Purchasing index funds directly vs. via a financial adviser

[NorthernQuokka]

Firstly - welcome to ASF!

For example, if you're familiar with Sydney and have been there many times then you don't need to pay a travel agent to book you flights and accommodation from Melbourne. You can do it more cheaply yourself so you may as well do so since you already know why you're going there, you already know how to get there and so on. You don't need advice.

If however you want to "see Great Britain" but have never been there and struggle to name even one place other than London, well then you've really got two options. Either you do your own research or alternatively you use a travel agent to tell you where to go and what to see. Either way, you need knowledge since you don't already have it.

Much the same with investing. If you know exactly what you want then simply buying it yourself via an online broker (eg CommSec is probably the best known but not the only one) is the cheapest way to do it.

If you don't know what you want however, well then your options are either to educate yourself via resources such as this forum or to hand the task to an advisor and have them do it for you. As a concept using an advisor is much like having a travel agent plan your holiday - it's outsourcing the decision making process to someone who knows more about it than you do.

There's also the option of doing both. There's nothing to say that you can't put, say, half or even 80% of the money in the hands of an advisor and manage the rest yourself or something like that. Doing so may reduce any stress aspects of the DIY approach, due to it only involving some of the money, until such time as you've got a proven track record and decide to manage more of it yourself.


.

Thank you very much for the long and thoughtful reply.

I think I will do a combination of this. Allow the adviser to suggest and invest in some and I will do the rest on my own.

I'm tempted to pull out completely but it's an odd time with work right now.