Good news, higher prices, and money management

Good news is I got a call that the trial I was to go in for jury duty selection was canceled, so I don't have to do that on Friday. Yay. I swear to God my dh can be so ridiculous sometimes. I was on my cell phone (it was during work hours) when someone from the courthouse tried to call me, so they left the message about jury duty canceled. Later when I got done working and went downstairs, I told dh it got canceled. He was like did they call you? I said yes, I was on a call but they left a message. He was like "who was it?" I'm like I don't know! I don't remember what she said her name was (not that I'd know who it was anyways, LOL). Then he says "well, you probably better keep that voicemail as proof". What?!! Ok, so some nefarious person, who just happens to have my cell phone#, calls to tell me jury duty is canceled when it really isn't? He's so weird. I said they asked for the best number to get in contact with me in case the trial gets canceled, because they often do. I'm pretty sure it was a legit call, LOL. 

Some time ago, on the numerous times I have had to look at my mom's wallet because all her cards are "missing", I did notice her health insurance card is really missing. She has a separate one for dental, with same company, but her health insurance card is missing. I'm sure she had it out when she had to show it to get her vaccine last year that they came and did in her senior living place. I did download a copy to my "mom" folder on my computer, but since she has a doctor appointment coming up later this month for her annual checkup, I decided to request a replacement copy. Since I now have her mailing address for that stuff coming to my house, the card will come here and I can keep it in my wallet going forward. I don't need some emergency doctor visit come up and then I can't find it in her wallet. 

We just ran to town and got back. Had to pick up a prescription for dh and then we filled up the car with gas. Premium is $4.96 now. We think when we filled up there last time it was $4.69.

Dh mowed the lawn again yesterday and this afternoon plans to apply the fertilizer (that cost 25% more than last year). Dh just refilled my bin with the bag of chicken feed I bought (that cost 25% more than a few months ago). Still no word on my raise.

It sounds like our Texas friends might be coming for a visit at the end of this month. Haven't heard more, other than they are in the planning stages. They were supposed to come last August but then dh had to go into the hospital and all that, so they didn't come. I think my other friend (the one who's husband of 30 years cheated on her and left her) is trying to re-plan for her visit planned for last Sept that she had to cancel. I told her any time, other than the last week in June, when we will be going to Utah.

After some deliberation, I have decided to move mom's retirement IRA with her investment guy of 30 years, rather than stay with the company he left. Two reasons. 1) Fees! high fees. It's very hard to tell what she is paying in fees with this large brokerage company, and I will try to do more research, but she is probably paying at a minimum 2.5% annual fee and also transaction fees on top of that. On an approximately (well it was....) million dollar portfolio, well you do that math on how much they are making off her per year!

I had also just read this finance book about a month ago that highly stressed getting your investment/retirement money out of these "managed" accounts that on average are costing 3% a year in fees. Mom's guy just left this company to open his own company that will be aligned with Charles Schwab. They will just be charging a flat 1% fee. No other fees. He and his son also are now "Registered Investment Advisors" rather than brokers, which require a much more fiduciary responsibility to the client. Again, this book I had just read recommended this also.

Honestly, the past couple of years, with doing the quarterly phone calls with him and his son and each quarter he would recommend 3 stocks to buy and typically 3 to get rid of (or if not, they'd use her cash reserve to purchase). In the back of my mind has always been is this really necessary to do buying and selling every 3 months? Well sure......when they made money off the transaction fees, too........There will be no transaction fees for buying and selling with the new company.

2) He's been doing mom's money for 30 years. He knows her and knows what she needs. He knows her portfolio. While the deal with the beneficiaries really made me mad, I'm going to go forward and see how it goes with his new company and the much less fees. She should be saving about $20,000 a year on fees now! 

And speaking of her account - it looks pathetic. it's lost about 15% so far just since first of this year. I don't even want to look at my 401k. I just keep telling myself that my contributions and matching are now able to buy low priced stocks and they will come back up in value at some point. It always does.

He also explained why he decided to leave (it's been more than 6 months in the making). The company had for the past couple of years been pushing the brokers to dump the "mom and pop" clients (like my mom) and focus on the larger wealthier clients. He wasn't willing to do that and just not liking where the company's focus was going. He said he had 200 clients and so far all but 3 have decided to move with him.

One of my questions (since I don't know how it all works) was if we switch, does her portfolio of her stocks, etc, owned, stay the same, and he said yes, it all transfers over with what she currently owns. That's good. She has some Amazon and Google stocks that will be splitting like 20 to 1 here pretty soon. Pretty sure she wants to keep those in her portfolio.

And now that I see how pretty much easy it is to switch her portfolio over (just sign some papers), if I do decide that I don't want to keep her money with him, I can find someone else here locally.