Yup, full time employment and a young family means no time, that's why I was reading it all last night and couldn't sleep because my brain was on fire and now today I'm tired
Who are these advisors, are they free or do you have to pay and how do you know of a good one? Always assumed you would just do stuff like that through your bank and they would just sell you their products
Well it seems it's not a popular suggestion here. I personally have employed a wealth manager (that's what they seem to call themselves) and already in 3-4 years I have worked with them I have made a significant improvement to my savings and retirement planning.
Sure they take a small fee from your profits but I still get significantly more return than I would have should I have tried to do this alone. I just don't have the time. I work long hours, have a busy family life, and a busy active life - I do not want to sit in front of the computer at home or at night managing this stuff when I could be spending time with my wife, family, kids or whatever. So I pay to have my time to myself basically.
Go with whatever you feel is right. Some of the people here know much more about this stuff than I do, so they're probably happy to manage it themselves. I don't. I know my limitations and as such I pay to have someone help me manage my investments, whether it's property, stocks and shares, pensions etc etc... I can't work out the projections and tax reliefs etc for my current savings and planning, what I do know is compared to where I was before I now have a better understanding of my financial situation and earlier retirement is looking more promising as a result.
Heck as a result of the conversation I had with them increasing my pension contributions by 2% has saved me a huge amount of tax (after self assessment - which again will be done for me). No way would I have had the time or inclination to work this out.
Of course the people here are right you don't NEED someone to do that you CAN do it all yourself. And if you have the time and knowledge to do it, you can probably do it a lot better - so listen to the experts here and make your decision. I've made mine and I can now forget about it other than my quarterly catch up with account manager.