There is a specific moment when most high earners decide to manage their own money. It usually happens on a Tuesday night, staring at a fee disclosure statement.
You do the math. You realise that a "measly" 1% Assets Under Management (AUM) fee on a $1,000,000 portfolio is not just 1%. It is $10,000 this year. Over 30 years, factoring in lost compounding, that 1% fee will consume hundreds of thousands of dollars of your wealth.
This is the wake-up call. You realise you are paying the equivalent of a luxury car every few years for someone to put your money into a standard mix of index funds.
When you decide to fire your advisor, you need to replace them. You need DIY financial planning software that can handle the heavy lifting.
The 1% wake-up call
In financial independence communities, the story of the "break-up" is incredibly common.
An investor finally decides to look under the hood of their portfolio. They expect to find a finely tuned engine of bespoke financial instruments. Instead, they find their advisor has stuffed their money into 15 different high-expense-ratio mutual funds.
Why 15 funds when a simple three-fund portfolio would perform exactly the same? Because complexity is a retention strategy. If your portfolio looks incredibly complicated, you will be terrified to manage it yourself.
Once you see through the complexity, the urge to do it yourself is overwhelming. But taking control of a complex household - especially if you have a family trust, investment properties, or a self-managed super fund - requires more than a spreadsheet.
What do you actually need to replace an advisor?
To successfully replace a financial advisor, your DIY financial planning software needs to do three things: track your live balances, calculate tax implications (like capital gains and extraction tax), and forecast your retirement date.
A spreadsheet can track balances, but it will fail at forecasting and tax calculations. A simple budgeting app can track cashflow, but it cannot model a family trust.
You need software built for the balance sheet, not the budget.
The Best DIY Financial Planning Software (Compared)
When you look at the market for individuals who want to self-manage, three tools stand out. They each solve a different part of the problem.
1. ProjectionLab: Best for Monte Carlo simulations
If your primary concern is sequence of returns risk, ProjectionLab is an exceptional tool. It allows you to run thousands of Monte Carlo simulations to see how your portfolio would survive different historical market crashes.
- The trade-off: It is heavily reliant on manual data entry. If you do not keep the initial figures perfectly updated, your simulations are running on stale data.
2. Kubera: Best for live account syncing
If your only goal is to see a live dashboard of every asset you own, Kubera connects to almost everything. It tracks traditional accounts, crypto, and international banks beautifully.
- The trade-off: It is a tracker, not a planner. It will show you what you own today, but it will not forecast your wealth into the future or calculate the tax required to access it.
3. WealthScout: Best for complex households and tax forecasting
If you hold assets across multiple entities - like a mix of personal accounts, a family trust, and a self-managed retirement structure - WealthScout is built for you. It puts an owner on every asset. It automatically calculates the extraction tax required to move money from a corporate structure into your personal pocket.
- The trade-off: It does not run Monte Carlo simulations. Instead, it projects your true, after-tax net worth forward based on the actual, live balances you confirm each month.
How to fire your advisor without panicking
If you are ready to transition to DIY financial planning, do not sell your assets immediately.
First, set up your new software. Import your properties, your shares, and your retirement accounts. Look at the forecast. Once you are comfortable seeing your wealth in a dashboard you control, you can call your advisor.
They will likely try to retain you by offering a fee reduction, or by warning you that the market is too volatile for an amateur. Thank them for their time, request an in-kind transfer of your assets to a low-cost brokerage, and take control of your financial future.
(Ready to self-manage? Track and forecast your complex wealth in WealthScout today.)
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