A financial adviser explains the “never saw it rule”, why lifestyle inflation is a trap and the smallest money habit that can have the biggest impact in our regular Money blog careers feature.
If you’ve ever spent your morning commute daydreaming about starting afresh with your career, this feature is for you. Each Monday, we speak to someone from a different profession to discover what it’s really like. Today we speak to chartered financial adviser Martin Rayner from Compton Financial Services.
Why People Come to See a Financial Adviser
The most common reason people visit us is about pension consolidation and never saw it rule. Most people have pots scattered across various companies and simply want to know which are worth keeping and which to amalgamate.
Inheritance tax planning has surged since defined benefit pensions were included in the estate. Having worked hard to build their wealth, people are now focused on protecting it.
What Investing Is Really About
Investing isn’t about “beating” the market. it’s about matching your life to an acceptable level of risk. My job isn’t to find the next Apple; it’s to ensure you don’t take more risk than your situation can handle, while still growing your pot enough to retire when you want to.
Why You Should Stop Checking Your Portfolio Every Week
Checking your investments every week is a recipe for high blood pressure and bad decision-making. You are investing for a five, 10, 20 or 30-year horizon. If you focus on every 1% dip, you will stress yourself into selling at the exact wrong time.
The Silent Trap That Catches Most People Out
Lifestyle inflation is a silent trap. As your income climbs, you feel you “deserve” more, and yesterday’s luxuries quickly become today’s necessities.
But here is the brutal truth. and this quote I heard is spot on: “Almost nothing you buy in a shopping centre today will still be in your house in five years.” The only way to win is to focus on what brings you lasting happiness.
Don’t buy things to impress people who probably are fighting their own lifestyle inflation. Buy things that make you happy – though deep down, the truly happy things in life are not things you can buy.
What Working with All Kinds of Clients Has Taught Him
The one thing I have learned about people is that they are far more down-to-earth than the headlines suggest. We are constantly fed a diet of negativity about “the greedy” or “the irresponsible”, but whether I am sitting across from a manual labourer or a global chief executive, they are almost universally nice, hardworking people who just want to do right by their families.
His Best Piece of Practical Advice: The Never Saw It Rule
My best piece of practical advice is follow the “never saw it rule”. Start contributing to a pension the moment you start working. Every time you get a pay rise, immediately divert 10% of that increase into your pension.
If you never see the money in your bank account, you won’t miss it – but your 60-year-old self will treat you like a hero.
The Smallest Habit with the Most Explosive Impact
The smallest habit that can have the most explosive impact is starting a pension when you get your first payslip as a part of never saw it rule. Some people wait until their 30s or 40s, but by then, they’ve already missed the most powerful growth years.
Assume a 7% growth rate, and your money doubles every 10 years. If a 27-year-old starts now, their money has 40 years to grow before they hit state pension age. That means every £100 they tuck away today has the potential to become £1,600 by the time they retire.
Why Overpaying Your Mortgage Isn’t Always the Right Move
Some common advice that might not suit everyone is pay down your mortgage if you have spare money by adopting never saw it rule. While this is definitely suitable in some situations, paying into a pension can give you much better returns. For example, paying down a 4% mortgage saves you 4% on that money. A high-rate taxpayer paying £60 into a pension from their own money will get effectively £100 of benefit. A 66% return on the money. So a much better return on their money using never saw it rule.
The Government Policy That Punishes Ambition
The government policy that causes the most systemic pain is the £100,000 tax cliff edge. It is a piece of fiscal engineering that actively punishes ambition and hurts both the individual and the wider economy.
The £100k cliff edge is a ghost tax that haunts the UK’s most ambitious workers. When the state makes it financially irrational to earn a higher salary, the whole country loses.
What is the £100k tax trap?
Can Money Actually Buy Happiness?
Money makes you happy, up to a point. It is the ultimate lubricant for life’s frictions. It kills the stress of the broken boiler, the rising food bill and the “what ifs” that keep people awake at night. When you move from struggling to comfortable, your happiness levels absolutely soar. However, once your needs are met and you have a few solid comforts, the happiness curve starts to tail off.
Adding another zero to your bank balance doesn’t make your coffee taste better or your friendships deeper. At that stage, you hit a plateau where time becomes more valuable than currency. Money is just fuel.
You can spend your whole life filling the tank, but if you never actually drive the car, what was the point? True wealth is knowing when you have enough to start living.
The Surprising Challenge of Advising the Wealthy
Wealthy clients don’t just have bigger numbers they have fewer easy wins. While a middle-earner can save money into a pension to save tax, the “standard” government tax breaks of pension contributions and tax free allowances reduce or vanish as you get richer.
The Most Emotionally Difficult Conversations
The most awkward conversations I have are with divorcing clients. You aren’t just dividing assets; you are explaining the cold, hard financial impact of splitting one life into two. People are often in a high-stress, emotional state, and my job is to be the voice of reason when the maths doesn’t match their expectations.
What Financial Advisers Actually Earn
As a financial adviser you’ll start earning around £30,000 in London climbing to £45k-£60k with experience. Then a “bonus” cut – typically 25% – of any fees you generate above your sales target (usually three to four times your salary).
Being self-employed there is no ceiling to what you can make, but there is no safety net. It’s 100% down to your ability to hunt. It is more for the experienced adviser with a loyal book of clients, as starting a business without existing clients is going to be very challenging financially.
What Clients Can Expect to Pay
A client can expect to pay the “2 and 0.5” model: a 2% upfront fee for the initial plan and 0.5% annually.
How Long It Takes to Qualify
To get a licensed qualification, it takes around 18 months to two years but it can vary. To become chartered it takes three to five years in total.
How to Find the Right Adviser — and Avoid the Wrong One
Where to Start Looking
The best way to find an adviser is through referrals. Get personal recommendations from friends in a similar financial situation. Look at reviews using verified platforms like VouchedFor. Be wary of Google reviews; they are not validated and generic praise is easy to fake. You should go to the Financial Conduct Authority register website to verify they are authorised. If they aren’t on there, walk away.
Independent vs Restricted: Know the Difference
It’s very important to ask an adviser if they are independent “whole of market” or restricted, ie, can only provide their own fund recommendations. A restricted adviser limits your choice so they would need to have significant other benefits to compensate for this restriction.
Red Flags That Should Make You Walk Away
Some red flags to be nervous of are a jargon smokescreen – if they can’t explain a strategy in plain English, they either don’t understand it themselves or they may be hiding high fees.
Beware fee fog. Make sure you get a clear breakdown of all the likely costs and get this upfront. Some might take you down a path when you hear the fees and you feel it is too late not to proceed. If you feel pressured to sign “before a deadline”, it’s a massive red flag.
This article does not constitute tax, legal or financial advice and should not be relied upon as such. Tax planning is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, depends on the individual circumstances of each client and may be subject to change in the future. For guidance, seek professional advice.
