How often should you meet with a financial advisor?

Working with a financial advisor is a valuable way to help you reach your financial goals, but it requires an ongoing relationship to make sure you stay on track. Financial planning isn’t a ‘set it and forget it’ activity—it requires continuing attention as your goals, income and life circumstances develop. Life events, market changes and evolving goals all impact your plan and require communication with your financial advisor to navigate effectively.

So, how often should you meet with your financial advisor? The exact answer will vary depending on your situation and the nature of your strategy. Let’s look at the factors that influence how often you should touch base.

For most people, meeting at least once a year is ideal, but those with more complex finances—such as business owners, retirees or high‑income earners—often benefit from more frequent reviews. Generally speaking, people with more complex financial situations or those whose circumstances may change frequently will want to meet more often.

It's a good benchmark to plan on checking in once a year, at a minimum. This gives you an opportunity to assess your financial goals with your financial advisor, track investment performance and discuss any adjustments you may want to make in light of life changes or market fluctuations. Ultimately, this annual visit makes sure your plan remains targeted for your needs amid life's changes.

In some cases, though, 12 months may be too long to wait between updates, especially for those with more dynamic circumstances, such as business owners, retirees drawing down income or investors with complex portfolios. You may want to consider meeting, either virtually or in-person at a local office, quarterly or semiannually if your finances involve multiple income sources, business ownership, tax‑sensitive strategies or complex investment portfolios.

Regardless of how often you plan to meet, you should reach out to your financial advisor with any significant financial or personal developments. Unplanned changes are going to happen, and a well-built financial plan can adapt to account for them. However, your financial advisor can’t help you if they don’t know what's going on.

While scheduling regular check-ins is a good way to stay on top of financial goals, it can be worth scheduling an ad-hoc meeting following certain life events that affect your financial situation. There are many, but some of the most common include:

• Events that change your family structure, such as marriage, divorce, birth, adoption or the death of a loved one. 
• Significant real estate transactions such as buying or selling property or renovating your home.
• Career moves such as job changes, promotions, raises or retirement.
• Major medical events or disability, either for you or a loved one who depends on you.
• Unexpected or sudden windfalls, settlements, inheritances or other large financial transitions.
• Any time there are major tax law updates, such as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. 

It's impossible to list every type of event that could affect your finances, because life is complex and everyone's situation is different. But any time you experience a life event that has financial implications, it’s a good idea to notify your financial advisor to see if it warrants a deeper discussion.

Regular check-ins allow you to keep momentum within your financial plan, adjust for changes and maximize the benefits of working with a financial advisor. These benefits include but are not limited to:

• Staying aligned with goals. Regular meetings help ensure your financial strategy reflects your current priorities and stays aligned with your retirement timeline, tax planning needs and long‑term goals.
• Coordination of moving parts. Decisions in one area often impact other items. Regular meetings help keep all of your finances working together so things don’t drift out of sync.
• Catching small issues before they grow. Small things like failing to update beneficiaries or shifts in spending patterns silently can compound into big problems if they go unnoticed. Ongoing reviews can reveal these slight missteps so you can adjust before things are negatively affected.
• Adjusting for market and economic changes. Proactive reviews reduce emotional decision-making during times of market volatility and allow you to rebalance your portfolio in a methodical way.
• Revisiting risk tolerance. Comfort levels can evolve with age, income or life stage. You may have been comfortable with or able to take certain risks in your investment choices when you initially developed your plan. But your risk tolerance can go up or down as your situation evolves.
• Maximizing opportunities. Staying in touch helps clients take advantage of new investment options or tax strategies.

Ongoing conversations help ensure that your plan continues to support your life and goals, rather than simply existing as a static document. 

Before your planned meeting with your financial advisor, prepare ahead of time to make the meeting as productive as possible. Before you go, it may be helpful to have an idea of what you want to accomplish in the meeting and make notes about any changes that have occurred since your last meeting. Documentation also can be useful. You may want to:

• Gather updated documents for review. This might include recent tax returns, investment statements for any accounts your financial advisor doesn’t manage, and records of major transactions. It's even better if you can send these things to your financial advisor to review ahead of time so they have time to prepare and focus the agenda.
• Come with questions. For example, maybe you're thinking about altering your retirement date and want to know if you need to adjust your plan or if you’re on track.
• Review your budget. Compare your actual spending habits with the budget you discussed the last time you spoke to your financial advisor. That way, you're prepared to go over it and make your financial advisor aware of how closely (or not) you’ve followed the plan.
• Be prepared to discuss any life changes. Come prepared to talk about shifts in short-term goals and changes in your family’s circumstances, health or career, as well as how your risk preferences may be evolving.

Life can be busy, and things like financial planning often are ignored until an issue arises. Working with a financial advisor helps transform reactive, one‑off decisions into a coordinated strategy that supports long‑term financial stability and confident retirement planning. Reasons to work with a financial advisor include:

• Personalized guidance. Financial advisors provide tailored insights based on your life stage, goals and values and define actionable steps based on those insights.
• Accountability and structure. Regular meetings keep your financial plan active rather than reactive, addressing issues before they arise.
• Expert insight. Financial advisors help interpret complex tax, investment and retirement rules and help you understand how they apply to you.
• Emotional support during uncertainty. Regular meetings offer a professional perspective that can help maintain discipline through market ups and downs.
  

  FAQs

  How much money should I have to meet with a financial advisor?

  Although some financial advisors have minimums, many others do not. It’s more about what your needs are and the type of help you’d like to receive.

  What is the 80/20 rule for financial advisors?

  The 80/20 is in reference to the Pareto principle, the idea that 80% of your results often come from 20% of your efforts. This concept helps you focus on the decisions that will have the greatest impact on your goals.

  What is a red flag for a financial advisor?

  Many things could be a red flag for a financial advisor. One of the most common is when they recommend solutions or products before listening carefully to your goals and evaluating your situation.

  What should you not say to your financial advisor?

  What you should not say to your financial advisor is that you have told them everything if you have not. Withholding information or only sharing part of the story with your financial advisor can lead to poor planning outcomes.