I am looking for a low-cost / low fee investment strategy for a modest ($75K) trust. I am only allowed to distribute the income of the trust to the beneficiary and cannot dip into the trust's corpus (principle).
Therefore, my goal is to maximize the income for the beneficiary and minimize all transactional costs or advisory fees since they must be deducted from the trust's income.
I want to avoid alternative investments, such as REITS, that would have high sales loads and/or be illiquid. Additionally, I would describe myself as a moderately sophisticated investor and put a high value on ease of use as I have a full-time day job.
The trust portfolio will have a moderate-speculative risk profile. I was considering using a rob-advisory services such as Wealthfront.com or Betterment.com for their ease of use, re-balancing, lower fees, tax loss-harvesting, etc.
Does anyone have experience with the performance with these services on trust accounts?
What about getting some no-load funds on a discount brokerage platform like (Fidelity or Vanguard)? Not as easy to use but maybe better returns?
Also, I am in the United States and the Trust is in New York State.
Some background on the trust:
My day job is a lawyer and the trust is for a disabled family member. When the beneficiary dies, the money is distributed to the beneficiary's siblings that are still alive.
I'm comfortable in administering the trust; just not picking the investments. I am willing to take a little extra risk to get a higher return; however, I don't want to stray too far from ETFs, mutual funds, large cap stocks, or other securities because I need liquidity to distribute the funds should my family member pass.