All our working lives, we dream of what we’ll do with the money we’ve saved and the newfound free time we’ve earned. Yet, upon reaching retirement, those dreams are sometimes replaced by something different: guilt. What gives?

Retirement Account Guilt Happens to Almost Every Retiree

Year after year, studies ask retirees about their greatest worry in retirement. The headlines are always the same. Overwhelmingly, retirees are afraid of outliving their assets.

Of course, being careful to live within your means is always a good idea. But even if you’re not afraid to touch your retirement accounts, chances are you’re still living with guilt each time you do. Though the purpose of that money– first and foremost– is to take care of you during your golden years, we often hear clients worry their expenditures are frivolous, or at odds with their desire to leave a financial cushion for their heirs.

Yet Somehow Most Retirees Do Not Feel Guilty About This

The irony is, despite being hesitant to spend on themselves, many retirees don’t think twice about what they pay their financial advisor each month. Worse, many don’t even realize what they pay because it’s netted straight from the gains (or added to the losses) within their retirement accounts. If you don’t know what you’re paying, you don’t know what you’re missing.

What if You Had an Extra $1 Million in Retirement?

In this case, you could be missing out on a sizeable amount of money that would go a long way toward alleviating that retirement account guilt.

Let’s say you’ve been paying your financial advisor $1,000 per month in fees, but you fire your advisor and start putting the money you would have paid them in a separate account with a modest 4% return. In Fire Your Financial Advisor, Golden Reserve Founder Greg Aler ran the numbers. Here’s how that money would grow over time thanks to compound interest:

• In 10 years, you’d have $147,250
• In 20 years, you’d have $366, 776
• In 40 years­– a full retirement– you’d have $1,181,966

Imagine what you could do with that kind of money! You don’t have to go back to work. You don’t even have to win the lottery. But you will have to break free of the financial services industry’s exploitation of retirees and ditch the high fee advisor. We promise it’s not as hard as it sounds, and the simplicity of working with a retirement planner who charges a transparent, set fee, is worth the peace of mind alone.

Would you feel freer with an extra $1 million in retirement? If so, we may have found it for you.