Financial planner to test my retirement planning?

UrbanAchiever

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81930869#Comment_81930869

Thank you, that's very helpful. It's allowed me to narrow down potential advisors to talk to.

glass_half_full

I recommend guiide.co.uk

Free and I have found it very useful. I have no association with them by the way.

Bostonerimus1

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81930944#Comment_81930944

Giving away money or forgoing inheritances is difficult to do and it all comes down to your circumstances and goals. I've been gifting to my heirs ever since I retired and in the last 10 years my pension pot has still more than doubled. It has lost money in the last few weeks, but as I'm not taking money from it for day to day spending I'm not that concerned. Turbulent times are when I most appreciate my DB and rental income.

Cairnpapple

I understand that Jacksons Wealth Management (co-owned by Pete Matthew of Meaningful Money) review people's self-made plans in much the way you describe, without requiring that you use them for ongoing management.

BritishInvestor

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81930869#Comment_81930869

You may be getting confused with the designations.

CFP (via CISI) is a Certified Financial Planner - a level 7 qualification held by around 3% of UK advisers versus around ~20% who are Chartered Financial Planners (CII)

A CFP can be found by searching here

https://www.cisi.org/cisiweb2/wayfinder/about-wayfinder

OldScientist

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81930806#Comment_81930806

As you know, the assumptions are critical. One problem with smoothly varying returns is that they can give a somewhat rosy picture since actual returns are variable.- a good reason to use historic returns such as used in cfiresim (adding in an additional 0.5% to 1% ocf in cfiresim will give a performance more akin to that for a UK retiree. For comparison, a more limited simulator with UK data can be found at https://www.2020financial.co.uk/pension-drawdown-calculator/ )

In your spreadsheet, in the first year to two try modelling a 50% drop in equities, followed by a swift recovery of 100% or slower recoveries over 5 or more years (a search for 'sequence of return risk' will turn up some useful material).

I note that historically for a UK-based 60/40 portfolio, the lowest annualised real return over a 35 year period was about +1% - so, in terms of constant returns, your initial modelling of 4.5% returns and 3.5% inflation is a good representation of poor conditions.

To provide a baseline of income before SP and DB pension (~14 years?), you could construct an inflation linked gilt ladder (e.g., see https://lategenxer.streamlit.app/Gilt_Ladder ). A 14 year ladder with a start delayed for a year, currently has a payout rate of 7.7% - i.e., £100k invested in the ladder would provide an index linked annual income of £7.7k. By chance, the ladder has a real yield of 1%, i.e., close to your initial modelling assumptions. Having a floor of guaranteed income (in the absence of UK debt default) may provide sufficient certainty for you to retire with fewer worries.

dunstonh

If my investments perform in line with how they have over the past 22 years (7.95% average annual return),

22 years makes the starting point after one of the largest declines in generations. So, that will heavily distort your figures above the long-term average.

With your varied asset base and different income sources, you fit the profile of someone who could benefit from the services of a qualified Chartered Financial Planner.

Only around 5% of UK IFAs are qualified at that level, and CFPs have a far higher level of competency in tax planning matters as well as retirement modelling . You may wish to use the following search engine to locate a suitable adviser.

As someone with higher qualifications, I would say they are unnecessary in this case.

I would also point out that a lot of advisers who are not chartered have further/higher qualifications without taking it as far as chartered. It's a modular set of qualifications, and many get the modules they mostly advise on and don't follow through on the ones they don't.

So, I wouldn't necessarily go chasing a chartered adviser. Instead, asking the adviser if they have extra qualifications in retirement planning would suffice as you focus on those that have sat exams like G60, J05 or AF8 which are the retirement modules. (G60 and J05 now replaced with AF8). Indeed, it is possible to become chartered without sitting a retirement module. So, in this area, a non-chartered adviser with G60, J05 or AF8 could be more knowledgeable in retirement income than a chartered adviser who has never sat a dedictated retirement module. These are the quirks of exam sitting that exist in many walks of life. Plus, there are different exam boards with their own modules.

Bostonerimus1

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81930944#Comment_81930944

There was a time when I was very conversant in the various online retirement calculators, efficient frontiers, Monte Carlo simulations and worried about sequence of returns. If you worry about the risk element of DC drawdown you can have a very nervous retirement and if you don't worry you can make some silly mistakes. But with income from sources other than the markets I realized that none of it really mattered. I'd read several studies on rising equity allocations in retirement and decided to stopped rebalancing when equities did well. I'm now more than a decade into retirement and have done very little to manage my portfolio and it's averaging 11% annual return. However, while managing my money for retirement income isn't necessary, I'm now having to worry about taxation and inheritance - so there's always something. You seem to be in a similar situation, where tax planning becomes more important than just worrying about investment returns and inflation. Taxation can become very complicated and it's an area where professional advice can help, but the number of qualified people goes down and the costs will go up.

Albermarle

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81931461#Comment_81931461

Some IFA's are also happy to do a one off consultation without ongoing management.

The problem is that before they will give regulated personal advice, they have to go through a process to find out everything about you and your finances. This will also include future plans, family issues, tax, inheritance plans etc.

They will not just give your plans a quick once over and say that looks OK or not. They have to do a comprehensive review, as they are liable for any incorrect advice, so they need to know everything. Of course that costs money, many thousands usually. I am sure that would also apply to Jacksons Wealth Management.

bownyboy

Me and my wife had a 45 minute chat with a financial coach just before we retired. He is someone who has a popular website and has blogged, youtubed etc and FIRE'd a few years back.

For us it was chance to have a sense check of our figures and approach (I'm the geek / nerd into numbers, my wife not so much). I was confident we would be ok, but it helped having someone else review our numbers and go 'yep, from what you've said, you're in a good place'.

I realise it won't be for everyone (like I said, I have all the numbers, forecasts, projects etc all done) but it helped for my wife.

Cost was very reasonable as he is not a financial advisor.