Question: I’m 19 and working as a stripper part time right now and I make 60k a year, and I plan on doing so for the next 7 years. I have 15k saved up, but it’s just in a bank account. 

I’m also in college majoring in nursing. I have scholarships and my parents are paying for the rest of my school costs so I won’t have any student loans. I don’t have any debt or loans or anything, and I’m pretty frugal.

I don’t know anything about investing or stocks, so I was wondering what I should do? 

I’ve heard about Roth IRAs and how it’s beneficial for young workers whose tax brackets will go up later in life, but would it be good for me since nurses make not much more than I’m making right now? 

What other kinds of options are there for low risk high interest?

Answer: 
From what I have seen, every retail financial advisor who charges as a percentage of wealth is charging what I would consider to be an unreasonable fee and I continue to be amazed how many people pay this. Somehow 1% or more of your assets every year sounds like a reasonable amount while the dollar equivalent would have people running out of their offices. Financial advisors will charge you as much as they can get away with. It's up to you to avoid getting taken advantage of.

The nature of financial advising is that there is some work to do up front and then after that you just stay the course. An hourly rate for financial advice will likely be high, but still cheaper than letting them actually manage your investments. Moreover, advisors who also invest for you will typically put your money in funds that have an annual 12b-1 fee, which is an additional fee--often large-- that the mutual fund continually charges you and then passes along to your advisor.

Financial advisors greatly increase their revenue by selling the idea of you handing over the keys and they take care of everything for you. Most of the value they provide is in the advice they give, which can be had for much less, but most of the revenue comes from them performing very simple services like allocating your money across a few mutual funds. **If instead of handing over your investments to them, you pay them for advice and then do the investing yourself, you will save a great deal**. If your current possible advisors will not give you an hourly rate, then find another.

Consider the following as well: Pretty good financial advice **can be had for free in many cases**. The company managing your 401(k) will have someone on staff who you can meet with for free and will (again for free) provide some pretty good guidance. If you have a broker account of any type, they will have people on staff who can give you guidance. It just may not be "investment advice" from a legal point of view, but the content will not be much different. You can open an account at futureadvisor.com or personalcapital.com and their website will investigate your current accounts and give automated advice, again for free. You can go to bogleheads.org and ask those guys for advice and they will give you pretty good guidance for free.

The most useful role for retail financial advisors is to help people who are unable to manage their own affairs, like people experiencing mental decline or people who have personalities that are highly unsuited to the management of money. If you have any willingness at all to learn and manage your own affairs, you can likely get the advice/information you seek for free, or at least for very little money. At your income and apparent cognitive level, I think it would be very unwise to pay $3,000 per year or anything like it for financial services, even if this rate is common enough to be "standard practice."
Here's an answer and follow-up to my own question: A year after I wrote up the question, I did find a fee-only financial advisor who offered the flat-fee-per-plan service that I desired (unlike my prior advisor who had abandoned that service from their expanded practice). 

I found this advisor via the [Garrett Planning Network](https://www.garrettplanningnetwork.com/), which specializes in fee-only financial planning without long-term commitments. I understand that some or many advisors in the network have picked this up as side jobs with a small amount of training; however, in my case I did find someone who had spent a career in corporate finance, and was extremely happy with their service. 

Looking at the [Nerd Wallet](https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/investing/how-much-does-a-financial-advisor-cost/) link from @BobbyScon's answer, we see the service I desired described thus:

> 
> **FLAT FEE PER PLAN**
> 
> 
> Some advisors charge a flat fee for creating a financial plan. There
>  is no ongoing management or oversight; you carry out the plan
>  yourself.
> 
> 
> * **Cost:** The cost will vary by service, but $1,000 to $3,000 is typical for a financial plan.
> * **What you get for that fee:** A comprehensive financial plan and guidance for how to follow it, but no ongoing services or investment management. The advisor charges a set fee for each type of service. You’ll get an outline of what’s included and see the fee upfront.
> 
> 
> 

The amount I was charged for the flat-fee-plan was a little less than $2,000, very close to the median range given in the article, so it looks accurate according to my experience. Note that range is indeed 3 to 10 times higher than what I paid thirteen years earlier for a similar service.