Rob

Hi, my name is Rob Moon. I’ve been a client of BlueSky for over six years, and Kevin Gribben looks after my affairs.

I first got in touch with BlueSky just over six years ago to discuss my self-invested pension pot. I wanted advice on the best way to invest it and to start planning for my retirement and understand the best way to draw income. My reason for wanting to discuss that was that I really was concerned about having enough income to sustain me through my retirement and I was really unsure on what level of income I could expect from my pension pot, so, that was my key driver initially for reaching out to BlueSky.

My introduction to BlueSky was via Standard Life Wealth who were looking after my pension pot at that time; they had a relationship with BlueSky.

When I initially spoke with Kevin and with BlueSky, I wasn’t fully committed to going with them, I just wanted to understand what the relationship would be like and how that would work. From the get go, I found it very easy to discuss key things with Kevin. I had a lot of confidence in what he was saying to me, I backed that up with a bit of research from myself, to see what other clients had said, and I just felt comfortable from the beginning that this was going to work for me.

The main focus of my relationship with Kevin and with BlueSky over the whole time I’ve been with them is planning for my retirement. I’ve had a number of significant life events along the way that have prompted me to think about what I’m investing in and what that strategy ought to look like. Each step of the way, Kevin has given me really good advice and given me options to think through and make a choice about. It’s worked really well.

In terms of Kevin, the three words that I would use to describe him are, firstly, knowledgeable, because his understanding of financial products, markets and so on is second to none. Secondly, reassuring, I think he knows me well enough to be able to structure his advice things he says to me in a way that reassure me that I’m doing the right thing. And thirdly, I’ve thought about this a little bit, he’s challenging, and I don’t mean that in an aggressive way, I mean he pushes at me a little bit to make sure that I’ve thought things through, and also that I’m not being too conservative about things, which I might otherwise be. Sometimes you need to think “Actually you’re sure about that? Do you not want to do a bit more with yourself?”

I take a great deal of comfort from my relationship with Kevin. My key focus has been and remains, having a comfortable retirement, and my natural concern is whether I have enough money in my pot to make that realistic. And the projections that Kevin have produced for me clearly demonstrate, yes, it is okay. That is exactly what I needed as a client to be comfortable about my financial future, and something I’m eternally grateful to Kevin for the time and effort he has put into doing that for me.

Through working with Kevin, I’m in a place where I feel quite comfortable about my financial future. I feel like I can do the things I want to do, when I want to do them, and that there are contingency plans if other things were to happen, that would be enable me to head in a different direction if I wanted to. Fundamentally, it’s that confidence that my money is invested in a good place, it’s doing well for me, and it’s going to be there to support me in the future.

In my time with Kevin the best of advice he’s given me is almost not financial. When I retired, which was only a couple of weeks ago actually, he said, “Don’t commit to anything for a good period of three months or so.” Already, I’m thinking that’s really good advice because my natural instinct I know would be “I need to be busy, I need to be doing something.” and if I wasn’t careful, I’d jump into some sort of commitment that I then might regret. So, it’s almost non-financial, but it’s that take your time, enjoy your new status and think of a way forward from there.

It shouldn’t be a surprise to hear that I would thoroughly recommend both Kevin and BlueSky to anybody who is perhaps thinking about their financial future. The advice I’ve received has been good, I’ve always been given options, I’ve never at any point felt that I’ve been forced or hurried into anything. I’ve always been given plenty of time to think it through, given the numbers to look at, I’m a numbers guy so I like to look at the detail and understand it, and it’s that time and ability to step back and think about it that’s the winner for me.