Well, first you have to ask yourself where do you want to be a 5 to 10 years. A financial planning consultant will not make your goals for you, they are there to create a clear plan to help you reach your long and short term goals as fast as possible. If your goal is to expend your family, you might need a bigger house or more income. Your consultant will help you with your questions about mortgage, investing for your child’s future and when and how to start a college fund. If your goal is to get out of debt, they will work with you to find a plan the fits you. Help you set up payment plans with your creditors and show you ways to stay on track while paying off your debt.

People that need financial consulting are those that live busy lives or find it hard to manage their money. If you find it challenging to put together a retirement plan or to choose the type on investments to fit your goals, then you may need the help of a financial consultant. When you are ready to hire an advisor, look for one that is both professional and easy to get along with. You will have to spend a lot of time both in person and on the phone, so it would be best if you work well together. Also make sure you check their credentials before you decide to hire them. You don’t want someone with little experience giving you advice abut your financial future.

When planning for retirement, you will have a lot to take into consideration. One of the best and most involved resources you have is your 401(k). It is hands down the most generous retirement invest out there, but all the benefits it has to offers will only pay off if you are proactive and make smart investments. Unlike pensions or social security, where you just have to show up to work to reap the benefits, 401(k) retirement plans give you more control and more responsibilities.

Making the right investments is the key to getting a generous return from your 401(k)retirement plan when it is time for you to retire. While you might think the best thing to do is to pour your investments in the company you work for, but most experts advise against it. In fact, investing a large part your funds in any single company is never an good idea. Any good long term investment portfolio is spread out across many stable companies in different industries. That way if one company or an entire industry fails you only lose a fraction of your investments and as the recent recession made clear, it’s not impossible for any company to fail.

As far as what companies you should invest in, that is left completely up to you. Not even the company you work for will tell you where you should invest your money. If you don’t have time to learn how to invest in your 401(k), the best thing you can do is hire a personal financial planner. They can help you to chose the right type of investments to make, help you track , and make adjustments to reach your retirement goals. If you do have the time and want to learn, I recommend you read 401(K) Take Charge Of Your Future by Eric Schurenberg it is a good book to get you started. It is impossible for me to cover all your options in this article, but I will be writing many articles covering retirement planning, check the investing section of this site for more information.

Many companies now offer 401(K) as the primary retirement plan. Which is a great thing if you know how to make it work for you. But how can you tell if the 401(K) plan a company is offering is top notch or bottom shelf. Well, I will list 6 of the features you should look for when considering joining a companies retirement plan. Please note that even if the plan does not have most of these features, 401k is still the best retirement plan you will come across any time soon.

1. The company match 70 cents to every dollar you put invest. There are only a few companies that do not offer to match a percentage of what you contribute, these are usually small companies. Large companies that are looking to get and keep talented employees are willing to match at least half of what you invest. Some companies will even match you dollar of dollar and a few rear companies will one up you.

2. If you can contribute up to 14% of your salary. Obviously the more you save the faster you will reach you goal, but not all 401k retirement plans allow you to invest such a large part of your salary.

3. The plan allows you to take a loan or allow withdrawal for hardship. Taking money out of your retirement plan is never a good idea, but sometimes it is unavoidable. Many companies will allow you to use some of your investment when you are in a financial crisis, but you will have to prove that it is your last hope and you will have to the pay taxes.

4. If you get updates and the ability to transfer money among funds daily. One of the best features of any 401(K) plan, is that you are in control of your investment. Having these features give you great flexibility to put you money where you see fit.

5. Speaking of flexibility, a top notch plan should have at least 10 investment options. Most companies offer at least 6, but the more options you have the better.

   These are 5 features that some of the best 401(K) plans offer. Your company might not offer all of them, but even a few is better than none.

I know one of the hardest part of starting anything is knowing where to start. I’ve laid out some steps to show you what your financial plans should look like and where is the best place to start. I am making the assumption that you already know how much debt you have, your current credit score and all your other information. If you do not then you should read how to set-up a budget.

OK! here we go:
1)If you have credit card debt, do not charge anything else on your cards and continue making the minimum monthly payments. Your credit score is very important and should be maintained as best you can. Without a good score you will not be able to acquire loans for a car, home or other big ticket items. Paying all your bills on time will ensure your score does not take unnecessary hits.
2)Start writing down everything you spend money on. This will make it easy to track your spending and make cut backs where needed. Remember not to cut out entertainment completely, we are human and we need to have fun.
3)If you have not started an emergency fund as of yet, call your bank and set that up now. Before you pay off any outstanding debts, save at least 3 months worth of living expenses. Before anyone else get there money make sure you have yours. If you start paying off your debts and lose your job, your debts will start increasing again and you will be left without anything type of protection.
4)Once you have 3 months of emergency fund saved, you can start paying off your debts. Take ¾ of the money you were putting into your emergency fund and put towards your lowest debt first and keep putting the other ¼ in your emergency fund. Once that is paid in full go to the net one up and so on…
5)After your debts are paid, start on your retirement fund. Your emergency fund should be close to 6 months or already at 6 months. Put as much as you can in long term savings account such as Roth I.R.A, CD’s or your companies 401K. If you have a company match 401K max that out before you start on the others.
6)By now you should have 6 months of emergency funds saved, your debts paid, and started saving for your retirement. Now you can start saving for big ticket items such as a better car or a home.

As I said before, this is to give you an idea of what your personal finance plan should look like. This is not set in stone and you should use your common sense to make adjustments where you feel they are needed. Take this as a simple guide to get you started. Good luck!

I have mentioned a few time about how most of us were never taught money management at a young age. So I wanted to talk about teaching your child how to manage their finances. Since I do not have children and hate talking about things I have not experienced first hand, I will point out the importance of teaching them in a different way.

The reason Americans are so bad with money is not because we can’t save, It is because of two things…

1) our parents never taught us how.

2) There are a million things to spend money on.

The fact that our parents never taught us money management, only shows that they did not learn it themselves. Once you learn the benefits of personal financial management, not passing it on to your children should not be an option. As a parent you should want your kids to be successful in life and being independent is a sign of success. It does not matter how much they end up earning for a living, if they know how to manage it, they can live very comfortable and stay out of the number one pitfall in America…DEBT! Just think of all the time you said to yourself “If I only knew”. Well, now you do and have a chance to break the cycle.

We all depend on money in one way or another, some of us use it to better our lives and some of us get used by it. Some of us work hard for it and some of us put it to work for us. By social standards the ones that use it to better their lives and put it to work for them are the successful ones. It becomes very easy to make your money work for you if you understand how money works. If at age 20 you knew the basics of saving and planning for retirement, it is most likely that you would have started saving for it then. Worst case scenario, when it come time to retire you would have enough to live of the interest. Best case scenario you would have an island next to Angelina Jolie with a private jet to swoop you anywhere you want to go.

The second reason we do not manage money well, is there are so many companies trying to get it out of our pockets. These companies have the best advertising minds and years of research working to get us spending. I have nothing against buying what you want and need but, there are ways to get everything we want. The problems is, we do not want to wait or save for these things. Children’s minds are copy machines, they usually end up doing what they see us do and continue that pattern all their lives. There financial future depends on what they learn from a young age. I was taught by my mother at a young age how to manage my money and because of this, I have always been good at saving and spending. If she did not take the time to teach me, it is a good chance I would not have the skills and patients that I have today.

My rule in life is the save for everything over $10 and before I had a handle on it, I had what I called a $10 sub-savings account. I would keep it at $100 and when I used any of it I would replace it $10 at a time. It is little things like these that I will teach my kids when I am lucky enough to have some. If you do not have good financial habits, start developing some now and teach them to you young ones as you learn them.

I think I went on long enough this post, I hope you got the point and take actions to make it work for you.