it can help to build your wealth. Most investment options, such as certificates of deposits, growth stocks, mutual funds, and hedge funds provide returns on your wealth in the long run. This return allows your wealth to grow and increase over time. You can seek help from a professional wealth planner or advisor for this matter. Look for “investments near me.”

There are several ways in which you can invest and grow your wealth. If you’re serious about growing your wealth, you need to come up with an investment plan (from one of the “investments near me”) that suits you and is perfectly aligned with your goals. We highly recommend you read our recent book, The Art of Protecting Ultra-High Net Worth Portfolios and Estates: Strategies for Families worth $25 Million to $500 Million, and learn the information and importance of using the right investment strategy.

2.“Investments near me” Can Help You Spend A Comfortable Retirement

Do you wish to spend a very comfortable, peaceful, and enjoyable retirement? If your answer is “yes,” then let us tell you that this wish is very much attainable, given that you start planning ahead for it.

Retirement income planning is undoubtedly one of the most vital tasks you can take up for yourself – especially if you’re over 50 years of age. In fact, retirement planning is essential regardless of how much wealth you own because the quality of your future will eventually depend upon it. 

For effective retirement income planning from “investments near me,” you need to keep in mind that you won’t have an active source of income after retirement. Instead, you’ll have to fulfill your financial needs from the passive income created by “investments near me.” In a nutshell, the income created by your investment portfolio will allow you to spend a comfortable post-retirement life.

Moreover, being a high net worth or an ultra-high net worth individual, you may have some specific retirement goals. For instance, you might want to travel the world, purchase a luxury car, or simply live peacefully in your country estate. Whatever goals you might have, the income created by “investments near me” will help you successfully attain them. Working with professional planners like Pillar WM is a true solution to securing your estate’s wellbeing.

3.Take advantage of “Investments Near Me” to Lower Your Tax Obligation

Another major benefit of choosing to work with “investments near me” is that it allows you to lower your tax obligation. This is because the money you invest in specific retirement saving options, such as the SEP-IRA, 401K, and the Traditional IRA is not taxed the year you earn it.

Instead, you have to pay taxes on it when you withdraw it during retirement. If you’re an affluent or an ultra-wealthy individual, this strategy and information can help you save hundreds of dollars in the year that you contribute. It’s worth your while to search for “investments near me.” Nevertheless, if you choose to pay taxes the year you contribute, you can simply opt for a retirement account such as the ROTH IRA. With this option, you can pay tax the year you contribute instead of paying taxes when you withdraw. To learn more about how you can save on taxes and grow your wealth, click here to speak to one of our financial advisors.

How Can I Invest Money At 30?

You might not have invested your wealth during your 20s because you were busy paying off student loans or caught up in your newly established career. Nevertheless, your 30s are when you absolutely have to seriously consider “investments near me” and start investing. At this point, you’re old enough to be investing around 10 to 15 percent of your income.

Even if you are paying for a mortgage or planning to start a family in your 30s, benefitting from “investments near me” and investing wealth to live a peaceful retirement should be your top concern. Keep in mind that you still have almost 35 active working years remaining, so this is really the time when you need to start maximizing your investments.

So, if this has made you start wondering about “How can I benefit from investments near me at 30,” continue reading to get an answer. We also highly recommend you read this guide and learn about the five critical shifts you need to make to maximize portfolio growth strategies. We also suggest you work with a certified financial planner investment advisor like Pillar WM to optimize the result.

Take as many risks as Possible

Risk is the primary reason why there’s so much focus on investing while you’re young – young people usually have a longer time horizon before retirement. This means that they don’t have to worry too much about short-term volatility and can take up risks that can have higher average returns in the long run.

When you are in your 30s, you are still relatively young and can take on risk from “investments near me,” deploying a significant chunk of your long-term savings – around 70 to 80 percent – in mutual funds and stocks. Read our exclusive guide for investors with $10 million and get a deeper and richer understanding of how investment performance relates to your risk tolerance.

Conduct an Asset Allocation Analysis

Asset allocation is one of the most important investment strategies that high net worth or ultra-high net worth investors in their 30s can adopt. The primary goal of asset allocation is to create the perfect balance between potential risks and returns for you or your companies’ side. However, there’s no one way to estimate the most appropriate asset allocation for each investor. Everyone in their 30s has their own set of long and short-term financial goals, risk tolerance, and time horizons when they are looking for “investments near me.”

For instance, if you’re considering “investments near me” to live an enjoyable retirement, you can invest in risky or volatile investments because you can wait out the unpreventable market fluctuations and slow economic cycles. Alternatively, if you invest in your 30s to buy a luxury home, you might have a shorter time horizon, so you might not be willing to take up high-risk “investments near me.”

At Pillar Wealth Management, our financial advisors can factor in all such details when analyzing your portfolio, create a tailored asset allocation strategy, and answer all of the questions for you. Read our short guide here and learn how to choose the best financial advisor who can help you optimally invest your wealth.

Information on Investing in the Right Places

There are plenty of investment options and tools that you can choose to invest in in your 30s. These include low-risk options such as certificates of deposits and money market accounts to medium-risk options such as corporate bonds and even high-risk investments such as stock index funds. You’ll discover these when searching for “investments near me.”

If you’re a high net worth or an ultra-high net worth individual in your 30s and want to build your wealth, you can opt for low-risk “investments near me” that offer a decent return. Or you can go with investments that are riskier but offer higher returns as well. Nevertheless, the best thing to do is to take up a balanced approach to protect your existing wealth and allow it to grow in the long run.

Here is a list of investments suitable for high net worth and ultra-high net worth investors in their 30s.

1. Real Estate – Real estate is divided into residential and commercial real estate. Investing in traditional real estate involves purchasing a property and selling it after some time at a higher price. It can also include owning property and receiving rent as a form of fixed income.

2. Precious Metals – Precious metals such as gold, silver, palladium have long been accepted as excellent investment options. Even today, many high net worth investors and ultra-high net worth investors choose to invest in them as a way of diversifying their investment portfolio and safeguarding against inflation.

3. Growth Stocks – Another great investment opportunity for wealthy investors in their 30s is growth stocks. Rather than paying dividends, these stocks generate returns in the form of share price appreciation. This means you don’t have to pay any taxes on your growth as it occurs.

4. Collectibles – These are items that are far more valuable than their actual selling price. Collectibles are regarded as alternative investments, which means they don’t come under any other category such as real estate, cash, stocks, or bonds. Some common collectibles include wine, fine art, classic cars, and stamps.

To learn more about how you can ideally invest your wealth in your 30s, click here to schedule a meeting with one of our team professionals.

How Can I Double My Money?

In this section, well answer another prevalent question related to investments -how can I double my money?

Aim to Maximize Your Investment Performance

Keep in mind that investment performance isn’t just about the posted growth rates. Instead, it’s about reducing as many of your costs as possible.

Ideally, you should be obsessed with minimizing your costs as they can add up to millions of dollars. By removing the most actively managed assets, lowering your tax obligation, avoiding big investment firms, and refusing to work with non-fiduciary wealth managers, you can get a higher performance, and account fees even as you earn the exact same reported rates.

Keep in mind that the money you earn can get lost to these costs. So, if you really want to double your money, make sure you avoid all such costs. Read our special guidelines, Improving Portfolio Performance, and learn other ways in which you can maximize your investment performance, and work with a professional investment management services provider like Pillar WM.

Priority on Passive Investment Techniques

Active investment strategies involve a lot of buying and selling. This ends up resulting in several short-term capital gains taxable events. These events then get taxed at the marginal tax rate, which is presently 37 percent.

However, if you only invest in investments that generate long-term capital gains, your gains will only be taxed at a rate of 20 percent. Since the passive approach creates less disruption, less turnover, and reduced tax rate, it can allow you to get more money in your pocket and eventually double it.

Retirement Planning

Retirement planning can be considered a must for UHNW individuals. This matter can be so crucial because no one can really predict what will be going on in the future especially in this pandemic era of Covid-19. Hence, to gain the best result in planning your retirement, it is the best choice if you manage to work with the professionals such as a certified financial planner or a credible wealth management firm, like Pillar WM to provide the best financial planning service for you as the UHNW.

Making the Right Investments Near Me with a Professional Planner or Advisor

At Pillar Wealth Management, our financial advice professionals have a combined experience of over 60 years to help and service the high net worth and ultra-high net worth investors make the right investment decisions such as estate planning, investment advice, residents documents,

We will carefully review your long and short-term financial goals and develop an investment strategy that will allow you to enjoy the maximum possible returns. We create custom investment solutions and guidelines to help grow your wealth in the best possible manner. So, click here and begin your consultation with our highly competent and experienced financial advisors.

Do you ever wonder whether you are doing enough to maximize your investment performance as well as protect your wealth?

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