Vanguard—the mutual fund company that John Bogle made famous for educating the world on the value of investing for the long term in no-frills mutual funds tracking stock and bond indices—sees the value in receiving financial advice. And so do many investors.
There were 1.3 million Google searches for “financial advisor near me” in the last year. And that does not include similar searches, such as “retirement planning for doctors” or “What is a safe withdrawal rate in retirement?” Intuitively, people understand that there must be more help from financial advisors beyond simple investment selection. Vanguard has highlighted that sentiment for years in their Advisor’s Alpha report and, more recently, dove deeper with their new report, “The Emotional and Time Value of Advice.”
But first, let’s address the elephant in the room: I own a financial services company, Berkshire Money Management, which generates revenue from providing financial advice. So, you can say I am “talking my book” (as we say in the industry when someone hypes a stock that they already bought), or you can say I have conviction in what I am selling. Both can be true at the same time. I just want you to be aware of the potential conflict of interest; however, simultaneously, I objectively believe that Vanguard’s findings are valuable.
In fact, I think, as is the vibe from Vanguard, most investors would be best served from an investment-only standpoint (emphasis on “investment-only”) if they just bought an index fund tracking the S&P 500 stock index, complement it with a bond index fund at the appropriate percentage, and then never look at them again. No financial advisor would be needed until perhaps retirement, when it is time to plan the most tax-efficient way to replace your paycheck.
So, let’s all agree: You do not need a financial advisor to help you pick investments. Nonetheless, if you have ever stared at a jumble of account statements or a scary market headline and thought, “I don’t have time for this,” you are not alone. Money is emotional. Money is time-consuming. And when those two collide, even savvy investors make avoidable mistakes, often at the worst possible moments.
This new study from Vanguard widens the lens beyond returns, measuring how advice, whether human or digital, impacts stress and the time spent by do-it-yourself (DIY) investors. Vanguard concludes that receiving financial advice meaningfully lowers anxiety and gives people back hours of their life each week.
Here are the headline numbers, translated from charts to plain English.
Vanguard surveyed 12,443 investors (7,746 of whom receive advice). Advised investors were about half as likely to report “high” financial stress (14 percent) as self-directed investors (27 percent). And 86 percent of advised clients said they feel more peace of mind than they did when managing money by themselves.
On the time front, 76 percent of advised investors said advice saves them time; the median savings was about two hours per week (that is 100-plus hours per year you can redirect to your life).
In the workplace, investors reported that money worries distract them for an average of 3.8 hours per week. Among those who receive advice, distractions are reduced by nearly two hours per week, resulting in thousands of dollars in productivity gains. Those are not soft benefits; they are measurable, durable improvements to your day-to-day life (and a reason why business owners might want to consider paying for their employees’ financial advice).
Advice that fits Vanguard’s playbook
Vanguard’s researchers controlled for the fact that higher-wealth, older investors are overrepresented among the advised. Even after accounting for differences in age, assets, income, and debt, the pattern holds: advised clients report less stress and spend less time wrestling with their finances at comparable stress levels. In other words, advice seems to dilute the intensity of financial worry and its spillover into your week.
The study also asked where, specifically, advice saves time. The big winners were portfolio monitoring and investment selection, hardly surprising in an era when markets are influenced by social media posts and we all carry a trading terminal in our pocket. But half of the investors also said “peace of mind” itself saves time. Put differently: Once you trust the plan, you stop doomscrolling financial news. That is an edge for a life well lived.
What do people do with the saved hours? Mostly the good stuff: leisure, family, exercise. Those may sound like soft outcomes, until you look around and realize the point of money is to underwrite a life, not a dashboard.
Why this matters even if you love doing it yourself
I have long written in this column about how difficult it is to beat the market on a consistent basis. DALBAR’s long-running Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behavior work has chronicled this phenomenon. Pair that with other research showing that a small fraction of stocks drives the majority of the market’s long-term gains, and you get a sobering implication: Market-timing and stock-skipping are expensive hobbies.
So, where does advice fit? Advice can act as an “emotional circuit breaker” when the next bout of volatility arrives and as a “time budget” that stops markets from colonizing your weekends. The Vanguard study quantifies that circuit-breaker effect and time budget.
A practical playbook for investors by Vanguard (advisor or no advisor)
- Codify your process in advance. Put your portfolio policy in writing: target allocation, rebalancing rules, contribution schedule, and what “pain” you are willing to ride out (e.g., a 20 percent drawdown without changing strategy). This makes future you answerable to the present you.
- Automate the dull, noble things. Pre-schedule contributions, rebalancing bands, and tax-efficient behaviors (harvesting losses, asset location). Automation turns good intentions into reality. It also saves you two hours a week, as Vanguard observed.
- Default to broad, low-cost index funds. They embed humility and capture the market’s handful of big winners without prediction. They also reduce the decision points that feed stress.
- Time-block your attention. If you are a DIY investor, consider a once-a-month portfolio check. Mute the noise the rest of the time. (Although, for many people, starting with once a week might be the baby step they need.)
- When in doubt, borrow a calm mind. Advice does not have to be a forever contract. It can be episodic, serving as a second set of eyes during life transitions, such as retirement timing, equity compensation, business sales, drawdown strategy, or estate changes. The study finds that both human and digital advice reduce negative emotions; humans tend to boost positive emotions more, while digital excels at reducing shame/anxiety and providing transparency. Choose what fits your temperament and situation.
“But Allen, doesn’t this just argue for hiring an advisor?”
Not necessarily. It argues for having a plan and a process that keeps you in the market’s compounding engine and for using tools (human or digital) that reduce stress and save time. If you can build that scaffolding on your own and you are honest about your behavior under pressure, great. If you prefer to rent discipline the way you rent a snowplow after a nor’easter, also great. The winning condition is the same: Own broad markets at low cost, stay the course through garden-variety pullbacks, and reclaim your calendar for a life you recognize.
In markets, we are told to focus on what we can control: costs, diversification, taxes, and behavior. Vanguard’s latest research adds two more controllables to your checklist: your stress budget and your time budget. Vanguard’s data helps you evaluate advice with the same pragmatism you apply to expense ratios: Does this arrangement lower my stress, free up my time, and improve my odds of sticking to the plan? If the answer is yes, then even if the only visible benefit is calm and time, that is a return you can enjoy.
Allen Harris is an owner of Berkshire Money Management in Great Barrington and Dalton, managing more than $1 billion of investments. Unless specifically identified as original research or data gathering, some or all of the data cited is attributable to third-party sources. Unless stated otherwise, any mention of specific securities or investments is for illustrative purposes only. Advisor’s clients may or may not hold the securities discussed in their portfolios. Advisor makes no representation that any of the securities discussed have been or will be profitable. Full disclosures here. Direct inquiries to Allen at AHarris@BerkshireMM.com.
