Professional advice can untangle the complications of retirement finances
A popular regular feature in Good Times magazine is “Your Questions,” where Olev Edur provides answers to questions from our readers regarding their rights, personal finance, and estate planning. Here’s one on finding a financial advisor.
Q: I recently retired and am finding that my tax return has become a lot more complicated. I seem to be getting all kinds of contradictory advice, too, about what I should be doing money-wise. I’ve thought about hiring a financial advisor, but I don’t have a lot of money and would very much prefer to handle things on my own. I just don’t know where to begin. What would you suggest?
A: First, you’re far from alone in feeling bewildered at the financial complications of retirement—a great many changes take place at this time and, perhaps more so than at any other time in life, some professional advice can prove invaluable. You should seek independent advice from a fees-only financial planner who is not being paid commissions for flogging certain companies’ financial products and services to the exclusion of other possibly more beneficial offerings.
If you have difficulty finding such an advisor, you can contact FP Canada (formerly the Financial Planning Standards Council) by phone at 416-593-8587 (toll-free at 1-800-305-9886) or consult the website at fpcanada.ca to get the names of qualified advisors in your neck of the woods.
Once an advisor has helped sort out your retirement finances and pointed you in the right direction, you should be able to take more control of the situation and may no longer need advice on a regular basis.
But for starters, you should get everything sorted out; then you can decide whether continuing advice
is worthwhile or whether you can take over the reins yourself.
Photo: iStock/izusek.
