Geoffrey Smith

“I hit gold finding a company that handles both sides of the Atlantic.”

Hi, I’m Geoffrey Smith. I’ve been a client of Plan First Wealth with my wife, Liz, for the last eight years. James Boyle is our primary contact, although we talk to Richard Taylor on a regular basis too. 

As I entered my 60s, I realised I had a mess of stuff in the UK and a mess of stuff in the US. I tried for over three years to find a company that could provide advice on both sides of the Atlantic, and when I stumbled on Plan First Wealth, I hit gold. It was the first time I found a company that could truly handle both sides of the Atlantic. 

The reason I needed to find a company like Plan First Wealth was that I had a number of pension pots in the UK. I’d worked for several software companies for around three to five years, and each time, there was a small pension pot. So, there were several pension pots in the UK, several pension pots in the US, and shares on both sides of the Atlantic, and it was a mess. Frankly, every time I looked at it, I was terrified; I closed my computer and walked away. Plan First Wealth took note of all of it, looked at it, and came up with a plan for how to consolidate it. 

I found Plan First Wealth simply by an internet search. I had found any number of companies before; I’d laid out my needs to them and then been unhappy with the answer. With Plan First Wealth, as soon as I reached out to them, they were all about, “Give us the problem, let us work out the shape of the problem, and we’ll come back to you with a solution.” They were the first company to approach it that way. 

The first thing they did was take all the details of all the various pension pots and investments that I had, and without me paying anything, they did a bunch of consolidation work; they contacted all of those companies, they worked out how much the funds were, and then they came back with, “This is what we should do with this set of funds, and this is what we should do with this set of funds. If you sign with us, we will do all that for you.” The sense of calm and ease I had immediately meant it was so easy to say, “Yes, let’s do this.” 

Plan First Wealth didn’t just limit themselves to the pension pots; there were a bunch of shares that I had in the UK and the US, some of them harder to dispose of than others. Also, there was tax advice needed, and although Plan First Wealth doesn’t give direct tax advice, they were able to introduce me to people who could give me tax advice. It was just as well that they did, because it turned out I had not been correctly reporting my taxes in the US. As a result of talking with Plan First Wealth, I found someone who could help me do that. 

The fundamental reason to choose Plan First Wealth is to manage the finances, but the more important aspect, personally, is the sense of calm and ease you get. The market has done crazy things over the last few years, with new administrations doing interesting things, and the market goes bonkers as a result, but I ignore all that because Plan First Wealth have the plan in place and say, “Don’t pay attention to the market. It goes up, it goes down, but in the long term, it goes up.” 

Part of the peace of mind is knowing that we go over our plan every year with James and Richard. We ask, “Do we have the money to support that? Do we have enough money to live throughout our retirement, having both retired in the last couple of years?” They run the numbers, and every time the answer is “Yes, you can afford to make that decision. You can afford to buy that car. You can afford to move to that house. The plan is intact.” 

I’d say the single best reason to work with Plan First Wealth is the peace of mind that comes with not having to worry about the stuff on a day-to-day basis.

Over the years, there have been various conversations about what we’re doing, but the single most important piece of advice that both Richard and James have given me is “Don’t leave life on the table. Don’t save money at the expense of enjoying a full life.” That has truly been the most valuable advice they’ve given me. 

I’d personally recommend Plan First Wealth for the financial management, obviously, but also for the peace of mind.