Seems reasonable to me. My one suggestion would be to find a way to bring a little more exposure to small cap stocks at some point. They seem to be under weighted, probably because of the 35% S&P 500 allocation. You could do that with new money, though.

Country: Canada
Income: N/A
Risk Tolerance: low
Timeframe: 5+ years
Debt: $0

So after being advised by people in this thread to break-up with my Edward Jones adviser and take matters into my own hands, I have done precisely that. I have read the bogleheads wiki and The Millionaire Teacher within the past month, but I am still a noob with regards to investments.

My plan: I will have mid-six figures arriving in my bank account shortly (from my previous EJ account), and I intend to follow the "Complete Couch Potato" model listed here: http://canadiancouchpotato.com/model-portfolios/
I have already established a self-directed brokerage account to buy these ETFs through.

Questions:
1) Is there any reason not to just invest the majority of these funds into ETFs as soon as the money arrives? Given that I am very inexperienced, I feel a bit nervous about investing such a large amount of money on my own (but I realize this may be the best way for me to learn).
2) I have recently decided to end a successful poker career and move into something else. I'm not sure what I'll move into, but I will most likely have no income for the next year or two. I would like to keep a fairly large amount of money semi-liquid to live on for this period of time, and also so that I can take advantage of potential investment opportunities outside of the market (start-ups, for instance). Would I be wise to keep the majority of these liquid funds in (short) term deposits (GICs in Canada, aka CDs in USA), or is it reasonable for me to just put this money into additional ETFs and then pull the money out when I need to?
3) Anything else I should consider / be aware of?

Thank you all in advance. I am feeling quite overwhelmed without having a financial adviser to run to with all my financial/investment concerns!

If your risk tolerance is low, you should just put it under your mattress.

Well, I'm not sure how to classify my risk tolerance. Given that I've been playing poker for several years and am now quitting, I have a very uncertain future ahead of me. For that reason alone, I am hesitant to do anything risky with my money for the time being.

I like this allocation, think you did a good job here.

....WAT?
....WAT?

Yes, I would like to invest in a couple small start-ups specifically in industries that I am interested in learning more about (industries that I may want to build a career in). I understand that these investments will tend to be much higher risk, but I am fine with that given that they will comprise such a small part of my portfolio.

And I'm not sure how to respond to the second "WAT?"

I'm looking for some help here though. Am I in the wrong thread?

You seem to be in the wrong universe. Any recollection of a worm-hole of some sort?

Okay, I'll take a stab. So the folly in my previous posts was that I listed my risk tolerance as low then mentioned some high-risk activities such as investing in start-ups and firing my financial adviser... Is this correct?

Yes. People with low risk tolerance usually don't like 90% chance of failure.

Point taken. So should I go crawling back to my financial adviser now that I realize just how clueless I am? I'm considering finding a fee-based adviser just to help with the transition from total hands-off investment to 100% self-directed.

Fee based advisor.

Also, don't be creative.

Cool, thanks.

Location: United States
Risk Tolerance: Low

My life situation: Currently a professional poker player, single and 30 years old. Highly educated with a law degree from an elite law school but quit my associate gig 4 years into the biglaw grind upon realizing I was miserable and had zero desire to continue in that direction (i.e., biglaw generally, my firm, working 70 hours/week and having no life apart from work, etc.). While I quit with the intention of opening my own law practice and playing plenty of poker on the side, poker has been going so well, and I've missed practicing law so little, that I've held off on doing anything but poker for the time being and declared myself as a professional this past tax year. I've now been a pro for almost a year and have no regrets about quitting. I'm much happier and healthier, and there's tremendous value in feeling that I own my life once again. Ultimately, I plan on becoming a semipro while also running my own business within the legal industry (but not a law firm), but I've yet to decide whether I'll jump on that a few months from now or another couple of years from now. I have a good idea for a business that will require minimal investment ($5kish) and should show a decent profit right away, but it's very un-passive and I'm not yet ready to commit myself to it.

My financial situation: I graduated from law school with roughly $180k in debt in GRAD PLUS loans. While employed at the firm, I was hyper-focused on reducing my debt as quickly as possible. By the time I quit, my principal balance stood at $67k. It is currently down to $55k. I currently have around $60k in liquid assets and consider my poker bankroll to be $30k. I consider my emergency fund to be $25k. My yearly expenses amount to $43kish (including EVERYTHING), which include an $1100/mo regular payment for student loans. About $17k of my loans are at a 7.65% interest rate, with the rest at 6.55%.

Instead of putting $ into retirement while at the firm, I figured it'd make better financial sense to put $ into my loans, especially since my firm didn't match. As such, my $401k from the firm has a paltry $4k in it right now (not counting this towards my liquid assets). I've not yet opened an IRA or other such account.

Re: income expectation, my cash game hourly is around ~$50/ho and I grind a lot of hours (expecting to hit 2000 this year). I also play a bunch of $300-$1500 tourneys but so far have been losing $ on the tourney grind. I'm more of a cash game player and play tourneys for the variety and the allure of the big score. My reasonable expectation for a year of playing poker full-time is to make about $75k.

My investment situation: My liferoll is almost all contained in a checking account (.1% interest accrual) right now. This seems like a huge waste to me. The only reason I haven't moved the $ to a savings account is it appears like only a marginal upgrade at my bank (like .25% interest accrual) - not a good excuse considering an extra .15% is an extra .15%, but I've simply been lazy.

My strategy re: student loans has been as follows. I pay my $1100/mo no matter what. Then, for any given month, if at the end of the month all of my liquid assets are $55k or greater, and I've made $6k+ for the month, I put 33% in excess of the $6k into my student loans (exclusively the higher interest loans) and invest the rest into growing my liferoll. I only started doing this in 2014. This strategy is intended to safeguard the minimum liferoll I am comfortable with while also keeping my poker bankroll healthy enough for the stakes that I play.

Ultimately, I would like to pay off my student loans as quickly as possible. The only priority above that is maintaining a liferoll (meaning everything-roll, including poker bankroll) of at least $55k.

QUESTIONS:
1) I am not that comfortable with risk right now but I hate the idea of potential passive income opportunities with my liquid roll going to waste. How should I be investing my liferoll? Keeping it in a checking or savings account seems dumb but I am such a BFI newb that I'm not even really sure what opportunities are available to me.

2) Does it make any sense to contribute to a retirement account when I still have so much student loan debt at a high interest rate?

CLIFFS:
-Pro poker player/former biglaw attorney, expect to make $75k/yr from poker
-Student loan balance $55k (~6.85% interest) and want to pay off student loans as quickly as possible while also maintaining a $55k liferoll (emergency fund + minimum poker bankroll)
-Not sure where it makes financial sense to invest/maintain my liferoll; currently in checking account accumulating mere .1% interest
-Want to contribute to retirement but not sure it makes sense in light of student loan debt

Thanks for any help!

I would focus on debt payment and try to fund the 5500 of IRA space per year. Is there a way to lower your cost of living? As 43000 a year seems quite high.

I think you guys should start looking more at time horizon than "risk tolerance". The longer the time horizon, the more risk you can take. If it's 10 years, then stocks are a good option. 5 years or less, invest in a bond fund. 1 year or less, cash.

Don't look at it in terms of "well, I don't want to lose money". Of course no one wants to lose money. If you have 200k cash, you don't want to lose a dime, we all feel that way. But over the course of 20 years, what do you think that 200k cash can turn into? It can turn into an enormous amount of money at 10% return in 20 years (1.345 million).

Now, we can have the argument about 10% return being too lofty, but still, if it's 7% you still return a nice amount. If you're going to be needing this money, say, 30 years from now, you simply have to look for good return in such a long time horizon. It'll get to the point where the return % per year will dwarf what you can contribute. If you have 2 million in an investment and it returns 15 percent in a year, that'd be the same as you putting in 300k and getting 0%.

Anyway, enough rambling. Think in terms of time, more so than trying to gauge your risk.

Liferoll goes under mattress. Fairly simple math there. If you aren't willing to paying off your student loans with it at a guaranteed rate of 6.85% then it is ******ed to actually put it at risk.

Paying off debt happens before contributing to retirement. Extremely easy math there. You have a guaranteed 6.85% yield on paying off debt.

I didn't bother to read the rest and skipped to the Cliff's. I tried really hard, but I got bored. I think you should seriously revise your expected winnings from poker given that you couldn't derive my advice on your own.

I agree, but you have to take into account that people aren't **** economicus.

The reason to worry about risk tolerance is because people freak out and do stupid things when they experience normal variance. "I can handle losing 20%" means, almost by definition, that the person will get whipsawed by the markets.

Yes, that's the problem. People DO freak out when they lost 20%, 10%, etc.

Thanks for your input - I agree that $43k is rather high, though keep in mind that # includes $1100/mo worth of loan repayment. Hoping to trim my expenses a bit this year.

Your point on short-term vs. long-term does stand though as far as short-term goes.

Short-term and risk averse = correct.

Short-term and not risk averse = must learn some math. avoid variance anyway you overconfident kook!

Long-term and Risk-averse = grow some balls.

Long-term and not risk averse = Yay!

I didn't want to start a new thread and this seems the closest to appropriate place for my question. Is the following a way you can get cheap trades? Humour me.

I use TD Direct in UK (very standard platform for the retail everyman). They have a fee per trade of £12.50 for normal trading. If you set up a regular automatic monthly investment the way that works is, on the same day each month they direct debit a certain amount of money from your checking account and auto-invest it for you into the stock(s) you specified, at a cost of just £1.50 per trade for the regular investing option.

I called someone up at customer services and asked if there's a minimum number of months the regular investment has to run for - there isn't. I then asked what's to stop me from setting up regular investing for the full amount I want to invest in a certain stock, and cancel it after the first monthly payment, thus having paid £1.50 for my trade instead of £12.50 and the girl I was speaking to didn't know how to respond. Finally she said there's nothing to stop me from doing that. I decided she's probably not well informed, or there's something else I've overlooked and thought I'd ask here what's the obvious flaw in this idea.

Country you live in - USA

Income - $7500 SEP

Risk Tolerance - Not sure? Low?

Timeframe for investment - I can't and don't want to take the money out until I'm 59 1/2. So like 30 yrs.

Debt - $3,000 car payment

I am very new to investing/finance. I am meeting with my dad's financial adviser and he is going to let me know my options and try and help. Any helpful advice would be greatly appreciated!
edit: For the past year it has been sitting basically dormit at Associated Bank gaining 0 interest, I need to get it out of there and make some money!

Lol. Wil was giving good advice above, I lol'ed because you didn't read it.

Questions to ask the FP:
1. What are the expense ratios of any funds or ETFs he is recommending?
2. If he is not a fee only planner, how does he get paid from your investment and how much?
3. Is he or she acting as a fiduciary? If they are legally a fiduciary on your behalf they should put your interests above theirs. If they are not, they have no legal responsibility to act in your best interests.
4. What are the two biggest factors to determine an investments long term expected return? If he answers anything other than asset allocation and expenses he is probably an idiot salesman, not a real FP.

4. There are a lot of ways to answer that question, most of which will fly over the head of someone who is new to investing. It is a fairly broad question as well. Not as bad, but similar to if you asked a restaurant owner what are the 2 biggest factors to determine long term profit of his restaurant. He could say low expenses & high sales, high margins & a small staff, or get more detailed and say repeat customers and a bright neon sign out front.

I'm not trying to rip your post, but all of your questions come back to expenses.