Financial Planning: should I engage a financial planner?

Linton

As a non-IFA I agree with Dunstonh’s points. In my case I made my primary objective  in my late 30’s to retire it 55 and over the years added more detail so in the event I was able to do so at 55+1 month. Thanks to planning I was lucky to be mainly invested at low risk at the start of the 2007/8 crash.

In my view the key reason for planning is to assign appropriate levels of risk to your investments. If you are close to meeting your  objective.  It would be foolish to invest at high risk to achieve maximum returns when doing so could lead to you missing an important life objective. Conversely if you are 20 years away from retirement you can invest at high risk/return in the knowledge that short term variability is completely unimportant and so can be ignored.

I believe investing without a plan is just playing with money that does not really matter, an expensive but irrelevant
online game. If you have longterm life ambitions  that need significant savings you need to plan seriously.

Sourpuss84

Hi everyone, 

You have given me a lot of great points to think about and an awareness for aspects of financial planning that I didn't previously have.

Since my last post, we have met with the IFA again and linked with an existing client who we know personally. The initial fee is fully negotiable and will be nowhere near 3% - we do not have complicated finances and are interested in the longer term approach to financial planning and relationship with an IFA. I hadn't realised how financially illiterate I am/was until now!! I am in a solid professional, but this is not an area I have ever had experience of. 

So, for those interested in the outcome, the decision is to proceed with the IFA because:

• I intuitively trust this person - a family run business who are engaged and dynamic 
• They have a good reputation 
• The fees for their service seem reasonable (I am happy to pay for a personal trainer - I could obviously learn how to programme myself, but I don't want to and appreciate the expertise of a professional.)
• I do not have any experience of managing finances like this or investments
• I want to grow my inheritance and achieve goals down the line
• My mortgage is at a good rate for the next 3 years
• I want to learn about money management and investing - we are already massively more informed as a result of having some options presented to us
• 4/10 risk initially 
• We are able to play the long game here with no immediate financial demands on us due to a sound financial starting position in terms of low mortgage rate, easily affordable based on current salary, no personal debt

I feel comfortable that this will grow my inheritance far more than I could myself.

 

wjr4

Sourpuss84 said:

Hi everyone, 

You have given me a lot of great points to think about and an awareness for aspects of financial planning that I didn't previously have.

Since my last post, we have met with the IFA again and linked with an existing client who we know personally. The initial fee is fully negotiable and will be nowhere near 3% - we do not have complicated finances and are interested in the longer term approach to financial planning and relationship with an IFA. I hadn't realised how financially illiterate I am/was until now!! I am in a solid professional, but this is not an area I have ever had experience of. 

So, for those interested in the outcome, the decision is to proceed with the IFA because:

• I intuitively trust this person - a family run business who are engaged and dynamic 
• They have a good reputation 
• The fees for their service seem reasonable (I am happy to pay for a personal trainer - I could obviously learn how to programme myself, but I don't want to and appreciate the expertise of a professional.)
• I do not have any experience of managing finances like this or investments
• I want to grow my inheritance and achieve goals down the line
• My mortgage is at a good rate for the next 3 years
• I want to learn about money management and investing - we are already massively more informed as a result of having some options presented to us
• 4/10 risk initially 
• We are able to play the long game here with no immediate financial demands on us due to a sound financial starting position in terms of low mortgage rate, easily affordable based on current salary, no personal debt

I feel comfortable that this will grow my inheritance far more than I could myself.

 

This is great news and I promise that not all financial ‘advisers’ are like they used to be. There’s a lot of new advisers/planners who do actually care and aren’t in it just for the money (we all need to make a living somehow). Out of interest, do you know which cashflow software they use?