Just OK Is Not Good Enough for a Financial Plan

Don't get me wrong. I'm 100% in favor of the idea of financial planning. And I have nothing but respect for the fee-only fiduciary advisers who do it right.

It's just that some people view going through a traditional financial planning session with the same level of enthusiasm as getting a root canal. All that annoying prep work you have to do, from listing in painstaking detail all your monthly income and expenses to combing through online IRA statements or worse ... drudging through boxes in the attic to amass years of tax forms, banking, mortgage and credit card statements and investment reports.

And after all this work and maybe a few thousand dollars in fees, what do you actually get in return from a typical financial adviser? A big binder full of investment charts and bullet points, a lecture on