The first few months of a year can be quite busy when it comes to your finances. There may be contributions to make to your Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) and Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA). And of course, there’s your personal income tax return to prepare.
Once that’s out of the way, you might want to consider adding consolidating your assets to your to-do list. If you have retirement savings and investment accounts scattered among a variety of financial institutions, consider taking control by consolidating everything to one place. It will likely make things easier for you next year and beyond.
To start, you’ll be able to more effectively track your financial assets. Your records will be streamlined, sparing you from having to pore over a series of statements and tax documents from different institutions. Monitoring will require less effort, and you will likely be able to see the big picture more clearly.
Here are 5 ways you can benefit by consolidating your assets:
- Eliminate conflicting advice
Perhaps the most important benefit of consolidation is the potential for better financial advice. When you deal with a single advisor, you can have more informed guidance and a closer, more comprehensive relationship with a financial advisor who has a clearer view of your full financial picture. You'll also eliminate conflicting advice and duplication of investment strategies which may delay you from reaching your financial goals. Your advisor is in a better position to help keep you on target for meeting your long-term goals.
- Help reduce fees
Investing through multiple providers may cause you to pay more fees, transaction costs and mutual fund expenses than necessary. Generally, the more assets you have with one financial provider, the more opportunities you may have for reducing or eliminating account fees and lowering investing expenses.
- Diversify your portfolio properly
Managing a well-diversified portfolio that fits within the amount of risk you’re comfortable with is critical to reaching your long-term investment goals. Just as with life, the markets can be unpredictable. As changes occur in your life and in the markets, your investments may not always align. Consolidation makes it much easier to implement changes to your strategy and keep your portfolio’s intended asset allocation on track. It should make setting your investment goals and tracking your progress more straightforward and you will have a deeper understanding of your overall asset mix. For example, it’ll be easier to gauge aggregate investment returns. At a glance, you’ll be able to assess the specifics of your asset allocation and portfolio construction. When it’s time to choose new investments or rebalance your portfolio, working with one advisor can make everything simpler. In particular, buying and selling investments can be less complicated if you can readily move cash from one investment to another. You may also realize a reduction in account administration fees.
- Develop appropriate retirement income and wealth transfer strategies
Having your investments in one place is important when developing an income strategy for retirement. Dealing with a single advisor eases the transition from an RRSP to a Registered Retirement Income Fund (RRIF) when you need to start drawing an income in retirement. Another point to keep in mind is that if you or your spouse should pass away, it becomes much simpler, more convenient and more efficient for the surviving spouse to deal with just one advisor that they can trust. Overall, it helps to ease the burden on anyone who might assist you or take over for you when you can no longer manage your finances yourself and ultimately when you transfer your wealth to your family.
- Streamline record keeping
Working with one advisor means that paper and online statements come from one source which means fewer monthly statements and fewer forms at tax time. Consolidating can allow you to take control of your financial life and could improve your wealth-building potential by making it easier to set goals, invest in line with your risk tolerance and investment objectives, and track your progress. If your accounts could use some consolidating, speak to a financial advisor who can assist you with the needed paperwork.
We can help
At Edward Jones, we can help you achieve your financial goals. Contact your local Edward Jones financial advisor about a strategy that makes sense for you.
