Considering Going for CFP

These are all fantastic insights; thank you all so much!

Hi Kendall,

I reached FI a couple of years ago and retired from my corporate role. Like most, I enjoyed the full time freedom to do whatever I wanted but I missed some aspects of the job that I actually used to love. Mostly mentoring and developing folks along with project management and finance. This obviously fits with my interests in PF, investments, and FI that got me to the point I was able to retire early.

Ultimately, this time last year I decided to go forward with the CFP education and pursuing my certification. Initially my thought was that it would force me to round out my own financial acumen by requiring me to learn all areas of financial planning including ones I had not previously been drawn to and somewhat avoided like insurance. Having now completed the mandatory education piece of the program, I can confirm that it met that goal. Like others have stated, the mandatory education piece is a mile wide on a ton of topics and covers beyond just personal finance to a lot of business finance as well. As someone else stated, it can also be very boring. I found many areas that I was already well versed in that I breezed through (probably 60%), and about 30% of it was painful to force myself through and there was a reason I had avoided learning about it in the past. I would say maybe 10% of what I learned was actually interesting and eye-opening and blind spots in my previous knowledge that I enjoyed closing. It has also been a substantial time commitment as I wasn't the best about consistently doing 5-10 hours a week and instead would fall behind and need to put in 20+ hours a week to catch myself up. I did a program that was mostly self study with instructor lead classes every other week or so hoping that would keep me on schedule but I just fell behind on most of those too.

I'm now in the phase of doing the review course for the exam and I will sit for the exam in November. I can't provide real feedback on the test prep yet as I just started but I am told the time commitment is intense for the 8-10 weeks or so that it runs before the test. The CFP test is unique in that they really strive to ensure you understand the application of the concepts and aren't just memorizing "facts" like a lot of tests I'm used to. That's a good thing for the industry and the folks working with CFPs but it means more time commitment in preparing.

I haven't fully decided what I will do when I complete the CFP program. I'm not too worried about the continuing education because from my research it seems there is a diverse set of resources out there to fulfil the requirement and besides the $ cost, I think I will value the actual education I continue to gain with CE in this field of study that is constantly changing and being updated.

All in all, I'm happy with my decision. I have used some of what I've learned to help other people inside and outside my circle through a financial coaching practice I started. For now I'm just trying to figure out what parts of this world I really enjoy helping people with and what I want to avoid so I can ultimately craft a practice, volunteer, or work for someone that fits that.

If you believe this will help you in your career, and especially if you can get it paid for, then you only need to decide if you can dedicate the time and mental capacity to fight through the sluggish parts.

I would point out that there are other costs beyond just the classes that you should make sure your employer will cover or that you're willing to take on. For me, the cost of the exam prep program was almost as much money as the education portion. I also had to pay a fee for the program to confirm to the CFP board that I completed the education and of course, the exam itself has a substantial fee too. Most continuing education classes that I have seen have a fee.

One final note that you're probably aware of, to actual use the marks you also need to prove to the CFP Board a substantial amount (4,000 or 6,000 hours) of experience. Without knowing what your job actually entails I can't comment if that would apply or not. For career changers or folks outside the industry, this becomes a big hurdle to actually completing the whole process.

I've been working through the coursework over the last year. Not sure if I'll do anything with it at the end. I had toyed with the idea of becoming a financial planner, but I'm starting to think I'm more interested in the mental side than the numbers side.

The coursework itself is incredibly boring and mundane. It's a lot of the minutiae you don't think about. For example, right now I'm learning about what makes a retirement plan qualified vs unqualified and the ins and outs of what's allowed for each type (key employees, highly compensated employees, non-discrimination tests, etc) - important things if you're going to get into plan administration or helping a business set up a plan, but not so much if you're working with individuals.

If you can get work to cover it and it is relevant for your work, seems like very little downside. But it is a really large time investment. I thought I'd breeze through it with what I already knew, but I underestimated the breadth of some of these topics, often in areas I'm not that interested in (see retirement plan admin).

Hi Kendall,

This is a great question and one that I am also interested in. I am a financial planner and completed all of the CFP coursework over the last year to help with providing the best service for my clients and for my own knowledge base as well. However, I’m on the fence about taking the exam because I am planning to FIRE soon and am not very interested in keeping up with the required CE for maintaining the CFP status. I do like having the knowledge gained from the classes for continuing to help family and friends with their investment strategies while in retirement, but I’m not sure the actual CFP certification is worth going for at this point in my life.

I have always been someone who optimized for everything and never turned down an opportunity for more education or certification so I could keep options open, which is probably no surprise to this community as I think we were all at least a little bit like that. It has served me well so far in life to get where I am. But now that I have reached the point that early retirement is possible, I feel like I’m optimizing more for building a life around my passions (which don’t have to do with making much money) and how I want to best use my days, and I’m just not sure that formal financial planning or keeping up with CE is going to fit into that new life, even though the “achiever” part of me is saying to just take the dang exam to prove that I did it. But this is exactly the part of me that I’m trying to let go of as I prepare for the next phase of my life.

While I have a lot of CFP friends and colleagues, they don’t know about my FIRE journey nor do they know that I have completed the CFP education, so I don’t feel I can reach out to them for their thoughts. I am interested to hear from others in our community to see what they think!