Specializing in retirement planning and personalized investment management.

Client Focused

Working with an independent, fee-only, fiduciary Certified Financial Planner® professional has to be more expensive right?

Not at all. We can offer our services at a lower cost than most brokerage and advisory firms for several reasons:

  • Independence:  Blue Water is not affiliated with a broker/dealer (Edward Jones, Raymond James, etc.) so we do not have to pay them a percentage of our revenue.
  • Smart expenditures:  We don’t need a huge media advertising budget or expensive, glitzy offices.  We put our money into technology that helps keep clients updated on their financial picture (retirement plan, investments, performance, etc.) and helps us run a better business.
  • Low cost investment approach:  We use lower cost investment options without commissions and high fees.  The average cost of one of our diversified portfolios is 0.12% - 0.20%, while the average cost of a stock mutual fund is about 1.20% (Morningstar).
  • No outsourcing of financial planning or investment management:  We do the work ourselves.  We don't use interns or third party planning services to develop your financial plan.  We also do not use a Turnkey Asset Management Program (TAMP) or model portfolio providers for investment management.  Both outsourced solutions are growing in popularity among advisors, but we feel they just add unnecessary costs and reduce the personalization and flexibility of the portfolio.
  • Limited new engagements:  We spend most of our time working for our current clients, not marketing and trying to drum up new business.  We take on a limited number of clients each month, which helps keep our overhead lower.

We find it shocking how few brokers and advisors publicly disclose their costs.  Most websites are just used as general marketing brochures with few details on services and no mention of costs.  We have always been transparent with our Financial Planning fees and our Investment Management fees.

Here’s probably what they don’t want you to see:

Annual Investment Advisory fees


Portfolio Assets

Edward Jones / Wall Street Firm1

Typical Fee-Based Advisor2

Blue Water3

First $500,000

1.50%

1.10%

0.80%

Next $500,000

1.15%

0.90%

0.80%

Next $1,000,000

0.75%

0.80%

0.65%

Next $1,000,000

0.75%

0.70%

0.65%

Next $1,000,000

0.50%

0.60%

0.50%

Next $1,000,000

0.50%

0.50%

0.50%

Insert your portfolio amount below and hit "calculate" to see an annual estimate of investment advisory fees and how much you could save by working with Blue Water.


Enter your portfolio amount Edward Jones / Wall Street Firm1 Typical Fee-Based Advisor2 Blue Water3
$

 

$

assuming no minimum

$

assuming no minimum

$

$6,000 annual minimum 

Advisory fee savings by working with Blue Water: $ $  

Lower advisory fees and lower cost investment options can save you thousands of dollars a year.  If you’re working with a broker or advisor, chances are, we can save you money and give you a better client experience.  Contact us and we’d be happy to help.


1 – These fees are taken from page 7 of the Edward Jones Trust Disclosures and Fee Schedule.  The fees you are charged may be different.  However, they are a good representation of what Edward Jones and other Wall Street firms may charge since they tend to be on the higher side.

2 – There is a study of "2016 average independent financial advisor fees", but it is just a sampling of advisors and the fee percentages seem somewhat high.  Instead, we used our experience to construct a more typical fee schedule for a fee-based advisor.

3 – This is the fee schedule for Blue Water’s Investment Management service.  Please note that there is a $1,500/quarter minimum for this service.