From home-schooling our children to shopping at Home Depot, we’re increasingly a do-it-yourself culture, bypassing professionals to save. Why pay for professionals or experts when investing? DIY can play a role when you handle your money, just maybe not the role you think.

1. Real Do-It-Yourself Investing
Submitted by Larry Frank on Tuesday, March 31, 2015 - 12:00pm
From home-schooling our children to shopping at Home Depot,
we’re increasingly a do-it-yourself culture, bypassing professionals
to save. Why pay for professionals or experts when investing? DIY
can play a role when you handle your money, just maybe not the
role you think.
OK, so how much do you pay for health care? Why pay anything
when you can diagnose yourself or find treatments online?
Such rhetorical questions ought to get you thinking about what
you’re really doing with your money.
I suspect you ultimately need the medical expert. Yet when it
comes to money – something planning professionals work at full-
time, and sometimes more – you might believe you can budget
and save better as a hobby.
As I wrote on the value of financial advisors, value comes from a
focus on those things that you can actually control; markets and
economies are beyond any one person’s power. Learn how to set
the sails instead of trying to control the wind. And get help with
the sails.
Yes, you do need to exercise care that the person you choose has
your interests at heart. Maybe you just don’t trust financial
advisors because you don’t know how to find the right one for you.
Here’s a questionnaire that advisors can complete for you before
you even meet. Use the answers, DIY-style, to select those two or
three advisors you want to meet with at the next stage. Mistakes
with your money can cost you more than any fees, so select an
adviser carefully.
Regarding how advisors are paid, broker-dealers buy and sell
investments for clients and receive commissions as compensation.
Registered investment advisors are in investment consulting, are
registered either with the Securities and Exchange Commission or
 planning, retirement funding, investments and others subjects in financial planning.
 A chartered financial analyst (CFA) studies security analysis, stocks, bonds,
investment management and corporate finance.
than none at all.”
As seen on

2. a state securities’ authority and may be paid via flat fees or a
percent of your assets they manage. These fee-only financial
advisors receive no commissions, trading fees or product
reimbursements of any kind.
Among advisors’ certifications and designations:
A certified financial planner (CFP) must take college-level financial
planning courses, log at least three years’ experience in financial
planning and pass a 10-hour examination.
A chartered financial consultant (ChFC) studies college-level
insurance, estate planning, retirement funding, investments and
others subjects in financial planning.
A chartered financial analyst (CFA) studies security analysis,
stocks, bonds, investment management and corporate finance.
Also learn to recognize the difference between investing and
planning. Think of investing and structuring your portfolio’s
allocation like entwining bundles to make a cable. A single strand
inside each bundle represents each company in which you hold
stock.
Each bundle represents companies with common characteristics –
large or small companies, growth companies, U.S.-only firms and
so on. Some call this asset-class investing; the three main asset
classes are equities (stocks), fixed-income (bonds) and cash
equivalents (money market instruments).
All the bundles together represent your well-diversified portfolio,
the cable holding up your long-term goals. A good advisor can help
you with both entwining the cables and supporting your long-term
goals.
Follow AdviceIQ on Twitter at @adviceiq.
Larry R. Frank Sr., CFP, is a Registered Investment Adviser
(California) in Roseville, Calif. He is the author of the book, Wealth
Odyssey. He has an MBA with a finance concentration and B.S.
cum laude in physics with which he views the world of money
dynamically. He has peer-reviewed research published in
the Journal of Financial Planning.
http://blog.betterfinancialeducation.com/.
AdviceIQ delivers quality personal finance articles by both financial
advisors and AdviceIQ editors. It ranks advisors in your area by
specialty, including small businesses, doctors and clients of modest
means, for example. Those with the biggest number of clients in a
given specialty rank the highest. AdviceIQ also vets ranked
advisors so only those with pristine regulatory histories can
participate. AdviceIQ was launched Jan. 9, 2012, by veteran Wall
Street executives, editors and technologists. Right now, investors
may see many advisor rankings, although in some areas only a few are ranked.
Check back often as thousands of advisors are undergoing AdviceIQ screening. New

3. given specialty rank the highest. AdviceIQ also vets ranked
advisors so only those with pristine regulatory histories can
participate. AdviceIQ was launched Jan. 9, 2012, by veteran Wall
Street executives, editors and technologists. Right now, investors
may see many advisor rankings, although in some areas only a
few are ranked. Check back often as thousands of advisors are
undergoing AdviceIQ screening. New advisors appear in rankings
daily.
Tag:
Investing
The Different Types of Advisors
Dealing with Financial Advisors