If you hire an advisor, I would make them sign this pledge. We work too hard for our money and retirement to be sold stuff we don't need and charged high fees or hidden fees.
Most people think it is ok to pay a 1% fee but in reality, this fee is more like a 20% fee from profits. Let me give you an example.
The gold standard for institutional portfolios is a 60% stock and 40% bond portfolio. Most advisors/ individual investors have a difficult time beating Vanguard index funds after fees.
Vanguard LifeStrategy Moderate Growth (VSMGX) is a 60/40 portfolio. 10 year return is 4.97%. Most advisors can't beat this before their advisor fee. So if you pay a 1% advisor fee, you are paying 20% of your return each year! 1%/5%
Times have changed. Most real, fee only advisors should be charging around .5% to .6% for a $500k portfolio (depending on the scope of work).
Bogle vs. Goliath
How the Bogle Model Beats the Yale Model
Good luck.