Bob and Christine

Bob:
Hi, my name’s Bob, and this is my wife, Christine. We contacted Blueberry Financial in 2016 or 2017, and we deal with Madeleine.

Christine:
We initially went to see Madeleine because Bob heard about a friend of ours who had retired early and didn’t ever think he’d be able to. Madeleine had shown him that it was a very real possibility, as he did retire. As Bob was very interested in going down that track, I thought it would be good to get some sound financial advice before taking the big step of retiring early.

Bob:
There was a real sense of connection, understanding, and certainly friendliness. We just seem to understand each other, and she’s such a welcoming, warm person. We just clicked, and we’ve sort of been best friends ever since.

Christine:
I think we’d expected a financial adviser’s appointment to be very formal and serious. It did have its serious side, obviously, because it’s a serious issue, but we had fun too, and we knew that we could totally trust her.

Bob:
Working with Madeleine gives me great confidence because I can pick up the phone or send an email anytime, and she gets straight back to me with options and solutions. If I need an extra bit of money because we’ve suddenly decided we want to splash out on something, she’ll say, “How much?” and it will be in our account within two weeks. So that’s pretty good.

Christine:
We don’t just have a meeting where we discuss our finances; it’s like going for coffee with a friend, but a professional friend. We look forward to going and having a great time with her as well.

Bob:
I remember from the first meeting we had with Madeleine, she basically said, “Bring all the stuff that you have about your finances with you.” I remember bagging up a carrier bag full of statements that I had received from a pension fund over the years, not knowing which to keep or which to throw away, and she took it all away and gave me back the important ones that I needed to keep. And that was such a relief, and it certainly made a space in the filing box. 

It’s really weird when you retire because you suddenly realise that you’ve got no more money coming in and there’s no extra money being added to your investments. So, it’s really encouraging when you get statements through and the money’s gone up in value, even though you’ve been withdrawing some money. So that’s definitely a good thing. We projected our investments until Christine’s 100 years old because she’s got longevity in the family, she’s going to well outlast me apparently, and she wants plenty of money to go out on, so we’re confident that there’s plenty there right until the end.

Christine:
I think the best thing for me about working with Madeleine is that I can totally trust her. She is experienced and very professional, and I know that she has our best interests at heart.

Bob:
If I were to describe Madeleine, first of all, it would be relational; she’s good at relationships. Fun would be another one, and positive, she’s very positive about everything.

During the time that we’ve worked with Madeleine, the best bit of advice she’s given me is to be prepared to take a risk, because there’s money to be made on risk. I know money can go up as well as down, but the people that she invests with are very good, and it seems that almost no matter what the risk, I’m still making a profit. So that’s got to be a good thing.

Christine:
We would totally recommend Madeleine at Blueberry to anybody who needs any type of financial advice. We’ve already told loads of our friends, or when issues have come up with our friends, we’ve recommended Madeleine to them. They’ve all been absolutely delighted with the help that she’s given to them too, and lots of their lives, like ours, have been majorly improved and taken on journeys that they would not perhaps have gone on otherwise.