I’ve worked with a financial “advisor” in the past for part of our assets, mainly because my wife didn’t trust me with the finances and thought that a financial advisor would do better job at helping us beat the market, despite my insistent that most aren’t going to. Over a longer period, almost all financial advisors we had did about the same as what would have happened from our normal routine of passive investments, except they charged an a fee on top of that. For the matter, most financial “advisors” will advise you on the quickest way to separate your money from you. not to mention the churn that most “advisors” caused from buying/selling to try to beat the market. Two years ago, my 1040 was 60+ pages long, and the result was a sub-market return after taxes/fees/etc.
As far as putting together a financial plan..Well, financial planners are just that. They are to help you create a financial plan, which frankly a semi-intelligent person can really do by themselves, by just spending some time reading and agreeing with said spouse on how to spend money on what. The trick is if you and spouse agree to sticking to the plan, which if you/spouse don’t have the discipline to do, will be a problem regardless of who creates a plan, and if you/spouse have the discipline, then you really don’t need some other stranger to tell you to keep to your plan.
Where it might make sense for you to turn over your financial affairs to some complete stranger are if
1) you really don’t have time to do it yourself
and
2) you/spouse don’t have the discipline manage your own money well
The fact that you are even asking about how to manage your expenses/financial future better to me means automatically, #2 isn’t the case and #1 probably isn’t the case either. You’re probably looking at more ways to maximize your savings, save, invest etc, which frankly the only way I think you can do is if you and said spouse handle this yourself.
