Ian & Elaine Whitehead

Ian has kindly written the article below on his and Elaine’s working life, retirement and relationship with GFM Wealth Advisory. We greatly appreciate Ian’s contribution to Trade Secrets.

Elaine and I first met at a dance in 1963 and married in 1966. Our first nine years of marriage were spent living and working in the UK. In those days, working in the UK was pretty much self-preservation, and I often found myself working more than 100 hours per week and not having a large bank balance to show for it. My driving force was to provide the best life that we could for our family, so you did whatever kind of overtime was offered. Elaine also worked until our first daughter arrived, and then we relocated from the north of England to the southwest in Cornwall, where our second daughter was born. Elaine continued to work part-time for the local school and a cafe in the evenings.

We relocated to Australia at the beginning of 1975, by which time our daughters were 8 and 5 years old. We both started work straight away. Opportunities for overtime were frequent, so I worked as much as was offered and was grateful for it. It provided a lifestyle and opportunities that would never have been possible in the UK. Elaine retired in 2014 after working many years for Caprice Australia, and I retired from full-time work in 2016.

We feel blessed our daughters have excelled in their chosen professions, and we now have three grandchildren; the youngest is Ruby (aged 9), then Cameron (14) and Luke (17). I am passionate about motor car and motorcycle racing and have spent the last 42 years doing just that – ten years racing go-karts and then 32 years racing motorcycles. Now, I spend more time coaching the principles of road racing and supporting my eldest grandson, who is taking over in the skills and talent side. He is currently campaigning a 600cc road racing motorcycle in the Australian championships and, after two rounds, is in 4th position.

We always tried to save as much as possible for retirement. Unfortunately, our experience with two different financial advisers before joining GFM was exceptionally disappointing. We were going backwards due to poor advice, including having our superannuation invested in high fee and poor performing accounts, as well as a recommendation to purchase a poor quality commercial real estate asset. Naturally, after two bad experiences with financial advisers, we were somewhat sceptical.

In 2007, a friend recommended talking to Tony Gilham, which we did. At our first meeting with Tony, he quickly introduced us to Paul, and our first impressions were tremendous. After reviewing our financial position and discussing our previous poor experiences obtaining advice, Paul quickly reassured us that GFM is committed to client satisfaction. We set up an SMSF and focused on salary sacrifice and investing more sensibly towards retirement.

Our experience with Paul and the GFM team over the last 15 years has been everything promised and much more. Paul has guided us through tough times and keeps close contact through the highs and lows. Paul makes us feel very special. We listen to every recommendation, and I can say without hesitation that we feel financially secure in retirement, which allows us to focus on enjoying our retirement.

We are so proud of Paul and his achievements, including being regularly ranked in Australia’s Top 100 Financial Advisers over the last years. This endorses what we already knew about Paul and the team at GFM.