The ideal situation is to be well informed so you are not totally dependent on someone else. In the very best of situations, you will get expert advise but it's up to you to make the decision among various options. Good places to start are to read publications like "Money", "Kiplingers", "Smart Money", "Business Week", The Wall Street Journal and the business section of your local newspaper. Some of the things that seem to come up time after time as that one should be well diversified and start saving early in life rather than later. If money can grow 20 or more years, the amount of compounding is mind boggling. Within those savings, depending on your projected needs, the type of assets you invest in will change. Diversification is the choice of asset classes such as cash, money market accounts, stocks, bonds, etc. If you plan on buying a house soon, you would want most in cash and money market account. If you had a house and were saving for retirement and were 30 years old, you'd want growth stocks. Since it would be 25-30 years before the funds would be needed, you can afford the risk along of the market going up and down until you got closer to retirement age as long as the prior trends of long term growth remain true. As you started to get toward retirement, and would need to draw down some of the money, more would be shifted to bonds or other investments that while not giving as high a potential return, would lower the risk of having to eat into principal to obtain funds needed to live on. Once you have the basics you may be ready to use the services of a professional. The most recognized credential is that of CFP (Certified Financial Planner). For a list of CFP's in your area, contact (www.cfp-board.org) or The American Institute of  CPA's, PFS Division. They will tell you if any complaints have been filed against a potential adviser (www.cpapfs.org). Some of the things you will want to know are how they charge for their services. Some have flat fees and others charge a % of your net assets from 1-3%. Make sure the amount they get in the asset based fee is enough to sustain the relationship. Any extras you buy like life insurance should be optional and they should understand that while you will entertain proposals from them, you will select the product that best meets your needs. The best way to start out with a potential advisor is to do a financial analysis for a fixed fee. Normally this is $500. For that, you get a complete analysis along with recommendations. This will give you a chance to ascertain the judgement of the advisor and how well you get along with them. It's important that they truly understand the things you are comfortable with, and not, and that they respect that with regards to their advice. A good advisor can help you grow your assets with a lot less time on your part. Chances are you have other things you want to also focus on while the advisor spends all their time understanding trends and directions in the markets to help you make the best decisions.