All in all though, if you can find a good adviser you can trust, I think you’d be in good hands.

Maybe the best route is to go with an independent FP, one who works on a flat annual fee. Taking away the FP’s trading will eliminate the commissions and the financial distortions they cause. Also, if the FP is paid on a flat fee he’ll be more interested in the performance of your investments. After all, if you have to write a flat fee check once a year, you’ll be able to compare his fee with the returns his recommendations produced. If the performance isn’t good, you might not invite him back for another year, which he’ll be well aware of.

@Matt – Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this too Matt! Esp. coming from another person who’s been in it, and went on their own like that. Good for you, bro.
@Babs – Nice! I’m a big fan of paying someone money when they MAKE me money ;) I’ll pay thousands if they’re making me hundreds of thousands! Haha… true you gotta pay attention to where you go, and who you select though – it’s never a black and white choice.
@Jaime – Agreed!! (and yeah, didn’t write this but I wish I did! haha…) I think I read that NY Times article too – pretty crazy. Though saving “too much” is way better than SPENDING too much at least ;)
@DebtTips – Yup, sales is a whole crazy bag of tricks. Unless you’re actually GOOD and can genuinely give the customers what they need and they keep coming back cuz they trust you. I always figured that *that* would bring in way more sales than one-time bonuses for selling them something wrong in the first place. Repeat customers are always better than one-offs.
@Emily – Interesting… agree on starting in the 20s, but neat to see you’d go w/out the planner. Thanks for sharing :)
@Edward Antrobus – Good point!
@cashflowmantra – Haha, totally. And same goes for your career and life, in general, too! Except for maybe our moms :) They’re always looking out for us, haha…
@Ten Bob – That’s f’d up man, good for your friend. People can turn into monsters when it comes to money and their own self-interests, makes this world worse off. And it’s not that easy to just leave a job for it either, so tell your friend I highly respect him!
@Johanna @ Betterment – No hidden costs are nice ;) I’ll have to check it out in a bit.
@Jeff Reed – I was wondering when we’d get a comment like this! Haha… love it, thanks for stopping by and sharing :) No ranting at all, you have a fair and valid point there my friend. There are DEF some excellent advisors out there with consciences! And glad to hear you’re one of them (and are willing to stand up for them and say so!). I didn’t write up this post – it came from an insider at one of these large institutions – but I think the overall point of “be careful!” shined through here. Which was why I was more than happy to post it.

I left a firm because they recruited me saying: “You don’t have to sell proprietary products. You can offer clients anything you feel confident will serve your clients.” That didn’t last long when I went outside for a majority of the investments I used. I recruited my next broker-dealer and am in a franchise advisory group with national broker-dealer. I am my own boss and therefore get to do what I believe is in my clients’ best interest.

The cornerstone of these relationships is planning. I help them plan for the certainty of uncertainty. If someone was about to retire in 2008 but had to keep working because their 401k got hammered they will never quibble over the fee I charge to do a comprehensive financial plan for them. They now know that the cost of not planning is far more than they imagined.

I think this post was informative for many readers. However, the next time you pull the broad brush out to paint a picture, consider leaving some room to talk about how some people do it the correct way. Thanks for letting me rant.

@cashflowmantra – amen to that!

So that would be my advice. If you are uncertain on how straight shooting your advisor is, ask him what his commission would be if you bought whatever he was advising. If he won’t tell you, than that should tell you enough right there. If he does, figure out whose making more money out of the deal, him or you.