In the mid to late 1990s, so many people were riding the stock market wave, feeling incredibly wealthy or potentially wealthy, that the industry of financial planning nearly died out. Consumers were more concerned with investment management than financial planning.

However, with the stock market hovering at much lower levels, consumers are once again turning to planners for help with mapping out a long-term plan for financing college, retirement and travel.

Financial planning allows you to set goals for your life and provide financial parameters within which you can accomplish those goals. It's an amalgam of many different things, whether it's saving for college, investing in a retirement plan or purchasing a house or a boat.

"What keeps you up at night? What are your goals? What are you saving your money for?" asks Michael Carlin, principal of CCR Financial Services, an affiliate of the accounting firm of Carlin, Charron and Rosen in Worcester, Mass.

As soon as you decide that you are ready to plan your ultimate goals, that's when you need the help of a financial planner. "Generally, we see couples in their 40s with maybe a couple of kids in high school," says Carlin, "but we prefer to see you before that."

Steven Lear, of Affiance Financial in Minneapolis, Minn., agrees. "The best time to see a financial planner is before you marry your spouse, so you can see what your common goals are. But the typical time we see people is five years prior to major financial events," says Lear.

Major financial events may be purchasing your first home, sending your first child to college or your approaching retirement. However, those are not the best times to plan.

"Financial planning is the process of understanding where you are at, clarifying where you want to go and mapping out how to get there," says Lear. "For the planner it requires 50 percent psychology and 50 percent financial planning, because you need to understand a person's wants, needs and desires."

Sometimes it's a couple that hasn't discussed those wants and needs with each other before sitting down with a planner. Carlin says he had a client who was a surgeon in his early 50s. He told him he wanted to work another 15 years; however, his wife protested, "Over my dead body." "They had never discussed when he would retire," he says.

Do you and your spouse want to pay for your children's entire college or only a portion? Discuss these things with each other before seeking the help of a financial advisor.

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