Category: Financial planning

It is never a nice feeling when markets go through periods when they fall; and it certainly does not help to settle the nerves when we see sensationalist headlines like ‘RBS cries “sell everything” as deflationary crisis nears.’ (Daily Telegraph) or ‘Worst start to market year in two decades’ (FT.com). To feel unsettled is natural;

There are many different kinds of trusts. There are bare trusts, mixed trusts, interest-in-possession trusts, and accumulation and maintenance trusts. And while they each differ slightly in the way they work, they all basically do the same job – they allow the owner of an asset (the settlor), to distribute or donate it (or confer

With life expectancy continuing to rise, it is prudent to have a plan to fund your lifestyle until your 100th birthday. The increase in life expectancy is being driven by people’s improving health and better medical care. The current life expectancy for men is 79.5 and for women it is 83.3. However, by 2030 many

National Insurance contributions go towards things like your State Pension but they don’t count towards the costs of social care. This type of care is managed by your local authority and generally comes at a price. That is why you have to apply directly to them if you need help with paying for long-term care.

An April 2015 article reviews the cost of studying at university in the UK, giving food for thought for would-be undergraduates and their families. UK tuition fees are frequently under the media spotlight, following price hikes for home students in recent years. But the overall cost to study in the UK, according to an April

  A recent Standard Life article suggests that in simple terms, you probably shouldn’t be worried about recent market falls. Most of us are investing over the long term, and significant market falls happen periodically. Generally, the wrong thing to do when markets fall by a reasonable margin is to panic and sell out of

Strategic reports provide ‘very little insight’ into future prospects. Many strategic reports contain a mass of annual data and text, which is largely backward looking, finds a PriceWaterhouse (PwC) study. Information disclosed in companies’ annual reports is being buried in a mass of annual data and text, presenting investors with a tough challenge to unearth

A single Lifetime ISA for everyone should be created with all tax reliefs on pension contributions being scrapped, a leading figure at the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) has proposed, according to an article published by the CPS. Research Fellow Michael Johnson said the opportunity has come for a radical overhaul of savings after the

We were recently reminded of Linda Ellis’ poem The Dash, which you can read in full here. The Dash talks about the life of a man who has passed away, being talked about by his friend at the funeral. The friend refers to everything that he had done and achieved during his life as being

An analysis of the Chancellor’s Summer Budget recently published by ‘This is Money’ presents the outcomes for individuals and families in relation to broad categories of ‘Winners’ and ‘Losers’. One category labelled as winners are Taxpayers. The threshold at which workers start paying higher rate tax will rise for the first time in five years,