What happened when we tried to find a financial or retirement adviser?

What we wanted

We were not looking for somebody to take over every investment, move all the pensions and manage our money forever. We wanted a competent person to inspect the assumptions, identify blind spots and tell us where our reasoning was weak.

What we expected

I expected a defined piece of work with a defined price: inspect what we had built, challenge it, give us a written view, finished. Instead, the conversation naturally pulled towards a broader advice process and ongoing management.

The quote we received

The proposals included a £295 administration charge, £125 per hour for an estimated 10–20 hours, and ongoing charges of 0.75%–1% of assets under management if we continued.

Those numbers are not evidence that the advisers were bad or unusually expensive. They are evidence that the available services were broader than the limited challenge-and-verify job we thought we could get.

Why we did not proceed

The initial work could have cost roughly £1,545–£2,795 before any ongoing fee. We are fairly frugal, so of course that got our attention. But the bigger issue was fit: percentage-based ongoing management did not appeal when our main need was understanding and verification, not permanent delegation.

So we did not reject advice as useless. We rejected that particular fit for us. We continued validating individual rules against official guidance and kept the option of targeted professional advice for the future — if we can find the right fit.

What remains unresolved

There is no victory lap. A self-built model can contain blind spots, and confidence is not competence. The outcome was simply that we had not found an advice format whose scope and price matched our need. That is a gap, not proof that we no longer need challenge or help.