Some people wonder if they need a financial advisor or not. But instead of explaining why you might need one, it’s sometimes easier to explain the reasons that you don’t…
1) You’ve mastered internet research.
You’re not at all intimidated by a Google search that yields 3.4 million results on your financial search topic. You know exactly how to tell which of those 3.4 million items are trustworthy and which ones are complete BS. An advisor would make this too simple.
2) You’re self-motivated.
Your diet is flawless, your exercise regime comes naturally to you, and you’ve never once procrastinated a project at home or at work. If you’re that self-motivated in all areas of your life, it’s reasonable to expect that your financial discipline is flawless too and wouldn’t benefit from any coaching.
3) You have nothing but time on your hands.
You have very little happening in your life, so you can devote several hours a week to learning about the financial world and creating a plan for yourself, and plenty of time on an ongoing basis to research investments and make trades to keep yourself on track.
4) You want to work until you die.
You’re planning to work until at least age 90, if not longer. You’ll always have a paycheck coming in, so your retirement savings are largely irrelevant because you won’t ever need them for retirement income.
5) You want to rely on the government for support.
You’ve paid taxes your entire life and now you want some of it back. The best way to do this is to spend through all of your money so that you’re destitute and have to go on Medicaid and food stamps in your later years. A financial advisor would ruin this plan.
6) You hope your kids get nothing.
You hate your kids. They’ve always been ungrateful brats and it would actually make you happy to run out of money a couple of years before you die because you’d have the smug satisfaction of knowing that they wouldn’t inherit anything from you.
7) Paying taxes makes you gleeful.
You embrace your patriotism strongly and it fills you with nationalistic pride to pay more taxes that you have to pay. You believe the government is a paragon of financial stewardship and trust them to handle your wealth better than you could yourself.
If two or more of these describe you perfectly, there’s a good chance that you don’t need a financial advisor. Don’t waste your time or theirs!