“You need a plan. You can’t afford to leave the important things to chance.”
I was 21 when I bought my first house with my wife. Mortgage rates were high, the salary was going out almost as fast as it came in, and every single penny had to be accounted for. It was the first time I truly understood what money meant – not as a concept, but as a reality. You need a plan and you need to prioritise; you can’t afford to leave the important things to chance.
That experience never left me. It’s the reason I moved from administration into advice, and it’s the reason I’ve spent nearly 20 years helping clients do for themselves what I had to figure out at 21. I joined Mattioli Woods in 1998 and have been here ever since, advising on pension planning, personal investments and, increasingly, Inheritance Tax (IHT) planning.
One story has stayed with me more than any other. I’d been advising a young, very successful client for years. I’d been pushing him – gently but persistently – to put life cover in place. Eventually he did as sadly, a short time later, he passed away in an accident. During a time of devastation for his family, they were also extremely grateful. The cover was there when it mattered most and it’s something I think about a lot.
Clients know that if they contact me, I’ll aim to respond within 24 hours. It doesn’t matter how much is in the portfolio; every client gets the same service. Trust and reliability are the only things that matter in this job and everything else follows from those.
A lot of my clients have grown with me over the years. Their pensions are in good shape, their protection is in place and the mortgage is gone. Now the conversation I’m increasingly having is about Inheritance Tax (IHT) planning – and it’s where I find the work most genuinely interesting. Most people would rather not think about it until they realise quite how much the Government might take. Sitting down with them, working through the options, and putting a plan in place is the part of this job that I find most rewarding.
The pension principle I come back to most is simple: start early. I tell my daughter, who’s in her early twenties, that putting away £50 a month now will achieve what £250 a month will need to achieve if she waits until her mid-30s. The maths are unforgiving so the earlier the first pound goes in, the harder it works. Most people understand this when you put it that way – they just need someone to say it clearly.
I work with highly paid individuals no clear picture of where they’re heading or whether they’ll get there. Over five years of following a plan, that changes. Debts are cleared, retirement in sight and the family is protected. That’s the picture I’m building towards with every client I work with.
Outside of work, I play golf badly however, my wife took it up last year, which means we now hack around together most weekends, which I enjoy considerably more than going alone. We have a cottage with a larger garden than we bargained for, which keeps us busy. And when I want some time to myself, I get on the motorbike.
