Are you getting good financial advice?

By Andrea Travillian

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During our drive to Texas for our relocation I was scanning stations for something to listen to, when upon nearing Dallas I picked up some financial radio shows! By the time I was in Dallas I was screaming at the radio. Yes, screaming! It really makes me mad when so called financial people provide bad or incomplete information. It got me thinking about how do you know if you are getting good information when you are still learning about a new subject?

This is especially true in finance where there are so many different opinions on what is right and there may not be just one answer. Like dieting you have many different camps that have different approaches that work. It is your job to figure out if the diet you are considering is something that you can stick to, you believe will work and is actually something that is good for you. You might be able to stick with the all grapefruit diet and you may have read enough for you to think it would work, but that does not make it good for you. It is hard to get all the nutrients that your body needs to function from one food. Financial advice is the same, you might think you can stick to it and you have heard enough good information that you believe the approach would work, but how do you know that it is good for your entire financial situation?

Here are five steps that you can use to help you figure out if what you are hearing is good for you and will actually help you with complete financial health.

First, remember that most of the places that you get your financial information from are trying to sell you something. In fact most of those talk finance shows (especially on the local weekend shows) are actually a marketing tool for the person doing the show. They pay the radio station and come up with all the material in order to attract clients to their practice; they do this because it creates the illusion of qualified expert status. You don’t need to completely count them out as an option for learning you can continue to use them to learn as sometimes you can get good information (especially if the person is passionate about teaching and approaches the show that way), but always keep in mind that they are giving you a sales pitch.

Second, if the person giving you information is using all scare tactics to get you to do something – run! The doom and gloom approach is attempting to scare you into frantically doing something without stopping to do a logic check, it is all emotionally driven. It is easy in the financial world to throw statistics around to try and worry people into action, but in with those hopefully valid statistics there should also be good quality information to discuss why and how this affects you. The show that I ended up screaming at (if only they could hear me) did the scare tactic approach. For a full half hour they repeated the same the sky is falling argument, but NEVER told you what they do differently or backed up their talk with logic. What they did say was “call us today to set up your review”, they are scaring you to their office so you will sign on the dotted line while still scared. If they truly cared about your finances they would have explained on air what they do and how it is different.

Third, you need to take responsibility for your own education. This means that instead of believing everything that is presented to you, you need to take the information and verify it. Listen to that radio show and then go do more research on what they were discussing. Learn both side of what an annuity is, look for both the pros and the cons. Prepare as if you were going to debate both sides. (Tips on getting the bad side – Google whatever you are researching and the word “bad” or “stay away”, and don’t look at page one results as those tend to be from the sales people, hit page 3 and you begin to find other information.) Only you are truly concerned about your money, so only you can give yourself enough information to protect you. You can definitely have advisors and teachers, but do not take them for their word, or let them have complete control. You are the manager of your money, learn about it.

Fourth, learn to have healthy pessimism. When learning about money reminds yourself of our number one task in determining if it is good financial information- they are trying to sell you something. Ask yourself “what are they not telling me”, “what is the worst that could happen if I do this” or other questions that get you to evaluate the whole picture. While it is not always good to be a pessimist, our financial world that has evolved where scammers and salespeople are everywhere, you to take a defensive position to protect yourself.

Fifth, give yourself time. Being educated about personal finance is not something you learn overnight. Do not rush into decisions before you know all that you need to in order to make an educated decision. Time gives you the ability to learn and to take emotion out of the situation. It is okay if your money sits in a savings account while you learn, it is okay to take a few weeks to learn about different money market accounts, just give yourself time!

Ultimately when learning new information you need to listen, evaluate and make your own decision. This will help you become more secure in your financial knowledge and help you avoid bad financial decisions!