Financial Advisor

I went and saw a Financial Advisor ("FA") today to go over my portfolio. It is a humbling experience. Firstly, people think that since I have an MBA and work at financial firm, I know everything there is to know about personal finance. The truth is that I try but I'm not a professional financial planner nor am I an expert on taxes or estate planning. Secondly, I have some bad financial habits - namely, spending too much. Thirdly, while I'm doing fine and possibly better than most people, I'm not where I want to be. The FA mentioned a guy around my age who makes $300,000 and takes home a $30,000 bonus. Yeah, that is not me.

Although he gave me a lot of great advice and suggestions, he said he couldn't give me the kind of attention he would want to because (1) he has too many clients right now, (2) I don't really meet the minimum. This has been a really crappy day for other reasons but that kind of rejection on top of everything that's been going on was a little tough to take. I mean, I did take 2 hours to go down, talk to him and come back to work.

But, I try to look at things from the positive side. I am doing pretty well. I just have to make a few adjustments and he told me exactlly what to do. My portfolio isn't really complicated so I have time to find someone to take me on as a client and someone I can grow with. In preparing to meet with him, I got completely organized and have a lovely binder and spreadsheet. He did say I could call anytime if I had a question and referred me to a terrific estate planning lawyer. Not bad.