You want a fee based financial manager. He/she will help you determine your goals and risk tolerance, create an Investment Policy Statement for you based on your preferences, and construct an investment structure within those parameters. Fee based planners usually charge 1-3% of your assets each year, so they are motivated to grow your assets, rather than just move them in and out of funds to generate commissions.

The best way to find a respectable, trustworthy financial advisor is to get a referral from someone who you respect. If you are a professional woman (or even if you aren’t), you probably know more than a few successful, responsible people whose advice you would trust. Ask them if they are satisfied with the service of their financial advisor/manager. If they are, then they will likely be more than willing to give you information, tips, and a referral.

There are several other reasons a referral is valuable. Many of the best advisors only deal with high net worth individuals–those with a million or more to invest. But if a valued client refers someone with less (like your $500,000), then they will often take that client to build/maintain relationships with their best clients.

Besides, referrals are what makes the world go round in professional circles. It’s the bread and butter of most bankers, lawyers, CPAs, and financial advisors, etc. Use this opportunity–get an advisor who can refer valuable clients to you and vice versa.

1) Arrange interviews with financial planners (also known as wealth managers), of 2 or 3 large banks who have a high reputation to uphold. Chose the one who impresses you most. But best would be some one recommended by a friend.

2) Go for payment by fee only, not commission.

3) The fees will be 1.5 to 2.5 %.

4) But I would strongly advise you to avoid these wealth managers because with time their charges will take more from you than you will get.

5) Far better to do it yourself. Just invest equally in 3 mutual fund tracking the 3 main indices. There will be no need to do anything else other than check the reports they will send you twice a year.

I suggest you to open a brokerage account at Fidelity.

Here is how it works:
You give access to the Portfolio Manager to your account and he will invest your money.

Let’s pretend a year has passed and he made 25%($125,000.00) for you.

You take $62,500.00 and you live the whole year with that money and you reinvest $62,500.00

He now has $562,500.00
Another year passes and he makes 25% again ($140,000) for you.

You take $70,000.00 and you live the whole year with that money and you reinvest $70,000.00

He now has $632,000.00

Each year wou will have more money and each year you will spend more money.

Some years he will make more than 25%
If he is good he will never make less than 25%

Portfolio Manager usually charge a fee based on their profits.

Some charge each year or each quarter.

If you need more detailed FREE information then you can email me.

If you’re willing to spend the time to read a little bit about money management and have at least average math skills, you can probably do fine managing the money yourself and save those fees.

If you’re more than 10 years from retirement, you could probably put most of it in stock mutual funds that are linked to a major market index (e.g. the S&P 500, Mid-Cap 400, Russell 2000) which are low-cost investments. Over long periods of time, stocks have historically provided the highest returns of any asset class.

Someone suggested real estate. I would NOT do that. It takes a LOT of knowledge and a lot of time and effort to do that well and historically the average returns are not that great.

There’s tons of brokerage frims out there. I use Smith Barney, but am thinking of checking out Charles Schaub or managing it online myself. Fees vary provider to provider — you could call around and do some comparisons…