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People will often get in touch with us because they are finding it difficult to take action or make a big decision. Having done the research they are simply over-whelmed with information. The result of this “analysis paralysis” is that they feel unable to make the decision. They

The only useful thing you can do with money is spend it. That’s right, spend it. I’ll say it again, spend it! But how? Well before we look at how, lets clarify what we mean by ‘spending’. Typically we ‘spend’ money when we exchange it for goods and services.

This week from November 24th, the Institute of Financial Planning (IFP) is organising Financial Planning Week – a consumer awareness campaign aimed at helping everyone take some simple steps to improve their financial situation. Financial Planning Week is about helping consumers make a difference to their lives. Millions of people face financial

The saying goes that you must ‘speculate to accumulate’. This proverb says little to help people in search of a sensible long-term investment strategy, but it does suggest something important about one of the basic principles of investing; the relationship between risk and reward. For

Life is weird sometimes. Even a normal looking day can deliver unexpected surprises. Earlier this week I had a meeting in London with a potential client. Nothing strange there. Neither was it strange that this was my first meeting in Canary Wharf and equally normal that I got

Getting financially fit is no different to getting physically fit. The steps are pretty similar but lots of people fail – particularly if they start on 1st January. Here’s what you need to do to increase your chances of succeeding. Turn your dreams into goals –

Imagine you are sat at the hairdressers (guys read barbers if that’s your thing). It’s Saturday morning and there’s a bit of a queue. You read the newspaper/Heat/OK/GQ/What Car? (delete as applicable).  You play on your phone, look around at the kid picking his nose, at the ear

DAY 5 – Financial Planning Week 2012 Financial Planning Week aims to raise awareness of the importance of financial planning. In my series of blogs I have given some ideas of the things that can be done to help people achieve their financial goals…. On day 1 I raised awareness

DAY 4 – Financial Planning Week 2012 Now that you’ve got a surplus of cash to cover regular, planned short term and emergency expenditure you can start thinking about what to do with your surplus cash. Remember from day 1 that the only purpose of money was to

DAY 3 – Financial Planning Week 2012 A budget is an essential part of a financial plan. After all, the amount of money that we’ll earn in our lifetime is finite so it’s really important that we’re as efficient as possible with it. Before we look at the rules

DAY 2 – Financial Planning Week 2012 Budgeting. Amazing how many people don’t have a budget. I didn’t until last year. I’m going to try to impress on you the importance of a budget using a number of sketches from Carl Richards (author of The Behavior Gap http://www.behaviorgap.com

DAY 1 – Financial Planning Week 2012. What is money good for? The proverb says that “Money is the root of all evil”, but it’s a necessary evil. If you haven’t got very much of it you’ll probably want some more. If you’ve got lots of it you might have

For Financial Planning Week 2012 (http://www.financialplanning.org.uk/general-public) I will be taking a look at some simple ideas that can make a real difference to your finances. Simple – but not easy…. Here’s what’s in store: Day 1:

Financial Planning is something we all should be doing (regardless of our current financial position), if we are to make the most of our lives. It involves working out what is most important to you in life: your goals. By adding timescales and costs, you can work out how

Britains are worrying more than ever about money, yet many see no benefit from seeking financial advice. These are just some of the results from the YouGov survey commissioned by the IFP to coincide with Financial Planning Week Of those surveyed 66% of women and over half (54%) of men worry about money either always