**TLDR:** What questions might you ask a financial advisor if you were interviewing them? I
I'm comfortable managing my own portfolio, but i don't know what questions to ask about advisors. So why am I asking? well it's not for me.
My in-laws are retiring soon, and i've had a number of conversations with them about retirement, healthcare in retirement, the 4% rule of thumb and more real world examples with guardrails, and basic BogleHeads investment strategy. When i realized that a 3-4 fund portfolio and risk tolerance discussions was a bit too much out of their comfort level i did the Billy Mays pivot "BUT WAIT THERE"S MORE: you don't have to figure any of this out, a target date fund does this for you automatically and it still beats most advisors returns, for virtually no fee compared to an advisor."
My mother-in-law grew up with a guy who is/was a financial advisor, his son has "taken over the family business" and she knows the son too through local community events. It's an Edward Jones firm. They're pretty much dead-set on using them because they think they'll get special treatment for knowing the guy and he couldn't possibly take advantage of them with fees. I more or less said "they probably have a single cookie cutter approach and you're net-worth isn't high enough for special treatment." of course I was much softer in my language.
I've said my piece, voiced my concerns, but it's not my decision. Looking for the value for them, the truth is, I don't trust my in-laws to have diamond hands during a correction and not sell at the bottom and buy back in after the recovery. Hopefully he will earn that fee by talking them off a ledge. I also realized I don't want to be responsible and ruin a great familial relationship. Even if I give them textbook advice, but the market declines, i don't want there to be resentment because i stepped out of line was more insistent than appropriate with how they manage their money. And it is a great family relationship, I adore my in-laws.
They did invite me to sit down with their advisor this week and I agreed. In part because they do want me to understand where their money is and how's it's being invested, and in part because they did want me to ask some of the tough questions they don't know to ask themselves.