Comments on: Ask Unclutterer: Swimming in financial prospectuses

By: john

john — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 15:43:56 +0000

helpful with the prospectus books; thanks…. .good work

By: allen

allen — Tue, 26 May 2009 15:40:26 +0000

I know that some places have started to charge you if you DO NOT get them via email/look them up on their site. Of course, most of them don’t TELL you they’re going to start charging you, either…

So, for the earth, for your living room, for your WALLET, move over to electronic.

By: Jay

Jay — Tue, 19 May 2009 02:56:09 +0000

If you are interested in the information in the prospectus, read or skim the document. Otherwise, throw it away.

When I was younger, I read through the prospectuses and NEVER found anything useful. Mildly interesting perhaps, but not useful.

To me, the information in these documents can create mental clutter.

By: Leslie Hope

Leslie Hope — Sat, 16 May 2009 21:05:15 +0000

Carol, Eeeek! Thirty funds is waaaay too many. Even six or eight is pushing it. Keep in mind that you are paying annual fees for each one of those funds and they will cut into your returns over the long haul. More of an issue, it is very difficult to keep up with performance on 30 funds. For extreme simplicity you could even consolidate them down to two by using total market index funds for US and international stocks. If you have a broker, he is probably making a killing off you.

By: Kristi Wachter

Kristi Wachter — Sat, 16 May 2009 18:40:00 +0000

Another way to locate the PDF is to look for a document ID code on the paper copy. For example, on the Vanguard S&P 500 Index Fund prospectus, on the bottom of the last page, there’s this:

P040 042009

If you go to Google and type in

Vanguard P040 042009

you get a direct link to the PDF. You can download it and ditch the paper copy.

By: Leslie Hope

Leslie Hope — Sat, 16 May 2009 14:09:40 +0000

Toss ‘em. All the information is available online. I don’t even open ‘em. Mailbox>>recycling bin. I’ve uncluttered my life by investing only in Vanguard funds, so everything is in one place. Vanguard has a wonderful website that I can use to find out whatever I need to know. The phone support is also good.It also saves me from being ripped off by the Bernie Madoff juniors out there.

By: Carol

Carol — Fri, 15 May 2009 22:35:46 +0000

I have three different retirement funds with maybe 30 different investments that send out all sorts of reports and annual prospectuses. Most of these things are huge. I found I can look up all the information I’m capable of understanding online.

Reports get tossed immediately. Any paperwork with personal information gets shredded. Unfortuantely recycling seems to be almost non-existant where I live.

I’ve been keeping the prospectuses in my filing cabinet and tossing the old ones whenever I get a new one. It’s not totally uncluttered but it could be much worse. I’m definitely going to see about getting these on-line. At least my e-mail clutter takes up less space.

By: Pat

Pat — Fri, 15 May 2009 21:57:03 +0000

Once I have read them (and you should read them BEFORE you invest) I put them in the recycle bin. Why keep them?

By: Erin Doland

Erin Doland — Fri, 15 May 2009 19:42:41 +0000

@Louise — 60 pages?! Whoa. I had no idea they could be that big. All the ones I’ve encountered are usually ten pages total (five scans). Definitely do an SEC search for the big ones. That is ridiculous!

By: Louise

Louise — Fri, 15 May 2009 19:11:48 +0000

We don’t keep ANY prospectuses (prospecti?) in ANY form. The document should help you decide whether to begin, continue, or stop investing in the fund. Once that decision has been made, toss the document.

If you keep such meticulous records that you want lasting documentation about those decisions, then remove just that part of the prospectus that clinched it for you and save that page. Chances are, it is a single sentence or one chart.

If you tell me that the entire 60 page booklet convinced you, then what are you doing reading blogs? You should be solving the world’s financial crisis!

By: Brandon

Brandon — Fri, 15 May 2009 19:06:03 +0000

Can’t you just get all of that information electronically? I do.

By: Dangerman

Dangerman — Fri, 15 May 2009 18:51:24 +0000

“two of my five didn’t appear in the search.”

If they’re US mutual funds, then they’re legally obligated to be in EDGAR. It’s not always easy to get exactly what you want, but its in there.

“one that appeared didn’t go back as far as I’ve been investing in it. ”

That can certainly be true. EDGAR goes to 1995, I believe.

However, the prospectus doesn’t actually tell you anything of value if you are a normal personal investor. Any mutual fund can stray far away from what is described in the mutual fund (see, for example, http://www.kiplinger.com/magaz.....kipad_id=5). So there really isn’t any reason to keep even one prospectus, let alone one that is more than 14 years old.

By: Erin Doland

Erin Doland — Fri, 15 May 2009 18:21:04 +0000

@Dangerman — Great link! But, two of my five didn’t appear in the search. And, one that appeared didn’t go back as far as I’ve been investing in it. This seems to be a great service if ALL of your data is in their database.

By: Dangerman

Dangerman — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:40:26 +0000

“when I say “keep,” I mean pull out the staples, scan the document, save it as a PDF on your computer’s hard drive”

No.

Like everything else these days, you can get any mutual fund prospectus on this thing called “the internet.” I hear they have “the internet” on computers now.

See:
http://www.sec.gov/edgar/searc.....pectus.htm

By: Rehan

Rehan — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:31:40 +0000

For index funds, I don’t think there’s any point in reading anything in the prospectus because their methodology is fairly clear and doesn’t change over time.

If you’re not reading them within a day or two, what’s the chance that you’re ever going to read them anyway? As someone said, there’s nothing personal in these things, just toss them after you’ve read as much as you’re ever going to.