Kate Pierce

My name is Kate Pierce. I’ve been using Druthers for about four or five years, and my financial planner is Ian Howe.

I wasn’t particularly happy with the financial adviser I had previously, so I decided to swap to Ian. I needed advice at the time about selling a flat and what to do with the money that I’d make from selling the flat. I was also thinking ahead to my pension and how to make my money work best for me in terms of investing it.

At the time, things were quite tricky for me because my husband had left me. So financially, I felt that security or the rug had slightly been pulled out from under my feet. Ian would be the first person to say I tend to glaze over when talking about finances. I know it’s important, but I’ve always relied on somebody else to be the driving force. So, I really needed somebody to take me in hand and give me a sort of idiot’s guide to how to cope with my finances.

I have known Ian and his family for nearly 15 years because our children were at school together. Ian is a very close friend of mine and somebody I trust implicitly. I have to say, I was slightly wary at the time of mixing business with pleasure; I didn’t want to do anything that was going to spoil our personal friendship. I’m very close to Ian and his wife, and I needn’t have worried at all because not only do I feel in safe hands from a financial point of view, but I just trust Ian absolutely 100%. I know that anything we talk about relating to my finances will not go beyond him at all.

Ian knows what he’s doing; he knows his job inside and out. I chose him because I trust him as a person, which is very important. I also chose him because he’s extremely good at explaining things, which I might find quite difficult to grasp otherwise. He really explains things in such a way that even I can understand them.

I came from a place where I felt quite anxious and had low self-esteem, and finances were one more thing to worry about. Now, I don’t have to worry about my finances at all because Ian is completely in control of everything. He has a very calming presence, and I feel like I’m in very safe hands.

I feel much more positive about my financial future. Now that I’m on my own, I feel as if I have less money to play with for my future than I would have otherwise, but with the money that I do have, I feel it’s been really looked after and invested very wisely. I have frequent meetings with Ian. He contacts me regularly to tell me how things are doing and what the state of play is, whether or not to change things or invest things slightly differently, and whether to take more risk because I’m slightly risk averse. I absolutely listen to him and take on board everything he says, and I feel far less anxious about my financial situation now.

Using three words to describe Ian is quite hard because he’s a larger-than-life character, but he’s fun, wise, and caring.

The best piece of advice that Ian has given me is probably not to panic, not to feel as if I have to do things too quickly, and just to take my time.

I would certainly recommend Ian to somebody in my position who is going through a divorce, simply because he’s so caring and so thorough. When you’re feeling upside down in lots of other areas of your life, this is one area that you don’t have to panic about. I would recommend him to anyone.