{"id":177300,"date":"2025-11-12T21:40:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T21:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/177300\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T21:40:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T21:40:07","slug":"i-suddenly-feel-like-a-small-fish-i-had-80k-before-the-tariff-drama-but-now-my-financial-adviser-doesnt-seem-interested-in-me-what-do-i-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/177300\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I suddenly feel like a small fish.\u2019 I had $80K before the \u2018tariff drama\u2019 but now my financial adviser doesn\u2019t seem interested in me. What do I do?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Question: <\/strong>\u201cI\u2019m interested in finding a new financial planner. My current one has merged with another company and I suddenly feel like a small fish that they are no longer interested in. Prior to the tariff drama, I had about $80,000 in my account. With that amount of money, is there a certain financial planning avenue I should pursue?\u201d<\/p>\n

First, have a conversation with your current adviser about your expectations. Let the adviser know how often you\u2019d like to meet and what you\u2019re hoping they can help you achieve. Just be sure to manage your expectations. \u201cIn all frankness, your $80,000 account is not going to have the creme de la creme of the advisory world battling each other to gain your favor,\u201d says certified financial planner Craig Evans Carnick at Transform Wealth.<\/p>\n

Have an issue with your financial adviser or looking for a new one? Email questions or concerns to picks@marketwatch.com<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you decide to jump ship, know that it can be tough to find a financial adviser, especially given your funds. \u201cNot all financial advisers are created the same and not all offer the same service. The right match depends on what goals you have for your money,\u201d says certified financial planner Wheeler Pulliam at Xponify Financial. \u201cYour story is not uncommon among the larger national firms or wire houses. Larger firms typically have quotas the financial adviser has to hit, and they are mostly involved in acquiring new assets, so the actual management of somebody who is already a client tends to take a back seat to the adviser trying to get new assets or new clients in the door.\u201d <\/p>\n

Another issue you might run into is that most firms have a minimum asset requirement for them to take you on as a client. \u201cThis minimum is really all over the board and the services vary depending on the minimum. Certain larger national firms will take you on as a client for $80,000 but you will not have a specific adviser assigned to you. On the flip side, many independent firms who are firmly established, might have higher minimums like $200,000,\u201d says Pulliam. <\/p>\n

The first thing you should do is ask your friends and family who they use as a financial adviser. \u201cWe don\u2019t have a problem asking our friends and family if they have a good plumber or electrician but we don\u2019t like asking people who they use to manage their money. And that\u2019s too bad, because we tend to hangout with people who are like us, so whomever manages their money would probably be a good fit for you too,\u201d says Pulliam.<\/p>\n

Look for a CFP who works hourly or on a project basis. To earn their designation, CFPs complete extensive education requirements, pass exams, perform thousands of hours of work-related experience and adhere to a fiduciary duty. CFPs who work hourly charge between $250 and $500 per hour while project-based advisers charge between $1,500 and $7,500 depending on the scope of the project. You can use this free tool from our partner SmartAsset to match you to a financial adviser<\/a>, as well as sites like CFP Board and NAPFA.<\/p>\n

Consider alternatives to a traditional financial adviser<\/p>\n

\u201cGenerally, someone\u2019s complexity doesn\u2019t rise to the level of making the cost of hiring a human financial planner until they\u2019re over $250,000 in savings,\u201d says certified financial planner Shaun Williams at Paragon Capital Management \u2014 and that may mean you want to consider alternatives to a traditional financial adviser. <\/p>\n

\u201cJust because you have little money to hire a full financial planner, doesn\u2019t mean you can\u2019t find good solutions to help. Using a robo adviser like Betterment can provide low cost and robust investment management,\u201d says Williams.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, Carnick says if he were your adviser, he\u2019d be up front with you and suggest you take your portfolio to Schwab or Fidelity and use no-load mutual funds. To get a grasp on the basics, consider taking a free personal finance course or reading books like How to Money: Your Ultimate Visual Guide to the Basics of Finance by Jean Chatzky, Kathryn Tuggle and Nina Cosford, The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey or Your Money Your Life by Vicki Robin. Udemy.com offers a free Personal Finance 101 course for beginners and Duke University offers a free 3-week behavioral finance class.<\/p>\n

Have an issue with your financial adviser or looking for a new one? Email questions or concerns to picks@marketwatch.com<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Questions edited for brevity and clarity. By emailing your questions to The Advicer, you agree to have them published anonymously on MarketWatch; they may appear anonymously in other media and platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Question: \u201cI\u2019m interested in finding a new financial planner. My current one has merged with another company and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[8139,85029,79,6567,18,19,17,47521,234,235,26243],"class_list":{"0":"post-177300","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-banking","9":"tag-banking-credit","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-credit","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-mpsmartasset","16":"tag-personal-finance","17":"tag-personalfinance","18":"tag-synd"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}