What financial planning actually is
A financial plan is a document and a conversation. It captures where you are, where you want to get to, and the route between – across every part of your financial life that matters.
A well-made plan provides considered answers to questions such as:
- Will I have enough to retire when I want to, at the standard of living I want?
- What happens to my family, and the business, if I'm not here?
- Am I paying more tax than I need to?
- When can I afford to give money to my children, and how should I do it?
- What do I do with the proceeds when I sell?
A weak plan answers none of these. It recommends products without first understanding the purpose.
What a comprehensive plan covers
The financial industry separates these into different products, departments, and fees. We don’t. They’re parts of one plan.
Retirement and income
Drawing down efficiently across pensions, ISAs and other capital. Protecting the standard of living you’ve spent a career building towards.
Estate and inheritance
Wills, trusts, lifetime gifts, IHT planning. Making sure what you’ve built passes to the people you want, with the tax bill kept where it should be.
Tax planning
Pensions, ISAs, capital gains allowances, the timing of withdrawals. Small decisions that compound into significant differences over years.
Protection
Life cover, income protection, critical illness, key person cover. The decisions that look dull until they matter, and then matter enormously.
Investment alignment
Portfolios shaped by your plan. The right level of risk, the right structures, rebalanced when the plan (not the market) calls for it.
Structure and exit
For business owners. Salary and dividend structures, pension contributions from the business, director protection, and exit planning, all co-ordinated as one strategy.
When planning matters most
Most people don’t need a financial planner every day. They need one at the moments where decisions get large, complex, and irreversible.
Approaching retirement
The five years before and the first five years after retirement are where most plans get made or broken. Sequencing, drawdown strategy, tax: get these right and the next thirty years are a different shape.
Selling a business or exiting a role
A liquidity event happens once. Months of preparation make a measurable difference to what you keep, where it sits, and what it can do for you afterwards.
Receiving an inheritance
Significant capital arrives with mixed feelings and real complexity. There’s no rush, but there are decisions worth getting right rather than getting fast.
Major life change
Divorce, bereavement, relocation, or a change in family circumstances. Financial planning won’t fix the underlying event. It will make sure the financial side doesn’t add to it.
Cash flow modelling sits at the centre of the plan
Much of the financial advice available in the UK is based on rules of thumb and estimation.
Our approach is built around a model.
We build a year-by-year projection of your income, capital, expenditure and major life events, running across the next thirty or forty years. We then stress-test it: what if markets fall significantly in the early years? What if you live to 95? What if the business sells for less than you hoped, or more?
The model does not predict the future. It tells you which decisions are genuinely robust and which ones rely on circumstances going in your favour. That is the difference between a plan and a set of assumptions.
Frequently Asked Questions
This section is here to answer our most commonly asked questions. If you have more question, please reach out to us via phone or email.
Do I really need financial planning?
If your finances are simple (one income, one pension, modest savings), probably not. If they’re more complicated than that, or about to become so (retirement, business sale, inheritance), planning is the most valuable financial decision you can make.
How long does the process take?
The initial conversation is an hour. From signing on to receiving your written plan is typically four to eight weeks. We work at your pace, not ours.
How does the first meeting work?
A 60-minute conversation, usually by phone or video – which works better than you might expect, and it’s how most of our client relationships run day to day. If you’d prefer to meet in person, we can arrange that at our London or Eastbourne offices. Either way, there’s no charge and no obligation.
What if I already have investments and pensions in place?
Most clients do. We review what you have, keep what’s working, and reshape what isn’t. We don’t move things for the sake of it. Moving for the sake of it usually benefits the advisor, not the client.
How do you charge?
A fixed fee for the plan, agreed upfront. An ongoing percentage for assets we manage on your behalf. No commissions, no product kickbacks, no surprises. We discuss numbers in your first conversation.
Are you product-led or advice-led?
Advice-led. We are independent and FCA-regulated, with no product commissions or provider ties. Our recommendations follow from your plan – sometimes they include products, often they don’t. The plan comes first.