Financial Planning Ireland

Real financial planning from one of Ireland’s few Certified Financial Planners

What is holistic financial planning?

Holistic financial planning looks at your entire financial picture – pensions, investments, protection, tax, estate planning, and cashflow – rather than addressing each area in isolation. The goal is to develop a joined-up plan that moves you toward your objectives in the most efficient way possible.

What Most People Get — And What They Actually Need

If you have ever taken out a pension, an investment, or a life assurance policy through a financial adviser, the chances are you received a product recommendation, not a financial plan. This is not a criticism of individual advisers, it is simply how most of the Irish financial advice industry works. Advisers are remunerated for selling products, so products are what they sell.

Real financial planning starts somewhere different. It starts with your life, your income, your outgoings, what you own, what you owe, what you want your future to look like, and works forward from there. Products, if they are needed at all, come at the end of that process, not the beginning.

Many firms market themselves as financial planners. There are over 1,200 regulated financial advice firms in Ireland but there are far fewer than this number of advisers who hold the Certified Financial Planner designation, the CFP, which is the only globally recognised qualification that demonstrates competence across the full spectrum of financial planning. Eoghan Gavigan of Highfield Financial Planning is one of them.

My partner and I did a financial plan with Eoghan, with a number of scenarios for our future. The final product was very professional, and provided proactive investment and protection options which Eoghan carried out fully for us. We felt it was very good value for peace of mind for our financial future!  Google Review by Tim Lee – check out this and our other Google reviews.

Who Is This For?

Couples and families in their 40s and 50s who have built up income, assets, and some financial products, but have never had anyone pull it all together into a coherent picture. They want to know if they are on track, what they should be doing differently, and when they can afford to retire.

Business owners who want a plan, not a product. Having spent 16 years as a business and commercial lender before moving into financial planning, Eoghan understands how business owners think about money – and how differently they need to be advised compared to PAYE employees. The different issues involved make standard financial planning assumptions redundant.

Who is thinking about your personal financial picture in a structured way – your pensions, your investments, your protection, and what retirement actually looks like when your income is tied to a business you’ll eventually need to exit or sell? That is precisely the conversation we have with business owner clients.

People approaching retirement who want to know with confidence whether they have enough. Not a rough estimate, a detailed, modelled projection that accounts for their pension income, investment drawdown, State pension, tax position, and how long their money needs to last.

If you recognise yourself in any of these, you are in the right place.

What Does a Financial Plan Actually Look Like?

The centrepiece of our financial planning process is cashflow modelling, a detailed, graphical projection of your financial future based on your actual figures. It shows you, year by year, whether your resources are sufficient to sustain your lifestyle through retirement and beyond.

This is not a generic illustration with assumed figures. It is built around your income, your assets, your pension funds, your planned retirement date, your spending, actual tax calculations and your objectives. When we run different scenarios, retiring two years earlier, making additional pension contributions, trading up (or trading down), you can see immediately how each decision changes the outcome. If you are a business owner, what might your exit look like?

The question most of our clients are really asking is a simple one: will I have enough? Cashflow modelling gives you a specific, evidence-based answer rather than a reassuring guess.

The Value of Getting This Right

Vanguard, one of the world’s largest investment managers, has quantified what good financial advice is worth to clients over time. Their research puts the value an adviser adds – through better planning, tax efficiency, behavioural coaching, and smarter portfolio construction – at approximately 3% per annum compared to unadvised clients managing their own finances.

Over a fifteen or twenty year period, that figure compounds into a very substantial difference in outcome. It also means that for most clients, the cost of advice is many multiples repaid by the value it generates.

Three Things a Good Financial Plan Should Tell You

1. Whether you are on track Not approximately. Specifically. A financial plan should give you a number, or more accurately, a projection, that tells you whether your current trajectory leads to the retirement you want, and if not, what needs to change and by how much.
2. Where your biggest risks are Most people focus on investment risk, the possibility that markets fall. A good financial plan also identifies longevity risk (outliving your money), sequencing risk (poor returns early in retirement), protection gaps (what happens financially if you die or can’t work), and tax inefficiency. These risks are often more consequential than market volatility and are rarely discussed by advisers focused on product sales.
3. What your options are One of the most common outcomes of a first financial planning engagement is that clients discover they have more options than they realised — the ability to retire earlier, to fund something important, or simply to spend more freely without anxiety, because the plan shows them they can afford to. Knowing your options requires knowing your numbers. That is what financial planning provides.

Why Choose Highfield Financial Planning?

The principal of the firm, Eoghan Gavigan CFP® QFA, has over 29 years’ experience in banking and financial services. The CFP® designation requires demonstrated competence across retirement planning, investment, tax, estate planning, and risk management, not just product knowledge, and is held by a relatively small number of advisers in Ireland.

We focus on clients across Dublin, Meath, Kildare and Wicklow but we can work with clients anywhere in Ireland.

We would be happy to have an initial conversation about whether financial planning is right for you. There is no charge for this call. Contact us on 01 546 1100 or book a no-obligation discovery call here.

Our recent article in The Sunday Times illustrates the benefits of Holistic Financial Planning (bottom of page).

Frequently Asked Questions About Holistic Financial Planning

How is holistic financial planning different from simply buying a pension or investment?

Buying a product is transactional. Holistic financial planning starts with your objectives and works backwards to identify the right combination of strategies and products to achieve them. Many clients come to us having accumulated a range of financial products over the years with no coherent strategy connecting them.

Who is holistic financial planning suitable for?

It is most valuable for people who have surplus income or accumulated savings, own or are buying a home, and want to make sure their finances are working as hard as possible. Company directors, business owners, dual-income families, and people approaching retirement are among the clients who benefit most.

What does the financial planning process involve?

It involves six stages – establishing your objectives, gathering data on your current financial position, analysing any gaps or shortfalls, developing and presenting recommendations, implementing the agreed actions, and ongoing review. Cashflow modelling is central to the process and gives you a visual picture of your projected financial future.

What is cashflow modelling and why does it matter?

Cashflow modelling uses software to project your income, expenditure, assets, and liabilities over your lifetime. It shows you whether you are on track to achieve your objectives – for example, whether your retirement income will be sufficient – and allows us to model the impact of different decisions before you make them.

Is there a charge for an initial consultation?

No. The initial exploratory conversation is free and carries no obligation. It gives you an opportunity to understand how the process works and to decide whether financial planning is right for you at this point in time.

How does Highfield Financial Planning charge for its services?

We operate on a fee basis but we often reduce our fee if you use us for your pensions or investments. Our remuneration structure is explained clearly at the outset before any engagement begins. Details are set out in our Terms of Business, which is available on the website. In most cases you don’t pay any more than you would if you use the traditional model of financial advice which is based on the sale of financial products.

How do I get started?

You can book a free video call or phone consultation, email us directly, or complete the contact form on this page. We will take it from there.