What a Financial Consultant Does and Why You Need One

First things first: what is a financial consultant? A financial consultant provides personal finance advice and guidance to help individuals meet their goals and overcome obstacles along the way.

What is a Financial Consultant?

The difference between financial advisors and financial consultants isn’t the only important aspect to be aware of when you start looking to hire a financial consultant or advisor. Even within the same category, not all financial professionals are made equal!

Financial consultants (and advisors) can have different specializations, meaning they’re better equipped to help with some needs more than others.

What Do Financial Consultants Do? financial consultants can certainly help with planning and making investments, they don’t tend to deal with the finer details of complicated portfolio management and analysis.

Tasks financial consultants help with include: – Analyzing your personal assets and liabilities – Buying and selling investments – Giving recommendations on insurance policies – Making plans to help you reach specific financial goals – Creating budgets – Liaising with other financial professionals

How Can Financial Consultants Help You? It’s a great time to bring a financial consultant on board to help you plan everything properly, especially if you’ve been through job changes and have multiple investment accounts and retirement plans that you can barely keep track of them all.

How to Find a Financial Consultant You’ll find directories for financial advisors and coaches, plus hundreds of personal finance blogs and podcasts worth exploring.

Online vs. in-Person When it comes to making such huge decisions about their finances, most people would prefer to meet someone in person to advise them. This is a great way to develop a relationship and build trust.

Financial Coaches A financial coach will focus on your day-to-day money habits like budgeting, debt, and saving to help you identify which habits need to change to reach your bigger goals, then supports you while you work toward that change.

Robo-Advisors If your budget is limited, a final option you might want to consider is using a robo-advisor: an automated tool that offers investment and financial advice, usually via an app or online platform. For instance, Betterment is a dedicated platform for retirement help, and even Vanguard has its own Digital Advisor feature.

Get the Help You Need If you’re not used to paying for financial services, the idea of spending money to hire a financial consultant might seem indulgent. Maybe you feel guilty about it.

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