Peter and Linda’s story: dreaming of early retirement

I was working as an IT contractor when a colleague recommended I speak to Mike. My wife Linda and I had money in savings, and we wanted to get the maximum growth from it. We also wanted someone to advise on our pensions with a view to retiring sometime in the future.

This was back in 2017. At the time we were thinking we could probably stop working in 2022 or 23, but Mike came back and told us that we could actually afford to retire earlier.

The journey to early retirement

We had to do a lot of thinking about our day-to-day costs, and also how we wanted to spend our retirement in order for Mike to work out if we had enough money set aside.

We like to travel and have nice holidays, and so Mike took that information on board and calculated how much we’d need. He explained that if we lived on a certain amount per year then we could afford to retire in 2020, not 2023!

Now we’re living the dream. This year went on a cruise, spending time in Venice, Bologna, and Lake Garda. Next year we’re trying the Norwegian fjords. And after that we’re off to Jerusalem and Egypt.

In between times we play badminton, golf, and work at our local food bank. It’s amazing how easy it is to fill the time!

The gift of confidence

There are so many unknowns when it comes to retirement, but the way Mike went about it gave us the confidence we needed. His knowledge of pensions and where to invest our money is so thorough – we’d never have got there ourselves.

He showed us the forecast and explained that he’d accounted for one or two potential crashes in the market. Then Covid hit, and the markets did drop after that. However, Mike reassured us that everything was ok as he’d already factored this into our plan.

Without him we’d be worried, but his constant reassurance means we don’t have to think about it. He’s always at the end of the phone if we need him, but he also keeps in constant touch. Mike makes sure he’s understood exactly what we’re asking and explains things very clearly. If there’s something he doesn’t know straight away, he’ll go away and find out.

A friend as well as adviser

Mike has become a friend of ours through the years - he’s such a nice person, so easy to talk to, we feel that he’ll always be able to help with whatever comes up.  

Investment information often feels as if it’s written in a different language – but Mike explains it in a way that makes us feel confident about it.

Our yearly reports are actually readable to the extent that we can understand where our money is and why it’s there. They show our investment growth against industry benchmarks. We feel much more comfortable as a result – which is important as it’s our money and our future!

In short Mike – and the team – are helpful, efficient, good at making things clear and enable us to feel knowledgeable and confident about our money.

Mike is almost perfect – we don’t know what more he could actually do!