Early retirement - should i use an IFA?

jem16

jamesd wrote: »

1. They have a high risk investment in BTL, possibly leveraged with a mortgage now or in the past.

The OP doesn't say it's a BTL - just that they have a house that they rent. My son couldn't sell his house so it's now rented. Totally different. If he had the choice he wouldn't be renting it.

2. They have at least some experience in investing because they have a pension pot of £180k

Just having a pension pot doesn't make them experienced. My friend's husband has a pension pot and just paid into a default fund. He's not experienced - quite the opposite in fact.

3. There's also some guaranteed income from the NHS and presumably state pension but my personal view is that it's on the low side and I'd like to see more guaranteed for life income eventually.

Same with my friend's husband. A small LGPS pension plus state pension. The private pot was from self employed days that he continued with even when he stopped being self employed.

He still wasn't interested.

I think that your expectation of their reaction is probably right. But here we quite often see people who are more interested in options.

I agree that there are some who do wish to hear about these options and that's fine to suggest them.

My concern lies where you appear to put them off any IFA who does not.

mgdavid

OP, cutting to the chase, it sounds to me that you do not have enough to retire comfortably at 58. Where do you see yourself on the axis that goes Comfortable / Careful / Frugal / Struggling / Poor ?

Fretman12

Id say I was not too extravagant in what I expect from retirement also I don't see myself breaking any longevity awards as I have a stent already and raised BP etc. My thinking is 22 years from my target retirement date will see me as an 80 yr old, after that, and if I get there I'm not really concerned with having money to pay for any care I may need. My background has given me a good insight into getting older.

Perhaps naively my own workings out go like this: I have not real debts where I live and our outgoings are approx £500 (this will reduce to £300 in 9 yrs time) plus food. I have £400 pm rent coming in and I can boost that from my 180K pension pot in some way yet to be decided. At 60yrs I will take my NHS at £300 pm and a 10k lump sum. At 66 I get my state pension of say £600 pm. I probably should also mention I live in the North so the cost of living is lower here. So Im thinking that after turning 66yrs I have a guaranteed £900 pm plus my partners pension and anything else is a bonus and there is always the rented house to sell and about 25K in other savings.

As I say this is probably naive but I'm interested to see what the IFA comes up with.

justme111

I think your numbers allow you to retire comfortably. Some posters on here forget that not all live on 50 000 a year net which would indeed be a challenge to match in retirement or want two times their present disposable income available when retired "just in case".

Fretman12

Yes agree I did suspect this too. Im actually in a very well paid job and that's where I managed to build up the pension pot through the scheme we have and an ISA tracker over the years. I'd settle for a modest small car, the occasional holiday then I enjoy fishing , walking, reading and I'm a musician. Its quality time away from the rat race is what I want and I'm pretty sure I can survive on mush less then I do now. On top of that, and rightly or wrongly, Im looking for a twenty year or so period to finance because after that my needs will be less and I don't want too much money in the bank.

Playing_with_Fire_2

Hey Fretman12 and Jem16,

To clarify my earlier post, I was concerned as I thought that the specific IFA you had spoken to had not been transparent about fees and had made some exaggerated claims. As Jem said, IFAs must disclose their fees first. If the OP was seeing an IFA who was breaking these rules then that raises concerns. Similarly, if an IFA is guaranteeing that they will beat the market or generate a positive return this would also raise concerns.

I'm not against Fretman using an IFA but don't want anyone to be using an immoral, overcharging or incompetent IFA.