Dominic & Jane Facci

Dominic commuted to London every day, so we were getting up at 5:20 am every single morning. There’s a temptation to just keep working, because we want to have enough money, but there comes a point where you have to get the balance right.

We went to Henwood Court to discuss retirement planning. They talked to us about what we wanted and when we wanted it, and then aligned our plan to that. It was really helpful.

The team spend half of the meetings asking us questions such as: “what’s happened? How are things going? How do you feel about things?”. By doing that – by asking those questions about our needs, wants and aspirations – we can then have a discussion about how to structure our finances accordingly. It’s a very clever way of providing financial advice.

We didn’t get here by accident. We had help from Henwood.

We had a massive decision to make regarding our pensions. Henwood stepped up to that and took us through what was an incredibly complex process. They helped us make decisions as to the right way to go, but they never told us what to do. It was great. We didn’t have to think about talking to anyone else; we immediately went to Henwood.

We’ve got an agenda and we know what Henwood are doing, but there’s no pressure. We’re in control, and that’s the key thing. It’s liberating.

There’s a freedom to where we are now. We’re very content, even just sitting looking at our garden. We’re enjoying pottering around in it; we’re not gardeners, but we enjoy it. We’re becoming nerds about plants!

We didn’t get here by accident. We had help from Henwood. We feel incredibly lucky and fortunate to have this time.

We’ve retired at a young age, but we’re really enjoying it. We don’t have a work/life balance; we have a life balance.