Introduction & A question regarding seeking financial advice

[xclonexclonex]

Hello everyone,

I stumbled on to this community while looking for blogs and communities of people sharing their financial experiences and wisdom. I am at a point in my life where I need to start thinking about long term finances and my goals in life.

As someone who has no clue on how to begin this process, I thought some research was needed. Unfortunately my parents & in laws are not the kind of people to seek financial advice from (as wonderful as they are, they are just not financially smart).

So, hopefully I will get to learn from you all, and perhaps in the future I can contribute to this community as well.

Now, here is my question I have been wanting to ask you all.

I am seriously considering seeking professional advice from a financial planner, who agreed to look over our current financial situation, and recommend a savings plan. She would hold a 30 minute meeting on skype and go over the details of it. Its going to cost me $30.

Should I go for it?

Thanks for your advice.

[lorraineb]

What I would do is lay out all the information that you have about your finances here and let us make suggestions. Then you should do the financial planner and see if her advice corresponds to the advice that the members here give. Anything that is different you can bring back here and get more opinions and by the end you should have a pretty solid plan moving forward at a cost of only $30.

You could also do it for free just by asking the members here as I believe that most give pretty solid advice, but I also don't think it hurts to get various opinions while you are learning the process.

[xclonexclonex]

What I would do is lay out all the information that you have about your finances here and let us make suggestions. Then you should do the financial planner and see if her advice corresponds to the advice that the members here give. Anything that is different you can bring back here and get more opinions and by the end you should have a pretty solid plan moving forward at a cost of only $30.

You could also do it for free just by asking the members here as I believe that most give pretty solid advice, but I also don't think it hurts to get various opinions while you are learning the process.

thank you very much. I am going to do just that. I will make a summary page about my finances, and then I will outline my long term and short term goals. Those with more insight into finances can lend their opinion after seeing all the information.

Thanks for your response.

[bjl584]

Include age, assets, debts, and a detailed as possible budget.

[feh]

I am seriously considering seeking professional advice from a financial planner, who agreed to look over our current financial situation, and recommend a savings plan. She would hold a 30 minute meeting on skype and go over the details of it. Its going to cost me $30.

Should I go for it?

I wouldn't. Assuming you don't have any unusual or complicated financial problems, you can get plenty of advice from folks here for free.

Post your questions.

[moneysma]

I agree with compiling your list of questions and posting it here for everyone to discuss. Of course, we would need detailed info as mentioned above.

The only thing that would concern me is that the cost will probably be more than $30. In many cases, when you are first meeting with a client or planner, you are there for a good hour to two hours going over things. You could easily spend the 30 minutes on one thing and not address everything else.

[jIM_Ohio]

30 minutes will not be enough time... because most advice planners is give is ongoing information.

I would first focus on goal setting
Then I would focus on creating a budget to fund the goals you have

Then I would focus on constraints within your situation- this is the value a planner brings- dealing with taxes, investment options and choices to work around some constraints.