Independence · Getting help
When DIY Stops Making Sense
Running your own money is a reasonable choice for many people. It stops being reasonable when the complexity, the stakes or your available time outgrow your process. Knowing the triggers in advance is part of doing it yourself well.
This book is about going it alone with a method that fits. So it might seem odd to finish a pillar with an article about getting help. It isn't. Independence means you decide. It doesn't mean you do every job yourself.
The best DIY investors I know have a short written list of situations where they will stop and bring someone in. They wrote it while things were calm. Here's what tends to go on that list.
Trigger one: complexity outruns knowledge
A share portfolio in your own name is one thing. Add a self-managed super fund, a family trust, a company, an investment property, a partner's super and an overseas share account, and you're now running a small set of related tax entities. Each one has rules. They interact.
Signs you've crossed the line: you're making decisions without knowing their tax consequence; you're relying on what you think the rules were a few years ago; or your accountant finds out about transactions after the fact. Super and tax settings change regularly. A mistake inside an SMSF can be expensive and slow to fix.
Trigger two: bandwidth collapses
Every method needs a minimum number of hours. When your life fills up, the method degrades quietly. Reviews get skipped. Results announcements go unread. Positions run on autopilot without anyone actually piloting.
From the desk
I left full-time trading around forty. Four kids under six, two businesses, and I was competing with younger people who had more energy and more time. The skills didn't vanish. My bandwidth did, and I adapted the method to the hours I actually had rather than the hours I used to have.
If your honest answer to "how many hours did I spend on this last month?" is far below what your method needs, the options are to simplify the method or to delegate part of it. Pretending is not an option. Well, it is, but it's the expensive one.
Trigger three: a life event moves the levers
Some events move three levers in a week. Redundancy. Separation. An inheritance. A serious illness in the family. Starting to draw down in retirement. Caring for a parent. These are the moments when decisions are biggest and judgement is most stretched. They are also the moments people are most likely to act alone, because they feel they should be able to handle it.
An hour with the right professional during one of these weeks is usually cheap compared with the cost of a rushed, irreversible decision.
Trigger four: your behaviour has broken the plan
If you sold in the last drawdown against your own written rules, or you can't make yourself follow the plan you wrote, that's not a moral failing. It's data. Some investors get real value from having another person in the loop simply as a circuit breaker: someone you have to explain the trade to before you make it.
Who to ask, for what
- Tax agent or accountant: tax on investments, structures, records, CGT events.
- Licensed financial adviser: personal advice on strategy, super, insurance and retirement income. Check them on ASIC's Financial Advisers Register.
- Lawyer: estates, powers of attorney, separation, trusts.
Advice doesn't have to be all or nothing. Many advisers offer limited-scope advice on a single question. Ask how they are paid, what is included, and whether they receive anything from the products they might suggest.
What DIY still means after you get help
You still own the decisions. You still keep the investment policy statement. Help is an input, and a good adviser should be able to explain their reasoning in a way you could write down. If you can't, ask again.
What to do with this
Add a short section to your investment plan called "When I'll get help". List three triggers specific to your situation and, for each, the type of professional you'd call. Date it. Review it once a year with the rest of the plan.