This adviser spends her week helping clients with estate planning and investments.
Monday
My Monday starts at 7:30am when I drag myself down to my personal training session.
I have not been doing these long and I can barely feel my legs by the end of it.
By 9am I am sitting in front of the laptop filtering through my emails, checking the Financial Times and current affairs.
I have a review meeting in the afternoon in west Wales with a client and his daughter.
We look at his current investments and his situation; going through the taxation position they are in and what charges his daughter could be facing if we didn’t do anything about it.
I leave the review, fact find and notes and head back to Cardiff to look at possible solutions and file all the paperwork.
It is very helpful to meet whoever is inheriting the estate, as I can explain to them the situation and also build that trust with the clients.
Tuesday
I start my day with a flight from Cardiff to Edinburgh; the 7am one to be precise.
I have a meeting at 11am in Edinburgh with a widowed client. She has no relatives left and her husband sadly passed away a while ago.
We review her current arrangements and talk through the charities she is planning on leaving her estate to. She has also invited along her solicitor so we can meet and talk through the arrangements.
After the solicitor leaves, we go through all her paperwork. We spend half an hour sorting and shredding them. This puts her mind at ease, as she knows if anything happens, everything has been sorted out for her.
Wednesday
My day starts with being stuck in traffic on the bypass on the way to Carlisle. I am on my way to visit a lovely couple I inherited from a previous adviser.
We had a review a month before and looked at their current investments. They were out of the risk profile and the clients wanted something actively managed.
I present them with different solutions, and we go with a cost-effective solution that is actively managed within their attitude to risk. We went through each aspect of the recommendations and the report in depth.
I was there for about two hours and had way too many biscuits and too much coffee.
Thursday
My day starts with a flight from Edinburgh to Birmingham with Flybe. After a large coffee and a 45-minute delay I am on my way.
I head into the office in Birmingham to catch up on work and meet with my administrator and paraplanner to prepare for the week ahead and go over active cases.
I finish my day with transferring notes, fact finds and research on to our system for clients, along with completing electronic ID checks ready to put a recommendation in place. Then I’m on the train back to Cardiff.
Friday
Today, I start the day with the personal training session and, yes, I made it.
I have an introduction meeting in Cardiff with a client.
The client lives just round the corner from me, so that makes my Friday that little bit sweeter, especially after all the travelling.
I get back to the office, filter through my emails, and by 5pm I am ready for a large glass of white wine.
Lauren Cowper is a financial planner at Quilter Private Client Advisers
If you would like to write a week in your life as a financial adviser, please contact: melanie.tringham@ft.com
