To Retire Or Not

Mr & Mrs W were referred to Nathan by an existing client for help in reviewing their financial plans, in particular to confirm they were ‘doing the right things’ in terms of planning for their retirement.

They were both over the minimum age at which they could draw on their pensions, however they didn’t want to finish working for another 5 years or so as they both really enjoy their jobs and have certain professional aspirations they want to achieve.

In talking through the reasons why they had asked for advice it transpired that their main objective was to buy (and renovate) a property in France in preparation for their retirement.  However, they wanted to make sure that in doing so this didn’t jeopardise the income they could generate from their pensions to the extent it became unaffordable to retire there.  In their words they wanted to strike the balance between buying the property of their dreams and still having enough money to live.

By taking the time to properly understand their longer term goals Nathan helped them to create a financial plan to consolidate some of their existing pensions, maximise the returns on the others so they better reflected the level of risk they were comfortable with, and redirect some of their monthly savings into ISAs.  Doing this allowed them to identify a suitable property 6 months’ later without worrying about jeopardising their future retirement plans.

The other impact of the financial plan was that, having found the property they really wanted in France sooner than expected, with Nathan’s help they were able to work out that they could retire earlier than planned.