Author Topic: Anyone used an IFA to carry out a financial review?  (Read 3330 times)

bownyboy

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Anyone used an IFA to carry out a financial review?
« on: December 15, 2020, 06:50:07 AM »
My wife is keen for our spreadsheets and numbers to be reviewed by someone independent before we officially pull the plug.

I've done a quick search on unbiased and vouched for and found a few IFAs near us.

I'd imagine most are keen to take over your investments and charge a regular fee (which we definitely don't want).

Has anyone else used them just for a review / sense check of your numbers? If so did you feel it was worth it? Did you gain any new insights?

Thanks

vand

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Re: Anyone used an IFA to carry out a financial review?
« Reply #1 on: December 15, 2020, 01:01:21 PM »
If you're totally cheapskate then I would say post a case-study and I'm sure you'll get some really good feedback

If you really want a "professional" to go over your numbers, I would only say to avoid an adviser who does it for a living, and instead from someone who has actually walked the walk and handles their own retirement, not just talk to others people about their's.


cerat0n1a

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Re: Anyone used an IFA to carry out a financial review?
« Reply #2 on: December 15, 2020, 01:27:19 PM »
My wife is keen for our spreadsheets and numbers to be reviewed by someone independent before we officially pull the plug.

I've done a quick search on unbiased and vouched for and found a few IFAs near us.

I'd imagine most are keen to take over your investments and charge a regular fee (which we definitely don't want).

Has anyone else used them just for a review / sense check of your numbers? If so did you feel it was worth it? Did you gain any new insights?

Many of them are on a par with double-glazing salesmen - they're on a commission and trying to sell you something and anything they tell you has to be viewed in that light.

However, it should certainly be possible to get an IFA to provide advice on a hourly rate (£200 or so) and it may be worth paying for a few hours if it will give your wife peace of mind. They naturally have to protect themselves from getting into trouble if they turn out to have provided bad advice, so you may get advice which is somewhat hedged/cautious.

ExitViaTheCashRamp

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Re: Anyone used an IFA to carry out a financial review?
« Reply #3 on: December 16, 2020, 01:22:12 AM »
Almost all the IFAs experience is going to come from selling pensions, ISAs and other financial instruments with an eye to understanding the punters risk tolerance. The amount of experience they have on successfully advising on a multi-decade unwind of such items is going to be really low - I mean by definition they would have to be in the end of their career. How could you possibly tell how good their unwinding knowledge will be in advance ? 

 I guess what you are really looking for is wealth management advice, might be better to head to some big name banks ?

bownyboy

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Re: Anyone used an IFA to carry out a financial review?
« Reply #4 on: December 16, 2020, 02:26:01 AM »
Thanks all. Some good points and thats what I was generally suspecting.

Trying to work out best way forward as I'm more than confident in the numbers myself, I just need to get my wife totally onboard.

No matter how many times I take her through the numbers she doesn't quite believe it and starts panicking that we will either a) be living a life of penury or b) run out of money completely.

Interestingly the Vouched For website allows you to have a free one hour consultation for a financial review, so I think we'll take that up and see what happens.




SpreadsheetMan

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Re: Anyone used an IFA to carry out a financial review?
« Reply #5 on: December 16, 2020, 02:59:13 AM »
It’s worth posting the question on the money saving expert pension forum, there are far more uk people there than on here.

It should be do-able, but I would expect it won’t be cheap as any IFA worth their salt will want to take the time to understand your family finances in depth to be able to give an opinion.

LightTripper

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Re: Anyone used an IFA to carry out a financial review?
« Reply #6 on: December 16, 2020, 03:17:38 AM »
You could try someone like Pete Matthew who runs the Meaningful Money Podcast - pretty sure I have seen that he does pre-retirement reviews (but I assume it wouldn't be cheap).  He's in Cornwall but I guess everything is remote these days anyway. 
https://meaningfulmoney.tv/work-with-pete/

Barney Whiter of the Escape Artist also offers a coaching service.  He's not an IFA but I would be pretty confident he won't be over-cautious (or try to sell you anything).
https://theescapeartist.me/coaching/

Just to be clear I haven't worked with either of them, so can't make a personal recommendation.  But may be places to start if your wife wants reassurance, you want to make sure it's somebody who "gets" the concept of FI, and you don't mind throwing some cash at it.

vand

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Re: Anyone used an IFA to carry out a financial review?
« Reply #7 on: December 16, 2020, 03:47:18 AM »
Adding up your net assets and concluding whether you have enough to retire on paper is the easy part.

The difficult part is understanding your attitude to money - this includes your investment risk tolerance, but also wider issues questions in relation to money such as

- where you prefer to have your money invested?
- how hands-on do you want to be?
- how confident in your health are you?
- how flexible are you willing to be?

so this is why getting to know the whole picture is important and not just an exercise in going over the numbers during a 1hr consultation, no matter how well qualified or competent the advisor.

The better you understand the answer, or range of answers, to these sort of questions the better prepared you will be, but maybe ironically the less you will feel the need for financial advice.
« Last Edit: December 16, 2020, 03:51:06 AM by vand »

Playing with Fire UK

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Re: Anyone used an IFA to carry out a financial review?
« Reply #8 on: December 16, 2020, 04:26:27 AM »
I've had better information from this forum than from the two IFAs I've spoken to (via the free consultation).

One was wrong and wouldn't believe he was wrong so I wouldn't work with him again and am concerned about his other clients. The other was great, but she was clearly looking for clients for asset management long-term work, so I wasn't her target market and she didn't do hourly advice (but she still extended the free hour to 80 minutes so I'd recommend her to someone else, but we aren't suited for each other).

After I used the Vouched For service I did get an odd string of sales calls that might have been targeted, so I'd be hesitant about giving my full financial picture to them again (but have no problems doing that with the friend folks here). It could have been unrelated though.

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Re: Anyone used an IFA to carry out a financial review?
« Reply #9 on: December 16, 2020, 04:44:10 AM »
I’m happy to pose as an IFA if it would help you bownyboy. I could dress in a suit and we set up a pretend Zoom call. I’ll provide confidence by telling you both your plan is great, completely flawless in fact, and you save on paying a fee, being sold anything and being targeted by future marketing endeavours :-)

I’ve thought about this myself but can’t get over the fact that they are likely to want to sell me something. I would also worry about how they would use the info I give them. I think by and large the confidence level needs to come from within. If I’m not happy or confident in my plan then it won’t matter what anyone tells me in an hour or so consultation.

Monevator have an excellent series on putting together a retirement plan. Would working through that plan objectively with your wife and comparing your numbers to it help? I.e. it could be anyone’s plan but you are objectively assessing it and either giving it the green light or not. That mindset of testing the plan may provide more confidence?

PhilB

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Re: Anyone used an IFA to carry out a financial review?
« Reply #10 on: December 16, 2020, 06:10:47 AM »
I like NGU's idea - and he even has the posh suit already.

I'm sure there are some great IFAs out there - indeed a few of them post on MSE  - but personally I would have very little faith in most IFAs' ability to deal with anything 'out of the ordinary'.   One of the problems is that to protect themselves they need to devote about 75% of their attention to ticking boxes to make sure they can't be sued.  How much of the remaining 25% ish they devote to trying to sell you things will, I'm sure, vary, but in the initial free consultation it will be almost all of it - these people need to eat.

I second the suggestion of the MSE pension forum, but be prepared to examine the responses carefully as they can be of variable quality.  If you read it for a while you'll soon work out who the trustworthy ones are.

How about you get your wife to create an MMM account and put up a case study?  She's going to have a lot more faith in numbers and plans that she has worked through for herself.


Playing with Fire UK

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Re: Anyone used an IFA to carry out a financial review?
« Reply #11 on: December 16, 2020, 07:16:11 AM »
I like NGU's idea - and he even has the posh suit already.

I'm sure there are some great IFAs out there - indeed a few of them post on MSE  - but personally I would have very little faith in most IFAs' ability to deal with anything 'out of the ordinary'.   One of the problems is that to protect themselves they need to devote about 75% of their attention to ticking boxes to make sure they can't be sued.  How much of the remaining 25% ish they devote to trying to sell you things will, I'm sure, vary, but in the initial free consultation it will be almost all of it - these people need to eat.

Agreed with @PhilB - thinking specifically about the risk from the IFA's view. There is far more risk for them if they say "yes, go ahead and retire" than if they say "consider working another year". They don't have any incentive to suggest you have an extra joyful work-free year and with their other clients they are incentivised to suggest more years working so that there are more assets under management so they can cream off their 1%.

(That isn't to say that there aren't fantastic IFAs out there who will consider the benefit to you.)

bownyboy

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Re: Anyone used an IFA to carry out a financial review?
« Reply #12 on: December 16, 2020, 01:49:25 PM »
@LightTripper thanks for the recommendations, I've contacted Barney as it looks like just the sort of coaching / advice that we're looking for. I'll keep you posted

@never give up haha, cheap suit and a zoom, made me laugh!

@PhilB my wife has ZERO interest in finances let alone forums like this, so that's a non starter (even if its a good idea!)

This has got me thinking about how we each differently approach money. For me I love numbers, the logic behind it, spreadsheets and forecasting. For my wife her history of money means she stresses out, worries about it, doesn't open mail (I do it now for her!) and glazes over despite my best efforts of talking her through our numbers once a month.

We are in a very very fortunate position (through bloody hard work, sweat and some tears) so its about how I can get her to realise that. So I'm going to see if Barney can coach / guide help us.

Thanks for all your comments and thoughts.

MustacheAndaHalf

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Re: Anyone used an IFA to carry out a financial review?
« Reply #13 on: December 17, 2020, 08:49:09 AM »
Have you tried using a retirement calculator?

There's some fairly complex ones, so I favor Vanguard's nest egg calculator.  You plug in your net assets, your percentage stocks/bonds/cash, and then start playing with some sliders.  There's one for expeneses as a percentage of assets, and another for how long those assets need to last.  Click "calculate" and you'll get the chance your portfolio stays above $0 for the length of your retirement.  (Personally, I prefer to stress test higher spending to ensure even that will work)
https://www.vanguard.com/nesteggcalculator

You might also want to stop by the retirement planning section of a nearby library, to see if you can find something there - maybe a workbook that guides you through things to consider.

Playing with Fire UK

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Re: Anyone used an IFA to carry out a financial review?
« Reply #14 on: December 17, 2020, 09:01:40 AM »
This calculator is simple but has a visualisation I find very helpful.

Father Dougal

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Re: Anyone used an IFA to carry out a financial review?
« Reply #15 on: January 05, 2021, 06:28:16 AM »
These calculators are excellent. Thanks for posting the links.

I pushed the ER button some years ago now, but did not take any professional advice. It has worked out fine, but one of the things I struggle with is the absence of someone with which to discuss openly my situation. I think the best option would be some type of mentor. The main problem for me is that once I have shared my information it cannot be unshared, and the people I have considered as mentors are friends and family which complicates things further. I have found the information on MMM and other sites to be invaluable. Most of it is better than you would get from an advisor!  Having said that, maybe take all the advice you can get - even the bad advice will give you something to think about. Even if you go to one of the big wealth advisors (I have some experience of them, which still makes me shudder) after they have spent a while trying unsuccessfully to sell you high-fee products you might get a nugget of something useful.

Also, OP, remember: happy wife, happy life. She's worried, so a right-minded IFA might be a good investment.

bownyboy

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Re: Anyone used an IFA to carry out a financial review?
« Reply #16 on: January 08, 2021, 03:33:03 AM »
I've tried most of the calculators out there. Some have hideous user interfaces and/or are complex to understand and use.

This one is my favourite so far: https://calculator.ficalc.app

I like it as you can change the withdrawal strategies such as Variable Percentage Withdrawal which allows you to set a floor that it can't go below and also a maximum (eg: £24k minimum and £40k maximum)

You can also drop in state pensions and any other expected incomes.

Good visualisations on possible end portfolio numbers and also yearly spend.

Flavius

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Re: Anyone used an IFA to carry out a financial review?
« Reply #17 on: January 11, 2021, 04:08:36 AM »
You could try someone like Pete Matthew who runs the Meaningful Money Podcast - pretty sure I have seen that he does pre-retirement reviews (but I assume it wouldn't be cheap).  He's in Cornwall but I guess everything is remote these days anyway. 
https://meaningfulmoney.tv/work-with-pete/

Barney Whiter of the Escape Artist also offers a coaching service.  He's not an IFA but I would be pretty confident he won't be over-cautious (or try to sell you anything).
https://theescapeartist.me/coaching/

Just to be clear I haven't worked with either of them, so can't make a personal recommendation.  But may be places to start if your wife wants reassurance, you want to make sure it's somebody who "gets" the concept of FI, and you don't mind throwing some cash at it.


I can thorougly recommend using Pete. We were concerned about whether we have enough money to pull the plug and got advise from Pete. He told us that we could retire at 60 (3 years off at the time) with no worries. He then said that actually there was no need to ever work again so I handed my notice in and retired on 4th December 2019. It wasn't hideously expensive and I feel that we got some great advice that will save us money going forward.

bownyboy

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Re: Anyone used an IFA to carry out a financial review?
« Reply #18 on: January 18, 2021, 02:40:52 AM »
So we had our video call with Barney on Friday. It was good for my wife to have a second opinion on our approach.

Good news is that we're pretty much on track.

The discussion was more along the lines of Vanguard Lifestrategy 60 v Vanguard FTSE Gloabal All Cap & Vanguard Total Bond (the later giving you more flexibility and control).

We also talked a bit about the emotional side of FIREing 'to' something and if the work I do could be done on a part time or consultancy basis, so you keep some sort of revenue stream coming in and spend that on the fun stuff.

Both of these points were to help with sequence of returns risk, along with us potentially renting out our home for a year to slow travel in cheaper places, thus reducing the amount of withdrawal in the first year.

So nothing earth shattering, but my wife now feels better, so thanks to the user who recommended this.

Playing with Fire UK

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Re: Anyone used an IFA to carry out a financial review?
« Reply #19 on: January 18, 2021, 03:14:15 AM »
Awesome news. Could you share a little on the process (how much financial review was there, did you complete a questionnaire or just send your numbers over) and cost? I'm thinking that my OH might want to have a second opinion.

Has it solidified your timeline yet?

never give up

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Re: Anyone used an IFA to carry out a financial review?
« Reply #20 on: January 18, 2021, 03:38:42 AM »
While I’m disappointed I didn’t get the opportunity to dress up in a suit and pretend to be a financial adviser for you, I’m really glad it went well. It would be interesting to know more about the process you went through here.

bownyboy

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Re: Anyone used an IFA to carry out a financial review?
« Reply #21 on: January 18, 2021, 04:13:10 AM »
Sure no problem. Process was as follows:

I contacted Barney by email as he suggests on his page here: https://theescapeartist.me/coaching/

We then arranged a convenient time for the chat.

Being a bit of a spreadsheet nerd (aren't we all?) I already have a spreadsheet showing monthly net worth, for last 6 years along with a list of our typical monthly outgoings for barebones / moderate  and luxury living expenses.

No questions beforehand and no sending anything over. We covered a few basics at the beginning of the conversation; married? kids? work situation? along with 'why are we here today?' (we want to check our approach and numbers and check to see if there are any pitfalls or areas we could tweak/improve) and then I screen shared showing our numbers.

Was an opened ended conversation after that focusing on the points mentioned above.

We will also arrange another check-in in 3 months time.






Playing with Fire UK

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Re: Anyone used an IFA to carry out a financial review?
« Reply #22 on: January 18, 2021, 04:34:08 AM »
Thanks very much. Glad it was useful for you.

bownyboy

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Re: Anyone used an IFA to carry out a financial review?
« Reply #23 on: January 18, 2021, 04:59:55 AM »
Oh, forgot to answer the question regarding timeline

Yes it's confirmed that we are good to go once lockdown ends and the world starts returning to normal and we can travel.

Until then I might as well continue contracting as there's nothing else we can do right?

LightTripper

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Re: Anyone used an IFA to carry out a financial review?
« Reply #24 on: February 09, 2021, 04:18:06 AM »
Really glad it worked out and was reassuring for your wife!

bownyboy

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Re: Anyone used an IFA to carry out a financial review?
« Reply #25 on: February 15, 2021, 01:15:14 AM »
For anyone whose interested I've now posted in the case study thread:

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/case-studies/case-study-uk-dinks-about-to-pull-the-re-trigger-check-our-plan/

Feel free to pop by and comment!