[Gus Berges]

Even though one of my majors is finance, early on in my life I did hire a financial planner to see if they could improve upon what I was already doing by myself. Turns out it was a total disaster. Most are motivated by the commissions they will make off your portfolio. The basics hold true for the last decades: time value of money (can't beat time, the earlier you start, the better off you will be); risk reward ratio: tons of fancy financial names for this, but essentially you will not make 10% return on a bond, unless it's junk, in which case odds are you'll never see your money; index funds: unless you are a full time trader and know how to write complex programs, odds are you will not be able to beat the performance of an index fund such as the Vanguard Total Index Fund (VTI).

There are other things to consider such as cashflow requirement, tax implications, fees, etc. but all of them are simple questions that only you can answer. If I were you, I'd take a look at no load mutual funds and filter them based on your preferences for risk and their corresponding ratings. That will equate to 90% of what a "broker" will do...