Fiduciary Financial Advisor & Wealth Management in Maplewood, NJ

Trying to find a financial advisor in Maplewood, New Jersey? Financial planning and investing can help provide you with a clear path towards your financial goals and remove uncertainty around your finances.

Finding the right partner is a critical decision, but you may not feel completely equipped to start the process. To help, Grand Life Financial, a fee-only fiduciary financial planning firm, offers some guidance to help in your decision.

Not all advisors are held to the same standards. Are they a full-time fiduciary or just some of the time? This will influence their recommendations, which may or may not be in your best interest. You’ll want to ask if they receive commissions or financial incentives for recommending certain financial products as well as if they’re limited to selling investment products offered by their company.

Click here to schedule a free introductory discussion to begin exploring how you can create a path towards achieving your financial goals.

Financial Planners should at the very minimum:

• Be well educated in all areas that impact your money, not solely investments.
• Proactively keep in touch with you.
• Suggest creative alternatives that you may not have considered, like the optimal way to claim Social Security.
• Know strategies to help you reach your goals, particularly the latest laws and tax code changes.
• Review your tax returns and look for possible future savings.
• Empathize with your fears and worries.
• Ask great questions and listen well.
• Help define your short-term and long-term goals.
• Help to establish financial priorities when you have competing needs.
• Provide a roadmap on how to achieve your goals.
• Collaborate both with you and other professionals, like tax attorneys and CPAs.
• Provide comprehensive financial planning.
• Not have any history of regulatory violations, arbitrations, or complaints.

A Fee-only, Fiduciary, Independent Financial Planner is the most transparent and objective way to serve clients. They are:

• Held to the highest standard of duty and loyalty.
• Put your interests before their own and act as a fiduciary all the time.
• Minimize bias by not accepting any incentives or commissions.
• Transparent on the fees they charge, which most clients admit they don’t know, as well as how they are compensated.

The way your advisor is compensated makes all the difference in the recommendations they make for you. There are essentially three models:

• Commission-based model
• Commission & Fee model
• Fee-Only model

Both commissioned and commission & fee advisors receive compensation based on the specific financial products they sell you. Because of the inherent conflict of interest in these transactions, these advisors may have difficulty putting the client’s interest above their own.

What separates folks like us from typical Financial Advisors is the breadth of work that spans beyond just investments. At Grand Life Financial, we provide comprehensive financial planning, with your goals and values always being considered when developing strategies and making recommendations.

Lastly, financial planning can help protect your family from the unexpected events and reduce fear, such as:

• Market downturns.
• Emergency expenses.
• Long-term care costs.
• Outliving your retirement income.

Learn more about Our Difference.

Grand Life Financial is an independent financial advisor in Maplewood, NJ. We offer our clients a relationship uncorrupted by affiliations with big banks or other financial institutions, so we answer only to our clients. We’re compensated by providing advice only. As a fiduciary financial advisor in Maplewood, we do not receive any commissions and there’s no hidden fees. We believe advisor compensation should be transparent and straightforward. Learn more about our fees here.