I have a CPA that does my taxes for a pretty reasonable price (compared to what I’ve paid in some other places) but he also has a financial investment company and while I’ll ask some advice here and there I do see a bent towards some insurance products that most here would avoid. For example I was curious about LTC insurance products and gave some analysis of an example and he then mentioned hybrid products. When I looked into those, my first thoughts were less than positive.
John Hancock offers a high-fee “solution” to the “4% rule”
When I first became a homeowner, after a while the toilet began to run continuously. That was pre-internet, so I went to the library, looked at a plumbing book, and discovered it wasn’t too hard to fix. Then, I bought the parts needed and spent probably triple the amount of time an expert would have taken to replace the part. That avoided calling a plumber for >$100 trip charge + whatever per hour it would have cost.
The point is this–If you don’t know anything about an endeavor (fixing a toilet or funding your retirement), you can either learn or pay dearly for someone else to do it. A third path is having someone do it for you for free, which is more possible for a small home task than saving/growing/maintaining one’s portfolio.