Watty's Awakening

rtandon27

Definitely go with your gut hun - on both the now strange men I'm the house and the purple hair lady!

daisy_1571

Sending clever wd yet more hugs for his poorly leg

Did I ever tell you my person determined to come into the house story 🤣😂 still makes me laugh. I'll repeat it if anyone wants to know

I'm with cancel last one, you've had a good choice between the 4 and it sounds v unlikely he will offer you something terribly different to the 3 you have already seen

dxx

Suffolk_lass

My only comment about purple hair lady is whether, working for a large firm, they are tied to certain offerings via contractual arrangement - which would mean you are not getting full market evaluation when it comes to which funds or ETF to buy.

greenbee

One of the red flags I had from one advisor was when they said that ethical investing based on my criteria was difficult. It isn't. I've been able to find the information out for myself for years. So that one is off the list.

Humdinger1

How's the dear patient getting on? I agree, cancel the insistent visitor and tell him why! Unless he's going to turn up with fab purple hair and knock-out makeup!! If he won't pick up on your feelings at this stage, it will probably end in him insisting on you doing stuff that he can't properly explain. Onwards and upwards love Humdinger xx

PennysIntoPounds

Go with who you vibe with, sack off the one giving uncool vibes with insistence of visit

themadvix

My dad has/had a financial advisor who would come to the house (I think he’s still with him, but don’t ask). He made my skin crawl - absolutely awful male chauvinist and asked far more questions than necessary. Dad thinks he’s wonderful, but has always fallen for a salesman’s pitch. I don’t like to ask what fees he charges - horrendous, I’m sure. Cancel the visitor Watty - you sound like you’ve made up your mind anyway 😊

Watty1

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82054726#Comment_82054726

Whole of the market, I did check.

You have all made me smile this morning about "to the house man" . I think @greenbee nailed it when she said that we have all got used to working remotely so location is just not an issue. Shocking lesson in being cautious there on "ongoing management" too. VNM has also concerns about money being stolen and has therefore done very little about his pension pots but I'm in no position to comment really having only started a pension pot when I had the first inkling PPH was not trustworthy and didn't really put anywhere near enough in back then. Still I am where I am.

Had a builder come to the house yesterday to quote on repairing some brickwork, redoing the patio and the drive. I'm really hoping this one quotes. He clearly knew his stuff, commenting on exactly how the cottage had been built (I had an elderly retired brick layer talk me through it once so I knew this one was right) and how he could do the repair. He also had an excellent plan for repairing the patio in the middle of the garden. And sensible comments on the drive, talking me out of my planned design of laying a path and so on as once we started I remembered the issues with what is under what is already there. He also talked me out of the gravel grids I was planning on for really sensible reasons. I liked him, although I did notice he seemed only capable of talking to VNM. VNM pointed out more than once that it was MY house and MY call and eventually walked off to make the man engage with me but I went and located VNM and said if the quote was reasonable I'd like the chap to do the job so could VNM come back and engage 😀as the chap was clearly "a blokes man" Honestly trying to get workmen to do anything is frustrating - I can only assume they are all really busy, take on jobs, get better paying jobs and just ghost the original job.

Watty1

The patient thanks you all for your good wishes (are there treats?) He has been caught licking and chewing the injured leg so the cone was put on for a short while but he looked so pathetic and depressed I relented and took it off. He is back to model behaviour but it goes back on if I have to leave him.

The old lady has been taught to "fetch". She is very good at it. Turned out she has been refusing to play ball because, in the heat, he has been more infirm than usual on his back legs. WattyDog has therefore taken to pushing his rugby ball through the bars of the back gate. To do this he has to turn his head sideways and then he pushes the ball out of his mouth so that it rolls down the drive that is beyond the gate. That part of the drive slopes to the road and the old lady has to walk down the slope and into the road to "retrieve" his rugby ball. She then returns with it and passes it over the gate to him, he chews it for a moment (her reward it would seem) and then repeats. I watched them keep this up for quite a few mins yesterday evening.

It was hilarious. I don't think she realises how well trained she has become 😂😂

TallGirl

I just wanted to comment as I have a bit of experience of IFA's. My first one was a recommendation of a friend who was working for himself but ties so only had certain products. To be fair there are 1000's of EFTs etc so I was not worried as I understand the difference between managed funds and trackers. He was also really good in suggesting premium bonds and high interest account for cash that I should not invest something he did not earn anything from. I did meet with him once a year and he got his fee plus I paid a fair bit initially for him to set it up so here Watty choose wisely as if you wish to change that fee will have to be paid again. I agreed if you do not have much to invest an ongoing fee is not needed. My lovely FA retired and I was moved to a big firm where I became a number and they were total crap did not want to know when I talked about moving to Denmark.

They wanted to earn a fee to advice on my pension for what I wondered anyway I got shot of them when I moved to Denmark and currently I am managing myself as I work out how the system works here. I think the bit that would be useful to have advice on is drawdowns or buying annuities but other than that use your tax free options and pensions and invest in low cost index funds I prefer trackers so I am not paying some rich hedge fund manager.

Obviously this is just my experience I hope you make the right chose.