How much does financial planning cost? Wills?

[megalicious]

We don't exactly have complicated finances, but the 20+yr age gap makes planning retirement and college confusing. We had a brief "free consultation" with a financial planner a while back, but he basically tried to sell us an annuity and didn't talk about anything else. What would it cost to have someone sit down with us to discuss a budget, retirement & college planning?

Same idea for wills. A straightforward "everything goes to my wife" type will. How much $$ am I looking at?

[jgb]

We paid about $400 for our wills, powers of attorney, living wills, advanced directives, etc.

We paid about $1k for a comprehensive financial plan earlier this year. We submitted a ton of documents, questionnaires, etc, then met with the financial planner two times for delivery of the plan. He had tons of advice, and we ended up taking most of it. One piece of advice he gave us saved us enough money to immediately cover the $1k we paid him.

[whitepicketfence]

I can't speak as to what a financial planner costs as we don't use one. However, we paid $300 to have our wills, living wills, POA docs, and a trust set up.

I live in a LCOL area. I have heard of others on here paying considerably more than we did depending on where they live.

[lys]

Our lawyer charged 1K for estate planning, wills, medical durable power of attorney, financial power of attorney and re titiling of assets. No financial planning - this was all for passing on of posessions, money, house etc.

I would look for a fee only finanical planner. (They charge by the hour and do not earn commissions for selling you annutities, stocks etc. )