John & Sarah – The Case of ‘Are we there yet?’

John & Sarah were nearly there, or so they thought.  Trouble is, they didn’t know where ‘there’ was…

 

It all started late one night when John, a Senior Pilot for a major long-haul airline, flying over the Indian Ocean, suddenly thought to himself “How much longer do I have to do this?”

 

John used to live to fly. Every minute he could be in the air he would. But now things were different. Increasing pressure, increasing regulation, continued testing, and increasing cut backs, it was no longer the same.

 

The fun had gone.  And now, aged 55, he was thinking ‘WHY am I still doing this?’

 

John loved to fly, but what he wanted to fly now, more than ever, as his own single engine, two seater bi-plane.  Now that was real flying.  That’s what he wanted to do. To buy and fly his own bi-plane, his own beauty.

 

He had a great superannuation balance.  He’d built up some investments.  He’d nearly paid off his mortgage. But what did it all mean?

 

Was he ‘there’ yet?

 

He needed help.

 

So, with an introduction from a friend, he turned to Endorphin Wealth to help make sense of it all.

 

We first helped John and Sarah get a fix on what they wanted, and when they wanted it, and on the sort of lifestyle they enjoyed now and what they wanted to continue to enjoy.

 

Travel? “No thanks!”  They’d done enough of that in their lifetime!  Now, their interest were, for John, flying and for Sarah breeding goats on their 20 acre land in Trentham.

 

So, with a full understanding of their ambitions, and having obtained all the details of their existing arrangements, and more importantly having broken down the cost of their desired future lifestyle, we  crunched their Number – the amount of money they needed, taking everything into account, to live the life they wanted, for the rest of their life, without fear of ever running out of money.

The result was that YES, they were already there – so long as they built into their financial planning a cash inflow from a projected (and necessary) house downsize at around age 75.

 

So, for Sarah no more long periods spent alone. She now has more than just the goats for company.  That’s because John is no longer away for most of the time; he no longer flies long-haul. Instead he enjoys the thrill of the wind in his face at the controls of his own bi-plane.

 

And, as a thank you, we continue to get an annual supply of goats’ cheese!