It’s a common question we get asked a lot. ‘Why do I need a financial advisor?’ And it certainly isn’t a question without merit. Our industry has had a few bad apples that have made national news since the 2009 Financial Crisis. With household names as Madoff, Sanford, and Parrish, among others, we too can understand why you would hesitate to trust another person with your money.
3 Reasons why we believe you need a financial advisor.
Reason One: You don’t know what you don’t know, until you know it.
There are a lot of mistakes we all make with how we manage our daily wallets and these financial mistakes usually aren’t made on purpose. I commonly say, “you don’t know what you don’t know until you know it.” Why do I need a financial advisor? A Financial Advisor can help you learn new methods of the financial world that you haven’t learned yet. You go about your day with a common goal to earn more, spend less, and make life better for your family and others that you love. But there may be financial concepts that you just don’t know because life is an educational journey; one in which you are constantly learning. A Johns Island Financial Advisor can be your financial educator to help teach you how to manage your money with your long-term, best interests in mind. It’s really easy to get lost in the tiny transactions of life and lose the big picture of how your daily habits add up and affect your much larger financial goals. With a financial advisor by your side, you have a resource you can use to help you make more informed financial decisions.
Reason Two: Advice on Managing Investment Allocations and Risk Tolerance, Specific to You.
If you’re like most people, you’ve been told that your biggest assets are your home and your retirement plan (401k, 403b, etc.) at work. While these are big and important, we believe your biggest asset is your future earnings potential. This assets is like the hammer of your financial tool box; it’ll likely be the most used component in your financial projects. How you allocate your earnings, meaning where and how much you spend, how you choose to invest in a particular security, mutual fund, ETF, stock, bond, etc. has a dramatic effect on the possible outcomes of your financial life. Why do I need a financial advisor? A financial advisor can help show you the long-term effects of your financial choices through the development of a financial plan and investment strategy that’s appropriate for your tolerance for risk. The investment advisory world is highly technical, complicated, and involves great risk, up to and including the loss of 100% of your hard-earned money. We believe you shouldn’t leave the results to chance and should develop your own plan. Over the years, many people have tried to simplify it through crafty rules of thumb, but the reality is that financial advice is only good for one person at a time; it has to be tailored directly to you and your specific situation.
Reason Three: Your Time is a Precious Resource.
A long time ago, someone decided that there would be 24 hours each day. And it’s time you start believing that your time, just like your money, is a precious resource. You only have a limited amount of it. The financial world is full of IRS rules, financial data, expense ratios, risk, and numerous other often confusing and complicated concepts…and the worst part, they are constantly changing. It’s a full-time job just keeping up with it all! As your wealth grows, your life doesn’t get simpler like most people think, it gets more complex. Why do I need a financial advisor? A Financial Advisor has the tools and methods available to help you manage your financial life and limit the amount of time you spend on it. A small investment into a fee based financial advisor cost could save you a lot of time that could be spent doing activities that you actually enjoy. Afterall, we believe true wealth are the memories we build with the people that we love.
We work with our clients to define their long-term financial goals and then build action-based savings and investment strategies to help them accomplish those goals. Our financial planning process has helped others and we believe we can help you too. We have a fiduciary duty to our clients. This means we must do what is in your best interests, regardless of our own interests.
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