Twenty-eight years ago, Ian Bamforth contacted Russell Tym about investing a small sum of money. It was around $3,000, and Ian wanted to make sure the money was working for him and not just sitting around doing nothing.

It was a phone conversation where Russell provided information on some prospective investments that would suit Ian, and they went from there

The phone conversation and the quality of the advice he’d received meant a great deal to Ian. It stayed with him.

When Ian’s father died, he had a much larger sum of money to invest. They sat down with Russell and looked at short and long-term goals to find out how they could make that $200k grow.

“We worked on a plan and it was important to Jill and I that we would both be financially independent of the government. I had basic knowledge about unit trusts and investments, and we were conscious of the fact that we needed to make the investments grow and keep a diverse portfolio open. Russell suggested a mix of investments, so we had a look at some of those and decided from there.”

Their initial investment was well rewarded in the early years, so investing the larger inheritance was a no-brainer. Retirement was at least ten years off at that point, so they had time on their side.

“We were quite confident the plan would work out well. Some investments weren’t our choice, but Russell opened us up to both medium and high-risk investments.”

“When we started out, we were reasonably conservative as we were new investors. As we got comfortable and our knowledge grew, we got to a point where we were prepared to look at high risk investments while maintaining some conservative. So, we had a balance of investments that could generate growth for us, but were still stable and would help us ride out the inevitable highs and lows.”

“We’ve always had a fairly long-term outlook on investments – we’re prepared to ride out the highs and lows and haven’t made panic decisions when the market was crashing.

The investments Russell made for us were such good investments that when the market rose again, our investments rose immediately, and within twelve months of the crash we were slightly better off than we were before.”

After coming out from the 2008/09 crash stronger, the Bamforth’s say they know many people who are still trying to recover.

“Our spread across shares, super and property hit us less hard than others. Our Australian shares performed better than the international shares,and lessened the impact.”

Russell thought they were quite unique, as their vision was long term, not short term and not panicky.

Ian and Jill credit Russell with the comfort they have in retirement today.

“If we hadn’t found Russell, we would have been in a much less secure position. We would have had to make many decisions for ourselves, and possibly not made some of the right ones.”

Ian and Russell assess and analyse on a regular basis.

Their portfolio is diverse, with several smaller investments within each class (shares, property, cash). And they’ve always tried to keep the ratio of shares and property at a comfortable point.

MoneyLink recently transitioned the Bamforth’s portfolio to a pension plan, which has been set up to provide an income to the couple for the next 40 years.

“Because of the investment size, we’re only just pulling a percentage out (to satisfy the government). The bulk of the investment is still performing.

We receive the minimum amount for it to be classed as a pension, which is 4%. The fund is making 6%, so we’re receiving growth of 2% or more, dependant on how the performance is at the time.

If ever I’ve got any questions, I’m always able to call, Russell is very obliging there’s never been any time I haven’t been able to call and sort things out over the phone.”

Ian and Jill, both in their late 50s, are in good health, and ready to travel around Australia with friends. Thanks to the experience and expertise of MoneyLink, they’re able to enjoy the kind of retirement most people only dream of.