Free financial planning?
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Many stock brokerage firms, mutual funds, banks, and insurance brokers will be happy to provide you with such free services. They do so in the hope that you will take their advice, which typically includes making investments of the type they sell.
Insurance brokers will tell you that the first thing you have to do is buy a life insurance policy with a built-in savings feature. They make big commissions on such policies, although the best insurance is term life insurance on which the commission is small because the insurance is cheap.
A stock broker will give you a list of stocks or mutual funds in which to invest. The funds are those the broker sells and that have an up front commission for the broker, although there may be many other funds that do not have an up front charge and may be more suitable for you.
This does not mean that all the advice will be bad, but you should be careful about accepting free advice. The adviser is taking his time to help you, and has to earn an income. To get the most objective advice, you need to find an independent financial planner and pay his fee
Let's see. You want to be rich, but are clueless about how to get there. You want top quality advice from a professional, but are unwilling to pay a dime for his or her knowledge and experience. Yes, you definitely sound like a Kiyosaki fan to me.
You will not find a financial planner that will give you a “free” plan unless they are new to the business, or are desperate for a client. Those people you shouldn’t be taking advice from anyways. I only meet with people that are liquid over 500K, and I will charge $100 for a financial plan. I have two meetings with the prospect, and I will make the proposal on the third meeting. The first two are just to find out information, and see if I would want to work with them, and before the third I develop the proposal. Just remember, you get what you pay for! There is a reason why people drive Porsches and not Hondas. If you want a cheap financial plan, get ready to lose money, or get lucky. Don’t be cheap when it comes to your finances, you worked hard for you money, let you money work for you.
I charge 1 to 2 percent of assets under management per year. Most people think about stocks and they are “transactional” and mutual funds with front or back end loads. When it is a flat fee, trading is not an issue. I would find a financial planner (with CFP) and let them handle it for you.
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