How a Financial Planner Helped Us Save Money

Getting your own money pro may sound pricey, but it costs less than you might think and can set you up for a more secure future.

By Octavio Blanco

Even though I write about money for a living, my wife and I still need help managing our finances.

So we’ve been working with Arthur, a certified financial planner, to make sure we don’t overspend and to help us reach our financial goals, which include paying off our house, helping our son pay for college and, eventually, settling into a comfortable retirement.

Many people probably think they don’t need or can’t afford a financial planner. We were once among them. But it turns out a planner doesn’t have to cost a lot. In fact, we feel that Arthur’s counsel has been well worth the modest amount of money we’re paying him. And in some intangible ways, it has been invaluable.

Here’s what our financial planner did to set us on the right track. We’ve also got some tips to help you find a financial pro to give you the help you need.

What Do Financial Planners Do, Anyway?

A financial planner is a professional trained to advise on most aspects of your financial life, from setting a budget to helping plan and save for retirement and other financial goals. (A certified financial planner, or CFP, is someone who has gone through rigorous training and formal testing.)

More broadly, a CFP can be a sounding board and guide for almost any important financial decision, helping you, for example, manage your debt, invest your savings in an appropriate mix of securities, or determine if you have the right amount of life insurance at a fair price. And if you need specialized advice—say, on complex tax issues or estate planning—he or she can refer you to a trustworthy expert.

Almost as important as what a planner knows is that they’re using that knowledge for your benefit and your benefit alone—if, that is, you hire a so-called fiduciary, who is ethically and legally obligated to put your interests ahead of their own. That may seem a matter of course, but in fact the finance industry has a history of selling financial products that generate large sales commissions but aren’t necessarily well suited to a client’s needs.

And financial planners might offer these services for less money than you think. Many charge a percentage of their client’s total assets (and will take on only those with hefty portfolios). But others—including our planner—charge a modest hourly rate ($100 to $400) or a flat fee to deliver a particular set of services.

The Start of a Fruitful Relationship

My wife and I first spoke with Arthur in February 2018, a few months after we married. We weren’t just beginning a new phase of our lives together; we’d also formed an instant family with my wife’s son, who was 7 years old at the time, and wanted to make sure we were on the right path to secure his (and our) financial future.

We found Arthur through the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors, which listed fee-only CFPs within a few miles of our home. We researched his background at BrokerCheck, a database maintained by FINRA, the self-regulatory agency for brokerages. (Some experts recommend adviserinfo.sec.gov.) Arthur had a clean record, and his firm offered a free, no-obligation 30-minute consultation with no account minimums.

Our first meeting went well beyond our expectations. Instead of a breezy, getting-to-know-you session, Arthur outlined how we could become homeowners, our No. 1 goal. When we left his office, we had a plan of action, including a new budget.

In fact, that one free visit set us on a path to buy a house, boost our savings, and start a 529 college savings plan. That’s not necessarily a typical experience, but it reflects the fact that a little professional financial advice can sometimes go a long way.

Tackling the Tough Stuff

We didn’t see Arthur again until last year. An illness had forced me to take a temporary medical leave from work, during which insurance paid only 60 percent of my salary. We also realized that we’d been under-withholding taxes from our paychecks and would owe the government a sizable chunk of money come tax time. And of course, the COVID-19 pandemic added a layer of financial anxiety to all of this. In short, we were feeling overwhelmed and desperately wanted to get a better handle on our finances.

We officially hired Arthur in July 2021, agreeing to pay him a $1,000 retainer to get started and $150 a month for his ongoing services. In exchange, he would dig into our financial lives, look for ways we could make improvements, map out a safe path to a comfortable retirement, and meet with us for about an hour each month to check our progress and address concerns.

Photo Illustration: Lacey Browne/Consumer Reports, Octavio Blanco, Getty Images

How Arthur Helped Us

He Updated Our Budget
In the years since we first met Arthur, our evolving lives had fallen out of whack with our original budget—and we’d become a bit lax with spending, which is especially problematic with inflation hitting a 40-year high.

Arthur helped us create a new budget. Fortunately, we’d long ago done a lot of the initial work, like setting up spending categories. We quickly identified where we were spending too much and where we needed to make changes. We realized, for example, that we were running about $1,000 over budget on groceries that year. But we’re aiming to bring in other categories—such as eating out at restaurants—under our budget to balance things out.

He Helped With Retirement Planning
One of the first things Arthur did was pull info from our financial accounts into a single online tool, a kind of digital dashboard for our financial life. It immediately helped us feel more in control of our money. And it enables him to keep track of our assets and model how various market conditions—even a sustained bear market—will affect our retirement outlook.

In short order, Arthur determined that we weren’t saving enough for retirement, outlined how we could get on track, and helped my wife set up a 403(b) retirement savings account. (She’s a healthcare manager at a nonprofit.)

He also noted that I was paying a lot in fees on the investments in my Roth IRA account, where I was stashing some post-tax savings, and helped me pick a less expensive alternative that fit into my broader portfolio—an exchange-traded fund made up of a diversified bundle of stocks.

Now he’s projecting that if we keep up all the contributions we’re currently making, we’ll be on track to sustain our lifestyle in retirement.

He Connected Us With a Tax Pro
Taxes have been an ever-growing hassle for me and my wife since we married. We’d always done our own taxes with the help of tax software. But filing jointly meant that we owed money at the end of most years, which I hated. And two years ago we under-withheld even more than usual. So we asked Arthur for help.

First, he recommended specific adjustments to the amount we were withholding from our paychecks. Then he connected us with an accounting firm he frequently works with, which went through our recent returns and bills with a fine-tooth comb and turned up some deduction opportunities we hadn’t recognized. Lo and behold, this year we got a refund.

He Got Us Cheaper Life Insurance
When Arthur looked at our life insurance policies, he found that my wife was paying too much for too little coverage. So he connected us with an insurance broker he trusts, who’s in the final stages of setting her up with more coverage at a lower premium.

He Made Us More Financially Compatible
My wife and I grew up in families where money was tight, with our parents in a constant state of financial triage. That experience affected us differently, however. My wife tends to be somewhat frugal, while I’m generally looser with money.

Not surprisingly, those tendencies sometimes lead us toward different spending and investing decisions and occasionally cause tension between us. That’s where Arthur comes in: Each month he bridges the gap between our different money-management styles. And he makes time for a quick call if something urgent comes up.

He Lowered Our Money Stress Level
The truth is, my wife and I probably could have done a lot of the nuts-and-bolts financial work ourselves. But would we have felt as confident making decisions as we did with Arthur at our side, or as motivated to keep better track of our expenses and our progress toward our goals? Probably not.

And perhaps the most important thing Arthur did was enable us to feel less anxious about money. With life coming at us so fast nowadays, we almost certainly could not have done that alone.

Editor’s Note: This article, originally published July 4, 2022, has been updated. A version of the article also appeared in the November 2022 issue of Consumer Reports magazine.

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