What is a Financial Mentor?
A financial mentor is someone who offers guidance and advice to you about your finances, and someone you regard as a person who has a lot of wisdom with money.
The relationship you have with a financial mentor is not a professional relationship, like you’ll have with a financial coach or financial advisor, and a financial mentor usually doesn’t charge a fee for the advice he or she gives.
The type of advice you ask for from a financial mentor, is usually also a bit different to the type of advice you’ll ask for from a financial coach or financial advisor.
In most cases, a financial mentor will not help you with the details of your budget, or financial plan; he will mostly help you by giving general advice, while leaving the details up to you.
You should also be able to ask your financial mentor for advice about things that have to do with morals, ideals and principles. These are questions like:
- Would it be wise to help [someone you know], by giving him/her money?
- Should I give money to my church?
- How much money should I give to my church?
- Is it morally correct to invest in this business?
- How should I talk to my spouse about his/her immature spending habits?
What qualities should I look for in a Financial Mentor?
A good financial mentor is:
- a good steward of his own money,
- someone you respect, and trust,
- admire for his wisdom with money,
- has a value system that you agree with, and
- is someone you feel comfortable talking to and sharing intimate details about your finances.
It is a good idea for anyone to have a financial mentor. You can even have more than one.
A financial mentor is good for you, because he is someone you can ask for advice about difficult decisions you need to make with your money and he is also someone to keep yourself accountable to.
How can I find a Financial Mentor?
The most difficult part of having a financial mentor, is finding one. You cannot just look for financial mentor in the Yellow Pages or on the Internet, because they don’t offer a professional service.
Your financial mentor could be a friend, it could be a relative, it could be someone you meet through your work – anyone who has the right qualities.
My financial mentor is also my cell leader. The church I attend has several “cell-groups”, which are small groups of church members, who meet up every Tuesday evening, to talk and offer support to each other.
By spending time to get to know him, I recognized the qualities of a good financial mentor in my cell leader. It was easy to see that he is a man of wisdom, with a good heart and I also realized that he is a good steward of his money, through the way he lives.
After realizing this, I phoned him up and asked him if he would be my mentor.
We now meet for coffee once a week, where we mostly just talk about this-and-that, but it is also a chance for me to ask him questions and get some good advice about financial and life decisions I need to make.
There is no prescribed way to find a financial mentor. You have to go out and look for one. When you find someone who has the qualities of a good financial mentor, ask that person if he/she is willing to be your mentor, and then make some arrangement to stay in touch.
August 23rd, 2008 at 05:26 pm
Ek dink dat mens veral ‘n mentor op die gebied nodig het wanneer jy in ‘n proses is om uit skuld uit te kom.
Ek stem verder saam dat dit net met tyd en met ‘n verhouding is wat jy werklik so iemand kan kry.
March 21st, 2009 at 11:28 am
Die rede vir finansiele neerlaag kan toegeskryf word aan die versuiming van Vaders in hierdie sigment van lewe.
Ek is 37jr oud en nodsteeds verstaan ek nie finansies nie.
‘n Mentor is ook iemand wat Vaderskap betekenis gee. Meskien is hierdie geleentheid bestem om te leer!