Jo and Kev.

Jo

I’m Jo, this is Kev. We’ve been with Meaningful for about five years now, and Aaron is our adviser.

Kev

We got in touch with an adviser because we wanted to explore different scenarios in our future and be financially aware and secure.

Jo

What I wanted to know was a consolidation of our position. We’ve both had many jobs, as people do in this day and age, and we didn’t really know what that meant in terms of pensions and our future income. We also had some other investments, so we were thinking, “What does this mean? What choices does it give us?” Aaron’s approach meant we considered what we were looking for beyond our working lives, and we hadn’t really looked at that before.

I was talking to a few colleagues at work who use Meaningful, and when they explained the service that Meaningful provides in terms of life planning, it changed my mind on what financial advice was. I thought it was just about “Where should I put this money?” or “What should I do with this asset?” But it’s not, it’s more than that. It’s about planning your whole future, looking at options, and giving you choices.

Kev

We chose Aaron because he was empathetic to our future needs. He seemed to understand where we wanted to go and how we could get there.

Jo

Meaningful has helped us navigate some turbulent economic times. Covid was the first market shock where numbers changed quite significantly, but he was calm, and he kept us level on that. We trusted him, and it’s all come through. There have been a few hiccups since then with global politics and another thing that has happened is our children are in secondary education, and we were considering private education options. As it happens, we didn’t need that in the end, but he helps with those different life choices when they come along.

Kev

I feel reassured and confident that my investments are going to give me the choices that Aaron has outlined and which we require.

Jo

Since working with Aaron, I feel like I know where my financial future lies. Before that, I didn’t; it was just disparate, it was all over the place. Now it’s together, it’s in one place, and I’ve got another pair of eyes on it, not just mine. So, it feels much more secure in that sense.

Kev

If I were to describe Aaron in three words, they would be friendly, calm, and financially astute.

Jo

One of the best things about working with Aaron is the cashflow modelling he does. We can play different scenarios, different assumptions on growth with economic considerations, which helps me stress-test where we are. If things were to go badly or if things were to go even better, what that would mean for us.

Kev

The best piece of advice we’ve had from Aaron is during times of uncertainty, to be calm and not to have a knee-jerk reaction to the markets. There have been some uncertain times financially recently, and he said, “No, ride it out, it’s the long-term that counts. Look at how your returns are coming in this year and just be calm.”

Jo

I would recommend Meaningful Financial Planning, and I have already to many friends and colleagues, for that overview of the rest of your life, which most people don’t have.