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recos, or maybe your bank has an institutional arm (like TDAmeritradeInstitutional) and can point you in the direction of an advisor in your community.
You can start with one advisor, and if you don't feel like you are clicking, or that they aren't meeting your goals, you can always switch.

My DH and I are in basically the same position. We know our money could be doing a lot more for us, but we just need to get ourselves together and take the next step. In fact, DH just mentioned doing this the other day, so if he's finally ready, I should really be getting on it (I've wanted to go for awhile and he's basically been phoo-phooing me)!

I think this page at the Wall Street Journal is really helpful: http://guides.wsj.com/personal-finance/managing-your-money/how-to-choose-a-financial-planner/ . I think the most important thing is to avoid commission-based planners and to find someone who will work with you either on an hourly basis or will give you a comprehensive package of services for a set price. Everything I've read says http://www.napfa.org is the most reliable place to find fee-only planners, though the WSJ link does have a couple other suggestions. I hope that helps!

Are you in MD or PA? If so I can recommend my financial planner!

I think while you're looking for a financial planner, you should start tracking your spending with something like YNAB. It's really eye opening to track where every cent of your $ goes!

I would HIgHLY recommend taking dave ramseys financial peace university class and then finding one of his recommended advisors. He has a very common sense approach and encourages folks to never do any investing that they dont understand first. All of his endorsed advisors have the goal to teach about investments, not just sell them. We have been through the class twice and it changed my life and has set up our marriage to be successful ( we went through it as an engaged couple). It is so totally worth it. We now use one of his financial advisors too and have been really pleased.

@Mamaof2: I'd love a PA financial planner recommendation!!

@MrsBrewer: It is for us. You can sign up for free classes and the raffle off a free copy at the end. I have also seen them run sales. We paid the full amount, $60 - but that's way cheaper than a financial planner (in our area, the cheapest is $300/hour).

I REALLY like the philosophy and the computer software is integrated with the app really well. We've been using it for four months and it has helped us a lot.

@TemperanceBrennan: Is it just a one time fee?

@PurplePumps: I'm biased as I do this for a living but a financial planner will have tools available to them that are much more sophisticated than a budgeting app. Yes, you can probably figure out how much extra you have, but if you aren't experienced how do you know what to do with that extra. How do you invest it? What can you expect that investment to look like at retirement. Can you retire when you want to if you continue doing things the way you're doing them? Financial planning has so many aspects its hard to understand them all without the help of an expert. I highly suggested working with a Certified Financial Planner.

I will say, from what I know of him I definitely don't agree with Dave Ramsey's methods. Successful, wealthy people borrow money. The idea that being debt free is the number one goal is often not correct. All the debt I have (mortgage, student loans, car loans) is no higher than a 4% interest rate. Meanwhile, my investment account is up 18% year to date. Allocating more money o paying down our debt makes no sense.

@MamaMoose: We have looked into getting a financial planner, but it is out of our budget for now. We think we have a pretty good handle on our finances, but want the advice of an expert. Do you think this is something we make a priority now, or wait until we can work it into the budget? The cheapest we have found is $600 for two hours for very general/high level stuff.

@TemperanceBrennan: I'll wall you.

@Periwinkle: I just wanted to mention, i've never used YNAB, but i use mint.com and it is SO easy and useful. we use our debit cards for everything and all of our debit and credit cards import seamlessly. I just detected fraud on my credit card because mint imported the transaction even before my bank did! also, it's completely free. it has budgeting tools and savings devices as well.

we've been looking for a financial planner (for other reasons) for a while, so i'm no help on that end, sorry!

@Pirouette: I used mint to help my sister set up a budget. It's free and works really well!

@MamaMoose: oh ok! Yes, if you put it that way, it makes complete sense. I do have an adviser that helps out with my investments and have talked to a CFP in his office and he did a great projection of our retirement accounts and stuff. I was just thinking more in terms of budgeting which is what I thought the OP was asking about.

@looch: I send 'em to you as often as I can ; )

Bumping this old thread. Good question! Thanks for asking!

Wondering if I find and talk to a financial adviser to make sure my retirement plan is somewhat in order. Just got out of a 401k meeting at my work and thinking about if I should make some changes.

@sheskrafty: where are you in PA? Mine is south-central PA.