No, no, no – really how’s life? We’re not saying this just as a polite greeting, but instead are asking this as many people have become a bit more reflective after the pandemic, as we’ve all seen how our lives can be totally upended by something completely from left field. Unfortunately, a small number of our clients were (and one or two continue to be) quite sick from covid and we know people who also suffered bereavement because of the wretched virus. These people have unsurprisingly been reflecting on their new circumstances.

The more fortunate among us may simply be looking forward to our next outing to a pub or restaurant not requiring a booking and socialising almost as we used to! And imagine masks becoming a thing of the past in many settings… But as we enjoy these rediscovered freedoms, now is a really good time to take stock of what’s important in life today and identify new directions in our future plans.

Taking stock is always a good exercise. It’s too easy to get caught up on the treadmill of life in general and in your career, rushing from task to task and always looking to move forwards and climb higher. You’ll get enormous value from stopping, taking a breath, and enjoying the view, reflecting on the road already travelled. In the rush for more, we can forget to celebrate and can deny ourselves the hard-earned contentment and pride in all we’ve achieved so far. This quiet satisfaction will give you the impetus to look again at the road ahead and what you want to achieve.

Because priorities may have changed. We’ve learned many things in the last 18 months – we can work from home, and we can spend more time with the family without killing each other! We can find new ways to amuse ourselves within small geographic limits and many people have discovered new pastimes, whether they are hiking, sea swimming, cycling, or picking up a golf club again.

And from our conversations with some of you, your priorities around work have changed. Many of you no longer want to be in the office five days a week, and working from home will always be part of how you work in future. Many of you are examining how practical and affordable it is to work only three of four days a week now, giving yourself more free time to do the things you enjoy. Some of you have really missed travelling and have developed exciting bucket lists of the places you want to visit.

Others among you really want to leave the world of work behind as soon as possible and get out and enjoy the wider world while you have the health and time to do so.

This is not just an exercise in dreaming, this is about identifying the future life that you want. We want to be part of the journey with you, because when you’ve done the dreaming, we just ask that you bring your hopes and ambitions into our next meeting with you. Then we can help you to make sense of them from a financial perspective, identify how achievable they are today or what needs to be done to bring those dreams to fruition. We can effectively put a financial price on your dreams and will show you what needs to be done to live the life that you want to live.

Life is not a rehearsal, we all get one spin around in this crazy world. Take a step back, think about what the best life possible looks like for you, and then let us help you make it happen.

We spend our days helping clients to plan their financial futures. What we see is that people face similar challenges depending on their stage of life. At the same time of course, each and every one of us has a unique set of circumstances, has our own specific financial objectives and needs bespoke advice to help us reach our goals. 

You see, financial planning is not an exact science. It depends completely on those unique circumstances; your current and potential earnings, your family situation and your assets and liabilities to name but a few factors. And it also depends on what it is you are trying to achieve. For you, is it all about comfort in retirement or are you seeking to maximise your wealth in the shorter term? Is the security of your family your primary concern?

While we clearly acknowledge that everyone is unique, we thought it might be useful to give you a sense of the type of issues that many of our clients see as the big financial challenges at various stages in their lives, and the typical solutions they seek out from us.

The carefree years: Age 20 – 35

Ah the carefree years! At least that’s how they start out for this age group before they start placing one eye on the future. For most of our clients in their late teens and early twenties, there are really just a small number of areas that they come to us looking for help with. The first area of focus is savings, often with one eye on building a deposit for that eventual house purchase.

As our clients move through their twenties and into their thirties, mortgages tend to dominate as people seek to get loan approval for that first home. As many of our clients also get married at this time and start their families, they tend to focus on getting protection (health insurance, life assurance, income protection etc.) in place to safeguard their families financially. The very forward-thinking of our clients also turn their attention to building education funds for their children and also their retirement funding. These smart people realise that the earlier they start their funding, the more they are likely to have available at retirement!  

The growth years: Age 35 – 50

Hopefully now the mortgage is not hurting quite as much and there is a little spare cash available for other purposes. At this stage in our clients’ lives, we see a real commitment to pension funding – making sure that they can maximise the tax breaks available and finding the best pension vehicle for them. We also find at this stage that our clients become a little more aware of their infallibility (remember how indestructible we all felt when younger?), and want to ensure that they have the right protection in place to protect themselves and/or their families against the financial consequences of ill-health or death. 

For those who are in the fortunate position of having some spare money, they also seek help in building an investment portfolio, particularly in the current low deposit rate environment.

The consolidation years: Age 50 – 65

As the state pension age is likely to be extended over the next few decades, this consolidation period is going to expand. We see our clients at this stage furiously continuing to build up their pension funds. 

Another area that we get asked a lot about among this group is in relation to the whole area of wealth transfer. Our clients have seen the pretty low Capital Gains Tax thresholds and the penal 33% CGT rate, and seek out ways to avoid leaving their families with big tax bills. These tax bills can often result in families being forced to sell an inherited family home, just to pay the tax bill. So we help them plan the transfer of wealth in a tax efficient way. To achieve this, gifting becomes an important element of wealth transfer for many families.

The Drawdown years – age 65+

And now the spending years – hopefully! This is where hopefully you get to enjoy the fruits of your labour and your careful financial planning over the years. Usually our clients no longer have a salary coming in at this stage, but of course we hope that we’ve been able to help them accumulate a good pension for themselves.  Our work with clients who are in the latter stages of their lives tends to be around helping them manage their spending wisely. The risk these clients want to avoid is running out of money, so we help them to manage their assets carefully.

What we also see among this group is the amount of time they spend thinking about others and how important their legacy is to them. They are thinking a lot about their families in particular and how they can leave a lasting legacy (financial and otherwise) with them. Again we help them with their wealth transfer strategy to ensure their financial legacy is valuable and accessible for their families.

We hope this article gives you a sense of the types of challenges our clients face. If you would like to discuss your own particular situation with us, we would of course be delighted to hear from you.