The problem
Start with the life, not the portfolio.
Most financial advice begins with investments: risk, funds, platforms and returns.
Those things matter, but they are not the starting point. The first questions are more useful:
- What do you want the next ten or twenty years to look like?
- When would you like work to become optional?
- What would you like to spend, give away or change?
- What would make you feel that you had enough?
Once those answers are clearer, the job of the portfolio becomes much easier to define.
The portfolio is important. It is simply not the plan.
The shift
The order changes the answer.
The starting point shapes everything that follows — the questions you get asked, the structure you end up with, and what the "plan" actually describes.
Money first
Life fits around the portfolio
The conversation starts with your pension, investments and attitude to risk. Your life is then fitted around the portfolio.
The result can be technically sound, but disconnected from the decisions you are actually trying to make.
FirstWhat's your attitude to risk?
ThenHow much can you invest?
ThenWhat's your time horizon?
LastWhat do you want from this?
Life first
The money is organised around your life
The conversation starts with the household: work, family, spending, choices and the years ahead.
The money is then organised around that life. Investments, pensions and tax wrappers become tools with a clear job.
FirstWhat does the life look like?
ThenWhat does enough look like?
ThenWhat could go wrong?
LastWhat should the money do?
The three questions
Three questions sit underneath the whole plan.
Different clients, different numbers — but the same three questions sit at the centre of the work.
i.
Have I got enough?
Enough for the life you actually want, after tax, allowing for inflation and realistic investment returns.
ii.
Will it last?
Across retirement, difficult markets, longer lives and the changes you can already see coming.
iii.
What if life does not follow the plan?
Illness, family support, market falls, a business setback or spending that turns out differently.
A useful plan should answer all three, not just produce a retirement number.
What we actually ask
What I ask before the spreadsheet opens.
The financial facts still matter. I need to know what you own, what you earn, what you spend and how everything is held.
But the first meeting should also cover questions such as:
- What would you do if work was no longer compulsory?
- What does a good ten years from now look like?
- Who might need help from you?
- What have you been putting off?
- Which decision has been going round in circles?
- What would you regret not doing while you were still able to enjoy it?
The chart is built from those answers, not the other way round.
The lifetime cashflow model
Your whole financial life, in one picture.
The main planning tool is a long-term cashflow model built from your actual numbers. It brings together:
- income and spending;
- pensions, investments and cash;
- property and debt;
- State Pension and other secure income;
- business sales or future lump sums;
- gifts, major purchases and family support.
The model is not a prediction. It is a way to test whether the structure holds together under different assumptions.
What the chart can tell you
i.
Whether the plan broadly works
Does the household remain financially secure across the full period under sensible assumptions?
ii.
Where the pressure points are
Which years are most exposed to market falls, higher spending or delayed income.
iii.
What major decisions actually cost
A gift, a house purchase, a sabbatical or an earlier retirement can be placed directly into the plan.
iv.
How wide the range of outcomes is
One neat forecast is false precision. A range is more honest and more useful.
v.
Whether you are being too cautious
For many clients, the important finding is not a shortfall. It is that they could spend more, give earlier or stop sooner than they assumed.
What changes when you have one
What changes once the plan is clear.
i.
Clarity
You replace "we are probably all right" with a view based on your own numbers.
ii.
Permission
You can make a decision because you understand its effect on the rest of the plan.
iii.
Structure
Cash, pensions, ISAs, investments and future income each have a clear role.
iv.
Calm
When markets fall or circumstances change, there is a plan to review rather than a headline to react to.
The value is not the chart itself. It is the decisions that become easier because the chart exists.
Decisions it makes possible
The decisions it helps answer.
A proper plan should help answer real questions, including:
i.
Can I step back from work, and when?
ii.
Can we afford to help the children now?
iii.
Should I sell the business or keep it?
iv.
Can I take a year out?
v.
Is the second home affordable once all costs are included?
vi.
Are we likely to leave far more than we intended?
The answer may be yes, no or not yet. The useful part is seeing the trade-off in pounds and years, rather than making the decision on instinct alone.
Colin's view.
Most people I work with do not need a more complicated portfolio. They need a clearer view of what the money is for and which decisions it can safely support.
In practice
How the relationship works.
Phase one
Build the plan
Discovery, cashflow modelling and a written set of priorities and recommendations.
Phase two
Put it into place
Pensions, investments, protection, withdrawal plans, gifting or business actions implemented in the right order.
Phase three
Keep it current
The model is reviewed each year and updated when something material changes.
Clients work directly with me. I write the plan, give the advice and coordinate with the accountant or solicitor where needed.
The fee is fixed and agreed in pounds. It reflects the work and complexity involved rather than rising automatically with the value of the portfolio.