How would Sunrise increase your bottom line?

While it certainly is important to prudently invest one's money, the surest, easiest, and quickest way to increase your wealth is to spend less in unnecessary fees and expenses.  Ben Franklin was right: if you stop unnecessarily spending $1,000 per year, you have made yourself $1,000 wealthier by the end of the year. We are obsessive about helping our clients save money and making prudent decisions regarding their finances. 

Here are some examples of how we prudently help our clients save money:

Avoid High Fee Mutual Funds.  Most mutual fund investors are poorly served by the funds they invest in.  Even if the funds follow prudent investment strategies, they tend to have excessive fees associated with them.  The average mutual fund in the US has an expense ratio of about 1.3%.  Sunrise’s recommended portfolios typically have weighted average expense ratios of under 0.5%.  Many mutual funds charge as much as 1% or more annually in 12(b)-1 fees.  We do not recommend funds with 12(b)-1 fees. 

Example: If you were investing $30,000 per year into a mutual fund with a 5% sales load, you would be paying about $3,000 too much per year (due to the sales load).

Example: If you have $300,000 in typical mutual funds (i.e., with an annual expense ratio of 1.3%), you are paying at least $2,400 per year too much in annual fees.  If you instead used a diversified portfolio of funds (which might have a weighted average expense ratio of less than 0.5%), you would be $2,400 richer every year (all else being equal).

Avoid Whole Life Insurance Policies.  Most people who buy life insurance either buy too much or the wrong kind or both.  The reason this is true is usually because they asked a life insurance salesman how much and what kind they should get.  Of course, the life insurance salesman recommended large amounts of the highest commission variety.

Example: If you were paying $2,000 per year for a whole life policy when you could be paying $200 per year for a term policy with the same coverage, you can save $1,800 per year in unnecessary premiums.  It is far better to increase your wealth, rather than the insurance company's or the insurance agent's.

Example: If you were paying $2,000 per year for a whole life policy when you have no need for insurance at all, you are unnecessarily throwing away much of that money — you can save yourself $2,000 per year and get a return of your small cash value by canceling the policy.

Avoid Variable Annuities.  Variable Annuities are not an appropriate for almost anybody.  Their high fees usually dramatically exceed whatever benefit of tax-deferral they might promise.  The extent of the fees is scandalous: it is not unusual for annual fees to be two to three percentage points higher than necessary.  If you realize the extent of the high annual fees and desire to roll it over to a lower fee Variable Annuity, you often are charged outrageous "surrender fees" of as high as 10 percent or more.

If you are unfortunate enough to be in one, we may be able to help.  If you are in a Variable Annuity inside a 403(b) plan, you may be able to roll it over into a 403(b)(7) mutual fund without the high fees.  If you are in a Variable Annuity inside an IRA, you definitely can roll it over into a mutual fund inside an IRA without the high fees.  If you are in a Variable Annuity outside tax-deferred retirement plans, you can roll it over to a low cost Variable Annuity.

Unfortunately, the act of rolling over the Variable Annuity may cause you to incur a surrender fee.  We find that it often makes sense to pay the surrender fee in order to avoid continuing to pay the excessive annual fees.  It is an uncomfortable situation to be in where you have a choice of either continuing to pay outrageous annual fees or paying an outrageous surrender fee.  The best strategy, of course, is to avoid getting into such predicaments in the first place.

Example:  If you are currently paying 3% in annual fees (including management, administration, and mortality and expense fees) for your Variable Annuity, you are paying more than two percentage points too much per year.  If you have $100,000 in such a Variable Annuity, you are wasting at least $2,000 per year by unnecessarily paying exorbitant fees.

Pay Down High Interest Debt First.  While it may seem obvious, we've seen many folks paying down low interest debt before their high-interest debt.  One example is (low interest) mortgage debt vs. (high interest) credit card debt.  Many people make extra principal payments on their mortgages while carrying large balances on high-interest credit cards.  Given a choice, it is almost always better to pay off the higher interest debt first.  This can save large amounts of interest.

We look at virtually all aspects of your financial life to identify areas where you can prudently realize savings.  It's easy to see how our service often pays for itself in just a few months.  Would you like help identifying ways to prudently save money? If yes, then contact us