[gfmucci]

Ameriprise Financial will charge any way you want them to: Fee only plans, managment fee, product commission, etc. They were very up-front with me. I have never seen so many disclosure forms. My Ameriprise advisor (3 months now) invites me to challenge him and dialogue. That's the way he and I like it. He and I e-mail often. He is very responsive to questions.

$500 I think is their minimum plan fee and seems like a good value to me. I welcome the advice of someone who I know knows a lot more about this stuff than I do. I have been doing things in the past "intuitively" but discovered I 've been doing things entirely backward from what the professionals advise...and I am gradually learning the reasons for what they do, and it is beginning to make more sense to me.