We turned detective ...and found we can retire 5 YEARS early
CALCULATING their wealth has allowed Siubhan Reid-Litherland and Mark Litherland to bring forward their retirement and plans to travel by five years.
The couple live near Banbury and own a business consultancy, and decided to find out how much they were worth in 2014. Siubhan, 59, gathered together financial information on their three properties — a studio flat, a two-bed apartment and their four-bed family home — their Self-Invested Personal Pensions and Isas while Mark, 55, set up the spreadsheet which they review and update three times a year.
They used information from online property agent Zoopla to value their properties and updated the value of their investment funds.
Having the information in one place gave them a much clearer picture of their financial health.
The couple calculated their wealth at just over £1 million. Siubhan says they were pleasantly surprised with the results. She says: 'I thought, goodness me that's nice. We had a sketchy idea of what the properties were worth but we had never added everything up all together. Suddenly, a complete change of lifestyle had become more realistic.'
Before working out what they were worth, to couple thought they would have to carry on working until Mark reached. 60. Now they plan to finish one last project to boost their finances before they set off to cycle around South East Asia next spring. Their total wealth has grown to £1.3 million.
Siubhan says: 'We wanted to stop working quite so hard and make what we had work hard for us instead. Our family home is on the market right now and we are going full steam ahead.'
Meanwhile, Paul and Fiona Petrucke, from Birmingham, decided to seek advice from an expert when Paul, who has Parkinson's, needed to find out if he could afford to retire. The couple used an adviser from
wealth firm Quilter who started digging into their financial background.
Paul says: ‘When we met Chris our adviser, he gave us a completely different view on our finances.
‘He funnelled together all the different investments we had to get our true wealth. He uncovered pensions and health policies we thought were worthless and found out their value.’
Paul, 59, did not know his company pension had ill-health provisions. After his adviser made inquiries, he was offered the option by the pension scheme to take a lump sum. His teacher wife Fiona, 65, did the same.
They also found a defined benefit pension scheme belonging to Paul worth more than he expected and transferred it to his personal pension.
Paul adds: ‘It is reassuring knowing what money we have and how to access it. We go on four or five holidays a year — and just last week we came back from Japan.’