Robert

“Matt produced a bespoke financial plan, tailored to our wants and needs for the future”

I was considering taking a financial adviser, and a recommendation by friends came about and we made contact. I wanted some advice as I was planning for retirement.

I’ve been in the motor industry for more than 40 years and consider myself an expert on my subject. But I’m not an expert on pensions or financial advice, and I thought it best to turn to somebody who is an expert, who could listen to where we are financially, and what setup we have, and give us options and choices we can make about the future in retirement.

When we first met him, both my wife and I took to him; his style was relaxed and easy-going. He made us feel involved. The questions he asked me to think about our finances in a slightly different way than we were thinking about them. We were both delighted with his approach, delighted with the questions, and it was a very simple decision to go with Matt.

The best thing for me about working with Matt has been that somebody else has taken away the burden of work of contacting all the pension companies, writing to them and making the changes to the funds. I would have had to do an awful lot of work and research to decide what to do. That’s been the biggest issue.

I’m very comfortable with the plan that Matt’s put down in front of us. We’re very comfortable with some of the concepts he’s put across that we are likely to spend more in our early years of retirement, or as Matt put it, 52 weeks a year holiday, and our spending needs will be less as we grow older; we completely understand that and we’re very comfortable with the plan.

Three words to describe the relationship with Matt, planned, open, and personable.

The best piece of advice from Matt and the partnership has been around our mortgage. Our mortgage is called an offset mortgage. So effectively, it’s an interest-only mortgage. Matt pointed out that to pay that mortgage and the amount of money I was paying a month; I was paying 40% tax on that. And that if I actually stopped paying that and just paid the monthly interest and instead put the money into my pension, when we draw down the pension, we’d be paying significantly less tax on the money.

I’ve recommended him to friends and family and to people to get financial advice because of the work he’s done over the last 12 months, related to the mortgage, relating to how we draw cash down and the whole planning around retirement and when you’ll need money and when you’ll need to spend less money. For those reasons, I’d recommend it and I’d recommend Matt.