Money doesn't actually talk. We do.

Laying It All Bare for My Financial Planner

So here’s the deal: I’m not a Rockefeller, but after working for a dozen years (and marrying someone else who also works full-time) I’ve got some money. Not scads of money, not boatloads, but some.

And with an 18-month-old laying waste to my apartment, I’ve got to think about more things than just my and the Mrs’s retirement. There’s the possibility of private school for the bambina at some point, and then college after that. We may want to move into a larger apartment down the road (particularly if we have another baby).

When it comes to retirement, we’ve never really coordinated our savings for that, so there may be some overlap there. Basically, I want to dump a sheaf of account statements, tax returns and paystubs in front of someone, tell them what our goals are and have them tell us what to do to reach them.

Fortunately, such people exist in the form of financial planners. Some charge a flat fee to tell you what to do, others earn commissions from the funds and investment products they put you into. I decided to go with the fee-only variety, since that way the planners aren’t suggesting I do something that lines their pockets but leaves me high and dry.

Once I found my planner (I just asked around–I’ve worked at a few financial publications, so even though I didn’t know who to go see, I knew people who did–I finally went with New-York-based Gerstein Fisher), I found out that before they draw up a plan, they need to know more about me and my family. This is accomplished by my filling out a 11-page questionnaire/profile that helps the planner get a sense of what you have and what you want. Here’s what I discovered:

Page 1 - Just a lot of basic personal info; name-and-address stuff.

Page 2 - 26 Financial goals, arranged in a grid, with checkboxes that went from Very Important to Not Important. As an editor, I thought that the first one, “Taking charge of your financial future,” was a bit vague, but Very Important nonetheless. This was also true of “Planning for college/education.” I thought “Managing my cash flows” and “Caring for an aged loved one” was Somewhat Important (um, sorry, Mom & Dad). I didn’t give a rat’s ass about “Analyzing stock options,” or “Investing in a socially/environmentally responsible way,” (sorry, Planet Earth).

Page 3 - What is referred to as my “Investment Profile,” which seems to want to figure out how much risk I’m willing to take. There are a lot of questions here, but they’re all basically asking the same thing: “If you invested your money today, and tomorrow it lost, say, 25% of its value, would you freak the hell out?” While a 25% drop is not the result I’m looking for, I’d have to say no, I wouldn’t freak the hell out. Most of my goals are more than a decade away, so a big swing in the market right now doesn’t really bother me.

Pages 4 & 5 - More “Are you sure you wouldn’t freak out?” scenarios and questions, as well as a line of questions about taxes. These are all basically asking “How concerned are you about taxes?” and my answer is “Well, that depends.” I mean, I’m not a member of The Club For Growth, but I want to make as much money as possible. If I can see a 20% gain, but have to give half of that increase back in taxes, or I can earn 11% tax-free well then (duh), I’d go for the tax-free option. If the numbers were different, though, my answer would be too.

Pages 6 - 8 - All my assets, all my liabilities. Every stock, mutual fund, bond, mortgage and deposit account with my name on it, and the value of each. Chilling, actually.

Pages 9 - 11 - All my expenses. My utilities, food costs, dry cleaning, public transportation, insurance premiums “Personal care (nails, haircuts)”–geez, these guys are thorough–gifts/charity, home improvement, etc. Even more chilling than the previous section. We spend a lot of money. Maybe we should become Amish?

Whew. Well, I will say, it’s nothing if not revealing to write down your entire financial life on paper. I didn’t say it was good, just revealing. The next step is to meet with my potential future planners and see what sense they make of all this. More on that next week. Stay tuned.

– Sam Grobart