Since Snider Advisors opened its doors in September of 2002, we have operated on Six Guiding Principles. The first of those principles is that you alone are accountable for you own financial situation.
Fundamental to Financial Success
The principle of accountability is fundamental to financial success. The bottom line is that no one cares more about your money than you do. Sure, it’s easy to point fingers, but it isn’t your broker, your CPA, the government, your parents, or even your spouse that is responsible for your current or future financial situation. It is you and you alone.
Whatever your financial situation, you can look back and see the choices that you made that got you there. And if you’re dissatisfied with your situation – only you can change it.
How to Change Your Financial Situation
How do you do that? The first step is to get educated about personal finance and investing. The impact of financial literacy is clear; it is essential for making important decisions like how to budget, buy a home, fund children’s education, and plan for retirement.
Moreover, a good financial education is the best way to avoid becoming a victim. When you have a financial education, you are in control. You aren’t at anyone else’s mercy – not your financial advisor, CPA, your spouse, or the government. That’s very powerful!
Do You Need a Professional?
Where a lot of people make a tragic mistake is they substitute a “professional” for an education. The thinking goes, “I don’t really have to understand this stuff. That’s what I pay an advisor for.” But if you just automatically rubber-stamp whatever your advisor proposes, then you have a problem.
If you find you do need professional help, find a fee-only (not fee-based) financial planner. Above all, avoid commissioned sales people like the plague. There is a belief among investors that financial advisors are in business to make money for clients instead of themselves. This belief is as naïve as it is false.
You Have No Conflict of Interest
When it comes to your money, the only person with no conflict of interest is you. That’s exactly why the person best qualified to make decisions about your money is you – or at least it should be. If it’s not, you need to change that right away.
If you can’t have a meaningful conversation with a financial advisor, on an equal footing, about different investments – how they contribute to your objectives, the pros and cons, the cost and implications – then you’re not investing. What you’re doing is betting; betting that your advisor knows what they’re doing; and betting that they will put your best interests before their own. Now, how good of a bet do you think that is?
It Takes Discipline
Please understand that knowledge alone won’t do. You also have to have discipline. Oftentimes, it is simply a lack of discipline that gets us into financial scrapes. We want magic – not sacrifices. You can know more about personal finance and investing than anyone, but without discipline, the knowledge is useless. It takes discipline to save and it takes discipline to seed real wealth.
To build financial security requires you to look inside yourself, exercise sound judgment, moderation and restraint. Without those character traits, you will never be financially secure.
Snider Advisors
Snider Advisors doesn’t invest your money behind closed doors or try to convince you there’s no need to figure out or care about what’s happening with your portfolio. Everything we do is up front and out in the open.
We don’t put you in lousy investments just because they pay us a juicy commission, and we tell you the truth – even when it hurts.
We don’t promise the impossible. We don’t tell you we can time the market or pick stocks that will only go up in price. Our strategies and philosophies are the result of solving real-world problems for our families, and ourselves.
If you want to get the same performance you’ve always gotten – if you want to be worried about what the market is going to do next, then by all means, keep doing what you’re doing. But if you want to change your outcomes, do something different.
Read about another Guiding Principle, Investing is Not the Same Thing as Saving