Let's talk about how the custodians of your investment accounts actually make money in this

the 158th episode of the Retirement Planning Education Podcast.

Welcome to the Retirement Planning Education Podcast, where you can learn all about IRAs and

Roth IRAs, employer retirement plans, taxes, social security, Medicare, portfolio withdrawal

strategies, annuities, estate planning, and much more. And now here's your host, Andy Panko.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back. Thank you, as always for listening. It is July 3rd, 2025,

the day this episode first comes out. So happy 4th of July. Well, I guess one day

early, Fourth of July for all of those you who listen to this as soon as it comes out or shortly

thereafter. Today's episode, a little different, not retirement specific, but I thought it was

interesting. It's a question I get asked a handful of times in

from clients or potential clients in my business and also just otherwise. I see questions like

this floating around the message boards, Facebook groups, whatever. How do custodians actually

make money? Where by custodian, I mean the likes of Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab,

the places where you hold your investment accounts are custodians, and I'll get into that

a little bit.

Generally speaking, you often don't pay anything directly to have a custodian or use a

custodian, even if you use, whether you're a DIY or you go through an advisor, there is

often generally not any outright explicit

fees for the privilege of having your accounts at Vanguard, Fangard, Fagard, Fidelity Schwab or

whatever. But I will, I'll explain more about how they actually make money and what to look out

for and how you can alter, potentially alter your trading activity, your patterns, your cash holding activities

or habits to maximize what you get or keep from your custodian and therefore try to, in effect,

...