Fictitious name, real case.
“I have €350,000, a business, two children and no idea what to do”
Giovanni wrote to us in September with a three-line message. He was not looking for that year’s return, he did not want to know which ETF to buy, and he did not need an opinion on the markets. He needed something no one had ever offered him: a plan.
Forty-nine years old, an entrepreneur, he had been running a specialised mechanical workshop for twenty years, with six employees and solid revenues. Married to Chiara, with two sons aged 12 and 15. A home he owned, a nearly paid-off mortgage and savings accumulated over time. And a growing feeling that he had no control over the situation.
This is not the story of a man in difficulty. It is the story of a man who had done things properly—worked, saved and avoided wasting money—but who at a certain point realised that saving is not enough. That having money set aside does not mean having a plan. And that without a plan, even €350,000 can work against you.
As you will see, his situation is nothing exceptional. It is exactly the situation faced by thousands of middle-aged Italian entrepreneurs and professionals. That is why I am telling it.
The starting situation: plenty of money, no strategy
When Giovanni sat down with us—virtually—for his initial pre-consultation, this was the picture:
The assets
| Component | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Bank mutual funds | €200,000 | Average costs: 2.4% per year |
| Cash in current account | €100,000 | Uninvested for more than 3 years |
| BTPs | €50,000 | Purchased in 2023 |
| Home owned | ~€300,000 | Outstanding mortgage: €80,000 |
| TFR held in the company | ~€40,000 | Never transferred to a pension fund |
Total financial assets: approximately €350,000 in liquid and invested assets. Total net worth, including the property and TFR and net of the mortgage: approximately €610,000.
Entirely respectable figures. The problem was not the amount. It was how the money was organised—which is to say, not at all.
What was not working
The bank funds. Giovanni had €200,000 invested in four mutual funds placed by his bank over the years. He did not know exactly how much they cost. His answer was the usual one: “Nothing, they do not charge me anything.” In reality, as happens in almost all cases, those funds had an average total cost of 2.4% per year.
On €200,000, that meant €4,800 a year in fees. Every year. Money leaving his assets without his awareness, without visible charges on his current account and without an invoice.
After five years of holding them, Giovanni had already given the banking industry more than €20,000 in implicit fees. In the meantime, those funds had also performed worse than their reference market, as statistically happens in most cases.
(If you also want to know how much you are paying for your investments, try the new Plannix cost calculator.)
Idle cash. One hundred thousand euros had been sitting in his current account for more than three years. During that period, cumulative inflation in Italy had eroded approximately 11–12% of its purchasing power. In real terms, those €100,000 were already worth less than €90,000. Inaction is never free.
The standalone BTPs. Fifty thousand euros in a BTP purchased in 2023, without a portfolio rationale. Giovanni had bought it because “everyone was talking about it” and because it seemed like a safe choice. It was not necessarily wrong—but it was disconnected from any specific objective.
The forgotten TFR. Forty thousand euros of TFR left in the company, with no assessment of whether it should be transferred to a pension fund. A decision with significant tax implications that Giovanni had never analysed with anyone.
No insurance. An entrepreneur with six employees, a wife working part-time and two minor children. No life cover and no permanent disability cover. If something serious had happened to Giovanni, his family would have been left with a business to manage—or close—a mortgage to pay and no safety net.
That was the picture. Not dramatic, not disastrous. Simply disorganised. In our experience, that is how the overwhelming majority of Italians’ financial situations are.
The Plannix process: products never come first
I have repeated a concept for years that is the foundation of our method: financial products are the last thing we should discuss, not the first. Products come at the end of a process, not at the beginning.
With Giovanni, we followed the same process we follow with every client. It does not begin with “which ETF should I buy?” but with “what kind of life do you want to live?”
Phase 1 — The family balance sheet
The first thing we did was put everything down in black and white: income, assets, debts, recurring income, recurring expenses, existing insurance cover and pension situation.
This is not an accounting exercise, but an act of awareness. Like most people, Giovanni had never seen his financial situation in a single document. He had a rough idea of how much he had, but “roughly” and “exactly” are two different worlds.
This work showed, for example, that the family’s fixed expenses amounted to approximately €3,200 per month, including the mortgage. Giovanni knew this approximately. What he did not know was that maintaining his current lifestyle required net annual income of at least €48,000—a figure that would become essential in calculating his retirement needs.
Phase 2 — Analysing current costs
We reviewed the MiFID statement together: the document that European regulation requires banks to send and that the overwhelming majority of savers do not read—sometimes out of laziness, sometimes because they do not understand it and sometimes because they do not even know they receive it.
The result:
| Item | Annual amount |
|---|---|
| Fund management fees | €3,600 |
| Distribution fees, rebated to the bank | €960 |
| Transaction costs | €240 |
| Total annual cost | €4,800 |
Four thousand eight hundred euros a year, on €200,000 invested, for a service that essentially consisted of one phone call a year and Christmas greetings.
Giovanni remained silent for a few seconds. Then he said something we hear often: “But I thought I was not paying anything.”
That is exactly how the system works. It is not a bug, it is a feature, as they say in Silicon Valley. The fees do not leave the current account: they are deducted from the invested assets imperceptibly, every day. If you do not look for them, you will not find them. And the industry relies on the fact that most people never will.
Phase 3 — Objectives: three concrete questions
After taking stock of the current situation, we moved on to the question that matters: what do you want to do with this money?
Not “how much do you want to earn?”—the wrong question. Not “what return do you want?”—an incomplete question. But: which life objectives require money, when will you need it and how much will you need?
After approximately an hour and a half of conversation, Giovanni’s objectives crystallised into three clear points:
Objective 1 — The children’s university education (time horizon: 3–6 years). His older son would start in three years and the younger one in six. Giovanni wanted to ensure that both would have the possibility of studying away from home. Estimated cost: approximately €10,000–€12,000 per year for each child, including rent, university fees and living expenses. Estimated total budget: €80,000–€100,000 over 8–10 years.
Objective 2 — Retirement at age 65 (time horizon: 16 years). Giovanni wanted to stop working at 65—or at least have the option—while maintaining a decent standard of living. As a business owner, he did not have a particularly generous state pension. The pension analysis estimated a shortfall of approximately €800–€1,000 per month compared with his current income.
Objective 3 — Protecting the family (immediate). He recognised that, as the company’s sole owner and the main income earner, his family was exposed to enormous risk in the event of his death or disability.
Three objectives. Three different time horizons. Three different acceptable levels of risk. This is financial planning: not choosing a product, but building a map that connects your money to your life objectives.
The plan: the three-bucket strategy
Once the objectives had been defined, we organised the assets according to what we call the bucket strategy, the three-bucket wealth strategy.
The idea is simple: not all money has to do the same thing. Different money has different jobs, time horizons and instruments.
Bucket 1 — Security and short term: €80,000
| Purpose | Amount | Instruments |
|---|---|---|
| Emergency fund (6 months of expenses) | €50,000 | Savings account + short-term money-market instrument |
| Older son’s university education (first two years) | €30,000 | Short-term fixed income (1–3 years) |
These €80,000 must be liquid and stable. They do not need to grow; they need to be ready. No equity exposure and no significant fluctuation risk. An emergency does not wait for the market to rebound.
The €50,000 emergency fund—approximately 15 months of family expenses, slightly above the conventional minimum of six months to account for the entrepreneurial component and greater income variability—covers any unforeseen event without having to touch the investments.
The €30,000 for the older child’s university education is already essentially “spent” in the family’s mental plan: it will be needed in three years, and the only requirement is that it remain intact when it has to be withdrawn.
Bucket 2 — Medium term: €70,000
| Purpose | Amount | Instruments |
|---|---|---|
| University education (second child + completion) | €50,000 | Balanced 30/70 portfolio (30% equities, 70% bonds) |
| Medium-term reserve (5–8 years) | €20,000 | Diversified medium-term fixed income |
The second bucket has a 4–8-year time horizon. Long enough to tolerate a small risk component, but short enough not to overdo it. A balanced and prudent portfolio, predominantly fixed income, with a limited equity allocation to seek some real return without putting the capital at risk when it is needed.
Bucket 3 — Long term and growth: €200,000
| Purpose | Amount | Instruments |
|---|---|---|
| Retirement accumulation | €150,000 | 80/20 ETF portfolio (80% global equities, 20% bonds) |
| General wealth growth | €50,000 | Diversified global equities (MSCI World / ACWI) |
The third bucket is the engine of growth. With a 16-year horizon to retirement, there is ample time to let the equity market work. Not without fluctuations—there will be some, and they will be significant—but with the knowledge that, over the long term, the global equity market has historically been the most powerful ally of those who know how to wait.
Important note: these €200,000 must not be “touched” for at least 10–15 years. That is the agreement. If Giovanni sells everything at the first 20% decline, the plan fails. If he remains disciplined, compound interest does the heavy lifting. The plan works only if it is followed—which is the hardest part, and the reason advice exists.
Plan summary
| Bucket | Amount | Time horizon | Risk | Expected net return |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 — Security | €80,000 | 0–3 years | Very low | 2–3% |
| 2 — Medium term | €70,000 | 3–8 years | Low to medium | 3–5% |
| 3 — Growth | €200,000 | 10–16 years | Medium to high | 6–8% |
| Total | €350,000 |
Every euro has a job. Every job has a time horizon. Every time horizon has an appropriate instrument. There is nothing magical about it. There is a plan.
The tangible results: what changed
Costs: from €4,800 to €500 a year
Reducing costs was the first tangible victory. The bank funds costing 2.4% per year were replaced with a diversified ETF portfolio with an average cost of 0.25% per year.
| Before (bank funds) | After (ETF portfolio) | |
|---|---|---|
| Invested assets | €200,000 | €350,000 |
| Annual percentage cost | 2.40% | 0.25% |
| Annual cost in euros | €4,800 | €875 |
| Annual saving | ~€4,300 (on the previous asset base) |
Over a 16-year horizon, until retirement, those €4,300 saved each year and reinvested become approximately €115,000 in additional assets, assuming a hypothetical 6% return. This is not a random figure: it is the effect of compound costs—or, more precisely, compound savings. Every euro in fees not paid continues to generate returns in subsequent years.
Put bluntly: the bank funds were not simply costing Giovanni €4,800 a year. They were costing him a significant part of his retirement.
Insurance cover: the risk no one had pointed out
Giovanni took out a term life insurance policy with a sum insured of €500,000 and a 16-year term, until his younger son turns 65 and finishes university. Annual cost: approximately €600–€700.
With €600 a year—less than he had been spending on bank fees in a single month—Giovanni’s family is protected. If something happens to him, the mortgage is paid off, his children’s university education is guaranteed and Chiara has a financial cushion with which to reorganise her life.
No bank adviser had ever proposed it to him. Not out of malice: a pure term life policy pays the intermediary very little commission. There is no incentive to propose what the client needs when the business model is designed to sell what pays the seller.
Pensions: the TFR that is worth twice as much
After a tax and pension analysis, Giovanni began transferring his TFR—approximately €40,000—to an open pension fund, with an investment profile consistent with his time horizon.
The benefits include tax deductibility of additional voluntary contributions, preferential taxation upon payment—from 15% down to 9%, compared with the ordinary personal income tax rate applied to TFR left in the company—and an expected return higher than the statutory revaluation of TFR.
It was a decision he had never considered with anyone because no one had ever explained it to him in the context of his overall financial plan.
The real point: he did not need a genius, he needed a process
Giovanni did not need an investment guru. He did not need a miraculous portfolio, a proprietary algorithm or a forecast of the 2026 markets.
He needed someone to sit down with him, bring order, ask the right questions and build a plan. A plan based on his numbers, his objectives and his life.
That is the work we do. It is not sexy, it is not viral and it does not make the news. But it is what works.
True financial planning is not about choosing the right instrument, but about matching the right instruments to a person’s and family’s concrete needs. That is why I maintain that financial products are the final piece, not the first. And that is why “where should I put my money?” is always the wrong question to start with. (To learn more, read What is financial planning?)
Giovanni now has a plan. He knows exactly where his money is, why it is there and when he will need it. He knows how much he pays—a small amount—and what he receives in return: a real plan. Above all, for the first time in twenty years of working and saving, he feels in control.
It is not the feeling of having found the perfect investment. It is the much more solid feeling of knowing that his money is working for his life, and not for someone else’s.
FAQ
How much does the Plannix financial planning process cost?
It depends on the complexity of the situation and the level of personalisation required. Our solutions start at €990 including VAT for the Smart process—a guided do-it-yourself solution—and extend to personalised Private advice for larger assets. Prices are always explicit and communicated before starting: no surprises and no hidden costs. The objective is for the savings on investment costs to more than cover the fee in the first year. In Giovanni’s case, the savings on bank fund fees alone were worth more than €4,000 a year.
I have a situation similar to Giovanni’s: where should I start?
The first step is always the same: put your current situation down in black and white. How much you have, where you have it, how much it costs, what your objectives are and when you will need the money. If you want to do it with us, the process begins with an introductory pre-consultation in which we analyse your situation together and determine whether and how we can help. If you prefer to start independently, begin with your MiFID statement: retrieve it, read it and find out how much you are really paying. In our experience, that single document changes the perspective of anyone reading it for the first time.
Does the bucket strategy work for everyone, or only for people with substantial assets?
The logic of the bucket strategy—dividing assets according to time horizons—works for any amount. The complexity and number of instruments used will vary, but the principle is universal: money you need in one year should not go in the same container as money you need in fifteen years. With €50,000, you may have two buckets instead of three. With €500,000, you can structure them in greater detail. But the underlying concept is identical: every euro must have a job, a time horizon and a consistent instrument.
What if the markets collapse immediately after I invest?
This is the most common fear, and the answer lies in the plan itself. If the plan is correctly structured, the money you need in the short term—Bucket 1—is not exposed to the equity market. It does not matter if the markets fall by 30% tomorrow: your emergency fund and the money for your older child’s university education are safe. The equity portion—Bucket 3—has a 10–16-year time horizon. Historically, there has been no 15-year period in which a diversified global equity market produced negative returns. Temporary declines are the price of admission for long-term returns. Someone with a plan knows this and does not sell in panic. Someone without a plan panics. That is the entire difference.
