Im turing 18 in 3 weeks,and im recieving 350k of inherentince.My mom hired me an accountant last week and..?

I dont trust her,my accountant/Finacial advisor.....She stalks me everday everwhere.Ever since we met i see her everywhere.School,Job,mall etc.

She calls my cell phone twice a day to just talk?"hey you like baseball?"My accountant/Fianacial advisor even hired me an attourny.

I dont even have the money yet and people are up in my face.

My question is my accountant crazy or are all accountants wack jobs who want a piece of your pie?

No, this is not normal.

I don't know your mom - how good a judge of character she is, how wise she is with money, how trustworthy, etc. But even if she is the most wonderful and smartest person in the world, I can't imagine even the slightest circumstance where you would want to keep this accountant / FA - sounds like she is trying to be your friend, and that is okay but what are you paying her in the meantime and what are her motives? Sounds hard to trust.

I recommend (after firing this person) you take one of the following actions:

1. If you really want professional advice, put your money in a CD at a bank until you find somebody you're certain (and that somebody you trust and is good with money is also certain) you can trust - and I mean certain. Even if it takes months or years to find such a person, you will still be safely gaining interest on the CD (certificate of deposit, a very common and safe investment offered by almost all banks and other financial institutions).

2. Do-it-yourself option A - if you prefer to just invest it somewhere and be done with it, then invest in mutual funds (you can do this directly, online and/or over the phone). I recommend T. Rowe Price or Vanguard - they both have low costs, strong performance, and many choices to choose from. If you go this route, I would select one of each of the following and divide the 350K evenly between them:
a. US 'total stock market' fund - invests in a way that represents the entire market
b. US small cap fund - invests in small companies
c. US value fund - invests in companies regarded undervalued by market
d. International 'total market' fund - see a. but in non-US companies
e. International small cap fund - see b. but non-US
f. International value fund - see c. but non-US
g. Emerging markets fund - high risk / reward but at your age plenty of time to realize the reward even if some declines along the way

3. Do-it-yourself option B - if you are interested in learning how to better invest and manage your own money, there are many free and low-cost resources available to you: American Association of Individual Investors (AAII), FundAdvice.com, Morningstar.com, Yahoo Finance, MSN Money, etc. Put all the inheritance in a CD (see item 1) until you've learned enough to be able to begin investing on your own.

No matter which of these you choose, I strongly recommend also doing the following - give some of it to one or more worthy causes. You have been tremendously blessed with this inheritance, now become a blessing to others less fortunate.

In summary, you want to put your money somewhere reasonably safe but also still want a decent return - so beware of anybody trying to sell you something as you have many many choices and investing is a very common thing so beware of people that seem overly friendly or act like they're doing you a big favor.

One more thing to remember - whatever choice you make isn't worth it if it's going to keep you awake at night or otherwise cause you pain or misery. Lots of money doesn't guarantee quality of life, so whatever choice you make should be one that will enhance your quality of life (and hopefully your investment returns as well).

When you turn 18, hire your own financial planner.

Don't sign anything with your current accountant or attorney once you turn 18, and don't pay them.

You don't owe them anything because you are still a minor right now.

Call the licensing board and ask for a referral for a CFP.

At 18 you can hire your own financial advisors; insurance man; bank advisor; attorney, CPA, etc. And you can see them right now before your birthday. You definately need these people to advise you. That's a whole heckofa lot of money and you will want to have it make money for you. Sure, you'll want some for a new car, perhaps an apartment and some to just pi** away.

Your money must be being held by your local Probate Court as you are under 18. Contact that office (nobody needs to know you did this) and ask about it. You are entitled to read the records. You need to know if the full amount of your inheritance still exists or if your "Guardian" (that's what your mom or someone would be called) has dissipated some of it. You tell your mother you want a full disclosure if she says it's not all there. I'm not trying to belittle her because she is really doing the right thing setting you up with professional people to help you.

And listen to what I'm going to tell you now: Your advisor will be billing you for all the meetings that she see fit to bill you for. All the nonsense phone calls, etc. so you better ask her about this and tell her you are not okaying random calls and meetings. You might even want to discuss this with your Mom. Sometimes a financial advisor and attorney work hand in hand for your good; sometimes for their own. I don't mean to sound cynical but I know these things first hand.

Good luck to you and don't let new people become your 'friends' now that you have money! (Sorry I couldn't be brief!)

Most of the answers you got are scams. Run away from www.aid4families.com and anyone else offering outrageous returns. These people appeal to the greed in all of us.

A far as your question is concerned.... stay away from this one... they're up to no good.

Call Schwab, Vanguard, T.Rowe Price, Fidelity brokerage. Low fees, good products & out to help the customer.

Most accountants fine but not when it comes to investments. Have to make it clear to your mom that her choice does not have your confidence. Last thing you need is a lawyer. Need to have your mom let both of you sit down and chose someone if (and only if) someone needed I doubt someone is. I speak as someone who has done accounting since 1981.

350k isn't that much that it warrants you being "stalked" by a "whack job". I wouldn't worry about hiring an attorney as of yet, but it does sound like you could use a good financial advisor/planner or a CPA. Most reputable CPA's do charge a fee to handle your account and so forth, but unless you're a multi-millionaire, they would have no reason to call you twice a day or even daily. If I were you I'd hold off on signing anything or even entering into any verbal agreement with anyone until you've done some of your own "homework" on who you want to handle your money and or investments. I'm sure your mom has your best interests at heart, but maybe she isn't the best person to go to for financial advice. I wish you the best of luck with this situation and hope you find someone to trust.

BE WARE! I have a simple suggestion which will give you the time to decide for yourself. In the mean time arrange to have the funds temporarily put into triple tax free short term notes. You can do this through any portfolio manager while you listen and learn what to do. Go to school to learn, tapping into the funds as needed. When you are finished it will all be waiting for you then to give you an easier start. The accountant/financial planner sounds too incompetent and unsure of what they are doing... with all the contact being made except of course to collect fees for services. I would tell her to stop harassing you, if she expects to have anything to do with you. After you meet at-least a few different advisors (Costing you nothing) then you can make your own decisions.

just be happy to get the money...

but they can screw you over!!!

make sure she isnt just getting to know your routine and stuff, a lot of accountants etc. get to know there people too well and screw them over big time!

Hi,

Why do you need an accountant? They do your taxes at the end of the year. Why do you need an attorney? Do you have legal problems?

Accountants who pass themselves off as finanacial advisors are always suspect. Some can't make it as accountant so they call themselves financial advisors.

ARRGGHH!

You need to come up to speed on how to invest that money. Stick it in Treasuries for safety. You can buy them at your bank. They pay around 5% interest, but if you are 18 your need to invest in growth stocks and mutual funds to grow your investment. You can do that a little bit at a time.

If I were young, I would be investing in small cap growth mutual funds or stocks. Go here for excellent low cost advice (http://www.aaii.com/aaiiportfolios/commentaries/stockportfolio/200701comment.cfm).

Don't be alarmed at the low cost - it has some of the best financial advice on the Web.

If you have lots of time before retirement the magic of compound interest will just keep building and building. It really works and if you keep investing and re-investing your proftis every year, in 10 or 15 years you will be surprised at how it mounts up. In 30 years you could be a millionaire which probably won't amount to much in 30 year owing to the the ravages of inflation. But stocks are a good hedge against inflation.

By that time you may need a money manager to manage your money - probably before when you reach the $500,000 mark. Heck! If you have achieved that much, you probably don't need a money manager - you are the best judge of where to invest your money by that time.

And that's the primary reason to keep investing in small cap growth stocks - they will flog inflation to death.

When investing in mutual funds, select the no-load funds only. Do not invest in mutual funds with a "load", an up front commission that you have to pay before when they sell you the mutual fund. Some charge as much as 10% which is a rrip-off. Many studies have shown that the no-load funds do as well as the load funds and sometimes a lot better.

Look at the AAI Shadow Stock Portfolio. I would try and emulate that portfolio if you want to invest in stocks. It was up 25% as of November 2006. The Vanguard Index fund is only up 14%.

AAII has some of the best financial advisers and the cost is very low. They have excellent guides and advice.

You may need a broker so go to e-Trade or Scottsdale who have low commission rates.

Do your own due diligence. Your own ideas are the best. Do not depend on someone else to select investments for you. Learn about investing so you don't have to ask what stocks to invest in.

Be self reliant.

Remember what Emerson said: A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.

Find stocks that have steadily rising net profits (earnings), low debt, and good P/Es, lots of cash, companies buying back their stock..

What interests you? Find stocks that pique your interest and passion.

You need fast growing good stocks with good earnings and in good sectors. You need to learn more about the stock market before you even think about investing in it.

The stocks world is divided into 12 sectors such as energy which chevron belongs to. It is next to last in the sectors list today.

Technology is numero uno, but things can change in a new york minute, but within the sector, the fastest growing are computer services, not Microsoft. Then, Electronic Instruments and controls. Next is computer storage devices.

The next hot sector is Healthcare, but heed the warning below. Go here for sectors: (http://clearstation.etrade.com/cgi-bin/Itechnicals?Event=srp&Section=redge&Refer=/redge.html)

The best software is Vector Vest if you can afford it. It has sector investing.

Here is a free Web site for charting stocks: (http://www.incrediblecharts.com/).

First of all, stay away from "professional brokers" and tips coming to you via e-mail or friends and acquaintances. And tips at Yahoo! Answers. And e-mail tips. Do your own due diligence - don't rely on someone else. Read Emerson's essay "Self Reliance.

Hey! They will say anything to get you to buy their junk. If it's too good to be true, it is.

Remember this, they are just sales people trying to sell you what their firm is pushing. They are not security analysts or financial planners, not even financial advisers. Trust me, I know from experience that they cannot be trusted especially with a million dollars. You risk losing it all. A million dollar account is known as a "whale" and they would love to get their greedy little paws on it and suck it dry. They just want to make commissions on what they buy and sell for the suckers, err...clients..

Get this book: The Market Gurus: Stock Investing Strategies You Can Use from Wall Street's Best (Paperback)
by John P. Reese (Author), Todd O. Glassman

Risk avoidance is the name of the game.

Remember, the harder I work, the luckier I get.

Penny stocks are highly speculative. I would avoid the ones under a dollar a share. For example, Best Buy started at less than $5. So there are some good companies, but it takes a lot of digging to find the good ones. You are looking for companies with good earnings, little debt, low capitalization, and good P/Es. For stocks under $5, very few will meet these requirements.

Stay away from the pharms unless they have patented drugs - do not invest in generic pharms, no growth there.

Check out which business sectors are the most popular and invest in the companies in those sectors. The number one, two and three are: technology, health care, and cyclicals (retail). These change periodically so keep current.

Go here for a list of growth stocks: http://www.thestreet.com/_googlen/newsanalysis/ratings/10345212.html?cm_ven=GOOGLEN&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA

There are these lists all over the Web - you pays your money and takes your chances.

Watch CNBC, but don't pay too much attention to the talking heads, except for Jim Cramer, the wild man - but he tries to teach you how to invest and has some great advice.

Get Jim Cramer's Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World by James J. Cramer

Listen to Jim Cramer on CNBC.com

Go to Clearstation for quotes and tutorials on investing at (http://clearstation.etrade.com/). Sign up is free. Look up a few stocks. Do their tutorials. Check out the sectors.

Get this book: Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond (Wiley Finance) by Bruce C. N. Greenwald, Judd Kahn, Paul D. Sonkin, and Michael van Biema.

Another good book: The Motley Fool Investment Guide for Teens: 8 Steps to Having More Money Than Your Parents Ever Dreamed Of (Motley Fool) by David Gardner, Tom Gardner, and Selena Maranjian

Jim Cramer's Mad Money: Watch TV, Get Rich by James J. Cramer and Cliff Mason

I Want to Make Money in the Stock Market: Learn to Begin Investing Without Losing Your Life Savings! by Chris M. Hart

Sensible Stock Investing: How to Pick, Value, and Manage Stocks by David P. Van Knapp

Stock Investing For Dummies (For Dummies (Business & Personal Finance)) by Paul Mladjenovic

All About Stock Market Strategies : The Easy Way To Get Started by David Brown and Kassandra Bentley

The Motley Fool Investment Guide and their Web site (http://www.fool.com/).

The Little Black Book of Microcap Investing: Beat the Market with NASDAQ/AMEX Microcap Stocks, OTCBB Penny Stocks, and Pink Sheet Stocks by Dan Holtzclaw

How To Make Money In Stocks: A Winning System in Good Times or Bad, 3rd Edition by William J. O'Neil

Trading for a Living: Psychology, Trading Tactics, Money Management by Alexander Elder

Big Trends in Trading: Strategies to Master Major Market Moves (A Marketplace Book) by Price Headley

Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds (Paperback)
by Charles Mackay (Author), Andrew Tobias (Foreword) This book talks about the Tulip craze in Holland where people would mortgage their homes to buy Tulip bulbs. Same thing happened in 2001 - 2002 with the Internet bubble that brought the stock market to its knees. The dot com companies were the Tulip bulbs.

Buy Investors Business Daily. It has lots of tutorials and I like it better than the stodgy Wall St Journal.

Money Game by Adam Smith

Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits and Other Writings (Wiley Investment Classics) (Hardcover)
by Philip A. Fisher. Recommended by Warren Buffet who took $100,000 and grew it to $34 billion!

Value Investing with the Masters by Kirk Kazanjian

Valuegrowth Investing by Glen Arnold

The 5 Keys to Value Investing by J. Dennis Jean-Jacques

The Intelligent Investor Rev Ed. (Collins Business Essentials) by Benjamin Graham. Warren Buffet was his student at Columbia.

The Money Masters by John Train

The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing by Taylor Larimore

Common Sense on Mutual Funds: New Imperatives for the Intelligent Investor by John C. Bogle

Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes And How To Correct Them: Lessons From The New Science Of Behavioral Economics by Gary Belsky

Rule #1: The Simple Strategy for Successful Investing in Only 15 Minutes a Week! by Phil Town . See his Web site at (http://www.ruleoneinvestor.com/). Free sign-up. I got the book at the library.

Listen. You don't have to spend a lot of money on these books - most can be found at your library and those that your library doesn't have they can usually get from other libraries in your state.

Most of these books talk about stock and mutual fund investing, but for a good introduction to other forms of investing Gerald Appel has a great book called Opportunity Investing - How to Profit When Stock Advance, Stocks decline, Inflation Run Rampant, Prices fall, Oil Prices Hit the Roof and Every Time In Between.

First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman Not a book on investing, but it's a nice segue into the next book.

Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton

Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance by Marcus Buckingham

Finding your strengths is important when investing. These books teach you to build on your strengths, what you a good at. Everyone is good or passionate about something. Why not get better at what you are good at?

Another good book is: Opportunity Investing: How To Profit When Stocks Advance, Stocks Decline, Inflation Runs Rampant, Prices Fall, Oil Prices Hit the Roof, ... and Every Time in Between (Hardcover)
by Gerald Appel

Most mutual funds do not even keep up the the return on the S&P. That's like 99% of them.

Vanguard Index funds are a no brainer.

A CD is better than a savings account. They range from six months to several years. You cannot touch your money tho until the time limit is up.

Check out this Web site on Direct Investment Plans where you can buy shares directly from companies: (http://www.fool.com/School/DRIPs.htm). Usually no fees and you can buy one share at a time.

Bonds are probably the safest. But they are not for the young. You might try a bond fund. They might return 5 or 6 percent. At 5% a million would return $50,000 a year - not a bad income. Remember, you have to pay taxes on the $50,000.

There are also municipal bonds and the income from them is taxfree especially if you buy them in a state that offers them, but they only pay about 3%, but it's mostly taxfree.

Look into Fidelity sector funds. Buy the top three, then in six months look how they are doing and if not so hot, select the next three that are best. Do this for a few years and you will make lots of money.

Kindest Personal Regards,

Walt Brown
Site Build It Certified Webmaster
http://buildit.sitesell.com/waltera1.html
capecod1@capecod-beaches.com
http://www.capecod-beaches.com/
wab@theworld.com

P.S. This is a life-long learning process. Reading these books and applying the rules to analyzing stocks that may be good It takes time. Be patient and keep reading and listening. Don't be a sucker and follow someone elses advice. Be your own man or woman. Depend on no one except yourself. You can only get smarter and stronger that way.

P.P.S. Internet has lots of good stuff, for example (http://stockcharts.com/school/doku.php?id=chart_school:technical_indicators:moving_average_conve
Stockcharts.com is very good and their discussion of MACD is one of the best, barring its originator, Gerald Apple, but now we are getting into Technical Analysis and that is not for beginners. But it is an important factor in finding good stocks that are going up and growing. Remember, tiny acorns grow into mighty oaks.

I suggest you to fire him.

I will help you for FREE.
I don't call.
I don't live in your city.

I am a Portfolio Manager.

My job is simple:
Turn those $350,000.00 into $3,500,000.00

I don't usually handle small accounts but it seems somebody in your family really wants to control your money.

Do not let them!
It's your money!

Drop me a line.
I bet you don't even know what a Portfolio Manager does.

about a yr ago i opened a high yield savings account with aid4families.com I receive my interest through monthly payments which are directly deposited into my bank account each month. There are other program options which allow for compounded interest and such. This programs really pays the highest APY around. You should check it out for yourself www.aid4families.com

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