Director & Chartered Financial Planner delivering financial planning advice in a language everyone can understand.
One of the biggest benefits of saving into a pension is you receive tax relief up to the higher of £3,600 or 100% of relevant UK earnings capped at the Annual Allowance (£60,000 in 2024/25). How do I receive my pension tax relief? You’ll automatically get 20% basic...
One of the biggest benefits of saving into a pension is you receive tax relief on everything you pay in up to the annual allowance (currently £60,000 in 2024/25). Discover all the ways pension planing can help ensure you take advantage of any tax benefits available to you personally.
In a world filled with change, having a financial adviser by your side can bring peace of mind. The latest edition of The Investor from St. James’s Place dives into how to navigate uncertainty together.
Want insights on global stock market trends and how they impact your investment portfolio? This edition is a must-read! Plus, learn how families can protect loved ones with learning disabilities financially.
The Chancellor has increased taxes by a record £40bn and increased borrowing to £127bn for this tax year. Alongside the headline changes to minimum wage, fuel duty and increased spending for public services there were several changes that may affect you.
Establishing richer, successful, long-term relationships with clients means I’m able to understand their individual needs, helping them plan to achieve their short and longer term lifestyle financial goals.
The majority of individuals receiving professional financial advice across the nation have remained with the same adviser throughout. This was the outcome of a new study by St. James’s Place (SJP), highlighting the power of longstanding advice relationships. Discover more about the study’s key findings.
Imagine finding a lost pension you never knew you had.
There are now an estimated 3.3 million lost pension pots, containing £31.1 billion worth of assets, with the average size of a lost pot highest among the 55-75 age group, at £13,620. Find out what happened when my Mum discovered hers!
In the final article of our series, we discuss the key stages required to help you achieve the best financial lifestyle possible in retirement. Most importantly: how to create a financial plan that will enable you to live in the now as well as in the future.
In its simplest form, our Visual Cashflow Plan illustrates how much money our clients will have available to spend at anyone time throughout their lives.
The decisions you make around your NHS Pension are some of the most important you’ll encounter as there’s no opportunity to change your mind once you’ve taken your pension.
Whether it’s wanting flexibility in retirement, or making that career choice, I’ve not yet met a single NHS client who felt confident with the information they’d been given relating to their pension.
A Client’s Story: “After discussing my options in detail with Gemma, I realised my current company pension, like most generic employer-provided Defined Benefit schemes, assume you will use your fund to buy an annuity and progressively de-risk your investments as you approach retirement. This is not necessarily appropriate if you have a mixture of pension pots or intend to use your investments on a draw-down basis, in which case a significant proportion of your pension remains invested for 20 years or more.”
Latest research finds that while 68% of UK adults believe it’s important they leave an inheritance, the study highlights future retirees are sacrificing their inheritance plans to support other generations.
When imagining your long-term future – in my experience more difficult in your 20s and 30s – we should include how many years we could spend in retirement. Women today have a 1 in 4 chance of living to 94, and men to 92*. How are you doing on your current journey? And what can you do to resolve any gaps along the way?
*ONS figures July 2024
Our Chief Investment Officer, Justin Onuekwusi, sat down with Lauren Hardy at Portfolio Adviser for the latest ‘View from the top’ interview series. He tells of how he has set about achieving the primary goal of achieving good client outcomes through a relentless focus on transparency, advocacy and clear communication.
I wanted to explore the future of pension planning in the UK. Oh no, I hear you say, this is just because you’re in the business of selling pension plans. While of course this is true, I also feel strongly about sharing my expertise and knowledge to encourage younger people to take responsibility for their financial futures as soon as they’re able. And so this three-part series explains what the Government is responsible for today, along with their plans for the future, and what we can all do about ensuring we don’t need to work until the bitter end.
Good advice – really good advice – has the power to change your life. Sometimes in momentous, memorable ways, and sometimes in quiet, gradual ways. We devote this issue of The Investor – our 120th – to the invaluable advice that’s passed on to us from trusted sources throughout our lives.
All Chartered Financial Planners need to satisfy rigorous criteria, but anyone who’s read my story knows my formal education was interrupted by having my son Josh at 18. Gaining chartertership was my way of proving to myself that I had the ability to go the full educational course.
Like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs – a model for understanding what motivates and fulfils us as humans – the Financial Planning Hierarchy illustrates the various stages which can guide us towards our financially secure future. We start with an emergency fund saved at the beginning of our career and end with the management of the estate we leave behind.
A key factor when you create a thriving business is what happens when you retire or semi-retire? This is a recurring topic for anyone wanting to understand what needs to be put in place for business succession planning. Although Helen has quite a few years to go, here she explains the various options open to her when the time comes.
Almost one million UK families will have multiple generations in retirement at the same time within the next 10 years, a new study1 by St. James’s Place reveals. As a result, retirement income is expected to stretch across multiple generations, causing many...
Gemma Darcy, Director of Darcy Financial Planning, has been advising clients for over 20 years. She tells us why understanding her clients’ lifestyle choices is the key to delivering the best service.
High income child benefit tax charge (HICBC) is nothing new, introduced in 2013, it made those earning over £50,000 liable for a tax charge. However, from 6 April 2024, this figure rises to £60,000.
When I took the leap to start my own business five years ago, the importance of creating a meaningful brand identity was not a high priority. At the time, I’d been an adviser in the financial services sector for over 14 years; going it alone – albeit with the power of St. James’s Place behind me – felt like a brave move.
As a Chartered Financial Planner, Gemma has satisfied rigorous criteria relating to professional qualifications and ethical good practice. It means you can be confident that you are dealing with one of the UK's leading advisers, wholly committed to providing you with...
Categories