But the longer you stay invested in the fund, the longer you'll be paying a very steep expense ratio. That's the annual charge that all mutual fund investors pay on their investment. The problem with B share funds is that the expense ratio can be 1.5 percent a year or more, because a big portion of that charge goes to pay the adviser who sold you the fund.

When you compare that to index funds or ETFs, which have expense ratios that can be just two-tenths of a percentage point or less (0.20 percent), it's a huge difference. Your adviser is doing well, but the high expense ratio you're paying makes it harder for you to do well.

A financial adviser - which can just be a gussied-up name for a broker - who makes all of his or her money on commissions for the investments you buy and sell obviously has an interest in getting you to do a lot of buying and selling. And it's not unreasonable to see that the adviser has a financial incentive to get you to pay high commissions.

You and your money deserve a better deal than an adviser who works solely on commission can offer. A better arrangement is to work with an adviser you pay a flat annual fee to rather than per-trade commissions.

A typical adviser fee might be 1 percent to 1.5 percent or so. But again, you need to be careful that your adviser is taking good care of your money. If you're paying an adviser 1 percent or so a year for his fee, and the adviser is then turning around and putting you in mutual funds with annual expense ratios of around 1.5 percent, your total investing costs are way too high.

A financial adviser who charges a flat annual management fee should be focused on individual stocks or very low-cost funds such as index funds or ETFs.

If your adviser also happens to be a life insurance agent and has steered you into a cash-value policy, sirens should be blaring in your head. In the vast majority of cases, all you need is a simple term insurance policy, which is going to cost you about 80 percent less than a cash-value policy such as universal life, whole life or variable life.

Anyone who tells you to buy a variable annuity (VA) for your IRA is clearly not looking out for your best interests. The spin on VAs is that you get tax-deferred growth in mutual funds - that is, no taxes while the money is invested in the VA. But in truth, everything in your IRA is already tax-deferred anyway.

One reason many people turn to financial advisers is for help in figuring out how to save money for their children's college educations. While it's logical to want to provide for your kids, a good financial adviser won't blindly set up college funds for you.

Instead, a good financial adviser will assess whether you should be saving for college at all. If you aren't already maxing out on all your own retirement savings options, or you have a big chunk of high-interest credit card debt, you have no business putting your kids' college costs ahead of getting your own finances in good shape.

A financial adviser who has your best interests at heart - and your kids' for that matter - will explain that if you retire without sufficient income to live on, or in serious debt, you're going to be a financial burden to your children.

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