Where Can I Get Financial Advice? - Debt Consolidation USA
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My personal experience is that some people are just born money management whizzes. I had friends in college who didn’t have any more money to spend then I did but who always seemed to be able to live better and even have money left over at the end of the month. On the other hand, money management was always an issue until I sort of gave up one day and asked myself the question,” where can I get financial advice?”
At the time, I lived 500 miles from my parents so discussing the issue with my father was out of the question–despite the fact he was pretty good at money managment. I discussed the matter with a friend who suggested I go to a local consumer credit counseling service. That turned out to be very good advice.
A workable budget and a payment plan
I was assigned a counselor who went over all of my spending with me and helped me develop a workable budget. I called it “workable” because it didn’t call for a lot of sacrifice on my part. It just required me to think seriously about how I was spending my money and those areas where I could make cuts. Since I was also struggling with debt, my counselor also helped me develop a payment plan designed to get me completely out of debt in less than a year.
How about financial advice from Amazon?
While you might not ask Amazon for financial advice, it does have many books that can help. I especially like “Managing Your Money All-In-One For Dummies.” Like all of the Dummy books, this one is well written, easy to read and full of good information about managing your finances, saving for the future achieving goals and even planning for retirement. I also like the book, “The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness” by Dave Ramsey. While I think he’s a bit over-the-top in terms in terms of paying cash for everything, I do like his step-by-step plan for getting out of debt and achieving one’s goals.
If you’re looking for some simple financial advice about checking accounts, savings accounts, IRAs and the like, you might want to see a personal banker at your bank. However, you need to be a bit dubious about the advice you’re giving as he or she may want to steer you to one of the bank’s own products.
A financial planner is an investment professional who will work with you to evaluate your personal finances on both the long-term and short-term basis. He or she will take a look at your entire financial picture, including taxes, insurance, education goals, housing goals and retirement. Naturally, you will have to pay for the service.
So the answer to the question, where can I get financial advice, is several different places. As you have read, you can give financial advice from a consumer credit counseling agency, write a book on the subject or even hire a financial planner.
Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Financial Advice, financial assistance, financial help, financial planning, money management