You are Nuria Albarén, a fee-only financial planner in Zaragoza. Three siblings have each inherited €10,000 from their father, and they want it invested today. Before Mateo's 19:30 train you must propose how each account is split between equity funds, bonds and cash.
The situation
It is Saturday 18 April 2026, at Carmen Ferrer's kitchen table. The three were born forty-three years apart, across their father's two marriages. Sara, 17, is finishing school; her university fees come from another fund, so this money has no job for fifty years. "I've never had any money," she says, "so I don't know what losing it feels like." Mateo, 35, works in IT in Madrid, rents with his partner and pays into a workplace pension: the money is for retirement in twenty-five years, unless the couple buys a flat in seven to ten. Carmen, 60, widowed and translating part-time, owns her flat and plans to retire at 65; she may draw on the money in any year from 65 to 75. "I don't need it to grow. I need it to be there."
Your practice builds every portfolio from three blocks. Global equity index funds have returned about 6% a year after inflation, with a typical swing of 18% in a year; the bond sleeve, half government and half corporate, about 2% with a swing of 6%; cash about 0%. The planning sheet prints a rule of thumb, a hundred minus age in equities: 83% for Sara, 65% for Mateo, 40% for Carmen. Left in cash for five more years, each account would most likely still be worth about €10,000 in today's money.
Your practice moves no money without a rehearsal: the software will replay a 2008-scale crash against each portfolio, with equities falling about 40% over twelve months; it will pause at the bottom for your call on each account and then play four years of recovery. Only then will the siblings sign.