Client Profile: Tony & Denise Harford

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

I was working at Diners Club International on the next corner to the previous GFM premises at 1221 Toorak Road, Hartwell, after 26 years in the airline industry, starting with TAA (Trans Australia Airlines). TAA changed its name to Australian Airlines in 1986 and was merged with Qantas in 1992.

I was fortunate to have occupied senior management positions with Qantas. However, after my position was relocated to Sydney in 1998, I received a considerable redundancy package and some superannuation payouts and rollovers.

Those funds were sitting in a bank account being frittered away – not frivolously, but on everyday living stuff.

I had no plan for my impending retirement – I had no financial plan. Knowing this wasn’t a financially healthy position, we needed help.

In Sam Eley’s video clip on the GFM Wealth website, Sam says that most clients present themselves in a ‘vulnerable state’. That was us. Exactly. We were vulnerable. Even desperate.

So, I plucked up the courage to walk up the stairs and into the GFM office and asked to see someone. The rest, as they say, is history.

It was 1999 – 24 years ago. I was 52 years of age.

But, I was too young and, at that stage, not financially secure enough to retire fully.

Subsequently, I became involved in corporate governance. I was the Victorian Manager of the Australian Institute of Company Directors before becoming one of its course facilitators – a role I enjoyed for 14 years.

Concurrently, I became involved with the Community Bank operation of Bendigo Bank, first as a director of a Community Bank company in Rye, Victoria, and then as a member of the Community Bank National Council – a position I held for three years.

I finished my involvement with Bendigo and Adelaide Bank as a Community Bank mentor in March 2023.

I’m now 76 and in full retirement.

We have been blessed with five fantastic children (we still call them ‘our kids’, although they are now into their forties and fifties) and ten amazing grandchildren to whom we are, fortunately, very close and who manage to keep our minds alert and our bodies young (well, relatively speaking).

After 15 years on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula (Sorrento and Mornington), Denise and I recently moved into a retirement resort (in Woodend in Victoria’s Macedon Ranges)—a tree change from a sea change.

We enjoy good health, and Denise loves her line dancing and socialising. I maintain a healthy interest in reducing my golf handicap at Gisborne Golf Club.

One of our daughters, her husband, and three of our grandchildren live in Michigan, USA, and we enjoy travelling to see them as often as possible.

As our Macedon Ranges can get quite cold in winter, to escape, we head north to Coolum on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast to beat the worst of it. So far, it seems to have worked.

Let me make no bones about it – we would not be in the relatively comfortable financial position to enjoy our retirement that we are in today had it not been for the intervention of Tony and, more recently, Patrick and the whole team at GFM.

This firm and its people have been our financial saviours, and we could not be more grateful.

I am so grateful that we have introduced five clients to the firm at last count, not by hot gospelling. Just by responding to the question “Do you know anyone who can?” by suggesting they contact GFM, arrange an introduction, and let circumstances take their course.

All five of those couples have benefitted from GFM’s expertise and guidance and are still with the firm today. More importantly, they still talk to us. Everyone is a winner in this situation.

We cherish many factors in our relationship with GFM Wealth Advisory.

Firstly, the team.

We continue to be treated more like family than customers by Patrick, Mai, Witi, Annie and Jacqui – indeed, the whole GFM team. Their long service records make it clear that the firm operates with a strong, stable culture from which we, as customers, strongly benefit.

Secondly, their expertise. The fact that GFM continues to be recognised as a leader in its specialty field of SMSF by its peers speaks volumes about its expertise. Paul’s recognition as one of Australia’s top 100 advisors in The Barron’s List reflects on Paul and the whole team who works with him.

Thirdly, we think that GFM demonstrates exceptional integrity in its business affairs, exemplified by its decision to apply for its own Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL). This means that GFM is not beholden to any other financial institution.

Similarly, their ‘fee for service’ pricing methodology means that GFM is not influenced by whoever pays them the highest commission – it is what is best for us that drives their decisions on our behalf.

It has been over ten years since GFM acquired Gruchy Accounting to form GFM Gruchy Accounting, and, as customers, we continue to benefit from the expertise and guidance Andrew, Ivan, and Phil provided. Our previous taxation affairs were a little messy. However, with Andrew’s intervention, they’re now on the proper and pain-free path.

This ‘one-stop-shop’ approach to managing financial affairs makes sense for us.

We believe that the most valuable deliverable provided to us by GFM Wealth is confidence. Confidence that our best interests are foremost in GFM’s management of our affairs. Confidence that our retirement funds are managed following our risk profile and financial goals. Confidence that we can live our retirement years without suffering unnecessary financial stress.

Like most things in life, whenever you’re stuck – reach out.

We’re very glad that we reached out when we did and found GFM Wealth. We have no hesitation in recommending them to anyone who might find themselves in a situation similar to what we were in 24 years ago.