Get Wise to Your Advisor: How to Reach Your Investment Goals Without Getting Ripped Off

Chapter 4

Hold Your Nose: Other Advisor Options

If you’re over 50 years old, you probably remember when it used to be simple to buy a phone. Your choices were simple. Did you want the phone that hangs on the wall, or the one that sits on a table? Maybe you had to deliberate over color choices: beige or black? Today’s world still includes those old-fashioned landlines, but now you can choose from countless versions, including cordless phones. And of course, mobile phones and smartphones are available from a bevy of different manufacturers, with new products released continuously.

. . . hmm, they all seem to look and smell the same . . .

Matt Corrado © 2013

Phone shoppers now have to grapple with decisions that were unimaginable a couple of decades ago. What size screen do they want? Is it best to buy the current generation of a particular phone or wait a few weeks for the new version? Which operating system? What about design and color? What kind of sleeve conveys the image the consumer wants to project? After all those decisions, today’s phone buyers still aren’t done: They have to choose a carrier and then a service plan for calls, texts, and data. It’s almost enough to make you give up on phones completely, and perhaps use Skype or smoke signals as your phone—which is yet another choice.

Financial advice is no different. Once upon a time, if you had money to invest, you got ...