Six moments that ask a household to rewrite the year.

Use this page to see which questions belong to your moment, and which papers are worth finding before you sit down. When you know the moment, ask the office for the sitting that matches it.

A wedding in the family

Write down every sum that has already been promised, and mark which ones are gifts and which ones will be asked back. Include the hall, the clothes, the gold that must still be bought, and a cash buffer for the fortnight after the feast. If both families are paying, both families need the same page.

Bring any list you already keep, the savings book, and the name of anyone whose transfer has a repayment attached. The matching sitting is the household money review when the question is how two people will share a year. If the wedding is the one large project on the calendar, the milestone session writes the longer order of payments.

Building on land the family already holds

The land title and the money for posts, a roof, and finishes are different. Ask the builder for stages. Beside each stage, write the month the cash will exist. Count a relative’s labour as help, and keep a separate line for materials the yard will still invoice.

Bring the land papers you are willing to show, the builder’s stages if you have them, and a note of any other duty — school, a parent, a loan — that the build must not swallow. This is usually a milestone planning session.

Buying a house of your own

A purchase has a deposit, a transfer, and then the years of living in it. Write the deposit as its own sum, separate from furniture and from the repairs the seller will not do. If a relative is lending the deposit, write the repayment month before you sign anything you cannot unwind.

Bring the asking price, what you have saved, and any loan terms you have already been shown. We will not choose the lender. We will show whether the deposit and the first year of living can sit beside the rest of the household. That work sits inside the milestone session.

School terms, and a later year away

List fees, transport, uniform, and the extra that appears at the opening of a year. Put the months your income arrives on the facing column. If a son or daughter may study in another city, keep that year in its own column so it does not eat the current term.

Bring the latest invoice and a rough note of strong and thin months. The sitting for this is the education funding plan.

The month a salary, a boat, or a stall stops

Place the pension letter, or the last year of takings, next to an ordinary month: food, medicine, transport, support you still give, and the house. Name the year a roof or a medical cost is likely to arrive. If an envelope to a parent will continue, it belongs inside the figure, and the parent should hear the number.

Bring the pension estimate if you have it, savings books, and a month of spending in whatever form you already use. The sitting is the retirement income map.

After a death, or before one

List the house, the gold, the plots, the savings, and the debts on one page. Keep memories of promises in a separate column from documents you can hold. Decide who must be in the room to hear the list. A lawyer drafts the will or the transfer. The list is what you hand them so the drafting starts from one set of facts.

Bring the papers you have, and tell anyone invited to the second meeting why they are coming. The sitting is the family provision conversation.

When you know the moment, ask for the sitting.

Name the milestone in a note to the office. If you are between two of them, say so. We will tell you which session fits, and which one should wait.

Arrange a planning session