What’s your money personality?
We all have a different relationship with money. Recognising your money personality can help you better understand yours. While no member of each group has precisely the same attitude towards their finances, researchers have identified four common attitudes towards money: Money Worship, Money Avoidance, Money Vigilance and Money Status. Psychologists…
What is the value of advice?
You’re not going to be surprised that, as advisers, our firm belief is that an advised client will get a better financial outcome than a non-advised client. How to prove, though, that we’re not just biased? What is the actual value of that advice? How can it be quantified? Most…
Why even high-flying professionals need a financial planner
You may find it surprising to learn that even successful tax, legal, accounting and other professionals use financial planners. Surely, they know it all already, don’t they? Don’t they just follow their own advice? Let’s look at why professional advisers sometimes find it helpful to sit on the opposite side…
The importance of tail-end events when investing
At the start of the year, none of us would have foreseen where we are today. Who would have predicted that a bat jumping onto a pangolin and onto a human in China would have wrought such devastation across the globe? It just goes to show that nothing can be…
Financial planning in uncertain times
Whilst government support is helping many businesses and individuals through the Covid-19 pandemic, not everyone has been so fortunate. Indeed, many people have taken pay cuts or lost their jobs in the wake of the virus. To help you during this challenging time, we are delighted to provide two financial…
The link between human behaviour and investing
Financial planning… Isn’t that based on cold, hard facts and scientific reasoning? Surely emotions and feelings don’t have much to do with investing? I think they do. And here’s why. A little thing called human behaviour gets involved, you see. Only it’s not so little. Human beings are highly complex…
4 financial planning tips for 30 and 40 something year-olds
After age 30 it’s likely that financial planning will increase in importance and become a far more serious matter. It’s worth thinking about how things have changed over the past few generations; more and more individuals are going to universities, people are having children later, are buying property (and by…
Have kids? Watch our guide to Junior ISAs
By starting to save early you can give your child a good financial start in life. Junior Individual Savings Accounts (Junior ISAs or JISAs) let you save and invest on behalf of a child under 18. There is no tax on the interest or investment gains, which means the money…
New year, new decade, new approach to your finances?
You may have already made some New Year’s resolutions regarding exercise and healthy eating but could your finances do with slimming down too? The start of a new year, not to mention a new decade, is a great time to review your financial affairs, analyse your spending and make plans…
The 62 per cent income tax trap
Paying tax is a necessary part of earning income and being part of a society. That is accepted. But while you may have thought that the top rate of tax is 45 per cent, there are hundreds of thousands of people paying 62 per cent due to an odd quirk…