Are financial advisors just for rich people?

[tinkertailorsoildersailor]

I earn roughly £52 k and am the sole family breadwinner. I was thinking about getting some financial advice - but is it just for 'rich' people? I know I'm not poor, but not a millionaire either (yet ;) I'm after advise about mortgages and saving for an early retirement... would this be feasible? I don't have that much left at the end of the month - but would a financial advisor be able to help, or are they more for people swishing around in cash?

Well, sounds like you might like to get a financial adviser to do the numbers for you? If you don't feel very confident that might be a better option than sitting down in front of Excel at the weekend.

On the purchase of another property front, you need to consider that second homes attract more stamp duty, you need more deposit and will probably get a worse interest rate. So it might be worth thinking if remortgaging your current home could release enough for the extra purchase. You also need to work out if you can afford paying another set of council tax, broadband and utilities etc and have enough savings for maintenance and repair of the additional property.

And finally, if early retirement is your goal, as you're a higher rate tax payer, you'd make fab savings by putting money towards your pension as they come out of your gross salary. For example, instead of paying £600 per month in your second mortgage (out of which most could be interest), you could have £1,000 going into your pension.

You are rich.
And no my family all have one, (my partner is one lol so i save the £££)

Although actually as a sole breadwinner ( adsuming children) youre not rich ....sorry x

My Dh is an FA. He sees lots of people for a variety of reasons, so regardless of your salary, you may benefit from their advice for things like tax planning, retirement and pension planning, plus investments and insurance. Be aware though that some services have to be charged for advice, regardless of whether you eventually take the product, and also that some products can only be sold on an advised basis through some companies, which means they will cost you just to find out.

I personally think you would be better off educating yourself financially. Starting points as some one mentioned money saving expert, Sunday times supplements have the best cash Isa rates, mortgage rates etc. They report on pension changes (although at your pay scale that’s easy stick in as much as you can possibly). Keep an eye on what rates are for various things and then when you notice good rates you can make switches etc.

Not all banks will use mortgage brokers so there is every chance that best deal won’t be available if you use a broker (we are on a 1.08% 2yr fix which would not have been available through a broker).

No but they can help non-rich people become rich

Our mortgage deal wasn't available through a broker/adviser either (0.38% above base rate for the life of the loan).

Anything they could offer was crap in comparison and benchmarked against the bank SVR not BoE base rate, so not even what I asked for. And they got shitey when I pointed this out to them in explanation as to why I didn't want their 'deal'.

Mmm ... I have a different view. The best person to manage your money is yourself so I would recommend investing some time in educating yourself to manage your own finances. Recommend moneysavingexpert.com as suggested by another poster.

PS Would love to see the evidence that an IFA can help non-rich people become rich .....

The IFA can make themselves rich due to the commissions earned by selling products. That's what I took Ttbb's post to mean.

Ha I see Barbara - I was being slow on the uptake there. Yes, completely agree - I know an IFA who lives in a massive house - the only person he enriches is himself

If you’re going to ‘self-educate’ I’d recommend some of the Financial Times books.

They are not just for rich people but needing one depends on how financially savvy you are and how much you seek out and fully digest information about money and literally the level you as an individual can understand it.

I haven't used a IFA though I have sat and reviewed stuff with people within my own banks. Who have tried to persuade me to take products I don't want and they have irritated me.

Definition of rich I would stick as anyone in the top 10% of earners, okay they may have huge outgoings and have to live off value beans but they have the actual income in the first instance.

Thank you for these recommendations! JoJo that is really helpful advise about remortgaging current property - I hadn't even thought of that!
I'm afraid I have a blind spot and slight fear factor when thinking about money - which is why I can't self educate very well!

Lots of advisors online will give free impartial advice. I used these guys to sort out my life insurance and they were brilliant. lifeinsuranceonline.blog

Unbiased.co.uk can be good but they have had some accuracy issues/issues with being up to date. Also advisers pay to go on there so you are not getting the full universe of potential advisers.

Always check the adviser you choose with the FCA register. There are many excellent ones out there but some bad apples.

It is usually said that it is economic for someone to see advisers if you have about £30k or over in investable assets (since the pension freedoms, the number of people which would fall into this category has increased.)

However, a mortgage adviser/broker is slightly different and you do not have to be rich in order to get good value out of one.

If you want to read up a bit more first, the Money Advice Service is a good way to start.

I'd love to tell you someone NOT to see in the SW but I'd probably better not.

"Independent" IFA advice doesn't work for me.
The principles, I can get those already by reading articles (newpaper, mag, online, etc).
An IFA did make me really understand the logic of BTL, I suppose that was helpful. Put me off BTL for life since the whole minimum-payments strategy assumes steeply rising property prices. I didn't want to be part of that.

Otherwise, you never know if IFA gave really good advice to go for this or that investment pot. I don't even believe in anything being "unbiased" b/c they all have biases towards thinking certain types of funds will perform better than others (according to their expertise, which might be as bad as my own expertise after reading lots of info). When they are tied to a specific range of products, there is still a range within that to recommend from, so it's not like tied advisors can only recommend exactly one thing.

I found that "educating myself" and going full self-management doesn't work either. I get yelled at on MSE b/c I don't want to spend 20 hrs a month keeping up to date with all the investment options to manage my own portfolio. At end of day I went with tied IFA advice precisely b/c I want a hands-off approach and not to pay £££ for advice every year or maybe every 6 months. No regrets so far.