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  <title><![CDATA[Brook Vault Path]]></title>
  <link>https://brookvaultpath.com/</link>
  <description><![CDATA[Brook Vault Path is a fee-only financial advisory practice in Niigata. Daniel Ashworth, Chartered Financial Planner, offers honest, commission-free advice for individuals and families.]]></description>
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    <title><![CDATA[What I have been thinking about: sequence-of-returns risk in a volatile summer]]></title>
    <link>https://brookvaultpath.com/</link>
    <description><![CDATA[Markets have been choppy since May. I have had several clients ask whether they should do something. Here is the longer version of what I have been telling them, and why the answer is almost always 'not yet'.]]></description>
    <pubDate>2026-07-14</pubDate>
  </item>
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    <title><![CDATA[A note on the pension changes coming in April 2027]]></title>
    <link>https://brookvaultpath.com/</link>
    <description><![CDATA[The government confirmed in the Spring Statement that unused pension funds will form part of the taxable estate from April 2027. Here is what that actually means for most people, and what, if anything, to do about it.]]></description>
    <pubDate>2026-06-02</pubDate>
  </item>
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    <title><![CDATA[Why I still think the annual review is the right cadence]]></title>
    <link>https://brookvaultpath.com/</link>
    <description><![CDATA[A client asked me recently whether we should be meeting quarterly given how much has been happening. Here is the longer answer, and why I think more frequent reviews often produce worse decisions.]]></description>
    <pubDate>2026-04-22</pubDate>
  </item>
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    <title><![CDATA[On the difference between financial planning and investment management]]></title>
    <link>https://brookvaultpath.com/</link>
    <description><![CDATA[These two things are often bundled together and sold as one service. They are not the same thing, and understanding the difference matters when you are choosing who to work with.]]></description>
    <pubDate>2026-03-10</pubDate>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title><![CDATA[How to build a two-year cash buffer before you retire]]></title>
    <link>https://brookvaultpath.com/notes/two-year-cash-buffer-retirement.html</link>
    <guid>https://brookvaultpath.com/notes/two-year-cash-buffer-retirement.html</guid>
    <description><![CDATA[I've been thinking about the cash buffer problem for a while now, and I keep finding that most retirement advice either hand-waves through it ("keep some cash on hand!") or goes so deep into Monte Carlo simulations that the actual practical steps get buried. So here's my attempt to work through it concretely. The core idea is straightforward: if you hold enough cash to cover roughly two years of living expenses outside your investment portfolio, you can ride out a bad market without being forced to sell equities at depressed prices. That forced selling is, I think, one of the most underappreciated risks in early retirement — not the average return, but the sequence of returns in the first two or three years. This piece is specifically about the mechanics of building that buffer before you retire, choosing the right account types, and thinking through how to replenish it once you're actually drawing it down. I'm still working some of this out myself, but I'll share what I've found useful.]]></description>
    <pubDate>2024-12-22</pubDate>
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    <title><![CDATA[ISA vs pension in your 40s: a decision framework for higher earners]]></title>
    <link>https://brookvaultpath.com/notes/isa-vs-pension-higher-earners-40s.html</link>
    <guid>https://brookvaultpath.com/notes/isa-vs-pension-higher-earners-40s.html</guid>
    <description><![CDATA[I've been sitting with this question for a few months now, partly because I keep getting versions of it from people in their early-to-mid 40s who are finally earning good money and feel vaguely guilty that they haven't "sorted it out" yet. The ISA vs pension debate sounds simple on the surface — tax-free growth now versus tax relief now — but for people earning between £60,000 and £100,000, there are two specific wrinkles that change the calculation dramatically: the personal allowance taper and the high income child benefit charge. I'm going to work through the decision tree here as honestly as I can, including the parts where I think the answer is genuinely "it depends." I'll flag where I'm still working things out, and I'll be specific about numbers because abstract principles aren't actually that useful when you're staring at a payslip wondering what to do next.]]></description>
    <pubDate>2026-03-21</pubDate>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title><![CDATA[What the April 2027 pension inheritance tax change means for your estate plan]]></title>
    <link>https://brookvaultpath.com/notes/pension-inheritance-tax-2027-estate-plan.html</link>
    <guid>https://brookvaultpath.com/notes/pension-inheritance-tax-2027-estate-plan.html</guid>
    <description><![CDATA[I've been sitting with this one for a while, partly because the policy detail is genuinely fiddly and partly because I wanted to wait until HMRC published its technical consultation response before writing anything definitive. We now have enough to work with. From April 2027, defined contribution pension funds that you haven't spent — the pot sitting in your SIPP or workplace pension when you die — will for the first time be brought inside your estate for inheritance tax purposes. That's a significant structural shift. For the last couple of decades, the received wisdom in retirement planning was "spend other assets first, let the pension pass IHT-free." That playbook is being rewritten. I'm still working through some of the edge cases myself, but the core mechanics are clear enough that I think it's worth walking through them now, before April 2027 starts to feel urgent and rushed.]]></description>
    <pubDate>2025-09-02</pubDate>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title><![CDATA[Sequence-of-returns risk: the retirement danger most people have not heard of]]></title>
    <link>https://brookvaultpath.com/notes/sequence-of-returns-risk-retirement.html</link>
    <guid>https://brookvaultpath.com/notes/sequence-of-returns-risk-retirement.html</guid>
    <description><![CDATA[I want to talk about a risk that I think is genuinely under-discussed, even among people who have spent years planning carefully for retirement. Most of us grow up internalising a simple mental model: earn a decent average return, withdraw a sensible percentage each year, and the math works out. I believed that model for longer than I should have. The problem is that it is wrong in one very specific, very consequential way — and the flaw only shows up at the worst possible moment, which is right after you stop working. The order in which your returns arrive turns out to matter enormously when you are drawing down a portfolio, not just accumulating one. I am still working through some of the finer calibrations of this with clients, but the core insight is solid enough that I want to write it out properly here.]]></description>
    <pubDate>2026-03-04</pubDate>
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  <item>
    <title><![CDATA[How to read a pension statement: a plain English walkthrough]]></title>
    <link>https://brookvaultpath.com/notes/how-to-read-pension-statement.html</link>
    <guid>https://brookvaultpath.com/notes/how-to-read-pension-statement.html</guid>
    <description><![CDATA[I got my first pension statement at twenty-six and genuinely had no idea what I was looking at. There were numbers everywhere — transfer values, fund values, projected incomes — and none of them seemed to connect to each other in an obvious way. I put the envelope in a drawer and forgot about it for two years, which I now know is exactly the wrong thing to do. If you have a pension statement sitting on your desk (or more likely buried in an email folder), this walkthrough is my attempt to give you the map I wish I'd had. I'm going to go through each meaningful number one by one, tell you what it's actually saying about your retirement, and flag the moments where you should sit up and pay attention rather than nod and file it away.]]></description>
    <pubDate>2025-05-21</pubDate>
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