“We thought we were years away.
Turned out we weren’t.”

THE SITUATION ———

More than they realised. Less certainty than they needed.

Mark, 59, had spent his career in manufacturing. Senior enough to have built a solid pension. Sensible enough to have maxed his ISA most years. And cautious enough to have left £540,000 of inherited cash sitting in a savings account for seven years because he didn't know what to do with it and didn't want to get it wrong.

Susan, 57, had worked part-time since their youngest left home. Small income, small pension, no debt.

Together they had more than they realised. The problem was they didn't know that yet.

“He was a nice bloke. But I came out feeling like we’d talked about products, not about us.”
- Mark, on his previous adviser

A friend had recommended an adviser about eighteen months earlier. Mark went along, came away with a proposal — 1% on everything, a restricted fund range, and a retirement date of 65, maybe 63 if things went well. No cashflow modelling. No withdrawal strategy. No plan for the inherited cash beyond "we can invest that for you."

It didn't feel wrong exactly. It just didn't feel like enough. Mark found us while researching fixed-fee advisers. He wasn't entirely sure what he was looking for. He just knew the percentage model was sitting uncomfortably the more he thought about it.

THE TURNING POINT ———

The cashflow model changed everything.

Before any discussion of products or platforms, we built a cashflow model. A year-by-year picture of Mark and Susan's financial life from today to age 95. Every asset, every income source, every liability. Susan's defined benefit pension at 60. State Pension for both at 67. The existing ISAs, pensions, and the £540,000 in cash that had been doing very little for seven years.

Mark had his own spreadsheet. He'd been running rough numbers for years and had always landed on 63 as the earliest realistic retirement date.

The cashflow model said 60.

“I asked them to run it again because I didn’t believe it.” - Mark

The difference wasn't luck or optimism. It was precision. Mark had been applying rough withdrawal rates without accounting for Susan's DB income, the natural step-up when State Pension arrived at 67, or the cumulative impact of drawing from different wrappers in the right order. Model it properly and the picture changes significantly.