Comprehensive help

In helping you establish and achieve your long-term goals, we offer a range of different strategic and administrative features as part of the YOURplan framework. Provision is both flexible (certain features are only relevant to particular circumstances) and comprehensive, ensuring we examine and then manage your finances across the board: everything from tax planning and portfolio design to paying for end-of-life care or the education of a grandchild.

YOURplan: strategic features

The YOURplan framework features a range of strategic tools that help us understand your situation, your long-term goals and how best to use your finances to help you achieve them.

Firstly, we use a series of four assessments to build an in-depth understanding of your aspirations, assets and financial attitudes:

• Your Life 1 – Where You Are: we assess where you and your finances currently stand.
• Your Life 2 – What You Want: together we create a picture of how you want to live the remainder of your life, including discussing ambitions and goals, and any legacies you might want to leave behind.
• Your Life 3 – Know Your Number: 'your number' is the amount of money you'll need now or in the future to enjoy the lifestyle that you want, for the remainder of your years – it might be that you need a more workable plan for achieving your target, or that you have already reached your number and are accumulating further wealth when you don't need to.
• Your Life 4 – How Much Risk?: we help you work out what feels comfort able in terms of your investments. Are you OK with 'risky' or would you prefer 'reliable'? If you want a bit of both, what does 'a balance' look like in real terms?

We use the following YOURplan features to help us build and manage your personalised investment portfolio:

• Intelligent Portfolio Design: we create a personalised investment portfolio based on solid academic thinking and research into the market, structuring it to take account of both your attitude to risk and your need to achieve a particular rate of return.
• Portfolio Implementation: having designed your portfolio we make the necessary financial arrangements to activate it, making sure it is structured to keep tax and costs to a minimum.
• Portfolio Monitoring: things change and so should your portfolio – we monitor, review and rebalance yours in light of changes to tax rules, etc, as well as your personal requirements
  

YOURplan also includes a selection of other strategic features that (where relevant) help us to optimise your finances across a range of important areas:

• Risk Mitigation: we assess the potential impact of certain risks on your life and how to deal with them: for example, how to keep your family secure in the event of your incapacity or death.
• Life After Work: it's vital that the transition between living on earned income and living on accumulated capital is properly structured and managed – having looked at all the options for your retirement, we help you make the right choice.
• Inheritance Planning: this element of YOURplan aims to keep as much of your money as possible at the disposal of your family, looking at different ways to minimise the effect of inheritance tax.
  
• Off To A Great Start: whether it is to cover education fees, a deposit on a new home or the money to buy their first car, we can recommend and then arrange an investment portfolio for the benefit of your children or grand children (incurs no extra fees if the child is under 16 at the time of commencement).
• Care Planning: no one wants to get old, and to find themselves needing carers – but for many of us, that is the reality. We work out the best strategy for ensuring you are able to afford the kind of care scenario you're most comfortable with, as well as advising on your rights and how best to arrange provision.

YOURplan: administrative features

The YOURplan framework also includes as standard a range of features designed to help your finances run smoothly, and for you to get the most out of your relationship with Grangewood:

• Regular updates: we keep you informed about issues that may affect your finances, and offer reassurance during times when markets are not behaving themselves as we would like.
• Portfolio valuations: we provide you with regular written valuations of your investment portfolio, so you can keep track of how things are going; valuations accessible online are also available.
• Dynamic money management: we monitor the accounts in which your money is deposited, making sure that we contact you before any 'teaser' rates expire, with information on the best alternative rates available.
• Annual planning meeting: each year, we sit down with you in a face-to-face meeting to check that you are happy with how things are going, and that you are still on track to achieve your long-term goals.
• A second opinion: we are at your disposal to discuss, consider and offer an opinion on any financial matter, irrespective of whether or not it relates to something we have arranged on your behalf.
• Tax-return readiness: each year to help simplify the process of doing your tax return, we provide you or your accountant with an easy-to-digest summary of information relating to the aspects of your finances that we manage.
• Stay in touch: you are welcome to telephone and email us as often as you need to.