LIFE STAGES

Building wealth

You’re likely in your forties. You are well established in a demanding and senior level career. Your life energy is likely being absorbed by work and family responsibilities and time for yourself and your interests can be crowded out.

You may still be in flow with your career, getting satisfaction and energy from your job. But some in this phase begin to sense their motivations changing. A different future may start calling to you, away from the corporate treadmill — a life of greater freedom or one more in line with your personal values.

In this phase, ideas for your future vision of life may start becoming clearer and your financial plan and investments need to follow suit. It’s a good time to revisit the life factor to start laying some gentle groundwork for the next phase of your life and to start being more specific on timeframes. Getting clearer about the future can free you to enjoy where you are today.

We’ll revist the investment factor so you can refine your investment strategy to fit with your expected timescales and cashflow needs. A strategy built largely on global index funds is likely still to be appropriate given your continued high earning power and career flexibility. But the practicalities of your cashflow needs and timing, and how these will be met from your pension, ISAs, and other investments now need to be considered in more detail. And a review of your risk profile and corresponding investment strategy is well worth undertaking at this stage of life.

If you have children, the family factor is of growing importance at this stage of life. it’s essential to ensure that the protection you have in place for them and your partner are appropriate given your current circumstances and increasing level of assets.

You and your partner should also start to discuss in more detail what you plan to do by way of legacy. It’s worth being proactive and having a clear philosophy and plan agreed with your partner for how you will provide for you children.

Knowing how much is enough to give your children will give you the freedom and clarity to live your own life, rather than feeling you always have to do more. With increasing longevity, timescales are as important as amounts. An inheritance may not be so useful to your child in their 60s, so there’s increased interest in passing assets on earlier in life. There are tax efficient tools for doing this including Junior ISAs and SIPPs, but each has their pros and cons.

Although you’ve still some way to go in your main professional career, it’s worth starting to think about what the future may hold for you, in the transition factor. Are there opportunities that you could be taking now to position yourself for the next phase of your life and career?

And we can’t just plan for a far-off future. Are there things you could do now to bring aspects of your future vision of life into your life today?

You’ve made a success of your career and you’re starting to build wealth. Now is the time to make sure you know what it’s all for and to build a plan to live the life you want to lead.

Draw on the resources I provide through The Gosling Factor to take that opportunity.

Have a look at the third life stage — moving on.

Start a conversation

If you like what you see, do get in touch to ask a question, share some thoughts or fix a time to chat. I’ll do what I can to help.