Do you want objective financial advice? Are you comfortable managing your own investments at Fidelity, Schwab, Vanguard, or others? Then you should consider hiring an hourly financial advisor when you need advice.
Finding a financial advisor or a financial planner who will charge solely by the hour for their time spent is not an easy search.
There are many advisors who will tell you they will charge by the hour when you first meet them, but really, they prefer to charge based on the size of your investment accounts. This is called AUM fees or assets under management.
I have heard from clients that they spent a lot of time searching for an hourly advisor and thought they had found one, only to later find out the advisor really wanted them to sign over control of their investments.
Where do you find an hourly financial advisor? On the internet at one of the following websites.
1. The Garrett Planning Network
My first suggestion for where to look to find hourly financial advice is the Garrett Planning Network. The Garrett Planning Network was founded with the intent of providing competent advice to people who do not meet the usual qualifications advisors look for. (That generally means a large investment account that can be managed for ongoing AUM fees.) I am a proud member of the Garrett Planning Network.
If you go to the Garrett website, click in the top right, and scroll down to hourly only, you can see a list of advisors nationwide who do not charge or offer AUM. Choosing one of these advisors means there is no way they will later ask you to hand over control of your accounts.
2. NAPFA
Another website directory of advisors who might charge by the hour is NAPFA. I used to be a member of NAPFA and my impression is that a very high percentage, like far above 90% percent, charge AUM fees. They are fee only, which means they will not charge you commissions, but very few charge solely by the hour.
On the NAPFA website you can narrow down your local search results using the funnel icon to select Hourly.
The same thing goes for the next directory. The Fee Only Network. The advisors on this site mostly charge AUM fees, but some do not. You will have to read through the descriptions or go to the advisor’s individual website to read about how they charge.
The 4th referral site is the XY Planning Network. On their site you can narrow things down to eliminate the AUM advisors by clicking on “Select Advisor Specialties” and then “Advice Only”.
“Advice Only” is a newer term that has become more popular in the past couple of years and includes hourly financial advisors but could also mean subscription or retainer types of fees.
A website directory for these planners is the Advice-Only Network.
This website does not yet have a good search function to narrow down or sort the list of advisors. You will have to scroll through the advisors and read about each one to find someone you like.
I think hourly financial advice is best for someone who is knowledgeable about personal finance concepts but would like to check in with a professional to make sure they are doing things correctly, have a question that is more complicated than they can find an answer to online, or want a second opinion.
All my clients have been managing their own investments and have no desire to hand over those management duties. They also realize there may be things they don’t know that are costing them money, especially in the long run. Paying an advisor an hourly fee to look things over and make recommendations on how to improve upon what they have been doing is money well spent.
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