Financial advice isn’t hard to find. You can be standing in line at the bank, and you might overhear someone spout a few words of financial wisdom. You might meet someone at a party who claims to have the best financial tips around. Maybe you’re playing golf with your buddy who knows a financial advisor, and they decide to share some advice with you. Of course, there are also tons of online videos explaining what you need to do to get your finances in check, and even more articles boasting the keys to financial security.
While it’s easy to find financial advice, finding good financial advice is a little more challenging. It’s not that the tips from a stranger at the bank or your friend on the green aren’t good, but it might not be right financial advice for you.
It’s possible some of those financial tips could prove useful for your specific situation, but you don’t know with any certainty whether that advice will help you or harm you. Everyone has their own unique financial goals, and therefore, their own unique financial needs. What works for your golfing partner or a stranger at the bank might not work for you.
Let’s suppose that you get extremely lucky, and that nugget of financial advice you heard at the bank proved to be useful to you. Well, what’s next? Are you going to linger around that bank for the rest of your life, waiting to overhear what you should do next? Your financial security can’t be ensured by one single piece of financial advice. Managing your finances is an ongoing process. You have to consider the long term.
You can’t trust just anyone’s financial advice. Developing a good, effective financial plan relies oninteraction between you and a financial advisor. Together you can work towards a financial plan that is custom fit to your exact financial goals and needs. In theory, you could get lucky and maybe follow financial advice from strangers, and everything would be OK. But if you want to know that your financial future is secure, you have to meet with a knowledgeable financial professional.
