[upthesaukee]

Personal Experience: while still working, both wife and I, we naively thought that social security would be fine for us. Then I was eligible for a 401k at work. I naively figured why invest more than the company would match (up to 4%). Wife's employer had a simple IRA that was administered by a financial planner. When the wife's employer retired, everyone got to do do what they wanted with their part of the Simple IRA. She chose to stay with the FP.

Not long after that, my mom passed and I was co-owner of two CDs with her. Not a wise way to invest money.

We met with the FP and talked about options available to us. He also looked at my 401k and its options, and gave me general information for guidance on it. One thing he asked was what the max contribution was (16%) and suggested if we could afford it to do the max. We did.

We started with him shortly before 9-11 and endured that downturn and 2008 or 2009. He guided us with mostly medium risk investments. Overall we have done well. I retired 13 yrs ago and my wife 11 yrs ago.

My suggestion is to find an advisor you can deal with. Talk to friends and see who they deal with. Just watch out for fees charged.

Good luck. I feel we were fortunate. We did, on good advice, show patience and were in for the long haul and feel the end result worked.

Dave