Kara McGuire: Your color of money

There's no such thing as a free lunch. But is there such a thing as a free drink? That's what I wondered as I entered the swanky Infinity Club at the Graves 601 Hotel on a recent Tuesday evening for My Money Color -- an event billed as free financial advice for young professionals with no strings attached.

Aside from initial meetings offered by financial planners to prospective clients, the words "free" and "financial advice" uttered by investment professionals make me nervous. Free in that context often means hidden fees and commissions.

Tom Fee, founder of Vector Wealth Management in Minneapolis, a firm that manages $400 million for high-net-worth individuals, made it clear that he was not there to make a buck. He pledged not to take on any of the attendees as clients, not that many young professionals would meet his firm's $500,000 minimum anyway.

He spent thousands of dollars and countless hours surveying 400 twenty- and thirty-somethings and developing a money personality quiz that he hopes will change his industry.

Fee thinks the financial services universe lets many young people down -- either by refusing to work with those of modest means or by giving advice that benefits the adviser more than the client. "If you're aware of a problem that exists and you don't try to address the problem, then you're part of it," Fee said. "Someone has to be an advocate."

Staging the unique event in a happy-hour setting certainly helped draw in the crowd of 150. Research by Next Generation Consulting in Madison, Wis., has found that young adults highly value social networking.

For Tony Leseman, 24, who works in development at Cretin-Derham Hall High School in St. Paul, the social cocktail hour was almost as important as the presentation. He also thinks the drinks and hip venue helped him to relax. "I think that's huge, especially when the seminar was geared towards finances."

Fee and many financial experts believe understanding the emotions that surround money are key to a successful financial plan. So he developed the My Money Color quiz with the help of Minneapolis marketing firm LaBreche, by studying workplace personality tests and by talking with numerous psychologists.

The short quiz steers takers to their money color, or personality. Blues are analytic, do-it-yourselfers. Greens are process-oriented and thrive on order. Reds are emotional and make decisions based on feelings more so than facts. And yellows are creative types -- impulsive and idealistic.

Ada Ojiaku of Lauderdale said the description of her green personality type was so "accurate it was scary." Always in need of control and practical when it comes to money, 23-year-old Ojiaku says she spends only what she has and pays her credit-card balance in full each month.

Allison Ranallo, a 26-year-old from Maple Grove, learned she was a yellow. "Knowing this information about ourselves brings us a little closer to being able to make smart money choices," she said. But she wished they'd learned more about investment products and strategies at the event too. Only basic advice about car buying, saving, and debt payoff was provided.

But this isn't the last that Twin Cities young professionals will hear about My Money Color. Fee hopes that MyMoneyColor.com will become a community space for financial support and advice. He's also working on future My Money Color events.

Share your good and bad stories about working with a financial adviser with Kara McGuire: 612-673-7293 or kara@startribune.com.