Putting the numbers on retirement – Dave’s story

Dave first became a client of AAB Wealth 10 years ago.

During a long career in the oil industry, he hadn’t dealt with financial advisers or accountants before. However, he decided to contact us when we were recommended to him by a long-time friend.

Dave was in his 50s, approaching the home-straight to retirement. He had two pensions from previous jobs and was in a money purchase pension with his current employer.

He had one central concern: “I needed AAB Wealth to advise me on my retirement options at 65, in fact to tell me if retirement at that age was advisable, and to put some numbers on what my retirement income would be in the short and longer term – daily, monthly and yearly.”

A leap into the unknown

While Dave agrees he has never looked back after coming to AAB Wealth, he also agrees it was a big step at the start.

“I have to admit I was quite apprehensive about coming to an adviser,” he says. “Opening up and revealing my private financial details was a new experience for me, and of course it took a little time to feel comfortable with that, for the relationship of trust to build and grow.

“However, everyone I met at AAB Wealth made building that relationship so easy. My personal adviser Andy was, and is, excellent. At the end of the day, talking in-depth about my finances to him came to feel like a normal conversation.”

Dave’s wife Suzanne, who also came to AAB Wealth at the same time, had the same very positive experience: “I’d been with TSB for 20 years and was apprehensive about going to a financial adviser,” she says. “To be honest, I didn’t want anything to do with it to start with, I thought my money was no-one else’s business but my own. But Andy explained things in a totally professional way. Everyone at AAB Wealth put us totally at our ease, they spoke normally and explained things in terms I could understand.

“Andy sorted our pensions out in a way that didn’t affect our lifestyle – we haven’t had to change our standard of living. He’s a professional guy, and we’ve had a professional service.”

Dave finally retired in August 2021

In previous years he’d met with Andy once a year, but in the closing six months of his career he consulted with AAB Wealth more often and more intensively, in order to put the finishing touches to his retirement plan.

Dave said: “AAB Wealth use a process of modelling to look at the whole range of your finances. They make projections centred on different estimates of your longevity, projecting out to year 85, 95 or 100. When you see all that laid out for you, it gives you a great sense of reassurance.

“You hear horror stories of people cashing in their pensions and then running out of money. Andy’s advice was that I should hold on to my final salary pensions, as they are guaranteed. I’m also not thinking of cashing in my money purchase pension, due to the tax issues involved.”

“Consistently above and beyond”

Dave pointed out that Andy has also guided them through the market turmoil of the last few years and calmed their nerves. When things got scary, Andy’s perspective was key.

As Dave put it: “You can’t knee-jerk every time something happens in the world. Andy reminded us that a pension is a long-term thing; yes, of course there are ups and downs, that’s what the stock markets do, but Andy provided reassurance all through them.

“AAB Wealth have consistently gone above and beyond for us. When we needed Andy he was always there, and was always really good at coming back to us quickly. The people behind him are excellent as well – all very efficient when we have to follow up any actions. Andy is the figurehead, but only in front of a great team. Now, we have a high degree of confidence and reassurance, as we set out on our retirement.”

Dave’s final word as a satisfied (and ongoing!) client:

“We really appreciate the process Andy uses. It has helped us enormously.

“And of course, we’ve recommended AAB Wealth to other people.”