Selecting an IFA for FI/RE?

[Gateau]

Hello All,

I have been pursuing FIRE for a couple of years now using mostly web resources. Things have gone OK but I feel like I am starting to hit a point where I have a lot of different options going forward and I want to sit down with somebody to look at the organisation of my finances and help evaluate the financial consequences of the different options.

Has anybody used a financial adviser when pursuing FIRE? Is there anything I should look for when selecting one?

[frugledoc]

I would avoid IFAs unless you are so wealthy as to be concerned about estate planning (and even then be very wary).

Why don't you post your problem here?  I guarantee you will get better advice than from an IFA.

[SpreadsheetMan]

You are better asking the question over on the MSE pension board, there are a lot more UK folks there: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=19

[daverobev]

Post your budget/stats - if you just have a couple of questions we may be able to help.

[Playing with Fire UK]

I spoke to a couple of UK IFAs, I didn't find them especially helpful. They were focussed on selling me "beat the market" funds and struggled to get on board with spending less to stop work sooner, rather than working more to spend more.

One made an egregious mistake and it really bothered me that he wouldn't accept that this was a big deal. I came to the conclusion that it was more work checking that they'd run their numbers correctly than just running the numbers myself.

[PhilB]

You are better asking the question over on the MSE pension board, there are a lot more UK folks there: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=19

I would second this - I hang out there sometimes myself under a different alias.  You will generally get much better advice on there than by going to an IFA - there are several very good IFAs on there answering techy questions and if they genuinely think you would be better off going to an IFA they will tell you so, but that's normally only the case if you need a product that can be got more cheaply through an IFA-only platform or a transaction that requires IFA advice to have been taken.
The nature of the beast is that an IFA's number one priority is always going to be not being sued which drives most of them to use a very tick box approach.  Most people will be much better off educating themselves to the level where they can understand the options that people will come up with for them on MSE and then asking questions there - it's where my journey started.