Personal Finance

In 2019, I inherited about $250K from my grandparents and grew it to $340k. Should I leave my financial advisor?

Maurie Backman

Published: February 20, 2025 9:22 am

The point of having a financial advisor is have someone help you manage your money wisely and meet your financial goals. But what if your financial advisor isn’t cutting it?

That seems to be the experience of this Reddit poster. The poster inherited $250,000 in 2019, and their portfolio overall has grown to $340,000.

But that’s not all gains. The poster has been contributing $500 a month on their own.

Their issue is that their account has seen an annual return of 7.63% since it was opened in 2019. And while they acknowledge that a return of that nature is pretty nice, it’s hard to overlook the fact that it trails below the S&P 500’s return during that time.

It begs the question: Should this poster get rid of their financial advisor?

The quick answer is, maybe. But that doesn’t mean they should stop working with a financial advisor, period.

It’s important to have realistic expectations

It can be very disappointing to see your portfolio underperform the S&P 500 when you’re paying someone to help you do better. But one thing you should recognize is that your financial advisor doesn’t have a crystal ball. They can set you up with investments they think are suitable for you, but things can happen.

The reality is if you’re someone who will be happy with a portfolio that matches the S&P 500’s performance over time, then you probably don’t need a financial advisor to manage and invest your money. Instead, you could buy shares of an S&P 500 ETF and call it a day.

But this strategy won’t make it possible to beat the market. To do that, you’ll need the right mix of stocks.

It may be that your financial advisor missed the mark this time. But it could pay to give them one more chance to rebalance your portfolio and make changes.

It’s also worth asking them what went wrong and seeing what they say. There may be a reason your portfolio underperformed, such as if they were trying to limit your risk or if one or two specific investments happened to surprisingly not pan out.  

It’s okay to switch advisors

I can see why the poster here would want to dump their financial advisor after years of sluggish performance. And if their advisor doesn’t have a great explanation for them, then that may not be a bad idea.

But that doesn’t mean the poster should stop working with a financial advisor from now on. It may just be that they need someone new.

It’s also important to find a financial advisor who’s a fiduciary. This means they’re obligated to put your best interests in front of their own at all times.

Of course, if the poster continues to have a bad experience using financial advisors, then they may want to take over managing their own portfolio. But I don’t think they’re there yet. And I think it’s worth giving their current advisor a second chance or seeing if a different professional yields much better results.