About

Fairhaven Wealth’s primary service for new clients consists of two three-hour discussions, that take place within approximately one or two weeks of each other. These meetings are followed by a draft financial plan report, which you read and we discuss before finalising the report. From there it is up to you whether and to what extent you implement the recommendations in this plan.

That said, this isn’t a fixed package. The right shape for an engagement depends on what you want from it. Some clients want exactly this; others want something smaller, or something differently shaped. I’m happy to start with an initial conversation — at no cost and no obligation — to work out whether and how we might work together. If what you actually want from me is a one-off conversation rather than what is described above, that’s fine too.

How much does this service cost?

My headline rate is $300 per hour, including GST.

An “hour” of work, in this context, includes the preparation and writing-up that goes around our conversations — not just the time we spend together on the phone, on Zoom, or in person. Documenting advice properly is mandatory (more on this further down), and a meaningful share of any engagement is the documentation that supports it.

For some engagements, where I can get a good idea of how long the work is likely to take, I might offer an “anchored fee” arrangement rather than open-ended hourly billing. The way it works is described below.

Anchored fee arrangements

Before we start, you and I agree on an “anchored fee”, based on my honest mid-estimate of how long the work is likely to take. For a substantive engagement, an anchor of around 20 hours ($6,000 on-anchor) might be a reasonable starting point. (The exact number depends on your circumstances and what you want to achieve, and we agree it together.) For a smaller piece of work, the anchor (and the total) will be smaller.

If the work runs longer than the anchor, we split the difference. I bill at the midpoint between the anchor and the actual time taken — not the actual time itself.

If the work runs shorter than the anchor, we still split the difference — so I’m rewarded for being efficient.

If actual time is well under the anchor (say, half or less), I just bill actual hours, so genuinely quick work stays genuinely cheap.

A worked example, using a 20-hour anchor (illustrative only — anchors are agreed case by case):

The effective rate asymptotes to $150/hr at extreme overruns — it never runs away from you, and never drops below that floor.

An anchored fee only works where I can get a good idea of what the cost will be, so it is something I might offer for substantive first-time engagements rather than a default. For shorter, ad-hoc pieces of work — particularly with past clients — pure hourly rates are likely to be more appropriate than introducing anchored fee arrangements.

I offer anchored fee arrangements for three main reasons:

• It aligns expectations with reality at the invoice moment. With pure open-ended hourly billing, there’s a recurring risk that the invoice ends up being more than the client was braced for. The anchored structure largely designs that mismatch out — overruns mean you’re getting a bargain compared to the headline rate, and under-runs mean I’ve been rewarded for being efficient.

• It rewards efficiency rather than punishing it. Pure hourly creates a perverse incentive to “mow the lawn with scissors” — the slower the work, the more I earn. The anchored structure flips that: being efficient earns me more per hour. That matters because I use AI tools (with explicit client permission, in privacy-respecting ways) to support the work I do, and those tools are useful precisely because they compress preparation and reporting time.

• It shares risk. Your worst case is bounded compared to true hourly. My worst case is bounded compared to pure fixed-fee. Neither of us carries the full downside.

How do I invoice?

For most engagements, I invoice progressively as the work is done, rather than in a single bill at the end. Where there is an anchored fee, the final invoice reconciles against the anchor.

Is $300 per hour expensive?

Yes. For most people.

Is the service worth $300 per hour for most people? No.

Is the service worth $300 per hour for some people? Yes.

Is it expensive relative to how many financial planners charge? For many people, it’s cheap.

Many financial planners charge clients for ongoing services as a percentage of “assets under advice”. This usually comes out from the clients’ investment portfolio, which the adviser manages, and can be a little opaque in the sense that you may not easily notice what you are paying. If you are investing $1 million or more with the help of a financial planner, there’s a good chance that you are already paying significantly more than the cost of an engagement with Fairhaven Wealth each year. If you have a portfolio of significantly more than this, then Fairhaven Wealth’s fees are probably a small fraction of what you are paying. You may not be aware of it, but it’s quite possible that the fees you pay in relation to your investment assets are your biggest annual expense.

To be clear, Fairhaven Wealth’s services are more limited in scope than the services that most financial planners provide. They are offering an ongoing service, and they are managing transactions and providing reporting on your behalf. These services are valuable and important for many people. However, for some people, I believe that Fairhaven Wealth provides a lot of the genuine value that they would receive from these ongoing engagements, and possibly with lower risk and potential conflict of interest. (Lower risk because there is no third party that can touch your finances; and fewer conflicts of interest because Fairhaven Wealth’s remuneration model isn’t linked to a particular class of financial assets, which could potentially lead to a bias in favour of investing these types of assets, or even a bias against spending or giving money away, when this might be appropriate.)

What will I get out of this service?

In a sense, my first question to you will be what you want to get out of the service!! It will depend on your current circumstances, needs, and objectives.

You might, for instance, want me to do something that resembles a holistic review of your situation, and get fresh insights, identifying areas that might require your attention, suggesting what you could do (“you don’t know what you don’t know!”). Alternatively, you might have a high-stakes decision that you want to make, and want to focus the engagement on that (although I will still insist on considering this decision within the broader context of your situation).

One way of getting an idea of what you might get from the service is by reading directly from clients on the testimonials page of this site here.

Examples of ways I’ve helped clients:

• For many clients, I’ve helped them realise that they’re investing far more conservatively than necessary – and in doing so, are taking on risks that they have been overlooking – of being significantly worse-off over the long-run, by being too focused on short-term fluctuations. As a result of these conversations, they have been able to align their investment decisions more closely with their actual risk profile, and become comfortable with doing so.

• Several clients have been entertaining investments that were far riskier than they appreciated, after I pointed out various aspects of the investments. Often this also involved noting that these investments weren’t actually aligned with their goals and priorities in life. There have been instances where clients have avoided significant losses and hassle as a result of this.

• Many clients have become much more comfortable and confident in their financial situation in general. The type of people who engage Fairhaven Wealth aren’t representative of the general population, in the sense that they tend to be in a comfortable financial position. However, I have been able to translate this intellectual understanding into a deeper, more felt sense, that they will be just fine. It means they can worry less about the money part of their lives and focus on enjoying other aspects of their journey through life.

• Many clients have come away from engagements with a much better understanding of insurance, and confidence that they are not paying too much or too little in premiums.

• Many clients with their own businesses have realised that there is value in investing more into their business – among other reasons, to manage key-person risk, prepare the business for succession (increasing its value, or turning it into an asset), and free up time to focus on other things.

• Several clients have subsequently chosen to take “sabbaticals” from their current professional life, to do something that is more personally rewarding, that might provide more value to the world, or that might be more financially beneficial over the longer run even if there may be short-term costs or risks.

• Some clients have more thoughtfully reflected on their plans for the next generation. Some have decided to “give with a warm hand rather than a cold hand” (ie, be more generous during their lifetimes). Others have realised that they have to be more careful about how they assist family members. It has prompted some to think more deeply about how to prepare their loved ones to be greater stewards of their eventual inheritance. Some have thought about different ways to assist their loved ones – for example, by more actively assisting with education costs for grandchildren, or even assisting with insurance premiums (since for many clients and trustees, the insurable risks of their loved ones can often become their own risks, and the risks of other loved ones/beneficiaries).

• Some clients have thought more concretely about the strategy for giving to causes they care about, including aligning their giving with the true values and beliefs, and focusing more on effectiveness than “fuzzies”.

What do I need to do before our conversations?

The most important thing to bring to our conversations is your good, candid self.

I don’t give you any forms or checklists. I don’t prescribe that you do anything or provide me anything in advance of our initial meeting.

Prepare as much or as little as you like, in whatever way you like.

If you like, you can provide information ahead of time (eg via email). Or you can have it to hand at the time of our first meeting, and use that to help set the agenda for our conversations. Or you can just turn up to the meeting with your good, candid self, and I’ll start asking questions.

If you share any information, I prefer to see it in the way that you record and process it, which will help me understand even better where you’re coming from. This is one of the reasons I don’t provide you with any forms or checklists: I don’t want to create any filters that might homogenise the way you think about things.

Many clients have historically provided nothing before the first meeting. Some clients have provided lots of information and detail beforehand – balance sheets, budgets, schedules of assets and insurance, trust deeds, tax returns, documents setting out what they want to achieve, etc. Many of these clients find these meetings to be a good “forcing function” for them to collate everything and put things in writing in their own way.

If, after the first conversation, it seems like there is additional information that would be valuable, I’ll let you know – either during the conversation or in a follow-up email. If there are any exercises or things that I recommend you reflect on between the first and second meeting, I will let you know.

What specific financial topics or areas do you typically cover in your conversations?

It depends.

Historically, clients would often start our engagement thinking that their concern was working out how to invest in financial assets, when it became clear that there were other matters that were more important (even in terms of financial significance). For example, decisions relating to their professional lives or lifestyles.

A big part of our conversations revolves around determining what specifically to focus on. I don’t want to start the engagement with a myopic focus on financial topics. However, if there are specific financial topics that are important to cover, we will do that.

Do I have a deep understanding of every financial asset and product out there? No. No one does.

Do you want to discuss an individual, publicly listed company, and its future prospects? I’m probably not going to add any value. I believe in a version of the efficient market hypothesis in relation to these sorts of investments – the market for these investments may not be efficient, but they are inefficient in ways that we can’t predict, so we might as well treat them as efficient, and accept that the market price for investments in these assets reflect all available information.

A particular investment offering, whether that be a managed investment scheme directed towards retail clients, or even wholesale clients? I can look into it. My legal background (which has included working directly for a fund manager, and also preparing and updating Product Disclosure Statements (PDSs), and underlying documents (such as trust deeds) for these sorts of products), informed by my time as a financial planner, has equipped me well for this.

Insurance? I can speak in general terms in relation to personal insurance – such as life insurance, income and mortgage protection insurance, trauma/critical illness insurance, and total and permanent disability insurance. I can talk, generally, about health insurance, and also in relation to some general insurance products (but with less granularity). I do not provide advice about specific insurance products: I would suggest you speak to a product specialist about this (and am happy to refer you to someone if necessary). However, I can speak about these sorts of products within the broader context of your situation, particularly in terms of what you want to achieve – and don’t want to happen. I can also speak generally about the level of cover that might be appropriate for you, and why.

Lending? This isn’t something I really touch, except in the context of your broader situation (for example, whether additional lending would be appropriate or not).

Over time, the main thing I’ve found is that the true value with financial planning doesn’t relate to the specific underlying financial assets. It’s about how they work together, at a holistic, big picture level. To the extent it relates to investment assets, it relates to your overall asset allocation – that is, how your assets are spread across different types of investments across the entire range of your investments, whether that be KiwiSaver, investments in one or more managed funds, investments in publicly listed shares, investments in private companies, investments in real estate, and the like.

I can, and am prepared to, discuss a number of financial topics at a granular level. However, I am reluctant to do that without a solid grounding of how that topic fits within your broader situation.

Will I receive a comprehensive, documented financial plan?

For my primary service for new clients, yes — you’ll receive a financial plan report that we draft, discuss, and finalise together. For smaller or differently-shaped engagements, the form of documentation varies — sometimes a structured email or set of emails is more appropriate than a full report. What documentation looks like in any given case depends on what you need, and committing to a fixed format in advance doesn’t make sense.

What stays constant is that documentation isn’t optional. Whatever form it takes, you’ll always receive a written record of the key things we discussed, including any advice I provide, with the reasons for it and the risks associated with it.

There are three reasons documentation matters this much:

• Regulatory. I’m required by law to document the advice I provide, including the reasons for that advice and the risks associated with it. That’s a non-negotiable part of how I do this work.

• Practical, for future reference. Neither of us will remember the detail of our conversations a year or three from now. The written record is what we both refer back to — to act on, to revisit, and to ground any future engagement we might have. I’ve also heard from clients who tell me they regularly refer to reports and emails I’ve prepared for them in the past.

• The writing is part of producing the advice. Especially when preparing a financial plan, the act of writing it is itself part of the work. Recommendations often need thoughtful consideration that can’t happen in real time during a conversation. Stepping back and writing the plan often surfaces angles, tensions, or considerations that wouldn’t have come up in conversation alone.

This is also why the time covered by an engagement isn’t only the time we spend on the phone, on Zoom, or in person. Doing the documentation properly takes time, and that time is part of the engagement — and part of the anchor.

If the outcome of the engagement isn’t satisfactory, please tell me — I’d rather know and address it than not.

I love having ongoing relationships with clients. I love staying in touch with past clients and finding out how they are going after we’ve worked together. It is one of the most rewarding parts of what I do. I now count many of my former clients as friends.

But that doesn’t translate to an ongoing service engagement, which results in you committing to pay Fairhaven Wealth on an ongoing basis.

In this sense, Fairhaven Wealth only provides one-off services. You can engage Fairhaven Wealth again in the future, but the onus is on you to make that decision and re-engage.

This is fundamentally different from a lot of financial advisers. Most engagements, are ongoing arrangements, which involve the adviser committing to provide ongoing services – not to mention, a commitment on you to pay ongoing fees.

For many people, ongoing service arrangements are appropriate and suitable. If you want or need an ongoing arrangement like this, then Fairhaven Wealth will not be right for you.

However, if you want to work on a one-off basis, and don’t want to feel “locked” into an ongoing service – and fee – arrangement, then Fairhaven Wealth’s service might be appropriate for you.

What about questions afterwards? Can I schedule reviews?

If you have questions that arise after the engagement is complete, I’m just an email or a phone call away.

I don’t charge for short follow-up conversations. In fact, I love to hear from past clients! It’s rewarding, and receiving updates from past clients informs the discussions I have with other clients! It’s win-win!

I’ll only charge for significant additional work. Where this is the case, we discuss this transparently and make it clear beforehand before any billable work begins. To date all clients have been satisfied with this. If anything I’m considered “too reasonable” when it comes to charging for follow-up work.

If you have engaged Fairhaven Wealth before and are thinking about re-engaging, get in touch sooner rather than later. For a limited period, I’m offering discounted rates to past clients.

Fairhaven Wealth doesn’t:

• provide legal advice, accounting or tax advice, budgeting services, mortgage broking services, or insurance product advice;

• help you if you’re having issues with dealing with debt and making ends meet;

• try to “beat the market” or “time the market”;

• talk with certainty about what the future holds; or

• touch your money and implement its recommendations on your behalf.

When you work with Fairhaven Wealth, you work with me – Sonnie Bailey. I don’t have any employees and don’t plan on employing anyone.

To get a sense of how I see the world, I encourage you to look at my blog, Wealth & Risk, where I published articles regularly for approximately 10 years. One of the reasons for writing publicly was to develop my thinking about a lot of topics, my ability to communicate these ideas, and get the benefit of making my ideas legible and open to scrutiny.

My qualifications

I have a Bachelor of Laws (LLB), a Bachelor of Commerce (BCom) (economics and finance), a Masters of Entrepreneurship degree, a Diploma in Financial Planning, and a Graduate Certificate in Professional Coaching.

As a lawyer I’ve provided trust and estate planning services to many clients. I’ve also worked for many years as a financial services lawyer, working with banks, insurance companies, managed funds, and many financial advice businesses.

Wearing a legal/compliance/risk hat, I’ve reviewed thousands of advice files prepared by hundreds of advisers, and spoken with dozens of advisers in depth about their business and advice processes. As a result of this, I saw excellent advice, and a lot of bad advice. This informed how I provide advice and operate Fairhaven Wealth.

I’ve met all the educational requirements necessary to be authorised to provide comprehensive financial advice.

How I maintain my competence, knowledge, and skills

I maintain my competence, knowledge, and skill in a variety of ways:

1. Continuous Learning:

   • I read, listen to, and watch a wide range of resources relating to personal finance. I strive to be “promiscuous” in terms of where I source information, to get as many different perspectives as possible. One area in which I pay special attention is to regulatory changes. I try to retain a nuanced view on these changes: I want to understand what I can and can’t do, the reasons and spirit behind these rules, and act according to these obligations (while also trying to avoid “lawful-but-awful” conduct). Separate to this, I also sometimes have strong opinions on whether I think the regulatory rules are good or could be better, and also in terms of how effectively they are regulated. When there are changes that I feel strongly about, I make submissions in relation to them (for example: my recent submission relating to the FMA’s access to advice review.)

   • Historically, I have used my blog, Wealth & Risk, as a context for putting my ideas in writing, working out what I actually think, interrogating these points, and developing the ability to communicate my thoughts and feelings.

   • Pursuing formal qualifications that align with what I am doing professionally at a given point in time. I completed my financial planning diploma while acting as a financial services lawyer, to better understand the world of financial advisers I was working with. I recently completed a graduate certificate in professional coaching because I felt like the skills and knowledge related to coaching were highly relevant to the work I was doing as a financial planner.

   • Building software tools for data analysis and decision-making. Through Future Friends I have published finance-related tools for Kiwis, including Snoopy and Flawcastr, with more to come. Building these forces me to think precisely about the problems my clients face. I’ve also built tools to make my own advice process more efficient and robust.

2. Professional Engagement:

   • I’ve been a member of Financial Advice New Zealand (FANZ), where I served on the Risk Member Advisory Committee, advising the CEO and the board in relation to substantive matters impacting advisers in the industry, and was a founding member of the Canterbury region committee. I’ve previously been a member of the New Zealand Law Society, where I was a founding member of an Elder Law Special Interest Group. I’ve also held memberships with the New Zealand Institute of Directors and the Governance Institute of Australia. I’m not currently a member of any professional organisations, as I haven’t found them relevant to my current needs. However, when that changes I don’t hesitate to join these organisations and get involved.

3. Practical Experience:

   • Working directly with clients has been one of the most valuable ways of maintaining my competency. In-depth conversations with thoughtful clients who ask valuable questions have been particularly beneficial. Even during periods when I’m not actively advising, I maintain informal discussions with peers and previous clients, which serves as a practical test of my ongoing competence.

My biases and prejudices

I have biases and prejudices. I’m human: we all have ‘em.

My bias is that it’s impossible to have a one-size-fits-all approach to your finances (or life in general): we are all different, and our plans should be different. What works for your friend, family member, colleague, or neighbour may work for them. But that doesn’t mean it’ll work for you – because we’re all unique people, with our own idiosyncratic circumstances, needs, values, and priorities.

I have a bias towards thinking of “wealth” beyond financial terms. I often speak in terms of people investing in their health and in their relationships, because I believe that these are fundamental to living a rich life.

In terms of personal finance, my general belief is that the simpler you can keep your financial affairs, the better. A good goal is to make your financial life boring, so you can make the rest of your life interesting. (“As simple as possible, but not simpler.”)

In terms of investing, I have something of an “inefficient market hypothesis”. Specifically, I believe that most investments operate in inefficient markets. However, in many markets – particularly markets for shares in publicly-traded companies – the market is inefficient in ways that we can’t predict, so we might as well treat it as efficient. Because of this, when it comes to shares, I have a bias towards investing in “passive” index-based funds. Instead of trying to beat the market, you should make sure that you don’t get beaten by the market.

Other markets, however, are inefficient, and “active” investment might be appropriate. This relates to property investment, investing in personal ventures, and even in terms of investing in human capital. These are markets where there are inefficiencies that you might be able to exploit if you have the right talents and inclinations.

I think that many of our biggest financial risks can’t be insured against. These include professional risks (such as being displaced from the workforce) and risks associated with relationship break-downs.

Some risks can be insured against, though, and I consider insurance to be a wonder of the modern world – similar to vaccines. Insurance is a mechanism for sharing risk with other people. Insurance companies facilitate these arrangements, and make a profit in doing so, but someone has to do it, and without these organisations, much of this risk-sharing wouldn’t be happening. I don’t envy their role in trying to assess and price risk, and making sure that payouts are only made in appropriate cases, and I’m grateful that they exist to do this. Having said that, I am mindful that many people are over-insured, paying premiums to manage risks that are no longer relevant to them.

I have a slight bias towards people decumulating capital over the course of their retirement rather than “living off the interest” or “the interest of the interest”. There might be situations where this is appropriate, but it is often an indicator that people are prioritising money over other aspects of life.

My bias is to be distrustful of advice influenced strongly by conflicts of interest. I subscribe to the view of “show me the incentives and I’ll show you the outcomes”.

Having said all of the above, I believe there is room for genuine good faith debate about all of these things, and I also appreciate that people can legitimately weigh different things in different ways.

Ultimately, I’m biased towards recognising that I’m not the final authority on anything (even aspects of my own life!). I urge my clients to push back and challenge me on anything I say. I encourage people to “question the question”.

I believe that you are the final authority on your own life.

How I invest my own money

In my blog, I’ve been pretty transparent regarding how I approach my own finances. The most recent detailed update was in 2019 where I explained “How I money”. Not much has changed since then.

Can you work with clients who already have advisers?

Yes. A number of my clients already have relationships with advisers and engage me for a fresh perspective in relation to their financial affairs.

Because I provide an advice-only service, you can engage me and this won’t interrupt your current engagement with your existing adviser at all.

When I set up Fairhaven Wealth, I did it so I could follow what I call the “family and friends rule”. That is, I would provide my clients with the same guidance I’d provide to close friends and family members if they were in your position. In fact, I recommend what I would do if I were in your shoes.

Many financial service providers say they are “independent” or “unbiased”, or market themselves as “fiduciaries”. I often consider these descriptions to be misleading. With Fairhaven Wealth, I have structured the business so that my interests are as aligned with my clients as much as humanly possible.

The only remuneration I receive is directly from clients.

The only remuneration I receive is from clients. I invoice and clients pay me directly. Third parties don’t pay me or provide me with any benefits that represent incentives-in-disguise. I don’t have opaque payment arrangements where fees are paid via third parties. I don’t receive commission. I don’t receive money that is tied to how clients implement my advice.

I’m the sole shareholder of Fairhaven Ventures Ltd and receive income in the form of drawings from the business.

My conflicts of interest

Fairhaven Wealth has been structured so that conflicts of interest are avoided, rather than managed.

In this sense, Fairhaven Wealth doesn’t have any substantive conflicts of interest, compared to financial service providers who focus on managing conflicts rather than avoiding them.

Fairhaven Wealth doesn’t have any relationship with third parties that might influence its service. Of note:

• I don’t have any formal referral arrangements that involve fees or anything of that nature. If I refer someone to another professional, the only reason I make this referral is because I believe there is a good fit with the person and the service that professional is likely to provide. I don’t receive anything in return from that professional for the referral – except the peace of mind of knowing that they won’t embarrass me by providing a sub-standard service.

• Over time, I’ve developed professional and personal relationships with people from different organisations, including people who work with certain financial providers. However, I prioritise my independence and the interests of my clients over these relationships.

To the extent Fairhaven Wealth has a conflict of interest, it is that I charge by the hour: the slower the work, the more I earn. One way I manage this is by offering an “anchored fee” rather than open-ended hourly billing where the work is predictable enough to estimate: under that structure, being efficient earns me a higher effective rate, and being slow caps out at a lower one. Offering one-off services also creates an incentive for me to provide high-quality services, because I won’t receive additional work from existing clients, or receive referrals, unless the service I provide is of sufficiently high quality.

One other subtle conflict of interest, that is present for any service provider, is the inclination to want to CMA, or “cover my ass”. This can create a situation where an adviser might be tempted to be over-cautious because they don’t want to expose clients to risk that might in turn expose them to risk. This is the case even if the clients might have a higher appetite for risk and be prepared to take on risk, in a fully informed manner. This is one central reason why I don’t provide cookie-cutter advice: I provide all of my advice in the context of my clients’ circumstances, needs, and objectives. On top of this, the best I can do is be up-front about this, mindful of it, communicate it, and do my best to ensure that conversations don’t end up being a personal Rorschach test.

If you have more questions, or want to go ahead, call me on 021 0269 2213 or email me at sonnie@fairhavenwealth.co.nz!

Our initial conversation is free and involves no obligation.