Advice - where to get the right financial advice?

[Epacris]

We shopped around and saw a few different finical advisers before we found the one that suited us. If you Google "financial advice commission v’s fee based", you will find lots of good information. In the end we chose to go with an independent fee based financial advisor. I am an extremely skeptical person by nature and I just could not ever go with a commission based finical advisor, it just wouldn’t work for me.

[Liviam]

DH & I are thinking exactly the same thing. We need someone to tell us what to do and how to do it to be more financially secure in the future while being able to afford the kids education and a bigger house. But still have some free money to do holidays/dinners etc.

I find it som confusing I don't even know where to start.

Does it matter if we don't make heaps of money? I would be embarrassed if a FP said they couldn't help us as we are too low income - IFYKIM.

[MummaBee]

To be honest I have had some luck with accountants belive it or not they seem to know what to do with your money to get ahead

[BellyBelly]

I think the big thing is are those people wealthy themselves... Because I had a brilliant accountant for tax, but he also ended up struggling with money in the years I saw him. If they are living proof and walk the walk, maybe they know what they are talking about. Society is often full of negativity towards wealthy people and wonder what they did to get there (must be dodgy/greedy people) but they know something that we don't and we need to find great wealth mentors.

[~Ash~]

Thanks so much for the advice!

PinkPalace - I am very happy to pay for financial advice, I was just thinking that if my bank provided a free service in the area I would start there to help get my head around what I the service I wanted to pay for actually is. Instead, seeing as I will be paying for the service regardless - I wanted to get some opinions on whether paying for financial advice from my bank is the best solution for me - may as well pay an accountant or a financial planner that doesn't receive a commission on up-selling if that is beneficial to me at the moment.

Astrid - thanks for sharing your experience - I am glad that you mentioned that your FP recommended non-bank products. My super is definitely something I need them to look at too - it's been bugging me for years that I have so many accounts all over the place lol

Epacris - I am a bit sus on commission based services too so I can totally understand where you are coming from - I will definitely look into it some more before making my decision.

Liviam - I don't think you need lots of money. They should be able to assist you to make the best decisions for your situation right now - we definitely don't have a lot of spare money and I really don't want that to be our excuse as to why we aren't being proactive with what we do have. At the moment our income is too low to service the mortgage that we want so we have to put off buying until I have an income - we still found corners to cut to save up our deposit (and it only took me a few months to train DF into not being so swipe happy with the account lol)

Mummabee - DF has an accountant that he has been using to do his tax for the last few years and he likes him a lot. We have spoken about maybe seeing him but we haven't got around to calling him to find out if they offer financial advice as a service - definitely something we are considering though!

Kelly - I agree completely that you have to be picky with who you take your advice from - my parents were never that great with money and I can see myself making the same decisions they did without even considering alternatives - I would love to take control and be proactive with our finances and I would love to feel like I have broken that cycle by giving DD the opportunity to be savvy with her money as she gets older.