Fiduciary Partners LLP

Great financial planning for Chiswick residents

What’s your number?

If there’s one thing that most people have little clue about, it’s ‘their number’. And by this I mean the amount of income and/or capital you need to become independently wealthy at some point in the future. To work because you want to, not through necessity. You may, if you wish, call that retirement.

The paternalistic relationship with a single employer enjoyed by many in previous generations has largely disappeared. Outside of the public sector the idea of collecting an index-linked final salary pension after 40 years loyal service is a rarity indeed.

So, without this bygone employer commitment to supporting you in reasonable comfort for the rest of your life, you are thrown back onto your own resources, mostly without any help.

You move from employer to employer, in the process often joining and leaving a series of DIY outsourced pension schemes. Annual pension statements from multiple providers arrive; you look at them with a degree of ennui but making sense of the big picture is, for most people, virtually impossible.

But let’s forget pensions – which for many readers have been besmirched by constant political tinkering, over-complexity and a fair few scandals. ‘Your number’ typically brings into play many other sources of income and capital, ranging from inherited money, property, saved cash and investments, windfalls and bonuses. This all needs to be brought into the mix and projected forward, taking growth, inflation and tax into account.

My view about what constitutes great financial planning is crystal clear. There’s good evidence to suggest that most non-financial people are simply not interested in their investments and pensions. The investment industry, though, thinks entirely differently and traditional financial advisers tend to follow suit, so that the conversations often revolve around whether this fund or scheme is better than that one, for its own sake.

But what most people really want to know from a financial planner is far more fundamental. Their questions include

• ‘Are we going to be okay financially in later life?’
• ‘How can I ensure I never run out of money?’
• ‘What do we need to do to hit ‘our number’?’
• ‘How can you support me in achieving this or other life goals?’
• ‘Are our plans realistic or finger-in-the-wind?’

This is true whether you earn £100,000 or £1m a year – spending it all is quite easy with a reasonably fertile imagination!

So whilst as a firm we are obsessively technical about investment and other behind-the-scenes aspects of planning, the key focus is on one thing – our clients’ peace of mind. We aim to put them in a position where they know ‘their number’, and then create sound financial strategies that give them a reasonable chance of hitting it by their desired age. Furthermore, the planning system we use allows our clients to model any given scenario to see if it’s viable – whether that’s sending the children to independent schools, buying a holiday home, or both and a little more besides.

That’s great financial planning, and it’s what we offer – in plain English and without smoke and mirrors. You can read much more on our website, www.fiduciary-partners.info For an initial conversation please call Andrew Brixey-Williams on 0800 052 0494, or send an email to andrew@fiduciary-partners.co.uk.

Andrew Brixey-Williams

Fiduciary Partners LLP is an appointed representative of Financial Ltd, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.  FCA no 497873.

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September 6, 2013