The Best Place to Manage Your Retirement Income

Here's the next item I wanted to cover from Kiplinger's "The Best List". Today, we're highlighting the best place to manage your retirement income:

The Best Place to Manage Your Retirement Income: Fidelity

Whatever your age, start with Fidelity's Retirement Income Planner to estimate your retirement income and expenses and to plan your investment strategy. It's free to anyone by phone (800-343-3548) or in person, and it's available to Fidelity customers online. Once you are retired, open a Fidelity Income Management Account to handle your cash flow. You can consolidate your sources of income, get investment advice and create a regular "paycheck."

"Hello? Is this Kiplinger's? Yes, I'm from Fidelity and I'd like to place an ad for my retirement services, but I'd like to disguise it as a recommendation from you. Can you make this happen? Oh, yeah, and can you call us 'the best'?"

I'm not buying this one. I've had two retirement plans with Fidelity in my work career (I have one now -- my 401k) and I've also had several accounts with Vanguard. Without any reservations I can say that I prefer Vanguard because of their low costs and great customer service.

And no, Vanguard didn't pay me to do a commercial for them, though I wouldn't mind having them as an advertiser here. It would be one company I could recommend whole-heartedly.

For more thoughts on retirement, see Best of Free Money Finance: Retirement Posts.

Comments

[Nagel]

The best place to house your retirement money is where you pay the least fees. Look at E*Trade--they litterally gooble up your money with huge fees.

[Him]

I have my Roth IRA with Fidelity, and I couldn't be happier. They have great planning tools and everything else that I'd need is pretty accessible. For the beginning retirement investor, it is a pretty good fit.

When I first opened my Roth IRA I had no clue on anything on investing. I called up the people at Fidelity at 11PM on a Saturday night, and the rep pretty much gave me a course in Investing 101 over the course of about an hour. That left a very favorable impression on me.

Her has a Roth IRA in Vanguard, but I don't know how that's working out.