Vanguard Digital Advisor | 2022 review

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SUMMARY
In this video, I review Vanguard's robo advisor product, Vanguard Digital Advisor. I set up an account, and talk about my thoughts about everything from fees to the investment options to how user-friendly the product is. I give you my honest opinion - is Vanguard's product worth it? There are a bunch of robos out there, so we'll see how Vanguard stacks up!

LINKS

CHAPTERS
0:00 - Intro/Overview
1:42 - Fees
6:00 - Investments
9:00 - Ease of use
12:40 - Features
14:40 - My review
15:00 - Conclusion

[MariaGarcia-gvhj]

Thanks for increasing my knowledge in personal finance, I recently subscribed to your channel. I want to give a big shout-out to all those working tirelessly to earn a living and build wealth during this recession. My husband and I are both retired and debt-free, and we're living smart and frugal with our money. Despite the recession, we're still earning passive income thanks to our savings and investments in the financial market. Investing lifestyle has enabled us to earn a steady monthly income through passive means, and we're grateful for it."""

[Ruben-]

thank you for the actual, honest review. there are countless "reviews" where they don't even have a vanguard account. A general idea of returns I can expect would have been helpful though.

[R.and.R.]

Excellent walkthrough Jessica! I don't currently use a robo-advisor but it's nice to see how it all works.

[sic-madeairbrushing]

How do I opt out of Digital Advisor. Or how do I change what to invest in. I'm not a fan of this, I have had Vanguard digital advisor for my Roth IRA for a couple years and seen no gains and only losses. Thanks for the video.

[jamesyu]

You can lower your fees by 50% by just selecting a Vanguard Target Date fund, which uses the same underlying investment vehicles. And you have more choices and control of your investments in Vanguards own Target Date Funds. I don't understand why you did not point this out in your review.

[akin]

I like Schwab and Wealthfront among the list of robo-advisors. All focus on safe diverse growth, but a simple 2-fund portfolio outperforms with similar diversity and lower net expense ratio. See the ETF examples below.

- 80% VTI and 20% VXUS
- 80% ITOT and 20% IXUS
- 80% SCHB and 20% SCHF

[snow]

Thank you for explain the digital advisor...I am wondering is Vanguard the best place for an actual advisor...I have my accounts with them but to see if I am in position to retire sooner than later..I dont know if digital advisor can help me determine this.

[MikeS-fdbd]

Good videer! Do you have to allocate cash to all 4 positions in the Vanguard Digital Advisor or can you tailor your choices?

[_RubenTrevino_]

once your money is in an account like this, and you hit your goals and/or the time goal you wanted to invest the money, what is the process like to get your money out and actually be able to use it? does vanguard offer perks on loans or other products if you use their robe advisor?

[azulu]

You're awesome, thanks for explaining everything and making this an easier to understand. I will now be definitely investing with digital advisor.

[taloweryus]

Based on your review, I tried Vanguard Digital Advisor. I honestly can't recommend it to any but the most patient investor. I'm pretty tech savvy, but it took me over an hour bouncing between different people in their tech support department, and two different browsers (chrome and firefox) just to open and fund my account. Their website is WAAAAY glitchy. Some of the features are known not to work (according to tech support). Also, the system is really only set up for retirement accounts, even though it gives you the choice of account type. The allocation is designed to change over time (they call it Glidepath), even if you don't want it to. Overall, I was pretty disappointed with my experience. So, with respect, I'll have to disagree with your positive rating.

[mgmatiasek]

I saw that vanguard digital advisor now offers tax loss harvesting. Can you consider reviewing that feature in a video

[BrianBurwell]

Now that Vanguard allows dollar based trading of its ETFs, you may want to do a comparison to a self-directed account compared to its robo advisor. I think they started allowing this in late 2021, at least for some people. I only just noticed this a couple of nights ago, because I had some other non vanguard funds that I wanted to buy, and only recently was about to buy another share of a vanguard fund. I did have to wait until the morning to verify I could buy a fraction of a share based on how much money I wanted to invest, but I could do that now. It does seem to be limited to vanguard ETFs though. I did try it with another one, but I only had the option to buy whole shares. You may want to go over the benefits of using this feature to grow your portfolio compared to investing into vanguard's equivalent mutual funds or even using this to grow your portfolio until you can trade the ETFs to buy into the mutual fund given most have a minimum investment of at least $3, 000.

[qbnetrix]

If vanguard robo advisor invests in only those four funds then you can do that yourself without paying the 0.2% fee. Most of the vanguard retirement funds and Life strategy funds uses those four funds with various proportions.

[Velvels]

Thanks for great videos. Can you review Betterment as well, please? What I find interesting is that according The Robo Report only four robo funds kept us with the market. So fee is important but so is performance.

[mrinalchanshetty]

How does adding funds to your account work? I am considering using robo advisor and plan to contribute a certain amount per month.

[kicc]

Dp they hold a % in cash? What it is. Tranfers from bank to account options?

[markharburg]

What are your thoughts on M1 Finance? Can you do a review of that comparing betterment?

[chrd]

If you connect external accounts will the tool take those accounts into consideration when making projections? Also can you see the asset allocation of each account or does the tool assume a single asset allocation over all accounts?

[ralithousand]

This was very informative! I currently contribute to an employer 401K plan for retirement, and I am looking for shorter term investments for short term goals. Would you recommend Vanguard or any of their products for that type of investing?