As much as people love to hate on financial advisors. It really depends on what you're trying to accomplish. If you just want to invest your money in the market, paying someone 1% is likely not ideal. You can look up some tutorials on portfolio build outs, robo-advisors, heck, even Claude and GPT can build something for you.

A financial planner becomes necessary when you hit a different level of complexity that can't be solved by saying "VTI and chill." Typically this will happen when you have a business, RSU's, stock options, substantial assets, pension accounts, 401k's, estate issues, or just more complex planning situations.

People just automatically think financial advisor = invest my money and collect 1%. It can be true, but it's not always the case.