Asking our Financial Advisors if I should sell a kidney?

We have just had a visit to our Financial Advisors. While we normally see them once a year, I recently asked if we were on track with our plans or whether I should sell a kidney.  Me, sell a kidney, don’t be daft.

We were seeing our advisor, Jon, together with a colleague of his.  I’ll refer to his colleague as Fred for the time being.  Fred is the technical wizard, master of spread sheets and although one of Jon’s employees, it’s clear he’s an important cog in the compliance and technical machinery.  Jon depends on him for all of our forecasts, projections and tax calculations – and so do we!

I do like them, always have.  Normally whenever I see Jon we talk about running, fitness and so on.  We have even been running with each other quite a few times.  This time our appointment was at their offices and late afternoon, so I determinedly kept the chitchat to a minimum and just got straight down to business after the initial pleasantries.    I am always relieved their offices are not too opulent; they are functional and business-like.  If they had gold plated door knobs and huge leather sofas, well, I think we’d take our business elsewhere.

They did have the new, young office junior bring our drinks in.  When I was offered coffee, I hesitated, thinking it might be instant coffee (in which case I’d rather go without).  Instead I had some nice tea and knew I’d made the wrong assumption when I saw a cafeteria of fresh coffee for Rachel.  Serves me right for making such an assumption, I’ll have to remember that for the future.

I should have said, we got whisked into a meeting room when we arrived.  Fred fired up his laptop and brought up a spreadsheet on the huge wall mounted TV screen for us to see.  He talked us through the different columns and projections, so we will continue to shuffle money about for the next couple of years before I activate my occupational pension, followed by Rachel’s 18 months later.

He had assumed my occupational pension’s lump sum will simply be invested.  I kept quiet, thinking I wouldn’t mind creaming some of that off but couldn’t think why.  Perhaps a Harley Davidson?  Better keep that thought to myself!

I am guessing that we are still settling into my retirement and I still can’t believe it happened so smoothly.  So the question was about whether our initial plans, drawn up with the help of our advisors, was still realistic or whether we should re-think our position.  I had worried we had spent too much money in our first year, even without any exotic holidays.

Turns out we weren’t overspending after all, much to my relief; we were slightly inside the projected budget.  This was achieved through Rachel’s relentless pursuit of the best possible interest rates and recycling money through standing orders to make sure we qualify for the best interest rates (even if they remain pathetically low these days).

Turns out we had mistakenly counted some “recycled” money as part of our expenditure, even though it was simply going from one savings pot to another via our household account.  So this now means we are on track.

Being on track with our finances is such a huge relief.  I had jokingly suggested I could sell a kidney if needed followed by “oh I don’t suppose anyone wants one of my kidneys…..”.  Everyone agreed.

We are so poor, yet so rich

I have often suggested we must the poorest clients the financial advisors have (and they never disagree).  Most of their clients could probably move their decimal point a few places to the right, if you get the drift.

We were briefly reminded one of our funds, managed by them, had gone bust a while back and this has dented our investments.  I had forgotten about that and I realised this was my mind brushing unwelcome news under the carpet once again.  We must be “philosophical” about this, I thought to myself, the merits of a balanced portfolio and getting the risk profile right for our circumstances and needs.  Jon seemed relaxed about it, but then he would, and yet there sense of genuine regret as this will probably affected many other clients and he’s the kind of person who would take personal responsibility.   I’ll blog about this, perhaps, in more detail another time.

While we might be their poorest clients, I sometimes feel like the richest man in the world.  I’m not sure I deserve this at all.  We feel extremely blessed, even though we live very modestly and live in a very ordinary house in an ordinary town.  When I think of how difficult and stressful life at the Council had become, I feel as if the Good Lord has taken care of me.

But I can’t stop help but wonder why.  I feel as if I don’t deserve this.  I’m such an ordinary person, not a super-rich billionaire, and yet I feel like one.