My Financial Advisor at Coast Capital can’t Manage my Money better than Me

Do you think you can manage your money better than your bank or credit union’s financial advisors? There is no doubt in my mind that my financial advisor at Coast Capital Savings can’t manage my money better than me.

You call this managing money?

Let’s take my credit union, Coast Capital. In May, 2017 I had $25,000 that I wanted to top up my TFSA (Tax Free Savings Account) and bought into a mutual fund recommended by Coast Capital’s financial advisor. I signed the papers and thought it was a done deal. About 3 months later I got my statement from Worldsource, the company Coast Capital uses to manage the mutual funds. It showed my $25,000 sitting in a TFSA cash account at Worldsource. Yes, just sitting there, not inside a mutual fund, and not making any money for me.

Like – What. The. Hell.

Way to manage my money, Coast Capital, and follow up to ensure my instructions have been executed! That’s the way Coast Capital manages my money. My dog could do a better job of managing my money than my financial advisor at Coast Capital.

Hello Questrade!

I have an online trading account with a company called Questrade where I buy stocks. In addition to a regular trading account, clients can open registered accounts at Questrade such as a RRSP (Registered Retirement Savings Plan) and a TFSA and trade stocks there too. Well, I opened up a TFSA pretty damned quick with Questrade and had them transfer my money out of Worldsource where it was just sitting around doing nothing.

At Questrade I split the $25,000 between two ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) and they’ve been doing a great job making money for me, and reinvesting the dividends to buy more ETF stocks. ETFs are sort of like mutual funds except they’re traded on the stock market and they have much lower MERs, one is .09% and the other is a bit higher at .22%. The mutual fund the financial advisor at Coast Capital failed to purchase properly has a MER of 2.25% so I save a huge amount of money in management fees when I buy Exchange Traded Funds instead of mutual funds. That’s more money in my pocket. And less money that Coast Capital doesn’t make off me.

Coast Capital lost out on a few bucks on this one.

If you are interested in opening up a low fee online trading account with Questrade, check out their website. If you sign up, please use my “refer a friend” code 415632012426909. You will have to transfer in $1,000 and make a trade in the first month. But then you’ll receive $50 to spend on their online trading platform. And so will I. Free money for both of us! Thank you!

Coast Capital Screw Ups

This is not the only time Coast Capital has screwed up. Though to be fair, I can’t say for sure if Coast Capital screwed up or Worldsource screwed up. Either way, the Coast Capital financial advisor has a responsibility to ensure my instructions at purchasing mutual funds have gone through properly.

The latest screw up I discovered this week (third week in January, 2019) when I received my year end statement directly from the mutual fund company. I have a financial product called a LIRA (Locked In Retirement Account). This account works in a very similar way to the RRSP. I used to work for a company that had a pension plan. When I left, the money from the pension account had to be transferred to a LIRA. When I turn 65 I’ll start receiving disbursements from the LIRA.

The LIRA was set up about 10 years ago with an independent financial advisor, not affiliated with a financial institution. I hold four mutual funds inside this LIRA and the plan my then financial advisor set up guarantees the buy in amount. Let’s say something stupid crazy happens and the mutual funds lose their value. I am always guaranteed the minimum amount of the original investment. I might not make money, but I won’t lose money either, so it’s kind of a low risk investment. There are limited mutual funds that can be chosen inside this account and they’re not usually high performers. Out of the four mutual funds, two are doing all right, one not as good, and the last one is really lagging. I made an appointment with the financial advisor at Coast Capital in October, 2018 and signed the paperwork to sell that mutual fund and buy in to another fund that is more to my liking with a better track record.

After all, I’m nearing retirement age and I want to kick my investments into a higher gear.

Coast Capital financial advisor screws up again!

I open my mutual fund statement. The lagging mutual fund is still on the statement!

WTF Coast Capital!

Furthermore, the statement notes there were no transactions between July 1 and December 31!

I call bullshit! I signed the sell of the lagging mutual fund and the purchase of the new one in October. The last time I checked October falls inbetween the months of July and December.

I fired off an email to the Coast Capital financial advisor asking what the hell has happened here?

Four days have passed. Still no response.

Check out my post on why single women are mostly ignored by financial experts.

Are you following me? Especially you single ladies out there. My financial advisor at Coast Capital can’t manage my money better than me.

I’m not alone when I say that. I’m betting if you use a financial advisor at your financial institution, they can’t manage your money better than you can either.

We can do it ladies! We don’t need no stinking financial advisors who don’t care about us.

Who cares about your money?

Your financial advisor will never be as interested in managing your money as you are.

Questrade has LIRA accounts and I’ve been thinking about killing off these LIRA mutual funds and transferring the money to Questrade so I can buy more ETFs. I asked the Coast Capital financial advisor about selling off those two lagging mutual funds. My idea being to transfer the money to a LIRA with Questrade and manage them myself. Unfortunately, if I transfer money out, I kill the plan. No more guarantee of the original investment. There’s not much benefit for me to close down all the mutual funds and risk losing money.

Or at least that’s what the financial advisor at Coast Capital says. For all I know it’s not true. Due to his lack of interest, I’m considering going right to the mutual fund company and verifying that.

Oh, is anyone wondering about the original financial advisor who set up the LIRA for me? I guess she did a great job of managing her own money because a few years ago she closed up shop and retired to Mexico.

And that’s how I ended up transferring that LIRA account to the financial advisor at Coast Capital.

Obviously that was not a good move for me. I made a poor decision when I thought Coast Capital could provide decent financial advice.

Who else has dealt with financial advisors who can’t manage your money better than you can?

Published by Cheryl @ The Lifestyle Digs on January 25, 2019.