Within the financial service industry, it is a well known fact that the majority of so-called financial advisors and planners are not sophisticated investors who don't pay much attention to economic indicators affecting their client portfolios until it's too late! People need financial advice they can trust now more than ever. Consequently, a first class financial education is desperately needed so people can take control of their own finances by trusting someone with a vested interest - themselves.

It was just too easy for the financial service industry to make the gullible public believe that financial and investment planning was too complicated to understand and therefore we had to rely on "professional" help. Yet within the financial service industry, it is a well known fact that the majority of so-called "professional" financial advisors and planners are not sophisticated investors who don't pay much attention to economic indicators affecting their client portfolios. Well, we've all seen and experienced how tragically deficient that "professional" help has been in the last year 2008 and perhaps this is the impetus for more people to get that desperately needed financial education to learn how to do their own financial planning and manage their investments.

Families and individuals at every economic level deserve an alternative to the traditional sources of financial and investment planning through big Wall Street firms, other investment brokerage firms, fee only financial planners, and insurance professionals. Whether you are rich or poor, or somewhere in between, a new paradigm in financial planning focusing on a first class financial education is needed to instill the confidence in people that financial planning is not rocket science or that complicated. Rather, it's a lot of common sense! Such a financial education can teach anyone how to do their own "due diligence" which is the investigation and evaluation of investment managers best suited to their risk tolerances and needs.

Whatever level of practical every day financial education someone needs, this internet age is more than capable of providing an online financial planning software package that could produce a comprehensive objective in-depth analysis of one's finances based totally on their individual situation free of any hidden agenda or conflicts of interest by Wall Street and financial planning firms to steer people to products where they make the most money. Once armed with this financial education, people will be free to go directly to the needed financial specialist for implementation of their desired objective with no middlemen in between.

Since America is drowning in debt and most Americans are spending $1.05 for every $1.00 of income,a debt freedom component should be a part of any online financial planning software package to assist anyone to get out of debt as soon as possible. As debt is the number one problem facing most Americans today, this feature alone could save billons in unnecessary interest expense. When there is no product bias or agenda in a first class financial education, people are then free to learn about and obtain objective financial and investment strategies to help them overcome obstacles and put them on the road to reach their future financial goals. Wow, wouldn't it be nice to tell Wall Street to take a much needed hike as their integrity is in shambles and filled with so many conflicts of interest, middlemen, and unnecessary extra fees.

Through a new found confidence in one's own ability to make sound financial decisions because of a first class financial education, people will no longer have to be dependent upon others who may or may not have their best interests in mind. Rather, personal accountability and responsibility would restore a new found sense of self-reliance and personal pride for people to finally take control of their own financial destiny.