According to a 2019 study by CNBC, the Invest in You survey, only 1 percent of those who answered said they use a financial advisor. So what about the other 99 percent? Nope. No advisor. Are you part of the tiny 1 percent who has a financial advisor?
For those 99 percent that answered no, they said they either do their personal finances themselves or their spouse or partner does it. Several people commented that doing finances online was easier (especially with the help of certain programs and apps), so they didn’t have the need for an advisor.
Do you have a personal financial advisor or not? Please tell us in the poll below. As always, thank you for voting.
Yes, we have a financial advisor. We’ve had one for many years. It started with a retirement fund payout. We didn’t know how to invest it wisely. Most recently we sold our business and again asked for advise. We are now fully retired. Getting a financial advisor with a reputable company was a very good move.
My mother, on the other hand, was adamant that she could invest on her own. Well into her 80’s she lost thousands of dollars and got into some high risk funds. It got to the point where I took her to our advisor. He gave us good advise. He manages her portfolio which is rock solid now.
We don’t have an individual financial adviser in his own office, but we DO have a guy at Fidelity who we deal with. I’m thinking that puts us in the “Yes” category.
I answered no but in reality I do have a wife…
I’m not saying my financial adviser is bad at his job…
…but when I went into his office and asked him to check my balance,
he tried to push me over
I do my own work. Buy and Hold is working very well for us. Have never had a “loss” year, but the Obama years were horrible. I expect the Biden years to be as bad.
We couldnt be happier with our financial advisor. He works on commission, so he only makes money when we make money giving him incentive to make the best decisions for us. Our only regret is that we didnt start working with him earlier in our lives. We also use a CPA that we worked with when I was self employed. Both professionals paid for themselves over and over again. We try to encourage our kids to do now what we waited until later to do, but the response is that they will get to it later. Even our wills are written to suggest that.
If you read the article, it sounds like you mean someone to pay the bills, etc. But in my mind a financial advisor is an investment councilor. I think this is the way most would answer this question, as did I.
Agreed!
We do have a financial advisor. Once I retired I could not figure out what to do with money held in a couple of accounts from a previous employer. The more I investigated what to do, the more confused I became. We had taken a class at a local college on retirement and how much do we need to retire. The organization holding the class was very helpful, so we called and they are now our financial advisors and we couldn’t be happier!! Regarding all of our bills (all four of them every month), they are on auto pay and we get email notifications when they are paid.
I had managed an investment trust for a non-profit years ago and knew the effort it would take to give solid care to our own funds when we retired. That prompted us to decide to use an advisor so we could spend more time playing during retirement vs. me pouring over prospectus docs and investment updates on a too frequent basis. Our advisor is doing a great job and we’ve never regretted the decision!
I have a Financial Planner as opposed to a Financial Advisor. The biggest difference is a Financial Planner has a Fiduciary Responsibility to the client. Prevents “churning” and other dubious practices.
Same here .. The fiduciary responsibility is a huge deal for us.
We use a lot of short term annuities that guarantee a steady income stream. I’d rather ride my ebike, hike or fish than sit around my computer or phone all day chasing the highs and lows. Wouldn’t have known about them w/o the planner. We are very low risk-tolerant.
My wife always gives me advice on whether I should or shouldn’t spend our money.
My personal financial advisor is my wife
ditto
The IRS in my case
We have a good and trusting relationship with our advisor
Over the past ten years he has provided excellent service, regular updates and is always responsive.
We, too, have a planner versus an advisor. She gives me peace of mind every time we go see her. I’d be going stir crazy without that.
We’re pretty sure that we can figure out how to spend our money without someone else’s input that cost money.
Right on! Our plan has always been to save as much as possible, buy only things we really need, use credit cards sparingly, pay them off every month, don’t go into debt for anything other than a house and sometimes a vehicle. If you don’t have the cash to pay for something, do without or save up for it. Who needs a financial planner for that? Maybe if we had enough money to invest in stocks, we might need advice, but we’ve never had that much money.
No. Simple life makes for simple needs. Finance and budget degrees leading to two government pensions. Roth and IRA contributions for 40 years to Vanguard S&P500 index funds – now all in Roth IRAs. Constant dollar cost averaging over that time frame – magic. Averaged 8%+/year without paying someone to hold my hand. Good ’nuff. Now, just ridin’ the wave!
Sounds pretty much like our MO. Have never paid for financial advice and doing well with all the free, sound investment principles we’ve learned over the years.
Yes, but not a paid one..My husband does ours and does quite well..
A financial advisor handles 63.7% of our investable assets. I handle the rest.
technically, yes but i’ve been at the helm of our wealth-building ship since we started investing in 1982. i read, listened to experts but made my own decisions after discussing with my wife. we did consult a fee-only FA two years ago for a second opinion. we’ve done very well. no regrets other than we should’ve started a lot earlier…we were married in 1970.
Judging by the response so far, most RVers have a lot more money than I do.
I sure do. It’s called the wife.
Financial planner, financial advisor, CPA. Poll again needed more categories.
We have a financial advisor so I can spend more time enjoying the life we have planned for over the years.
Yes and Sandy lets me know it every day that is her most important job in our relationship.
Who can afford to invest (outside of a 401k)?
Who can’t?
I can go broke just fine by myself.
Yes!
Have an advisor. Personal????? Not very.
Personal finance adviser = wife….grin.