How can I help others plan their finances, without being a “conventional” financial planner?
"In the UK there is a non-profit called the Citizen's Advice Bureau which provides free advice to people on a wide range of subjects, but including debt and budgeting. Consumer Credit Counselling Service provides explicit help but again, in the UK. A search for ""volunteer debt counsellor"" reveals a whole host of organizations that do that, but almost all based in the UK or Canada or Australia. The US seems not to be well provided with such organizations. This page advises people to volunteer as a debt counsellor, but gives no specifics of organizations, just ""Volunteer at local county community centers, churches and agencies. Your local faith-based organization might be a good place to start, even if you are not a member. Regrettably a search for ""free debt counselling"" produced a similar list of non-profits in UK and Canada, but mainly companies peddling consolidation loans in the US." If you personally make any money from it then you need a Series 65, or a Series 63 license. It is a private industry/SEC regulation. The license itself basically spells out your duties and ethical standards for you. I am a Certified Financial Planner and provide tactical advice on everything from budgeting to saving for retirement. You do not have to have any series exams or a CFP to do this work, although it helps give you credibility. As long as you DO NOT provide investment advice, you likely do not need to register as an investment advisor or need any certification. "I think it's great that you want to contribute. Course Instructor You may want to take a look at becoming an instructor for a course like Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. These are commonly offered through churches and other community venues for a fee. This may be a good fit if you want to focus on basic financial literacy, setting up and sticking to a budget, and getting their financial ""house"" in order. It may not be a good fit if you don't want to teach an existing curriculum, or if you find the tenets of the course too unpalatable. A significant number of the people in Dave's audience are close to or in the middle of a financial meltdown, and so his advice includes controversial ideas such as avoiding credit altogether, often because that's how they got into their current mess. Counselor If you want to run your own show, I know of several people who have built their own practice that is run along the lines of a counselor charging hourly rates, and they work with couples who are having money problems. Building a reputation and a network of referring counselors and professionals is key here, and definitely seems like it would require a full-time commitment. I would avoid ""credit counseling"" and the like. Most of these organizations are focused on restructuring credit card debt, not spending signficant time on behavioral change. You don't need a series 7, 63, 65 etc. or even a CFA. I've previously acquired a number of these and can confirm that they are investment credentials that are intended to help you get a job and/or get more business as a broker or conventional financial planner, i.e. salesperson of securities. The licensure process is necessary to protect consumers from advice that serves the investment sales force but is bad for the consumer, and because you must be licensed to provide investment advice. There is a class of fee-only financial planners, but they primarily deal with complex issues that allow them to make money, and often give away basic personal finance advice for free in the form of articles, podcasts, etc.  Charity For part-time or free work, in my area there are also several charity organizations that help people do their taxes and provide basic budgeting and personal finance instruction, but this is very localized and may vary quite a bit depending on where you live. However, if there are none near you, you can always start one! Journalism If you have an interest in writing, there are also people who work as journalists and write columns, books, or newsletters, and it is much easier now to publish and build a network online, either on your own, through a blog or contributing to a website. Speaker at Community events There are also many opportunities to speak to a specific community such as a church or social organization. For example, where I live there are local organizations for Spanish speaking, Polish speaking, elderly, young professional, young mother and retiree groups for example, all of who might be interested in your advice on issues that specifically address their needs. Good luck!" You know there is a small group of individuals who focus on strictly planning without implementation. They are not securities licensed (no 7,6,66,63 license) so they cannot sell or discuss securities, but they do put together financial plans to help individuals recover from debt and rework spending/saving strategies. They also usually work hand in hand with a CFP or ChFc to do the implementation process. The hard part is making money at it. Financial Planners make most of their income on high net worth clients. You would be targeting low income or troubles income clients that would have a hard time paying money for the service. I am not saying it cannot be done, you just have your work cut out for you. But it is a noble career and you would be helping idividuals have a better life. That speaks volumes! "You need a license/registration to be a ""conventional"" financial planner.  But as long as your work is limited to budgets, and cash flow analysis, it may be more like accounting. In your shoes, I would consult the local CPA association about what you need (if anything) to do what you're doing."
I'm a retired stockbroker/Registered Investment Advisor. My initial discussions with prospects never had a fee.  Restricted stock is unsaleable without specific permission from the issuing company, and typically involves time specifc periods when stock can be sold and/or amounts of stock that can be sold. Not for DIY. Financial planners may be able to assist you, if they are conversant in restricted stock, though that's not a common situation for most clients. Any stockbroker at a major firm (Merrill Lynch, UBS, Royal Bank of Canada, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, etc.) will be knowledgeable and advise you (w/o charge) how to trade the stock. Always talk to more than one firm, and don't be in a hurry. If you feel comfortable with the discussion, you can pursue a deeper relationship. In my professional experience, clients valued service, accessibility, knowledge. Price was way down on the list; many of my clients were not wealthy people- they just needed help navigating a very confusing (and necessary) part of their lives. Good luck. As someone fairly new to finance and investing in their 30s, the market is doing too well right now for me to use someone else to tell me how to invest the Sp500 alone is doing so well it is almost a can't miss. I am smart enough to know right now that it is easy and the real value if a financial planner comes when the market is going down. Which is impossible to predict. "I have always found that the ""free"" planners are just salesmen pointing you in their best interests. Not that it won't get you a good deal in the processes, but, in my experience, they usually just recommend products that give them the best commission, finders fee, kickback, whatever.  Flat fee financial planners are not really to my liking either. This is a taste thing, but generally, I feel like now that they have my fee, what interest do they have in taking care of me. That doesn't mean that they don't give good advise however. They may be a good first step. Percentage based financial planners, those that charge a percentage of assets under management, are my recommendation. The more money they make me the more money they make. This seems to work out quite well.  Whatever you do, you need to be aware that financial planners are not just about recommending products, or saving money. That's part of it, but a good planner will also help you look at monthly budgets, current costs, liabilities, and investments. You want to look for someone that you can basically tell your goal to - ""I want to have x amount of money saved for y date,"" for example, or ""I want to reduce my bills by z amount in x months"".  Run from any planner that looks only at the large sum as the ""solution"" or only source of money. You want a planner that will look at your first house mortgage(s), care loans, income, other investments, etc. and come up with a full plan for everything.  If you're only trying to invest the new house money, and that's it, you're better off just sticking with Google and some research on your own." "First and foremost you must remember that they are people (something I don't think you have trouble with, but others might). When dealing with increasingly desperate financial struggles, it's not uncommon to allow financial trouble to define you, or for others to see you only as ""poor"". Money is a human creation. It's not real, like fire or water, and ""money problems"" is a misnomer. Whatever problems they have, money is only one symptom. Often, dealing with those deeper human problems, such as lack of confidence, depression, fear or behavioral issues, is the key to correcting ""downstream"" problems like poor money management. Not that learning how to manage money isn't important, but it doesn't sound like that is the primary issue in this case. Westerners tend to view money trouble as distinct from other problems. The answer to money troubles is often understood to be ""more money"" or ""smarter money"" - earn more or spend better. It helps to step back and look beyond finances. What's going in their lives? How does that make them feel? Do they feel unimportant or valueless? How's their family life? Do they have good emotional support, or are they running ""on empty"", trying to fill the emptiness with other things (like games, for example). (Simply telling them to stop purchasing games, for example, without finding a better replacement just perpetuates the feelings of shame, valuelessness and emptiness.) Discovering the deeper elements of your friends' situation is much more complicated than giving them money or paying for a financial counselor (neither of which are bad things), but it may make a tremendous difference not just in your friends' bank account, but in their lives as well. My wife and I have experienced all of this first-hand, so I know the predicament you are in. We've even had people in tough financial situations live in our home with us. In all the situations in which we've been close enough to understand context, money wasn't the primary issue. It's always been something else, more often than not family, but not always. I've found the book When Helping Hurts helpful for gaining some perspective, though it's not a perfect match (since it deals more with poverty on a grand scale). You may still find it helpful in terms of general principles, but, ultimately, each situation is going to be unique and no one-size-fits-all strategy exists to solve all problems. In the end, building a deeper relationship is the best path toward finding a long-term solution." If it's money you can lose, and you're young, why not?  Another would be motifinvesting where you can invest in ideas as opposed to picking companies. However, blindly following other investors is not a good idea.  Big investors strategies might not be similar to yours, they might be looking for something different than you.  If you're going to do that, find someone with similar goals. Having investments, and a strategy, that you believe in and understand is paramount to investing.  It's that belief, strategy, and understanding that will give you direction.  Otherwise you're just going to follow the herd and as they say, sheep get slaughtered. Pool their money into my own brokerage account and simply split the gains/losses proportional to the amount of money that we've each   contributed to the account. I'm wary of this approach due to the tax   implications and perhaps other legal issues so I'd appreciate   community insight here. You're right to be wary. You might run into gift tax issues, as well as income tax liability and appropriation of earnings. Not a good idea at all. Don't do this. Have them set up their own brokerage account and have them give me the   login credentials and I manage the investments for them. This is   obviously the best approach from a tracking and tax perspective, but   harder for me to manage; to be honest I'm already spending more time   than I want to managing my own investments, so option 1 really appeals   to me if the drawbacks aren't prohibitive. That would also require you to be a licensed financial adviser, at least to the best of my understanding. Otherwise there's a lot of issues with potential liability (if you make investments that lose money - you might be required to repay the losses). You should do this only with a proper legal and tax advice - from an attorney and/or CPA/EA licensed in your state. There are proper ways to do this (limited partnership or LLC, for example), but you have to cover your ass-ets with proper operating agreements in place that have to be reviewed by legal counsel of each of the members/partners, Best of luck!  Just an FYI, a great deal of finance firms look for people like you.  The way you perceive things is completely different from the way someone who is traditionally trained in finance.  Look into some peers of DE.  Also, Private Equity (PE) firms...mainly the ones dealing with bio/pharma/whatever you specialize in.  What are your excel skills like?  Make them better!  No mouse.  Know VLOOKUP, GETPIVOTDATA, etc.  Again, not to become redundant, but figure out what you want to do and go from there...  If you are good/quick with your math look for trading.  There are a lot of books out there on the subject of trading.  Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis, will give you an insight to the lifestyle/mantra of traders (during the 80s).  If you like digging into numbers/investigating things you may want to look into a more analytical role.  To figure out if you like this read some financial statements.  Look on SEC.gov, navigate to EDGAR.  Look up a 10-k (annual report) and a 10-q (quarterly report).  See if you like poking around/figuring out why and how things work.  Hit up seekingalpha.com.  This is a hodgepodge of people's opinion.  Saying why they want to buy/sell a security.  Look at the reasons.  They will cite certain economic indicators or other signals.  Seekingalpha is a place that can show you how financial types think.  See how your views differ or align.  Or even if you can expand on what they are saying.  Investopedia is a great place to learn jargon and other terms.  Frequent this place.  Key terms: http://www.financialmodelingguide.com/financial-modeling-tips/tips/banking-financial-terms/  This gives short definitions.  Investopedia will give you in depth definitions.  Are you currently employed as a RandomAcademicDean?  Does your college offer free courses to staff?  If yes, take some classes FOR FREE!  Take an accounting course (skip managerial, stick with financial), an econ course, a finance course.  I am going to assume your college offers a class in Econometrics.  Talk to one of the professors, if you think this class would be manageable, sign up.  They will probably say your should take MACRO and MICRO.  This is true, but you have a P.h.D in Chemistry so you have a demonstrated aptitude towards academia.  Econometrics, in short, can be considered the science of business.  Bottom line:  Figure our your interest within the financial realm, act upon it.  Play up your knowledge in chemistry (as a quantitative science) and experience as a dean (think management role).  tl;dr soak up knowledge.  regurgitate when necessary. P.h.D = good. read a lot.  Finance is a big world, you will fit in! I can't say much about other financial topics (ie personal finance), but I can give you some sources on investing.  Books: Market wWizards, Hedge Fund Market Wizards, Reminisces of a Stock Operator, No Bull, The Snowball  Websites:  Bloomberg, CNBC, Zerohedge  I also share my own thoughts on the stock market at http://markethistory.org