Throughout this series I've consistently recommended professional advice. I haven't taken it myself. Here's why - and whether I think that was the right call.
I want to start this post with an acknowledgement that might surprise you.
Throughout this series - in the videos, in the blog posts, across pretty much everything I've published on this site - I've recommended taking independent financial advice at the key decision points of early retirement planning. Pension draw-down strategy. Income sequencing. Tax planning. Estate planning. The interaction between complex income sources. These are, I've said repeatedly, areas where a good independent financial adviser earns their cost many times over.
I stand by every one of those recommendations.
And I haven't followed any of them.
I haven't seen an independent financial adviser. Not before handing in my notice. Not during the eighteen months of planning and research that preceded the decision. I'm approaching the end of my working life without ever having sat down with a regulated professional and had my specific situation properly examined.
I want to be completely honest about that - because the gap between what I've told readers to do and what I've actually done is significant enough that it deserves its own post. Not to justify it exactly. Not to recommend it. But to examine it honestly and let you draw your own conclusions about whether my experience should inform your decisions.
The honest reason - and it's primarily psychological
Let me try to answer this as truthfully as I can. Because there are several layers to it and I want to name all of them - including the least flattering one.
I'll start with the most honest answer. The primary reason I haven't seen an IFA is psychological rather than practical. And I think that's worth naming directly because I suspect it's more common than people admit.
Having an IFA examine the decision brings a risk I found, on reflection, I was uncomfortable with. Not the risk that they'd find something catastrophically wrong - the numbers are solid enough that I'm not genuinely worried about that. Something subtler. The risk that they'd find something that complicated the picture. A reason to wait longer. A tax consideration I'd missed. An interaction between income sources I hadn't fully modelled. Something that didn't change the ultimate conclusion but added friction and delay to a decision I'd already made emotionally if not formally.
I'm aware how that sounds. It sounds like someone who didn't want their confirmation bias challenged. Who had spent eighteen months building a case and wasn't entirely sure they wanted it stress-tested by someone external to the process. Who had, perhaps, become more invested in the decision than in the quality of the analysis behind it.
There's truth in that. Not all of it. But enough that I want to name it honestly rather than bury it under more comfortable explanations.
The second layer is genuine confidence in my own research - which is real but which I hold with appropriate humility. I've spent eighteen months doing this thoroughly. Multiple financial planning tools. AI scenario-modelling. Extensive reading. Stress-testing from multiple angles. And the plan, every time I've examined it, has held up.
But I'm aware that there's a version of extensive self-directed research that produces genuine understanding - and a version that produces the illusion of understanding, where you've built a thorough model of your own situation without knowing what you don't know. These two feel identical from the inside. And the one thing an IFA brings that no amount of self-directed research can replicate is external challenge - the question you didn't think to ask, the scenario you didn't model, the option you weren't aware existed.
Whether I'm in the first category or the second is not something I can assess entirely from inside my own thinking. That's rather the point.
The timing rationale - and why I think this one is genuinely sound
Alongside the psychological dimension there's a timing consideration that I believe is more than just rationalisation - though I've examined it carefully to make sure.
My pension is not something I'm planning to access for quite a few years. I'm 58. The pension is there and growing. My intention is to live from ISAs, accessible savings and the capital buffer from my inheritance during the gap years - leaving the pension largely untouched until the picture becomes clearer and the draw-down decisions become real and imminent.
The decisions that most clearly require professional input - pension draw-down strategy, income sequencing, the interaction with the State Pension once it arrives, the pension inheritance tax change from April 2027 - are decisions that belong to the future rather than right now. They're decisions I'll need to make in three, four, five years. Not today.
This matters because financial advice has a shelf life. The plan an IFA produces is calibrated to your circumstances at the time they examine them. Tax rules change. Pension rules change. Your own situation changes. Advice given now about decisions you'll make in five years has a meaningful chance of being partially obsolete by the time those decisions arrive.
The more valuable and directly actionable advice - the kind that is least likely to be undermined by rule changes before you need to act on it - is advice sought closer to the point of action. In my case that means before I start drawing the pension. Not before I stop work.
I'm genuinely confident this isn't just a comfortable rationalisation. The sequencing makes real sense. Pension access decisions are specific, technical and consequential - and they deserve professional examination at the point where the specific decisions are being made, not years in advance of them.
But I want to hold this confidence lightly. Because "I'll do it later" is also what procrastination sounds like from the inside. And the psychological dimension I named earlier is real enough that I owe it to myself - and to anyone reading this - to acknowledge that the timing rationale and the psychological reluctance are not entirely separate.
What an IFA would have told me that I don't already know
Let me think through this seriously rather than dismissively. Because it's the most useful part of this post for anyone in a similar position.
There are things an IFA would have confirmed. That the overall financial position is broadly sound. That being mortgage-free significantly reduces the income required in retirement. That the ISA strategy is sensible and the sequencing logic holds. That the State Pension forecast is worth checking and voluntary NI contributions may be worth making. I know all of these things. A professional examination would have confirmed them. There's value in that confirmation - more than I've perhaps given it credit for - but it wouldn't have changed the picture materially.
There are things an IFA might have identified that I may have missed. The interaction between my wife's continued income and my pension drawdown in terms of optimal tax positioning. Whether there are any protected benefits in my pension schemes worth preserving before any future decisions. The pension inheritance tax change from April 2027 and how it affects the optimal sequencing of assets. Whether my specific combination of defined contribution pension, ISA and inherited capital has any features that create planning opportunities I haven't considered.
These are genuinely areas where professional examination adds value over self-directed research. Not because the principles are beyond me - I understand them broadly. But because a professional looking at the actual documents, the actual numbers and the actual schemes might see something specific to my situation that general research doesn't surface.
And there are things an IFA would have helped me think through that aren't primarily financial. A good adviser can help you model the life plan alongside the financial plan - stress-testing not just the numbers but the scenario of what retirement actually looks like in practice. Some of the better financial planning conversations are as much about what you want your life to contain as about what your portfolio needs to achieve.
I haven't had that conversation with a professional. And I'm aware that's a gap.
The honest assessment - was it the right call?
Here's my genuinely honest view, having thought about this carefully and tried not to let the psychological dimension colour it unduly.
For someone in my specific position - mortgage free, good pension, meaningful ISA and savings, a working partner whose income covers shared costs, and a clear plan to delay pension access for several years - the decision to proceed without an IFA before stopping work is defensible. Not ideal. Defensible.
The financial risk of having missed something significant in my self-directed research is real but modest. The plan has enough margin - in the pension pot, in the ISA bridge, in the accessible capital - that a moderately sub-optimal strategy is unlikely to be catastrophic. The decisions that most need professional input haven't been made yet and won't be for some time.
But I want to be careful about using my own situation as a general template. Because the factors that make it defensible for me are specific to me.
If I didn't have the mortgage-free position, I'd have seen an IFA. If my wife weren't still working, I'd have seen an IFA. If I were planning to access the pension immediately rather than in several years, I'd have seen an IFA. If the inherited capital weren't there as a buffer, I'd have seen an IFA.
Remove any one of those factors and the margin for error narrows significantly. And with a narrower margin, the value of professional examination - of someone looking at the specific numbers and the specific schemes and asking the questions I haven't thought to ask - becomes considerably more important.
The health-span cost of delay
There's one angle on this I want to address honestly because I think it's been under-weighted in my own thinking.
I've talked throughout this series about health-span - the idea that the active, mobile, energetic years of retirement are a finite window that deserves to be taken seriously in retirement timing decisions. That waiting until 67 when your health-span may peak at 63 is a real cost, not a theoretical one.
The same logic applies, in a smaller way, to the IFA question.
If an IFA conversation - a single session, a few hundred pounds, a morning of my time - would have identified something that either accelerated the decision or improved the plan, the cost of not having had that conversation is measured in time as much as money. Not dramatically. But not trivially either.
I'm making this point about myself rather than at anyone else. The health-span argument cuts both ways. If I'm serious about it - and I am - it applies to the things I've deferred as well as to the big decision itself.
What I'm going to do
I am going to see an IFA. Before I start drawing from the pension - which I'm not planning to do for several years yet - I want a professional to look at the full picture and tell me what I'm missing.
The specific questions I'll want answered are the ones listed above - the pension inheritance tax change from April 2027, the optimal income sequencing given my wife's continued earnings, any protected benefits worth preserving, and whether the overall draw-down strategy I've sketched out makes sense when a professional looks at the actual numbers rather than the general principles I've been working from.
I'm also going to be honest with them about my self-directed research - not to seek validation of it but to allow them to challenge it properly. The value of professional advice is diminished if you arrive having already decided what you want to hear. Which, given the psychological dimension I described at the start of this post, is something I'm going to have to be deliberate about.
If that conversation identifies something significant I've missed - in the plan, in the thinking, or in the psychological framing I've brought to this - I'll write about it here. The honest, unfiltered version. Because that's what this site is for.
What this means for you
I want to be direct about the tension at the heart of this post. I've told you throughout this series to take professional advice. I haven't taken it myself at the point of the decision. The primary reason is psychological. The timing rationale is genuine but not entirely separable from the psychology. And I'm now telling you, with honesty rather than hindsight, that my specific situation makes the approach defensible - but that defensible is not the same as recommended.
That's an uncomfortable position to occupy. But it's the honest one.
What I'd say to anyone reading this who is at a similar point is this.
Examine your own reasons for not having seen an IFA honestly - including the uncomfortable ones. If the primary reason is psychological - a reluctance to have the plan challenged, a fear of friction being added to a decision already made emotionally - that's worth knowing about yourself. It doesn't necessarily mean you're wrong not to go. But it's worth being clear that the reason is what it is rather than dressing it up as something more rational.
If your situation has good margins - mortgage free or nearly so, meaningful pension and ISA pot, a working partner or other income source, a clear plan to delay pension access - then proceeding without an IFA before stopping work may be defensible. Not recommended. Defensible.
If your margins are tighter the value of professional advice increases significantly. The narrower the margin, the more important it becomes to have someone look at your specific situation rather than rely on general principles applied to general numbers.
And in either case - there are specific decisions, further down the line, where professional advice is not optional. Pension draw-down strategy. Income sequencing once the State Pension arrives. Estate planning given the pension IHT change from April 2027. These are not areas where self-directed research is a complete substitute for professional examination.
I'm going to seek that advice at the right time rather than the most convenient time. And I'd encourage you to make the same distinction in your own thinking - honestly, including about which of those two your current timing represents.
Finding a regulated independent financial adviser
If you're looking for where to start, the MoneyHelper guide to choosing a financial adviser explains clearly what independent advice means, how it differs from restricted advice, and what to look for.
The FCA register lets you verify that any adviser you're considering is properly regulated.
And Unbiased and VouchedFor are both directories of regulated advisers with genuine client reviews.
An initial consultation with most IFAs is either free or at a fixed fee. It costs less than you probably think to find out whether you're missing something significant.
Tony writes about his personal journey to early retirement at freebefore65.co.uk. He is not a financial adviser. All content reflects his own experience and research and should be taken as a starting point for your own thinking, not as professional advice.
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