Doug and Diane

Jodie
Hi, I’m Jodie. This week, I had the pleasure of chatting with Douglas and Diane McEwen about how Abbotstone helped them simplify their finances, locate their various pension pots, and ultimately help them take back control over their money. It would be great to have some context about your situation before you sought out financial advice from Abbotstone.

Doug
We had known Rob on a personal basis for a number of years. We had never taken professional advice and we had several old work pensions. Plus, I was getting closer and closer to the State Pension Age, and we thought we needed some proper advice.

Diane
I think we initially contacted Abbotstone about three or four years ago, before the pandemic hit. Rob was kind enough to come and explain what Abbotstone could offer us. He ran through exactly what he could do with the existing policies that we had; we had life assurance and pensions that had been taken out over our lifetime together. So, there were lots of different bits and pieces and Rob explained the benefits of actually putting them all together. At that stage, we really weren’t sure what we wanted to do, so we mulled over it, and Rob, being good at his job, let us be and let us make that decision. Then we contacted Abbotstone and Rob and asked him if he would come back.

Jodie 
In terms of the service that Abbotstone provided, what did that look like for you?

Diane
It was seamless; that’s a good way of putting it. Rob came round and sat with us, he asked for information, explored what we had, explained what was possible, and then went away to do what he needed to do. He then came back with a document that made everything appear so much simpler. Both of us had ex-work pensions that had been frozen and were just sitting and doing nothing. I have a current pension, we had life assurance policies, and there were lots of different bits and pieces around, but with the work that Abbotstone and Rob did, taking everything away and coming back and presenting it in an easy-to-understand way, “So we’ve put all of this together into this pot. This is what it looks like, and this is how it will work going forward.”

Doug
Rob definitely listened to what we had to say. As well as bringing the packages together, he asked us lots of relevant questions about our future, our thoughts, and where we saw ourselves going.

Diane
I think that was the important thing; we actually had no idea what we wanted to get out of it and to be honest, because we didn’t know anything about what we wanted, he was the most patient person that we could have asked for because we didn’t have everything ready at the right time. He was asking us for the information and we had to go away and think about what it was we were trying to achieve. 

Doug
It was good that Rob collated all the information and then came back to us with some suggestions and comparisons; I think we needed that. 

Jodie
If this video resonates with you or you’re looking for general advice on your finances, then be sure to contact the Abbotstone team via email or telephone, and they’d be happy to help.