What Kind of Financial Help Do You Actually Need?
Not everyone in their “earning and saving years” needs an ongoing financial advisor.
I had a visit recently with someone who works in fintech.
We were talking about ways to help people who are still in those earning and saving years understand their financial picture simply and clearly. At some point I found myself thinking less about the cool software program and more about what happens after you can see the picture.
Let’s say you now know where you stand. You can see what you’ve built, where the gaps are, and what deserves attention. You have a better sense of where your current path is taking you.
Then what?
Do you need to hire a financial advisor? Do you need someone managing your investments? Do you need an ongoing planning relationship?
For a lot of people, actually no.
This conversation reminded me of one of the reasons I was drawn to financial coaching in the first place. There is a whole group of people who are earning, saving, contributing to retirement accounts, building home equity, maybe investing beyond that, and are thinking...
I might be capable of doing this. I just don’t know what I don’t know.
And I’ve always thought that group was underserved.
The choice can seem strangely binary: figure all of this out yourselves, or hire someone to manage it for you. But there’s a lot of territory in between. Sometimes what you need is just enough education and perspective to learn what you need to learn, make a few good decisions along the way, and keep going.
You might still hire out particular pieces, like a CPA for taxes, an estate attorney for legal documents, and an insurance professional for protection. But I don’t think everyone in the accumulation phase needs to hand over the whole financial picture.
There’s another thing about this that matters a lot to me when I’m working with couples: both people should understand the picture. One person may handle everything and the other basically trusts that it’s being handled. That can work operationally, but it isn’t the same thing as shared financial clarity.
Back to the tech... a tool can organize the numbers beautifully. It can run projections and help you compare possibilities. But it still can’t tell a couple what matters most to them, whether both people understand what they’re looking at, or what kind of help they actually need next.
So once you understand the picture, what happens next?
Maybe you realize you can handle this, and make a few changes yourselves.
Maybe you want some coaching support while you work through decisions together.
Maybe one particular piece really does require a specialist.
Or maybe you decide you simply don’t want to manage this yourselves, and delegating it all is worth it to you.
The goal isn’t to avoid professional help. It's to know what kind of help you actually need.
And here’s the thing: I’d already been working on something over the last few weeks before this conversation even came up. So the timing feels pretty perfect to finally introduce it. It’s called the Financial Mapping Session.
It’s not fancy. There’s no giant binder, no 70-page financial plan, and no expectation that you’ll hand over your investments afterward. It’s practical and human—a focused look at the financial picture you already have: what’s working, what may be vulnerable or unclear, where you seem to be headed, and what deserves attention next.
And because I work with couples, the goal is for both people to understand the map.
From there, you can answer your own “Then what?”
Sometimes you really do need an expert. Sometimes you want someone else to take responsibility for managing more of it. And sometimes, with a little education and perspective, you can do much more on your own than you thought.
I want couples to know the difference.
P.S. If you’d like help getting clear on your own financial picture and deciding what your “then what?” is, you can learn more about the Financial Mapping Session here.
