Financial advisor experience

[Pblakeney]

Anecdotal story.
I worked with a guy who worked until his retirement age. Had a leaving do on the Friday.
Went for a walk at the beach on the Saturday, slipped on a wet rock, banged his head and died.
There is no certainty in life. Enjoy today, there may not be a tomorrow.

 

[mikeIow]

Direct experience of colleagues/friends. They/partners then get a life limiting/mobility issue within that magic date of retirement (early or not). Just shortly after retirement, both folks partners fell ill, cancer and another a small fall in the garden, hip fracture.

I'm in the early retirement planning stages TBH at 55. I'm currently whizzing around on a broken pelvis that might have ruined less active people, but I put this down to being active that I can recover. I've a colleague that's not much older than me that lives in sheltered accommodation (60). Of the friends, one's partner slipped in the garden, and had a pelvis fracture at 65, it's not been a good outcome - that's not much older than me.

Ah, okay, thanks - I thought for a moment you were suggesting people ran out of money due to poor planning!
Totally agree. When I was just over 50, I went to 4 funerals of good friends - two my age 😔
It did a lot to focus me on exiting the world of paid employment asap….& try to stay as fit as possible for as long as possible.

It isn’t about the money, really, but the chance to do stuff free of time constraints.

 

[Gunk]

It isn’t about the money, really, but the chance to do stuff free of time constraints.

the two go hand in hand, you need money to be financially free.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

One of the major hurdles to retiring early, or even at SP age, is that many people just do not understand their likely future income levels nor do they have a handle on their current expenditure levels. Neither of which enables someone to project forward to obtain confidence in their financial future or to have a stable platform on which to base their future financial decisions.

Ime, many people over-estimate their future income requirements and become slightly paranoid about the, almost inevitable, likely drop in retirement income.

As already suggested, either build a MS Workbook, or similar, that in effect acts as a cashflow mechanic. If you can't do that yourself your accountant or IFA should be able to set you up with one. Get a one-off construct that you can enter data into yourself, you don't want to be paying ongoing fees for simple data entry from an expensive professional.

The hardest thing about taking retirement, early or otherwise, is the psychology surrounding income drop. Whole careers are built around increasing and maximising income and to initiate a drop voluntarily is counter-intuitive.

It took us several years, in the very early 2000's, to have the confidence in our projections to dump £'s substantial of net income pa and switch off our corporate careers. We were still 'scared' to some extent, tbh, but it was one of the best decisions we ever made.

So, start projecting and calculating as early as you can, or seek advice now if you can't DIY.

FYI, our cashlow forecast runs 20 years into the future although this time period becomes increasingly irrelevant as we age and our life expectancy may well be less than that. Damn!

Life... not too long, after becoming very comfortable financially, the Grim Reaper starts peeping over the horizon in your direction. Unless you are sufficiently gifted or lucky to have a sizeable stash at a young age, of course. Cest la vie!

 

[Emanresu]

As well as your cash flow/IFA/projected income/profit and loss etc... have a bucket list. All those savings need spent. Apparently you can't take it with you.

 

[mikeIow]

the two go hand in hand, you need money to be financially free.

Well, of course you cannot just drop everything!
However, having an interest in the topic, I see most people on forums about retirement being laser focussed on the finances. Some sound like they have a plan for their futur activities, but many don’t!

As Spokey puts it, “many people over-estimate their future income requirements and become slightly paranoid about the, almost inevitable, likely drop in retirement income.”

Watch a few James Shack videos, such as this. He regularly points out that many could retire sooner than they think.

 

[yello]

Shirley anyone can give anyone advice? Down to the individual whether they take it or not, and context is important in deciding.

 

[Tenkaykev]

I worked in engineering for the majority of my working life. I lost a gread deal of my pension fund in the Equitable Life scandal. I went to college ( evenings and Saturdays ) and studied to become a Financial Advisor. I passed all of my exams and was awarded my certificates.
I carried on working in engineering but had a much better grasp of the inner workings of the financial industry.
As has been said upstream, make sure that your advisor is truly independent and pay for his / her advice so they are acting in your best interest. Our lecturer went into some detail as to the various methods of maximising commission via methods such as fund switching, ( some providers pay a large initial commission and a smaller annual retention), and would refer to one organisation as " Allied Crowbar "
As ever, I am not qualified to offer financial advice, do your own research, etc etc
EDIT to clarify that I studied financial planning to better understand the system, this was after the Equitable Life fiasco.

 

[yello]

I retired (i.e. stopped working for money) at 45. It can be done. That said, we have no children. Key to it also was moving to France (cheaper property) and owning our own home outright. Both of us have full state pensions (for when we officially retire) plus personal pensions. We live on the surplus of our UK house sale. We are not loaded but comfortable. Cost management and spending projection is essential. Compromise is necessary; no 'bucket list' and holidays are not frequent. (but not needed, our lives are a holiday!)

A realisation of what is important to you, honest value assessment and change of attitude are instrumental. And good luck. We were in a position to make the change (I realise it's not quite so easy for everyone), we saw a path and went for it.

 

[Alex321]

Avoid like the plague, unless you know you can trust them 100% Got ripped o when i was young, would never trust another one, My son in law is an accountent, if i need anything to with money i would talk to him.

What a ridiculous attitude.

There are bad people in every job, every walk of life. Being ripped off by one bad person is no reason to avoid all people in that role.

 

[yello]

Being ripped off by one bad person is no reason to avoid all people in that role.

True. One can understand the circumspection too.

 

[PK99]

Any people offer their experience of financial advisors , me and the other half are soon going to start accessing are private defined contributions pensions and everywhere you see the default advice "get a independent financial advisor" in fact one has locked the pension because we don't have an appointed f/advisor.
Are pension fund's are quite modest by many standards and I've been doing lots of my own research which I am happy to do and have a plan mapped out, but my confidence in it could do with the opinion of someone who actually knows about these things but what's your experience, can you do your own research to an acceptable level?

Best to use a Fee based IFA where you pay a slug of money for their time.

Commission based introduces a potential conflict of interest.

 

[PK99]

Curiouser & curiouser!
When you say it’s been running many years - is she actively contributing to it, or does it just “exist” with a pot?
I am pretty sure they are legally obliged to give an annual update, confirmed here. Worth asking where those annual statements have gone first!

Is the contact official, or could this be a scam?

On the topic of financial advisors: I have two good friends who have SJP advisors.
Firstly, note that SJP are *not* Independent - the “I” in IFA.
The choice for advice really should be either an IFA or DIY. If you do choose to get a financial advisor, be sure they are IFAs, not just FA.
Secondly, I am firmly convinced they could both have given up work earlier had they wanted: remember, any financial advisor cannot afford for a client to run out of money, so have to ensure their pot is 100% safe, which naturally means working longer. I saw a recent James Shack video where he aimed for 80-90% success rate for things - the future is ALWAYS uncertain, & if people are flexible enough, they can adjust to unforeseen changes ahead 🤷‍♂️
What you cannot do is get more years back - time is the one thing that is absolutely running out for all of us 🫣

It is also naturally an advisors role to becoming a “good friend of the family”. Nothing wrong with that - you have to fully trust them - but it always feels an odd position to me.
I use an accountant, but he does a job for me for a reasonable price & that is that 🤓
My friends are pleased that their FAs buy them lunch once a year: I figure they have paid them handsomely over many years for that privilege…….But…it’s their money, so we don’t talk money any more 🤣

We looked at SJP a few years ago and we appalled at the fee structure. Many multiples of what we pay our broker just to transfer funds to them, swinging annual management fees and astonishing lock in terms if we wanted to move elsewhere.

 

[Dorset Boy]

Best to use a Fee based IFA where you pay a slug of money for their time.

Commission based introduces a potential conflict of interest.

The are no commission based pension and investment advisers. Commission was banned a number of years ago.

 

[Pblakeney]

The are no commission based pension and investment advisers. Commission was banned a number of years ago.

What was probably meant was "Adviser servicing fees" as a percentage of the pot.
Effectively the same thing, and they certainly do exist.