Should I manage my own money? Why would I hire someone to do something I’ve been doing since adulthood? Is it really going to make a difference in my financial situation, or am I just going to be dumping my money down the drain?

These are all good questions. At the same time, they’re essentially the same as asking:

Should I change my own oil?

Should I hire a personal trainer or dietician? 

Should I entrust someone else with my childcare?

The vast majority of us are capable of all of these things. In today's digital era, a wealth of information is readily accessible through platforms like Google, YouTube, and Investopedia, empowering us to pursue virtually any interest and answer our curiosities. For instance, if you want to become a foodie influencer specializing in sous-vide wagyu tacos, the primary obstacles are merely your own dedication and enthusiasm. 

Bottom line: The digital age has turned us into jack-of-all-trades.

While becoming your own jack(or Jill)-of-all-trades can help you save money in the short term, there are a few things to consider, such as whether you are drowning yourself in trivial tasks and overlooking high-value opportunities.

As Cal Newport, author of Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, tells us, our capacity for “deep work”, or meaningful activities that require intense focus and concentration, is limited. In fact, according to Newport we have around 4 hours per day of cognitively demanding deep work in us before our performance wanes. 

If we have this limited window for 'deep work,' it's essential to ask: Are we allocating our time/energy wisely? Is DIY financial management or self-taught nutrition genuinely the best use of our intellectual effort?

It might be, if you enjoy it… Yet, many of us tackle tasks out of a sense of duty or a misconception that outsourcing is wasteful. What's the real value of your time and focus? Are low-priority tasks undermining your potential for meaningful work or the things that matter most to you in life?

3 considerations to decide if you should manage your own money

1. Your Lifestyle and Goals 

Are you managing a bustling household with two active kids in sports, juggling commitments with a partner, while also navigating a demanding career? Or perhaps you're laser-focused on an ambitious goal, like expanding your business tenfold within the year. 

Regardless of the scenario, it's clear that time is your most precious asset.

As underscored earlier in this article, thoughtful allocation of your time is essential: it’s all about strategic investment. Remember, if we consider money a form of energy, then it makes sense to channel this energy into pursuits that truly resonate with your values, contribute to your objectives, and bring you joy (No, that doesn’t mean you can tell your partner you’re not doing the dishes anymore). 

In "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen R. Covey tells us that "the key is not to prioritise what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities."

What are your priorities? And is managing your own money something that you’re interested in, that fits into your ideal lifestyle, and that you want to spend your energy on? People dedicate their entire careers to finance for a reason - it can be extremely time and energy consuming! 

2. Liability 

Okay. Learning how to knit your best friend's newborn baby a toque probably doesn’t come with much liability. However, there are certain “do-it-yourself” activities that do. Managing your own money is one of them.

Going back to the oil change question from the beginning of this article, many of us choose to change our own oil because it’s relatively easy and saves us money. However, what we typically don’t think about is that it may void our vehicle warranty, if we have one. So, if anything happens to the engine, we become liable for the damage. This is something that could be avoided if we had let the “professionals” do it for us. 

Managing money is very similar. We take on extra liabilities (like putting our money into the wrong accounts for your goals and losing money, or not knowing the tax implications and sticking yourself with a hefty tax bill) when we manage our own money. 

3. Your Emotional Response to Money

Money is emotional. We spend our whole lives trying to accumulate it, diligently saving our pennies for the future. When that future comes, many of us have become so emotionally attached to that money, to the security of it, that it actually becomes hard for us to part ways with it. 

The point is, we have emotional attachments to money that can be unconscious, but that drive our behaviour and decisions in ways that can sometimes defy logic. 

In Morgan Housel's The Psychology of Money, he states that, "Your personal experiences with money make up maybe 0.00000001% of what's happened in the world, but maybe 80% of how you think the world works." Housel reminds us that our financial behaviours are not solely dictated by the numbers in our bank accounts, but by the deeply ingrained stories and emotions associated with those numbers. 

Our emotional response to money can cause us to make hasty investment decisions, like selling out when the market dips instead of riding it out until things inevitably recover. In this scenario you have nobody to blame but yourself. In contrast, employing a financial advisor is akin to installing a human drawbridge between our immediate emotional impulses and our actions. They the barrier to impulsive decisions and allow for a moment of reflection and strategy. 

What a Financial Advisor Should Do for You

Okay, maybe by this time in the article you’ve decided that managing your own money: (a) doesn’t make you happy; (b) takes a lot of your precious time; and (c) exposes you to risks, like liabilities and emotional decision-making, that you weren’t aware of. 

If we don’t manage our own money, the logical alternative is to hire someone to do it for us. But what will a financial advisor actually do for us? Why are they worth the money? 

Well, here’s a recap of some of the reasons to hire a financial advisor to manage your money: 

• You don’t enjoy managing your own money (remember, this takes a lot of cognitive energy and time!) 

• You have a busy schedule and don’t have/want to make time to manage your money

• You don’t want the stress of the financial liabilities associated with managing your money

• You want a barrier between you and potentially devastating financial decisions

• You want someone who specialises in finances, who you trust, for a living to give you solid advice without having to worry 

All in all, a financial advisor or planner is really just there to carry out your wishes and make sure that you don’t get in your own way (cough cough, emotions). Much like hiring a personal trainer to whip you into shape, financial advisors understand that limiting your impulses will help you achieve your goals. They will also keep you accountable to your goals - just like that personal trainer - so you actually end up where you want to go.

So, the decision is yours. Is managing your own money something that fits into your life? Or would you like a professional to handle it for you?