Comments on: Fewer Financial Institutions

By: SMSF Admin

SMSF Admin — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 05:06:19 +0000

I am a financial advisor. As a financial advisor I find more and more people are looking to simplify their lives. When a new client walks in with 5 different statements they usually have no clue as to what investments they have, how the investments have performed and more importantly if their different accounts are diversified and “working together”. I find that with less accounts people have a better understanding of what they own.

By: Mark Shead

Mark Shead — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 03:52:52 +0000

@Claire - There are some advantages of having money spread around--particularly if you start hitting the limits of FDIC insurance. That said, eleven banks seems like a bit much.

By: Clare

Clare — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:08:20 +0000

This got me thinking. Mostly because I’ve moved jobs and countries a few times, I have pensions, endowment policies, accounts and investments with 11 different companies/banks. In addition, I have a further 3 accounts jointly with my husband, and he has 6 accounts in his name (we run 2 businesses). So that’s 20 between us. We’ve asked various experts how we could simplify this but they usually reply that it’s best to have your assets spread around (i.e. it’s too complicated for them). Well, we’ve certainly done that! Maybe I should try harder, though I’m not sure where to begin…

By: Mark Shead

Mark Shead — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 19:26:30 +0000

@missbossy – Well banks going bankrupt have forced me to consolidate a few accounts. :)

By: How much money do I need » Blog Archive » Fewer Financial Institutions

How much money do I need » Blog Archive » Fewer Financial Institutions — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:01:38 +0000

[...] Brian wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptOne for retirement type accounts and one for my non-retirement savings, checking and investments. I contacted both institutions and gave them a list of what I wanted to move over. On the retirement side of things the transition went … [...]

By: missbossy

missbossy — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 05:34:25 +0000

With that title I thought you were going to talk about all the banks going down the tubes…!

By: Roland Greco

Roland Greco — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 13:13:43 +0000

As a financial advisor I find more and more people are looking to simplify their lives. When a new client walks in with 5 different statements they usally have no clue as to what investments they have, how the investments have performed and more importantly if their different accounts are diversified and “working together”.
I find that with less accounts people have a better understanding of what they own.

By: Mark Shead

Mark Shead — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 12:47:28 +0000

Paperless statements with most banks mean getting and email that tells you to login to a web site where you can download a pdf of your statement for your records. This isn’t too big of deal with one or two banks, but if you have 6 or 7 it becomes a real pain to keep up with.

By: Andrew Conkling

Andrew Conkling — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 12:31:30 +0000

A few tangential comments:
* Managing your disparate finances can be easier if you use an aggregator tool like http://mint.com. You can see all your finances in one place.
* If the thing that fed you up about the statements was receiving all that paper mail, you could also sign up for paperless (online) statements. I’m sure your office would love you for that. :)

That said, to answer your question, I don’t think it’s too bad to put all my eggs in one basket. Frankly, I trust my bank, and if my accounts were compromised, I know that my bank would handle it.