How do I know if I'm paying too much for financial planning?

Q: I currently have a financial advisor who works with a professional financial investing firm. I pay what seems to be a very large amount of fees for their services. The fees are in the neighborhood of 1.75 percent of the total amount. Talking with some friends, this appears to be quite high. Is there some guideline I can use, to make sure I am paying a reasonable amount?

A: Go to www.cfpboard.org -- the Web site of certified financial planners, and you'll get some background.

Then make sure that 1.75 percent is the TOTAL amount you're paying. I doubt it -- probably you paid fees/commissions to get INTO the funds they bought, and also pay annual management fees for the funds themselves, and their planning fee may be on top of all that!

If that's the case, you might want to move your assets to a no-load mutual fund company such as Vanguard, where you can get advice and diversification with total fees probably under .50 basis points per year!

Just remember that you might face penalties or commissions on the sale of any funds you own, as well as capital gains taxes.

Terry Savage is a registered investment advisor and the author of the newly published The Savage Number: How Much Money Do You Need To Retire? (256 pages, Wiley, $24.95).