The Financial Planning Series - 2026
Financial planning is not just about the number you retire with. It is about the decisions that number needs to support: when you can stop working, what a property is actually costing you, how prepared you are for risks that do not show up in a portfolio, and what you are actually working toward.
This series looks at the parts of financial planning that deserve more than a quick answer, drawing on real client situations and the research behind them.
Each paper is free to read and download — no sign-up required.
White Paper #1 — You Can't Eat Bricks
Investment properties, baches, and the costs that reshape a retirement.
Rates, insurance, and maintenance on a second property have all been rising faster than everyday costs, and few retirement plans account for what that adds up to over fifteen or twenty years. This paper looks at what property actually costs to hold, what it needs to earn to justify a place in a retirement plan, and the growing risk of a property becoming difficult or impossible to insure.
An asset can be real, solid, and still not pay its way.
White Paper #2 — Seventy Is the New Fifty
What longer lives mean for financial planning, and why most planning frameworks have not caught up yet.
A seventy-year-old today has the cognitive ability of a fifty-three-year-old in 2000, and a retirement lasting twenty-five to thirty years is no longer unusual. Most financial plans were not built for that. This paper looks at what longer, less predictable retirements mean for the decisions people make, from how spending actually unfolds to why "doing nothing" is sometimes the soundest strategy available.
Seventy is the new fifty, but only if the plan behind it has caught up too.