Why Our Approach is Better

We say that our approach makes more money, and helps clients get more from their money. To achieve this, we deliver our briefings in three stages.

Your own book in hard copy explains how to optimise your portfolio and pensions

Stage I - Optimising Your Portfolio and Pensions

Our approach is in three parts. Remove commission; look globally; and use our skill to reduce our client's tax:-

1. Just because we remove commission does not mean that clients have to do everything for themselves. But now they can choose what they pay for. Most people want to work with us when they have £200,000 or more. At that size, they're often already paying £6,000 per year to funds, and Independent Financial Advisers, for a service they can buy at half the price. We brief carefully, wait for clients to understand and make confident decisions, and change where they invest to areas that pay no commission.
2. We show clients how to read the reports from the World Bank, United Nations and the International Monetary Fund for how the world is changing. We show them the option and cost of having this research brought to them. Then we help them work out a balanced portfolio by investing in growth areas, at the risk level each can accept. [On our Solutions Service, we can do this for people in a few hours.]
3. The Revenue says that it gets 15 per cent of computations 'wrong' (meaning the total income tax to pay was incorrect), so it's is worth checking. Additionally, since some income is not taxed at all, and some has a discount, and some is taxed to different rates, we find that it pays to look at the Return every year and thinking how we can slice away at the bill.

Your own book in hard copy explains how to achieve independence

Stage II - Achieving Independence

We help our clients make their money achieve more. This is in four meetings, and two main parts:-

1. We find out what clients are spending money on; help them decide what result they wanted; and then let we find ways to achieve the same result on less money. Many of us operate on the basis that "I spend what I earn and there's no need to look further". But since we now live in a world where we can rely upon the State or our employer to fund our retirement, that is no longer viable. All of us tend to choices in life, and then we tend to defend those choices, especially when it comes to the money we spend. We have no problem with the choices that clients make. We just want their options to be clear. We know what it takes to live, because we use the numbers from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation for that. We tend to regard everything spent above that level (about £20,000 per year) is discretionary. The question then is, did we get the result we wanted from our discretionary spend? In the future, and quite naturally, there will be more spend on the areas which will get the result our clients are after and less on those that they have decided are not so important.
2. Then we at Independence can start. It's our role to find ways to make the money our clients have deliver a better result. Sometimes that means paying less on the same items, often it is helping our clients start their own business; sometimes, we help them make their business easier to run (by other people), and sometimes it means changing country. In all these areas, we can get creative.

Your own book in hard copy explains how to make your legacy count

Stage III - Legacy

We help clients decide what result their assets are to achieve for others; what the next generation needs; how to do it in the most tax efficient way. We include a powerful brief on why families should take control of their own carbon emissions and how to.

Value for money and the 'Guarantee of Satisfaction'

Bespoke wealth management has always been less expensive than investing in unit trusts and personal pensions and so on. All we have done is to make this service accessible to those who are not multi-millionaires There are no hidden costs in what we do. Most people pay by standing order. It is very easy for people to say we are not getting value and to cancel - so we have to make sure what we do is of value.