Is it worth using an IFA for investment planning?

[curlyrebel]

I had an initial meeting with a chartered IFA about investment planning. I need to sign the proforma before our next meeting. I'm hesitating because of the fees. It will most likely be 3% for the implementation fee or minimum £750 and the ongoing fee is likely to be 1%.

Is it worth it if I'm going with a stocks and shares ISA? Shall I try and do it myself?

Both the people I've spoken to about it don't believe it's necessary to invest in stocks and shares at all so it would be good to get other perspectives.

Agree with others, start with something simple like Vanguard and do it yourself. You can then learn over time via YouTube videos, reading the financial section of a newspaper, etc. Be wary of following investment tips or getting confused by conflicting advice, however. Just keep it simple for now.

Whenever a newspaper does an article on a person seeking investment advice and they get the opinions of different IFA's, they always give conflicting advice. One says do X, another do Y. I read one recently, one IFA said the person had too much invested in small company funds, the other said too little. And that's why Vanguard and similar are popular - they don't try to predict which company or sector will perform best, instead they invest cheaply across all sectors in a single fund.