People always dispute passionately whether they should pay for professional investing advice at all.

Nevertheless, you pay twice for the same advice.

Yet that's exactly what many people end up doing. Increasingly, financial advisors have moved away from transaction-based commissions toward charging annual fees based on a percentage of your assets. To choose investments, tacking on an extra stratum of costs that can bring your tab to 3% or more, they advise outside managers.

To pay? For what?
Some advisors bring a personal, consoling element to the sometimes-intimidating arena of financial planning to help their clients to reckon up their financial aims that is a touch that many clients are willing to pay for.

Sometimes more organized, disciplined approach that has to be invested is espoused by financial advisors, while many people on their own chase performance with disastrous consequences. Advisors can also keep scared clients from panicking during times of market doubt.

If you want an apt return, nothing can change that fact that there’s only so much you can afford to pay.
Financial advice

A huge amount of money is at stake for financial advisors. The top firms have tens of billions of dollars under management selling common fund advisory programs.

The stakes can get even larger if you will think over joint fund alternates. One by one managed accounts -- portfolios of individual securities managed specifically for high-income clients -- mean over $100 billion in assets under management.

Get your money's worth
Of course, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with paying for financial advice. But paying once for a good financial plan and paying high fees year after year has a big difference. So the impact of such fees is really huge. For example, if a 3% annual fee lowers your average return from 10% to 7%, then the amount you'll have at the end of 30 years will be less than half what it would be without those fees. But in another way, those annual fees could cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost returns over the course of your lifetime.

Paying an immutable fee for an advisor’s financial plan will be the best solution. It can help to save your huge amount, especially if your plan recommends holding individual stocks or low-cost investment vehicles. Nevertheless, this kind of arrangement will not necessarily give you immediate access to additional advice whenever you want or need it.

Luckily, some financial pros are looking for the best of both worlds. Using those same low-cost methods, they manage assets but demand an ongoing fee for more general financial advice. Such advisors can keep total fees at a more modest 1% of assets, belittling what you have to pay to fund managers. To make easier for clients to recognize the value of what they do pay, to keep these client-minded advisors in business you should keep costs down.

Costs are necessary when it is time to invest. Moreover, learning the basics of investing for yourself can help you save on costs you'd otherwise have to pay to advisors. Don't let anyone take you to the cleaners, even if you choose to get a professional help. Try to find a pro who'll remember that it's not his success you're exerting for -- it's yours.