What prompted Mrs Winter to contact us?
Mrs Winter was unhappy at work. After a successful, yet stressful career, so was her husband.
They wanted to know if they had accumulated sufficient assets to make early retirement a possibility.
They both had significant pension funds, as well as other savings and investments. However, the stress of work and their busy lives, meant they had rather lost touch of the values of these. Furthermore, they had no idea how much income they needed in retirement, or whether their assets would be sufficient to generate the income they needed.
What did we recommend?
The first stage was for us to understand exactly what Mr and Mrs Winter wanted from their retirement.
We discussed their plans, goals and objectives. Once we had done that, we were able to calculate their non-discretionary spending (money which had to be paid each month), discretionary spending (on things such as birthdays and holidays, which vary from year to year) as well as any lump sums they would need in the future.
We then set about understanding their current pensions, savings and investments. We also obtained a State Pension forecast for each of them.
Armed with this information we produced a financial forecast which showed, using prudent assumptions, that Mr and Mrs Winter could indeed afford to retire now, while living the life in retirement that they wanted to.
Furthermore, our analysis showed, again based on prudent assumptions, that they wouldn’t run out of money in the future. This delighted Mr and Mrs Winter as they had always thought they would run down their asset base in retirement, reducing the amount they would be able to leave to their children.
Once we had completed the financial forecast, we set about putting the arrangements in place for Mr and Mrs Winter to retire. This involved moving their pensions into flexi-access drawdown , to pay an income and rearranging their ISAs (Individual Savings Accounts) into more appropriate funds, aligned with their attitude to risk.
Mr and Mrs Winter also took the opportunity to update their wills and start thinking about their longer-term estate planning needs.
How did Mr and Mrs Winter benefit?
To put it simply, our advice was life changing.
They gave up work without having to compromise their lifestyle. Previously, they thought they would have to continue working for many more years. Our advice turned early retirement into a reality for them.