A fee-only financial planner will prepared a comprehensive financial plan, covering such aspects as cash flow projections, debt management, tax planning and strategy, risk management, insurance needs, investment strategy and estate planning. The fee-only planner may or may not be licensed to sell investments. If he or she is not licensed, he or she cannot give advice about specific individual investments He or she can talk about asset allocation, costs, risk factors, but cannot tell you if you should buy or sell ABC stock or LMNOP mutual fund .If he or she is licensed, then specific investment advice can be part of the process.

When the original poster talks about “Ruth” and “June” offering fee-only planning and then says they are charging an asset under management fee of 2%, the concept gets blurred. The fee here is for investment management, and not for fee-only comprehensive financial planning, although there may be an element of comprehensive planning offered for the fee. And it is an on-going fee, not a one-time fee. This a is fee-based advisory service, not fee-only planning.

Disclosure: I am a financial advisor who is licensed, and who offers both fee-only financial planning and fee-based investment management services.