Financial Team Assemble!

Financial Team Assemble! Image: Marvel Avengers

 The one thing I've learned from past experiences of working in teams is that the best team assembled are those that include diverse talents. Step 28 suggests your team should consist of a tax advisor, credit counselor, financial planner and lawyer. Kiplinger suggests a dream team of a financial planner, investment adviser, estate-planning lawyer, and an accountant. The two only showing a slight difference depending on where you are with your money, one being in debt and the other with solid finances and ready to invest.

 It all sounds good when personal finance books suggests that you should build a team as if we're all Tony Stark's with money to burn, thus often forget to mention the costs associated with it.

 Spoiler: it's not cheap.

 Now, don't take this the wrong way. I'm not trying to sell the idea to readers that they should spend their hard-earned money on professionals. I'm having a hard time to convince myself to do that actually. So, this is actually me, trying to convince myself.

 According to the article from Kiplinger, financial planners come at a cost of $200-300/hour. There are online financial planners such as LearnVest offering combined services of financial planning plus technological support that starts from $89 one time fee, plus a $19 monthly fee. If I take the "5-year planner" plan, it would be $299 + $19/month, or about $527. That's probably the cost of a "free phone" plus a year contract phone plan or maybe a gadget. So, gadget vs financial planner.

I'm going to consider my happiness on making this decision. I'll categorize this financial planning purchase as a one-time, one-year subscription experience purchase. Am I sold on it? Not yet. I think I'll focus on how I budget my first year and what I achieve.