Nearly everyone who comes to Kind Wealth is not sure how much they are paying their existing financial advisor. It's not their fault; the industry makes it difficult because there's big money in you not knowing.

For every dollar you invest with at a 1% fee, you're losing roughly your entire initial investment to fees over a 30-year time horizon (assuming a 5% avg rate of return on your investment). If you have $100k invested for 30 years, you'll have paid $100k in fees. On $1M of investments, that's over $1M in fees.

Since pricing across the industry varies wildly, there's a good chance you're paying more than you need to. Even if you're happy with your advisor, they often have some discretion over the fees you're paying (at least their portion of the overall fee you're paying). Remember, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Here's how to ask about fees so they can't spin things and give you a non-answer or half-truth:

"Can you break down the total fees (all-in) I am paying? I want to gain a good understanding of the money trail. How much money is taken from my account? How often? And when it leaves my account, where does it go, who gets it, and for what services are they being paid?"

Understanding whether the fees you're paying are reasonable and represent good value is a whole separate post for another time. If you decide to ask your advisor and need help assessing their response, let me know. I'd be happy to help you decipher it.