Finaicial Advice - Any use?

[itmar]

DH and I will be going through some life changes soon which involves living on a greatly reduced income.

We have investments and I would like to make sure that we are making the best use of them.

I would like us to see a financial adviser but have some worries about basically being given the hard sell on lots of useless products we don't need (and which we wont be buying). We saw one last year on a friends recommendation but went away irritated as all he wanted to do was sell us life insurances etc and not actually advise us on where to invest.

Have any of you had any experience of using a financial adviser and any tips?

My best tip is to lay out in advance to any independent financial advisor what you want to achieve and what you want to talk about ... including that you take a dim view of any hard-sell tactics. Personally I don't mind if I am asked 'have you considered critical illness cover?' once ... reasonable question... but, after I've said 'no thanks', I don't want it to come up again.

Then it's a case of taking your time, shopping around and getting a few different points of view before deciding on a course of action. Like any other service or product, it comes down to finding the best match

I have never used a financial advisor myself but one thing to be aware of is that the arrangements for paying them are changing, according to a new system called RDR

www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/investing/article-2245989/RDR-5-questions-ask-financial-adviser-fees-shake-arrives.html

This is supposed to make everything more transparent, for example discouraging them from selling you products on the basis of the commission it earns for them.

A consequence of this may be that advisors will have to charge up front for advice.

Maybe you have done this already but it might be worth looking on websites such as thisismoney and moneysavingexpert for general personal finance info. Also popular economics/ investment publications such as MoneyWeek. If you browse around these it's not hard to pick up a basic knowledge of the different types of investment. In the process you will also address questions such as your attitude to risk, whether you want immediate income from your investments or want to aim at growth, and so on.

You may end up deciding to dispense with an advisor and make investment decisions for yourself. But in any case being equipped with some knowledge you are more likely to be able to put pertinent questions to the IFA and hence forearmed against any hard sell.

For an outspoken - if somewhat sensationalist and jaundiced - view of the financial services and investment industry, see:

www.amazon.co.uk/Pillaged-Looting-Million-Savings-Pensions/dp/1906142890/ref=pd_sim_b_5

We have a great IFA who is good at being helpful without being pushy.We got him through recommendation and have stuck with him for years. We don't always use his recommendations but we do generally have a chat with him about stuff. He's helped us with pensions, future planning to finance DC's university, mortgages, savings /investments, life insurance etc
We've had a few upheavals over the years (redundancy, house moves, marriage, having kids) and we chatted through financial implications not always doing anything just reviewing when life changes occur.
I was approached through work by St James' Place and they were the polar opposite and would have made me run a mile from financial advisors.
I think you need to find somebody who listens and understands your approach to life to get the right kind of advice. This might take talking to a few to see if you gel.

Wow - thank you everyone!!!! - this is really useful advice and i'll have a good long look through all this.

Wonky - you seem to have found exactly what we want - We use St James's for managing DH pension and they have given us a good return but I want to be much more critical of what they do and find someone who is a good fit for us. DH is wants to retire in a year or so but we still have young children (DH is older father!) so the advice we need will be focused on keeping income steady and high (and of course i'll still be working full time).

I'll do as much background research as possible so that I won't wast time asking irrelevant questions.