Client stories
These accounts describe specific pieces of advice work — what was messy, what took longer than expected, and what changed afterward. Names are lightly anonymised at clients’ request.
Pension review session
I arrived with four pots and a transfer pack already half-signed. James slowed everything down, found a deferred DB underpin on one scheme I had ignored, and we left three pots alone. The one consolidation we did chase cut my paperwork without touching the valuable benefits. The wait for the guarantee letter was frustrating — but worth it.
Comprehensive financial planning
After my divorce settlement I needed someone to order the noise: maintenance, a shared mortgage exit, and a SIPP I barely understood. Eleanor’s plan sequenced the emergency fund rebuild before any ISA top-up, which felt conservative at the time and correct six months later when the car failed. I still wish the protection premiums had been lower, but the cover amounts matched the custody arrangement we actually have.
Protection needs assessment
We remortgaged and only had death-in-service from my employer. The assessment showed income protection mattered more than another critical illness rider for our situation. The application medical was a nuisance, yet the recommendation itself was refreshingly specific about deferral periods.
Pre-retirement cashflow workshop
We wanted to leave work at 62. The workshop spreadsheet made the state pension bridge look thinner than our dinner-table maths. We shifted the date by fourteen months and agreed which ISA withdrawals fund the gap. Not glamorous — just usable.
Extended story
A secondary-school teacher approached us eighteen months before a planned early exit. Two workplace pensions sat in default funds; a third personal pension carried an exit charge she had been told to “just accept.”
The pension review confirmed the charge would take more than two years of expected growth to recover if she transferred. We left that pot invested, increased contributions into the lower-cost workplace scheme still open to her, and used the pre-retirement workshop to model part-time teaching for one year as a bridge.
She did not leave on the original birthday. She left the following summer with a written cashflow she could show her partner — and without sacrificing the pot that would have been expensive to move.
About pension review sessionsIf you have completed a consultation and wish to leave a note for future clients, email us. We publish with consent and without inventing ratings widgets.
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