Broccoli, Ice Cream and Why You Really Hired Your Adviser – The Human Side Of Money Presented By Client Care

by SFT | Sep 27, 2026 | Financial Planning, St Francis

I recently came across some research from Morningstar, presented by Ryan Murphy, their Global Head of Behavioural Insights. It asked a question I’ve been quietly thinking about for most of my thirty years in this profession: why do people actually hire a financial adviser?

The usual answer is a practical one. People come to us when retirement is getting closer, when an inheritance arrives, or when tax starts to feel complicated. Those are real reasons, but the research suggests they only tell part of the story.

Morningstar asked 623 households who already work with an adviser a simple, open question: “List some reasons why you hired your financial adviser.” They answered anonymously, which tends to bring out more honest answers than a question asked across a desk.

About a third of the answers were about specific needs, like planning for retirement or understanding tax. What struck me is that another third were about discomfort. People said things like “I don’t like making financial decisions” or “I don’t know enough to make the best choices.” Another 17% described what the industry calls behavioural coaching. One person admitted they lacked the discipline to stay invested when markets turned erratic. Another simply wanted “a sane voice” to bounce ideas off.

Put those together and most of the reasons were emotional, not technical.

This matters because other studies, including work by Vanguard, suggest that helping clients stay calm and stick to their plan can be one of the most valuable things an adviser does, sometimes adding more than 2% a year to returns. Most of that value comes from avoiding costly mistakes at the worst possible moment. Yet when people choose an adviser, it’s the thing they think about least.

Murphy compares it to broccoli and ice cream. Behavioural coaching is the broccoli: good for you, but nobody gets excited about it. Chasing returns is the ice cream. Interestingly, clients ranked “maximising my returns” lower than advisers assumed they would, and ranked feeling understood and well guided much higher.

None of this surprised me. The most important conversations I’ve had with clients were rarely about fund selection. They happened in 2008, in March 2020, and on ordinary days when someone simply needed to hear that the plan still made sense. Often the real work is listening, explaining things in plain language, and gently suggesting they leave things alone.

So if you’ve ever wondered what you’re really paying for, it’s partly the spreadsheets and the tax planning. But mostly it’s having someone beside you who knows your story, understands what matters to you, and helps you keep a steady hand when the world feels anything but steady.

That may be the broccoli, but it’s also the part that tends to make the biggest difference over time. If this has got you thinking, pop in for a coffee and a chat.

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Dirk Groeneveld, Certified Financial Planner

t. 083 261 9287

e. dirk@clientcare.co.za

Who Are You When the Business Card Goes in the Drawer? The Human Side Of Money Presented By Client Care

by SFT | Sep 20, 2026 | Financial Planning, St Francis

Most of us picture retirement as a list of things we’ll finally stop doing. No more early alarms, no more traffic, no more meetings that could have been a phone call. What we seldom picture is what quietly goes missing with them.

For decades, a job title does a lot of heavy lifting. At a braai, you say “I’m an engineer” or “I ran the practice,” and people know where to place you. Say “I’m retired,” and you’ve told them what you used to do, but very little about who you are now.

In over thirty years of sitting with clients, I’ve noticed something. People who say they miss work rarely miss the work itself. They miss what came with it: the routine, the colleagues, the quiet satisfaction of being good at something, and knowing someone was counting on them to show up. So when the phone rings less and the old office carries on perfectly well without them, a gentle question can surface; who am I now?

If that’s where you find yourself, please know it’s completely normal. It isn’t a sign that retirement has gone wrong. It’s simply part of settling into a new chapter. The good news is that you don’t need one grand purpose to replace your career. I’d suggest thinking about it the way we think about an investment portfolio. Your career was one very large holding. It supplied income, status, friendship and meaning all at once. That concentration served you well, but now it’s time to diversify.

Here in St Francis Bay, the options are right on our doorstep. You might become the grandparent who teaches the little ones to fish off the canals, a volunteer with one of our community organisations, a regular on the golf course, part of a morning walking group on the beach, or simply the neighbour who always knows whom to call. Some roles bring meaning, some bring friendship, and some just make a Wednesday more enjoyable. Together, they make a fuller life than any single title ever could.

Here’s a small exercise that could help you, finish this sentence:

“When I stop being known as ______, I’d like to spend more time being ______.”

Choose something active, then take one small step towards it this month.

And if you know someone who has made the transition gracefully, invite them for coffee at Bruce’s and ask what they missed most when they stopped working, and what eventually filled that gap.

You’ll likely leave with more than good advice. You’ll leave reassured.

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Dirk Groeneveld, Certified Financial Planner

t. 083 261 9287

e. dirk@clientcare.co.za

Dementia: Understanding Your Legal Choices Before You Need Them – The Human Side Of Money Presented By Client Care

by admin | Sep 6, 2026 | Financial Planning, St Francis

There’s a phone call I’ve come to recognise over thirty years in this profession. It starts with, “Dirk, I need your advice about my mother,” and within a few sentences I can tell we’re already behind. A diagnosis has come, capacity is fading, and the family is trying to work out in a hurry what can still be done.

Sometimes there’s still a good answer. But it’s never as simple as it would have been a year earlier. In South Africa, so much of what we can legally do depends on one thing: whether a person still has the mental capacity to decide. Once that’s gone, some doors close for good.

Why plan early? Acting while the mind is clear means wishes are recorded, finances are protected, and families know their options without the cost and stress of an emergency court application. I’ve sat with families going through that, and the emotional toll often outweighs the financial one.

Your options, in brief:

Power of Attorney helps with financial matters while capacity is intact, but it automatically lapses once capacity is lost. It’s a bridge, not a long-term solution.

Administration, granted through the Master of the High Court, is a practical, less costly alternative when someone can no longer manage their affairs with proper oversight built in.

Curatorship, appointed through the High Court, offers more comprehensive management for advanced cognitive decline, with a curator acting in the person’s best interests.

Special Trusts (Type A) can offer long-term protection for someone with severe mental incapacity and safeguarding assets, ensuring continuity, and offering favourable tax treatment where requirements are met.

Advance Healthcare Directives record a person’s wishes about future medical care in writing, so loved ones and doctors aren’t left guessing when it matters most.

Wills should be reviewed and signed while capacity still allows it, ideally well before any diagnosis, so they reflect current wishes rather than an outdated chapter of life.

Before the crisis, not during it

None of this is about taking control away from someone. Done at the right time, it’s one of the most respectful things a family can do, preserving a person’s own wishes in their own words, made by their own hand, while they were still able to decide.

A dementia diagnosis is hard enough without a family untangling legal and financial matters under pressure. If there’s one thing to take from this; have the conversation now, while it’s still just a conversation.

As always, at Client care we happy to talk this through with you or your family, whenever it feels right.

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Dirk Groeneveld, Certified Financial Planner

t. 083 261 9287

e. dirk@clientcare.co.za

The Retirement You Didn’t See Coming – Dan Haylett At St Francis Links, presented by Client Care

by SFT | Aug 24, 2026 | Financial Planning, St Francis

Retirement might sound fairly straightforward. Finish work, put away the alarm clock and start enjoying all that extra time. In reality, the transition can be considerably more complicated.

Client Care Private Wealth Management is hosting UK retirement specialist and author Dan Haylett at St Francis Links on Friday, 11 September, for a practical conversation about moving from working life into retirement.

Haylett is the author of The Retirement You Didn’t See Coming, a book exploring the human side of retirement and some of the challenges that arrive with one of life’s biggest transitions.

Living Well In Retirement

The discussion will look beyond the financial mechanics of retirement and focus on how people actually live once their working years come to an end.

Haylett will explore why the first 10 to 15 years of retirement can be particularly important. He will also discuss the concept of “front-loading” retirement spending, allowing people to make greater use of their money during the years when they have the energy and freedom to enjoy it.

As Haylett puts it, the goal is to retire and “live well – with energy, freedom and purpose – while you can.”

Breakfast At St Francis Links

The event takes place in the Sunset Room at the St Francis Links Clubhouse from 9am to 10am and includes breakfast.

Attendance is by RSVP for catering purposes. Those interested can book here – https://clientcare.co.za/events/ or contact Client Care at daniel@clientcare.co.za or call 042 940 0842.

For anyone approaching retirement, already retired, or simply thinking a little further down the road, it promises to be an interesting hour exploring what life after work can actually look like.

The R760 000 Question – The Human Side Of Money presented by Client Care

by SFT | Aug 23, 2026 | Financial Planning, St Francis

We sat with a new client couple last week, working through their goals for the future. It’s one of my favourite parts of onboarding a new family, unpacking not just where they are today, but where they’d like to be in the future. Holidays, cars, retirement, and, in this case, two children heading off into adulthood.

Their eldest starts university next year. Stellenbosch is calling, and rightly so. We costed tuition, residence and living expenses at R250,000 a year or R1,000,000 over four years. Their younger child has other plans. Port Elizabeth, staying at home, studying locally. That journey came to roughly R240,000 over the same four years.

Both wonderful kids, both wonderful plans. That evening, sitting at home, one figure kept nagging at me; R760,000. The present-day difference, sitting right there between two siblings under the same roof.

Let me be clear, there’s no right or wrong answer here. Every child is different, and I’m not suggesting a Stellenbosch education isn’t worth it. What I am asking is whether parents always think decisions this expensive through as deeply as they should. In my experience, often they don’t. The decision gets made with love and good intention, and once it’s made, the die is cast, quietly shaping financial decisions for years to come.

If both children had studied locally, the family would have saved somewhere around R500,000. That could go a long way toward housing deposits one day, a wedding or two, or the overseas trip this couple has been quietly putting off while they “get the kids sorted.” It’s not that spending on Stellenbosch is wrong, it’s that the alternative is rarely given equal airtime in the conversation.

My generation is more generous toward our children than the ones before us, and mostly that’s a beautiful thing. But generosity without reflection can quietly erode our own dreams such as an earlier retirement, a long-planned trip, the freedom to slow down sooner. Is it always the smart thing to do? Is it always appreciated the way we imagine? And could it be placing pressure on the goals we’ve been quietly working toward ourselves?

This is why our onboarding process spends so much time helping clients think about their future selves, not just today’s wants. It can feel like it takes the spontaneity out of decisions. But it makes for far wiser family choices.

So, here’s the real question. Would you rather sit with a tough, well-considered decision today, or leave your future self to live with the consequences of one that was never quite thought through?

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Dirk Groeneveld, Certified Financial Planner

t. 083 261 9287

e. dirk@clientcare.co.za

What does Inflation mean to your Retirement Plan? The Human Side Of Money Presented By Client Care

by SFT | Aug 16, 2026 | Financial Planning, St Francis

Every month the Reserve Bank tells us what inflation is doing, and every month most of us nod, half-listen, and carry on. We know inflation is real. We know things cost more than they used to. But I don’t think we truly feel it, not in our bones, until we sit down and look at our own numbers over our own lifetime. So, let’s do that. Two things many of us know well: filling up the car and putting lamb chops on the braai.

 Back in 1980, R1,000 bought you 2,000 litres of petrol, or 149.5 kilograms of lamb chops. By 2000, that same R1,000 got you 333.3 litres, or 28.6 kilograms of chops. Roll forward to 2026, and R1,000 buys you 37.6 litres of petrol, about enough for a scooter, or 4.5 kilograms of lamb chops. Scary numbers, aren’t they.

Here’s the part that surprised me. Over that 56-year stretch, fuel inflation ran 61.5% higher than official CPI. Lamb chops, on the other hand, tracked almost exactly what the Reserve Bank told us inflation was doing. Same country, same period, two completely different stories.

 And that’s the real lesson. Inflation isn’t one number that applies equally to all of us. It’s personal. It’s shaped entirely by how we live. Two people who look identical to the man in the street, similar homes, similar cars, similar age, can be experiencing completely different rates of erosion depending on what they eat, what they drive, and where they holiday. This creep happens so slowly that most of us never notice it happening.

 This is exactly why I get uneasy when I see retirement plans built on static numbers and rules of thumb, treating every client as if they’re identical to their neighbour. That approach can lead to real trouble. On one side, you risk running out of money before you run out of life. On the other, sadder in my view, you leave behind a pile of money that could have funded experiences and time with the people you love most.

It’s never too late to take control of this. Your retirement plan should be as unique as you are, and building that only takes some time and care. If this has got you thinking about your own numbers, pop in for a chat. I know we can help.

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Dirk Groeneveld, Certified Financial Planner

t. 083 261 9287

e. dirk@clientcare.co.za