Is Financial Advice Worth Paying For?
The value of financial advice has always been difficult to quantify, leading many to wonder whether paying for it is worth it.
On the surface, spending money to save, grow, and make the most of your capital can seem counterproductive. After all, wouldn’t it be better to direct it into investments or a savings account?
However, people pay for financial advice for a reason. It has financial value and the peace of mind it provides, helping to reassure people that they’re making the best financial decisions for themselves (and those who depend on them).
With this in mind, here are five ways paying for financial advice can benefit your financial situation.
It helps you to reach your financial goals.
For most people, reaching their financial goals (as soon as possible) ranks high among their priorities.
After all, achieving these goals can considerably impact your life, whether that’s because you were able to purchase a home, pay for your children’s education, or save up the capital you need to start your own business.
Seeking advice from a financial professional can help you achieve these goals as quickly and responsibly as possible. With their knowledge and experience, financial advisors can assess how you can reach your financial goals – taking into account your unique financial situation – and devise a plan to get you there.
Ensures you make smart investment decisions.
One of the best financial moves you can make is to start investing. People who invest their money are significantly wealthier than those who put their capital in a savings account.
However, with the potential to make money, there’s also the potential to lose it – and bad investment decisions can severely blow your financial position.
If you have no idea where to begin with investing or even if you’re pretty clued up and want to be able to access the opinions and judgements of someone ‘in the know’ – then getting professional financial advice can be an economic power move.
Financial advice can help you to make the most lucrative investments, advise you of when to exit or whether the investments you already have, and help you to diversify your investment portfolio to minimise risk and maximise your financial gain.
Provides access to superior financial products.
In addition to helping you make the best investment decisions, financial professionals can often also provide access to superior financial products – including investments – that otherwise wouldn’t be available to you (or the rest of the public).
Through their connections in the financial world, financial advisors can access lucrative financial products to offer their clients that have the potential to add value to their financial situation.
It helps to secure your future.
You might have an idea of where you’d like to be financially, but without receiving advice from a financial professional – or creating a plan to detail how you’ll get there – this vision likely won’t come to fruition.
Planning for your financial future is tricky, especially when you have to plan for decades.
In particular, aspects of your future such as retirement – in which you’ll need to be able to support yourself in the life you plan to lead without an income. The choices you make now can significantly impact whether you accomplish this.
Working with a financial professional to determine the feasibility of your financial hopes for the future. In addition to figuring out any changes you need to make to help bring this future about, it can be the difference between saving for a future you barely scrape by or living out your golden years in luxury.
It enables you to avoid paying unnecessary taxes.
Many people pay more taxes than they need to, and their financial position is weaker.
Financial professionals can show you where you’re overpaying and advise on strategies to reduce tax. Including recommending accounts with tax benefits, investments with tax advantages that you can direct capital into, or instances in which you can transfer wealth (e.g. to family members) to reduce tax.
So, is financial advice worth it?
Though it’s difficult to determine how much value financial advice provides to each person, there is a myriad of ways in which financial advice can help individuals strengthen their financial position.
In both the short and long term, obtaining financial advice can help people to save and grow their money and to reach their financial goals. The knowledge, expertise and products financial advisors can offer substantially impact a person’s financial life.
