Why use a financial planner?

We won’t try to tell you that without the services of a professional financial planner you’ll be likely to end up living in a cardboard box. However, without the services of a professional financial planner, it is likely that you’ll:

• miss opportunities to maximize the dollars you’ll have for your retirement years
• waste many thousands of dollars in inappropriate investments
• not be fully prepared for the possibility of a catastrophic illness or accident
• allow the government to take a lot more of your hard-earned dollars than they are entitled to (it’s bad enough that this happens when you’re alive, but it’s even more likely to happen when you die)

Why use a "fee-only" financial planner?

Imagine that you’re a hot dog salesman and that you sell several different brands of hot dogs. While you’re at it, imagine that you make twenty-five cents for every package of Wonder Wiener hot dogs you sell compared to making ten cents for each package of the other brands you sell. Now which brand are you going to put the most effort into promoting? Obviously you’ll try to sell more Wonder Wieners.

The same thing happens with financial planning services. An "advisor" makes a great commission when he/she recommends Wonder Wiener life insurance versus a mediocre commission on another brand of life insurance. Even the most honest, integrity-filled "advisor" could lose track of the fact that Wonder Wiener insurance is not in his/her client’s best interest.

Dealing with a fee-only financial planner eliminates this conflict of interest. The fee-only financial planner makes no commissions from the sale of investments recommended to the client.

Why use Financial Decision Partners?

Once upon a time, American consumers basically had 2 options for obtaining financial planning services (actually, there were 3 options if you count the financial advice that your brother-in-law, the cab driver, was always eager to give).

1. You could obtain the services of a fee-only financial planner, but usually only if you had a net worth of at least $500,000.
2. You could obtain financial planning services from someone who makes commissions from the sale of insurance products and from the investment transactions that they recommend. As discussed in the previous section, this advice might not be objective, and hence, might be in the best interest of the "advisor" rather than in your best interest.

Financial Decision Partners aims to give consumers another option. We focus on providing affordable, objective financial planning to clients who have a desire to learn and execute their own plans. We do not make commissions on ANY of the investment recommendations we give. This ensures that our advice is always objective and in our clients' best interest.