There was a time when Mark Felton put together a financial plan the old-fashioned way: With spreadsheets.
The 59-year-old from Stilwell, Kansas, had always been reluctant to pay an ongoing portfolio-management fee to an adviser, so he wanted to try financial planning on his own. Because he had no formal training in that area — he works in the legal department for a cell-phone carrier — that was a pretty big hill to climb. He found the spreadsheet method cumbersome, and he figured there might be some gaping holes in his knowledge. So last year, he started toying around with do-it-yourself software.
