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If you’re looking for a financial planner to help advise on pensions, savings and retirement planning, it’s important to understand what they offer and how they work. In this, our second blog on what to ask a financial planner before engaging their services, we look at five more questions to

Do you use the services of a financial planner? Have you thought about doing so but aren’t sure what – or who – you are looking for? According to the Financial Advice Market Review around one in ten adults a year seek advice on investments, saving into

The Budget saw a raft of announcements affecting people and businesses alike, but it was what the Chancellor didn’t do rather than what he did do which is likely to have the biggest impact on individuals.   Below we have summarised the key points

The end of the financial year is usually 5th April (click HERE to find out why it’s earlier in 2021) so now is a great time to look at your finances and make the best use of your tax allowances. There are a number of steps you could take,

This tax year effectively ends on the 1st April 2021. No, this is not an April fool’s joke but the result of a “perfect storm” of dates, days and bank holidays. Maundy Thursday falls on 1st April 2021, which means that Good Friday is 2nd April 2021 – a bank

How to avoid running out of money in retirement  In our last blog, we looked at the challenge faced when you’ve just retired to ensure you have enough money to last you for the rest of your life.  The challenge is akin to climbing a

Have you Got a Will? It may be surprising to hear but around 56% of adults in the UK do not have a Will. You don’t get to decide what happens to your estate when you die intestate (without a Will). The intestacy rules are very clear and set out

We spend much of our working lives looking towards retirement as a goal. But actually, retirement is not the destination, it’s only part of the journey – and the harder part can be managing our finances after we’ve stopped working.  Using the analogy of mountaineering, think of working life

You may have seen in the press this month that the minimum pension age is changing. In 2014, the government announced that the minimum age that you can access your personal pension would be increasing from 55 to 57. Until now this change had not been bought into law. An

We specialise in supporting you with your retirement planning, inevitably this means focusing on your pensions. Most of you will already have pensions (perhaps several) and one thing we always check is whether you have completed an ‘expression of wish’ form. As you may know, an expression of wishes form

Are you saving enough to live the life you want in retirement? It’s an important question, especially for younger people who face the prospect of waiting longer to receive a state pension income. Automatic enrolment into a workplace pension was introduced to encourage more people to make their own provision

How much will you spend in retirement? It’s an important question when you’re planning for the future, as the cost of living in later life can make the difference between having enough and running out of money. According to some new research, higher than expected living costs in retirement are

It’s an awkward financial position when you have more month than money. Running out of money before the end of the month typically leads to a cycle of debt. Without a robust budget, and the ability to live within your means, this debt can grow beyond manageable levels. But what

This year marks the 90th anniversary of ‘votes for women’. Society has come a long way during this time in terms of women’s rights, however financial inequality is still one of our greatest social challenges. Research suggests the typical pension pot for a man currently aged between 25 and 34

For many years, rampant house price inflation was a decent earner for many families across the UK. In some cases, people were ‘earning’ more from the rising value of their property than they were earning from employment or self-employment. This situation has dramatically changed in recent years, with the gap between earnings and property