1. Educate yourself before you trust anyone else with your money.
2. Annuities are the devil. They only make money for the person selling them to you. Yes, in very niche circumstances an Annuity may make sense for a person or couple but rarely does that happen.
3. Don't take financial advice form a financial advisor who is not a fiduciary and even then be weary of what they tell you and try to sell you.
4. Don't take financial advice from people on internet forums...
5. See rules 1-4
I have never used an advisor.
I have never purchased an annuity.
I read my first book about investing more than 30 years ago.
From 2003-2023 (percentages are annual returns):
- My parents advisor at Citibank barely made them 5% and sold them annuities
- My older brother's Wells Fargo advisor made him 8% (almost as good as the S&P 500 index before fees so worse than the index)
- My younger brother's Fidelity Advisor made him 9% (about the same as the S&P 500 index but with more risk)
- My wife and I made 12% without any "professional" advisors.
The only "advice" we ever received was one time from my wife's aunt who was an independent personal wealth manager for high net worth clients, she said: "You will never beat the market because you do not have access to the information I do so put your money in Vanguard Index Funds [retirement and taxable investment accounts] and never sell until you retire. Do not trade. Just buy and keep buying until you retire and need the money".