Why You Need A Fiduciary Financial Planner To Protect Your Future Wealth

A financial planner is a professionally-qualified advisor, offering recommendations and advice to individuals and companies on how to save and invest their money, in order to grow it. Financial planning is very important in making sure you have enough money now and in the future.

Think about what you want

To get started you need to establish your goals. Do you want to buy a house, start saving for a mortgage, or do something else entirely? Have you just come into a sum of money, or have you had a life-changing event like a divorce? Financial planning can help you make the next decisions. Remember though, your planner can’t make you an instant millionaire. A good financial planner will be realistic for the long term and won’t promise to ‘beat the market’ or anything else like that.

Finding a financial planner

Research advisors in your area. When you have a shortlist, meet the advisors – you don’t have to commit to anything at this point. Make sure you feel comfortable with them and find out how they get paid exactly. If they are on commission and you intend to buy a product, make sure they are willing to tell you how much commission they earn. This is important so you understand their vested interests. It might even be better to choose an advisor that’s paid hourly or on a portfolio percentage. Look out for NAPFA (National Association of Personal Financial Advisors) as these planners are fee-only and don’t accept any commissions. The Garrett Planning Network is another where the planners work for an hourly fee for at least some of their time. It’s also a good idea to check the company’s Form ADV (their official registration) at sec.gov.

Qualifications

Make sure the advisor you like is a fiduciary, which means they are ethically and legally bound to represent your interests – you can even ask them to sign something to this effect! Also make sure they have ‘CFP’ after their name – while there are lots of fancy letters in the financial planning industry, these are possibly the most important. They mean ‘certified financial planner,’ a qualification from the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards. While it doesn’t guarantee your advisor is the right one for you, it’s a good start.