Vendors Who Construct Pure Financial Plans

[nish]

How do I find vendors who specialize in constructing - and advising on -
long term financial plans. It appears to be the case that most financial
planners want to manage all your money and constructing a financial plan is
just a side business designed to get you in as a client. That is not what
I want at all. I want someone who will charge for their time to create a
long term financial plan.

nish

[David S. Meyers, CFP(R)]

You're right - the vast majority of folks who call themselves financial planners or financial advisors only do the kind of planning your talking about secondarily. Even most fee-only planners work on an AUM (assets-under-management) basis, meaning that they expect you to turn over a portfolio for them to manage, on which they charge a percentage of assets -- and then they may (or, sadly, may not!) provide the long-term financial planning you're talking about as part of that deal.

But don't despair. There are planning specialists out there. They're just a bit harder to find.

[For what it's worth -- *I* do exactly that -- about half of my practice is simply hourly or one-off project-based planning.]

A few places to start a search for such a fee-only *hourly* planner would include:

NAPFA - the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors -- a true "fee-only" organization. All members must have their CFP, and may not sell products for commissions. All members have to submit a comprehensive financial plan for review by our peers. However, as you may expect, while most NAPFA members do perform the comprehensive planning you'd want -- the majority of them still do so under the AUM model. However, there are exceptions. So take a look. I am a member of NAPFA.

Garrett Planning Network -- all Garrett members offer hourly planning. I am not a member of Garrett.

XY Planning Network -- geared towards millennials, but certainly not exclusively at all. All members must be NAPFA members, and all offer monthly retainer (rather than assets-under-management) planning (meaning a focus on planning). Many (most?) also offer hourly work, too.