Good advice can be invaluable and when it comes to pensions, getting the right advice at the right stage in your life can make all the difference to the degree of comfort in which you spend your retirement.  Fortunately the government has recognized this and since April this year it has been possible to withdraw £500 per (tax) year from pension pots (defined contribution or hybrid) without any tax liability as long as it is used for the purpose of paying for pension advice. The right time to use this benefit? As is so often the case, the right time to get any sort of financial advice, including pension advice, is the time which is right for you.  In practice, we’d suggest that you might want to take advantage of this benefit when you have a difficult and/or important decision to make.  If you happen to find yourself reaching the period just before retirement without having used this benefit, then you might want to check in with a financial advisor once a year before retiring. Questions you could discuss with an advisor Would it be best for me to access my pension pot as soon as I retire? These days “retirement” is a somewhat of a flexible concept.  For some people it can mean giving up a full-time day job to go off and earn an income doing something else, at least for a while.  If you have other income and can manage without your pension in the period immediately after retirement, you may wish to leave your pot to grow for a bit longer. Would I be better to use an annuity or income drawdown (or a combination of both)? Even though the announcement of pensions freedoms, including the right to opt out of buying an annuity, was met with great excitement in the press, the reality is that for some people annuities may well still be the most appropriate way to ensure that they have a reliable and stable income in their retirement.  On the other hand choosing an annuity when income drawdown can would have been more appropriate could wind up being a very expensive decision. If I opt for an annuity, which annuity should I choose? The word “annuity” actually covers a broad range of options and if you go down this route, it’s hugely important to get the right one for your particular situation.  This is a situation where getting the right advice can be hugely important. Should I take a cash lump sum and if so how much and when? Upon retirement, you can choose to take up to 25% of your pension pot as a tax-free lump sum.  You can withdraw more than this, but such withdrawals are liable for income tax at your marginal rate. Withdrawing the cash has the obvious benefit of giving you cash in hand, but it also has the obvious drawback of reducing the value of your remaining pension pot.  Hence, each individual has to work out which takes priority in their situation.  For example, if you still have debts to pay off, particularly high-interest debts, then it may be to your advantage to take out money to pay them off, or if you choose to go down the route of purchasing an annuity, you could use the 25% withdrawal as an investment budget so that you still have the opportunity to pursue the sort of returns which can be found in the stock market.  If, however, you choose to go down the route of income drawdown, you may find that it is in your best interest to keep your pension pot as large as possible for as long as possible. For pension advice we act as introducers only.

Savings generally fall into two categories. “Cash cushions” provide a soft landing for life’s bumps. “Goal-orientated” savings help us to make key purchases, large and small. Perhaps the clearest example of this is saving for the deposit on a house. Whatever your stage of life, savings can make a big difference to it, particularly if you plan ahead. Childhood years In the very earliest childhood years, it will probably be older family members who make savings on behalf of the child. Junior ISAs are a popular choice for this, but there are other options such as trust funds. As soon as children begin to develop an awareness of numbers, however, parents can start to give them their earliest lessons in financial management by teaching them how saving now can pay off later. Young children can watch their cash in a jar, while older ones can start to get to grips with bank accounts. Sweet sixteen At this point, 16 is a very important age in financial terms. The reason for this is that Junior ISAs run until the child’s 18th birthday, but 16 year olds can open cash ISAs, which means that for two years, you have the opportunity to make extra-large tax-free savings, right before those expensive post-school years. The post-school education period Regardless of whether or not a person goes to university, they will probably need some sort of training after they leave school and may also need to get some form of private transport. It may be very difficult for them to save any money during this time, in fact it is more likely that they will need help from the savings made on their behalf during their childhood years. If they can save at all, it’s probably advisable to ensure that the savings are easy-access, just in case they need them. The young-adult working years These can be some of the most financially-critical years of a person’s life, handled well, they can set a person up for a prosperous future. For many people, their next major financial priority will be to get on the housing ladder, which means building up as big a deposit as possible. The Lifetime ISA is one way to do this, but there are other options and hence it may be worth getting professional advice on the best route. The Lifetime ISA can also be used to save for retirement but if a person is working then it may be better to go down the workplace pension route to benefit from employer contributions. This again, is a good place to get financial advice. The family years Once you are on the housing ladder, a person’s two key concerns are often saving for their children and saving for their retirement. We’ve already discussed children, so the next issue is retirement. While there are ways to fund retirement other than pensions, they are a mainstay of retirement for many people and for good reason, so if you haven’t started one already, then this should probably be high on your list of priorities. You will probably have other goals as well and hence may well have a need for other means of saving and investing, for example making use of your standard ISA allowance. You might wish to seek professional advice here too, so that you can decide how best to allocate your available funds, for example in the earlier period of your family years, you may be want to make some higher-risk and/or longer-term investments for the best rewards, whereas later, a more conservative investing strategy may be more appropriate. Retirement Perhaps it would be better to say, “the post-employment years” since the concept of retirement is changing dramatically and hence so are the financial needs of retirees. Getting the maximum value out of a pension pot can make a huge difference to the quality of a person’s retirement and again, professional advice can be invaluable.

We’ve all seen the adverts on TV (and elsewhere), cut out the middleman, go direct and get the best, possible price.  In theory, that’s sound advice – provided that you know exactly what you’re doing.  In practice, however, going to a reputable middleman can be exactly the right move to save money (and hassle).  This is particularly true with mortgages because they are complex products and as they tend to involve large sums of money, mistakes can be magnified, while astute moves can generate very meaningful rewards.  Let’s look at three examples of what this can mean in practical terms. Choosing the right type of mortgage for your situation Is that a standard repayment or an offset mortgage?  Is it a tracker or a fixed-rate mortgage?  If it is a fixed-rate mortgage for how long should the rate be fixed?  The answers to all these questions, and possibly many more, will determine what mortgage is best for your situation right now and in the foreseeable future.  You can only choose the right provider when you know what it is you need, so doing this ground work is essential and unless you really know your way around the topic of mortgages, you’re unlikely to have the same sort of insight as a professional who deals with them as part of their daily business.  Even if you do feel confident you understand mortgages, it can still be helpful to have a fresh pair of eyes look over your calculations, because getting them right could have a huge impact on your overall financial situation. Choosing the right provider How many lenders provide mortgages in the UK?  Do you really know all of them or at least all of the ones who provide the sort of mortgage you’ve decided you want?  Do you know how to approach them to get the best deal?  If we asked the average person to name as many mortgage lenders as they could, we suspect they’d be able to name all the major high-street brands and possibly a few niche providers as well.  If you went to a price-comparison site, you’d get access to a list of companies which work with price-comparison sites, but for many and varied reasons, there are numerous companies out there, large and small, which prefer to steer clear of being involved with them.  A mortgage broker, by contrast, will have an in-depth knowledge of the market and will be able to direct you straight to the best lender(s) for your overall situation.  These may or may not have the very lowest price in their range, as your broker will look at the complete picture rather than just the headline figures. Mortgage brokers may actually be the lowest-cost option Mortgage lenders are in business to make a profit.  That’s a simple reality.  Maximising their profits means that they have to sell their product to as many people as possible for as high a price as possible.  To achieve the first objective, many mortgage lenders combine direct selling with working through intermediaries such as price-comparison sites and mortgage brokers, both of whom have their own bills to pay and therefore expect payment for the work they do.  The main price-comparison sites are free for consumers to use, hence they make their money from the companies which use their services.  For example, they may receive a commission on sales made through their site.  Mortgage brokers may take an upfront fee from their clients or they may take a commission on sales from the lender, however, as they are real people, who genuinely work on behalf of their clients, they can offer flexibility about this, for example they may forgo some of the commission available to them to get their clients a lower price.  In theory, individuals could try to negotiate a lower price directly with the lender, but in practice lenders who rely on affiliates to generate sales for them may be very loathe to put those relationships at risk by offering better deals to customers who bypass them. Your property may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage. For Residential & Buy to Let Mortgages, our typically processing fee is £395 and we may receive commission from the lender.

Most people benefit from a combination of savings and investments. Savings make sure that we have access to cash in case of need. Investments grow our net worth and make it possible for us to achieve our financial goals. Putting our savings and/or investments into a tax-free wrapper helps us to enjoy more of the returns ourselves, hence the huge popularity of ISAs. ISA allowances tend to go up each year There are no guarantees, but traditionally ISA allowances have tended to be raised at the start of each financial year. The standard ISA allowance for 2017/2018 is £20,000, this can be put into a cash ISA, a stocks-and-shares ISA or an innovative finance ISA. Anyone (resident in the UK) who has reached the age of 16 can open a cash ISA, stocks-and-shares ISAs and innovative finance ISAs can be opened by anyone who has reached the age of 18. Cash ISAs come in various forms: Instant-access ISAs are basically supercharged savings accounts and handy if you want the reassurance of knowing you can always get at your cash quickly if you need it. Regular-saver ISAs tend to give a better rate in return for the commitment, but may have restrictions on how you can access your cash. Fixed-rate ISAs give guaranteed returns, but again they may restrict how you access your cash. Stocks and shares ISAs allow you to shelter a variety of investments in a tax-free wrapper and eliminate the need to pay capital gains tax on your returns. You may, however, have to pay some form of tax within any funds in which you invest. Innovative finance ISA Peer-to-peer lending is becoming a major force in the UK, so it’s good to see that it can now be included in ISAs – in theory at least. In practice, P2P lending platforms need to be regulated in order to be included in an IF ISA and this is taking time, however progress is being made. Landbay and Lending Works are already registered. Zopa is nearly there. Junior ISA Junior ISAs are often just known as JISAs and can be opened on behalf of children under the age of 18 (the sharp-eyed may have noticed that this means 16-18 year-olds can have both JISAs and cash ISAs). For 2017/2018 families will be able to save up to £4,128 on behalf of the child. This money is locked away until the child’s 18th birthday at which point it becomes theirs completely. Lifetime ISA The Lifetime ISA has caused both interest and controversy in the press. The interest stems from the fact that it is new and quite different from existing products. The controversy stems over the question of whether it is really an appropriate choice for its target market. Lifetime ISAs can be opened by people aged between 18 and 39 and, in very simple terms, its sole purpose is to help people save for (a deposit on) their first home and for their retirement. Savers can put away up to £4000 of their own money per year, which the government will top up by 25% to make a total of £5000. The money saved can only be withdrawn for a house purchase or after the saver has reached the age of 60. If the saver wishes to access their money in any other situation, the ISA must be closed and the bonus will be lost. Help to buy ISA The help to buy ISA will close to new applications in November 2019. At current time, savers who go down this route will see their savings topped up by 25% to a maximum of £3000. There are, however, restrictions on the type of property which can be bought with these savings and, critically, the funds can only be accessed upon completion rather than put towards a deposit. For investments we act as introducers only.

Children are expensive and as soon as you know you’re having one, planning for their arrival and taking care of them once they’ve arrived can take precedence over every other priority. You’ll always be a parent, but you’ll always be a person too and while your children may seem like they’re growing up so quickly that you’ll miss something important if you even blink, you’re growing older too and it’s important to prepare for your own old age. If you think of this as being selfish, then consider how much of a relief it will be for your children to know that you are able to take care of yourself and maybe even help them (with grandchildren) rather than them having to worry about how to take care of you. If you are a home maker Even if your overall household income is too high for you to receive any child benefit payments, it can still be worth your while to register for child benefit so that you can receive National Insurance credits, which can count towards your State Pension. Having said that, it is an open question as to what level of State Pension will be offered when you reach retirement age, in fact, in principle the State Pension could be abolished completely or be converted into a means-tested benefit. That being so, it is advisable to look for additional ways to save for retirement, which will boost your income if you do receive a State Pension and replace it if State Pensions are withdrawn (or the qualification process changed). You’ll be unable to take advantage of the benefits offered by workplace pensions, but you can still open a personal pension and if a taxpayer such as your partner pays into it for you, you can claim tax relief. If you work part time As a part-time worker, you may or may not be automatically enrolled into a pension scheme, but if you are not you can still ask to be enrolled and your employer may choose to make additional contributions. If they do, then it is generally very advantageous to make the most of them to build up your retirement funds as much as you possibly can, particularly given that part-time workers, by definition, earn less than their full-time counterparts (on a like-for-like basis). If they do not, then you may wish to stick with a personal pension for reasons of continuity. In either case, however, you do wish to contribute as much as you can from as early a time as you can manage, even when retirement is decades away. If you work full time Upon returning to full-time work, you are very likely to be eligible for auto-enrolment in a workplace pension scheme. In this situation, unless you actively opt out, you will have deductions made from your salary and your employer will also make contributions. The minimum level of both employee and employer contributions is set out by the government, some employers may choose to let employees make extra contributions and some may make extra contributions themselves. Obviously, employer contributions are attractive in any situation and if an employer makes contributions over and above the government-mandated minimum, then this can be a very attractive benefit and you should take full advantage of it if possible. At the same time, however, it is understandable that some people may be uncomfortable making a commitment to sacrifice part of their salary in the here and now, when they may be on tight budgets and have little room to manoeuvre when life happens. In that situation, it may be appropriate to use a personal pension, which offers more flexibility. You may lose out on employer contributions (although you could ask and your employer may offer to pay them), but if you opted out of auto-enrolment, you would lose those anyway and at least this way you are saving something. For pension advice we act as introducers only.

The UK is one of the most densely-populated countries in the world and hence there is a high demand for housing both to buy and to rent. Over recent years, the government has attempted to help first-time buyers onto the housing ladder though a combination of providing direct assistance, in the form of help-to-buy schemes, and by making it more expensive to buy and run investment property (buy to let). With all the recent changes, now may be a very good time for landlords to reassess where they stand financially and to decide if buy-to-let still makes sense for them. Tax change 1 – Mortgage tax relief Those three simple words encompass a whole world of complexity and potential pain for buy-to-let landlords. Up until April 2017, landlords declared their rental income net of mortgage-interest payments. Starting April 2017, this system has been in the process of change to one in which landlords declared their gross profits and their mortgage interest separately and receive a certain level of tax relief on the latter. At current time, the plan is for the level of tax relief available to be reduced to a maximum of 20% by 2019. This means that landlords on the higher rate of tax will essentially find their tax relief cut in half. Tax change 2 – The wear and tear allowance While this tax change may be more of an inconvenience than a major source of financial upheaval, it’s still a change which few BTL landlords are likely to welcome. Instead of landlords being able to claim a straightforward 10% “wear and tear” allowance, but will have to itemise allowable expenses on which they can claim tax relief. Even if the financial impact is minor to nil, buy-to-let landlords may well feel that they could well live without the hassle of the extra paperwork. Tax change 3 – Stamp duty The 3% stamp duty surcharge was openly aimed at buy-to-let landlords as can be seen from the fact that people who temporarily end up with two properties, for example as part of a house move, can typically reclaim the 3% surcharge when they sell one of their properties. This change effectively places a 3% handicap on buy-to-let landlords when competing for properties against those looking to buy for their own use as residential property. More changes to mortgages – the question of affordability The Prudential Regulatory Authority of the Bank of England recently brought in new rules for lenders, which highlight their obligation to ensure that landlords really are capable of managing the mortgage for which they apply, even if interest rates rise. On the one hand, it could be argued that landlords should be making these sorts of checks themselves anyway. On the other hand, it may encourage lenders to be more nervous about the buy-to-let market and hence make it unreasonably difficult for landlords to get mortgages. Regulatory changes In addition to the tax and financial changes, buy-to-let landlords have also had further legal obligations placed on them, such as the controversial “right-to-rent” scheme, under which landlords could face time in prison if they fail to undertake checks to ensure that their prospective tenant has the right to be in the UK. Overall While the points previously raised can paint a somewhat bleak picture, the fact still remains that the UK still has a shortage of housing coupled with strong demand from people who actually want to rent (such as mobile young adults) as well as those who are currently priced out of buying their own home. Because of this, buy-to-let can still be an attractive investment prospect, just as long as prospective landlords do their sums very carefully. Your property may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage. For Residential & Buy to Let Mortgages, our typically processing fee is £395 and we may receive commission from the lender.

Call it spam, call it junk mail, whatever you call it, it’s one of the banes of the digital world and these days many of us get so much email, we just delete the contents of our spam folders without even looking (or leave it to our providers to empty it automatically). Actually, we probably should make a point of checking our spam folders we hit that delete button. Spam folders can contain hidden surprises Most of what gets put into spam is exactly that, but sometimes legitimate messages get put there too since the sheer quantity of email sent around the world is making it harder and harder for email companies to work out what is unwanted spam and what are popular newsletters and other genuine forms of mass mail. What’s more, even genuine spam can have some value, either for amusement or education. For example, the many emails washing around offering to deal with various threats to your business can actually make valid points, although getting in touch with a spammer is unlikely to be the best way to take action on the matter. Brands, domains and international business A widespread piece of scam goes along the following lines. “We’ve noticed that someone is trying to register a local variation of your domain name. Have you authorised this? If not, please contact us, so we can help you to stop someone else stealing your name.”. We’ve never taken anybody up on this offer, so we don’t actually know what happens next, but we suspect it would involve a lot more money and hassle than just claiming the domain directly – if that’s even necessary. Brands beat domains Here’s a point it’s important for you to understand. A brand is so important that it takes priority and precedence over just about everything else. If customers recognise your brand, they will come and find you on the net or in the real world, even if you’ve been unable to get the internet (or real world) address you wanted. Putting the situation another way, a brand can manage without a perfectly-matching domain. A domain without an associated brand is going to have its work cut out to get traffic and visibility, in fact building up domains is basically all about building a brand. Hence, while it’s generally preferable to own the domains related to your brand (and ideally relevant handles on the key social media sites as well), it’s far more important to build and protect your brand by means of trademarking and such like than it is to buy every domain you could possibly own. The internet is global, but domains are increasingly local If you follow the development of the internet, you will already be aware that ICANN, the authority behind internet domains, recently introduced a number of new top-level domains, to allow for greater niching of internet addresses, particularly by locality, such as .London. These have been eagerly snapped up, showing just how keen businesses are to establish an online foothold and how they are starting to move away from the strategy of going “.com” first and looking at other domains (such as .co.uk) as an afterthought, if at all. While the internet does facilitate global trade, the fact of the matter is that practicalities mean that relatively few companies do actually work on a truly global basis. In fact, many profitable companies only work in a specific geographic area in their own country. That being so, while they may benefit from an online presence, it’s unlikely that they would get any advantage from buying up international domains. Even if a company does plan to expand internationally, it’s perfectly feasible to use a .co.uk address which is then used to create a sub-site tailored to the needs of the target country. As previously mentioned, the key point is to ensure that visitors to the site recognise the brand, rather than the domain.

Just as young adults may yearn for their independence, outside the parental home, so parents can be just as eager to speed them on their way, so that they can get on with their own plans for the future. The challenge for both sides is that houses are far from cheap. Assuming buying a property outright for your offspring is too much of a financial demand, there are basically three ways, you can help your offspring move out of the family home. Guaranteeing rent While this doesn’t directly help them onto the property ladder, it does get them out of the family home and it may improve their overall prospects, e.g. by helping them progress in their career, thereby improving their ability to buy in the future. The key point to remember when acting as a guarantor is to ensure that, if at all possible, your liability is restricted to your own child rather than potentially including other people’s children as well. In other words, you want each person to have their own rental contract with their own areas of responsibility, rather than being jointly and severally (i.e. collectively) liable for the property. Helping children to get a mortgage The classic “bank of mum and dad” scenario used to involve parents helping their children put together a deposit and this is still one approach today, but there are other options such as offering some element of mortgage guarantee, for example Barclays’ “Family Springboard” mortgage allows purchasers to borrow up to 100% of the value of the property, provided that someone opens a “Helpful Start Account” and deposits at least 10% of the purchase price. This is returned to them, with interest, after 3 years, provided that all goes well with the mortgage. There are other companies with comparable offerings although it has to be said that this is very much a niche market and that as such the lack of competition may mean that the product offers worse value overall than a standard mortgage with a deposit. If parents do opt to help with a deposit, it needs to made clear whether the money is a loan or a gift and, if the former, what arrangements are to be made for paying it back. If the latter, it may be useful to look as to whether the gift can be incorporated into inheritance planning. Becoming your Child’s Landlord When considering whether or not this is an appropriate route for you, it’s important to remember that the purchase of second or subsequent residential properties carries a 3% Stamp Duty surcharge (LBBT surcharge in Scotland), assuming the property is valued at £40K or over. This applies even to parents buying properties for their children to live in (although not to parents helping their children to buy property themselves). The next key point to understand is that parents will have all the legal responsibilities of landlords (even though the tenants are their children), including making sure that whoever lives in the property has the right to be in the UK. In other words, if your child wants to share the property with someone else, e.g. a partner, their parents, as landlords, have to check their documentation to ensure all is in order. At the moment, this only applies in England although the official plan is to roll out this scheme to the other parts of the UK in future. Finally, parents need to understand that in the eyes of the law (and the eyes of HMRC) rental income from your children is still income and will be taxed as such. Prospective parent landlords also need to be clear about the fact that changes to the way profit on rental properties is calculated could see a small number of people pushed into a higher tax band for part (or all) of their income from the property.

As the old saying goes “money doesn’t grow on trees” and sadly pension pots aren’t found at the ends of rainbows either. Building a meaningful pension pot takes time and, frankly, some degree of effort and sacrifice. Essentially, you’re giving up part of your income today, in order to provide an income for yourself at some point in the future. Here are three top tips to help make this happen. 1 – The earlier you start the more time you have on your side Even though young adults are typically without financial dependents, making ends meet can still be a challenge, particularly for people who are living away from the parental home. Zero-hours contracts, short-term and fixed-term contracts, temping and spells out of work are all par for the course for many of today’s young adults. That being so, the order of priorities for most young adults should be: building up a cash cushion of emergency savings; paying off high-interest debt (or at least getting it to the point where it can be moved to a lower-interest credit vehicle) and then looking at pension savings. 2 – Decide if a workplace pension is the right choice for you If you are working, you may well find that you are automatically enrolled into a workplace pension scheme unless you actively opt out and that even if you do opt out, you are enrolled into the scheme after three years unless you choose to opt out again. The advantage of workplace pension schemes is that the government requires the employer to make some level of contribution. The disadvantage of them is that the employer is only required to contribute part of the mandatory minimum level of contribution, so unless they choose to pay more, as an employee benefit, the employee will be required to make up the difference. Private pensions are much less likely to benefit from employer contributions (in principle employers can choose to contribute but since they are mandated to run workplace pension schemes they may be unwilling to provide pension contributions through another channel as well), but they offer much more flexibility. In short, if you can commit to regular saving each month, employer contributions can boost your pension pot nicely, however, if this is too much of a challenge, it’s better to save what you can afford into a private pension than to go without any pension provision at all. Remember pensions are only part of financial planning For people who earn an income, by any means, pensions are a very tax-efficient way of saving for retirement and adults in employment can also benefit from pension contributions. At the end of the day, however, pensions are just one way of saving for the future, there are other possibilities. For example, those aged between 18 and 40 will soon be able to open a Lifetime ISA, which will offer an alternative and more flexible means of saving for retirement. Ultimately any savings or investments you can grow over your working years will form a contribution to your lifestyle in retirement. With this in mind, one positive step all adults can take, regardless of their age or financial situation, is to make an active commitment to managing their finances to the best of their ability, starting with basic budgeting skills. The simple act of keeping track of your money and understanding where it is going and why will help you to make the most of what you have and to make intelligent decisions about where it is appropriate to spend money in the present (accepting the fact that it’s important to enjoy life in the here and now as much as you can) and where it is appropriate to save and invest for the future.

Look after your pennies and your pounds will take care of themselves. It’s an old piece of wisdom and it still has a lot of value in a modern world. Even though it may seem pointless just to save a few pennies here and there, those pennies do add up and will make pounds. With that in mind and given that so many of us are keeping a close eye on our wallets these days, here are three tips for taking care of those precious pennies. Pay yourself first If you know you should have at least a little money left over to save each month and yet you never seem to, then put this money aside first in a place where you can access it if you need it (like an instant-access savings account) and then do your level best to work off what’s left. Track, budget and track again Get a year’s worth of bank statements and as a minimum look at what you spent in the upcoming month at the same time last year and what you spent over the last 3 months. Use these as a prompt to budget for any payments you know you are going to need to make in the forthcoming month, even if you decide to cancel them (many contracts require a notice period). While you are doing this, look at each payment and ask if it relates to a need and/or if relates to something you really love and which you can comfortably afford. Unless a payment can score at least one yes here, then it should be a priority to get rid of it. Even where a payment does score a yes, you can still look at ways to satisfy your need or want at a more affordable cost. Once you’ve budgeted for anticipated payments, you can then budget for anticipated living costs, such as groceries. Supermarkets and other large shops can be danger spots for budgeters because they often make it very easy to slip in discretionary purchases with the necessary ones, even when you have a shopping list and while this is a bit harder for them to do when you shop online, they will still try to upsell you items based on your shopping history. Start to keep your receipts so you can have full visibility of where your money actually goes and hold yourself accountable for discretionary purchases. If you hate paper, then use your mobile camera to take a picture of them. Minimise your tax liability When cash ISAs first began, you were able to withdraw money from them but it was counted against your ISA allowance for that year. Now, however, you are able to replace any funds withdrawn as long as you do so within the same tax year, which essentially turns cash ISAs into super-efficient, instant-access savings accounts. They are therefore obvious places to put the money you need to keep available “just in case”. Once you have built up some savings, you may then want to think about taking out some investments. You can also keep investments in an ISA wrapper, this time a stocks and shares ISA. Alternatively, you may wish to look at one of the more specialised forms of ISA such as the innovative finance ISA or the Lifetime ISA (assuming you qualify). Choosing the right approach for your situation can be a bit of a challenge, so it can be worthwhile to get professional advice to ensure that you’re making the most of the money you save each month and building it into a fund which will really help you to achieve your life goals and make the most of your future.

Inheritance tax has always been one of the most controversial taxes around. Depending on your point of view it can be: an essential means of making sure that a private individual’s wealth is shared with society as a whole a pragmatic approach to filling government coffers a ghoulish tax applied at a difficult time. Whatever your point of view on inheritance tax, there are two indisputable facts. One is that it is a reality and none of the main parties has recently shown any inclination to abolish it completely. The other is that house prices and house-price inflation in the UK means that anyone who owns a home needs to take inheritance planning very seriously if they want to leave as much as possible to the people they love, rather than to HMRC. A brief guide to IHT and the new “Resident’s Nil Rate Band” Each individual in the UK gets an IHT nil-rate band of £325K. Starting April 2017, home owners can receive an additional “Resident’s Nil Rate Band”, which is currently set at £100K and is planned to increase to £175K between now and April 2020. In simple terms, this allows them to pass on equity in their home to their lineal descendants (or the legally-recognised partners thereof) without paying IHT on it. As with the standard nil-rate band, this can be transferred to a spouse or civil partner upon the death of the first person in a legally-recognised relationship. While this does give home owners some degree of respite for the foreseeable future and the fact that the current government has pledged to increase the RNRB in line with the consumer price index does at least show recognition of the fact that house prices do increase over time, in a densely-populated country such as the UK, it is entirely possible that house-price inflation will regularly outstrip the CPI. It’s also worth noting that this RNRB only applies when leaving property or the proceeds thereof to close relatives, those wishing to leave their estate to unrelated parties will be left with the standard IHT nil-rate band. Likewise, those who have significant estates composed of assets other than property will gain nothing from this change. So what does this all mean in practice? Boiled down to basics, all this change means is that the government has given some individuals an increased nil-rate IHT allowance, applied in certain circumstances. While it will doubtless be a welcome change to many people, it is hardly a ground-breaking one, nor is it likely to negate the need for an overall IHT strategy. Estate planning, like most aspects of financial management, generally comes down to balancing current and foreseeable needs with future goals. For those in the later period of their lives, current and foreseeable needs is increasingly likely to include making provision for assistance or even care, either in our own homes or in a residential facility. Future goals may include items on an individual’s “bucket list” or may simply be the desire to leave a legacy to people and/or causes the individual holds dear, rather than simply handing over funds to HMRC. Striking this balance may involve blending a number of approaches rather than just relying on the new RNRB or gifting as much as possible during a person’s lifetime. For example, those who are currently approaching retirement may wish to look at their pension arrangements in the light of the fact that pensions pots used for income drawdown can now be passed to any chosen nominee without IHT being charged. Those who are investing outside of pension may wish to pay particular attention to investments which qualify for business property relief as these can be very advantageous from the point of view of estate planning. We act as introducers for Inheritance Tax planning.

The Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England is tasked with keeping inflation at exactly 2%. If inflation moves more than 1% away from this target (up or down), then the governor of the Bank of England has to write an open letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, explaining why this has happened and what the MPC intends to do about it. Inflation – theory and practice There are various ways to measure inflation and the one used by the MPC is known as the Consumer Price Index. Basically this approach creates a theoretical “shopping basket” of goods a hypothetical “average consumer” would be likely to buy. It then measures the movement in prices of these goods. As can be clearly seen therefore, whether or not any given private individual agrees with the MPC’s views on inflation will depend very much on the extent to which their shopping patterns match the MPC’s imaginary shopping basket. The importance of understanding “personal inflation” Averages have their uses, but the reality is that we are all individuals in widely different circumstances and hence it is pretty much inevitable that there is going to be some degree of discrepancy between the MPC’s “theoretical” inflation rate and the rate of inflation felt by any given person. Some people may be lucky enough to find themselves “winners”, for example if they are able to grow their own food at a time when food products are experiencing high inflation, then their personal rate of inflation will be lower than the MPC’s rate. Some people, however, may be “losers” and find that the rate of inflation they experience is higher than the MPC’s rate. One situation where this may happen is when a person has a low disposable income and hence makes fewer discretionary purchases. If low inflation on discretionary items is counterbalancing high inflation on necessary purchases then people who are only buying necessary items are going to find that their personal experience of inflation is much higher than the MPC thinks it should be. Managing high personal inflation If you are already in a situation where your personal inflation level is higher than the MPC says it should be, then there are basically two approaches you can take. One is to try to increase your effective income and the other is to try to save money. Of course, you can try to put both approaches together for maximum impact. While increasing your income may seem unrealistic, the digital “gig” economy has opened up a wide variety of ways for people to earn a little extra money, which may go a long way to helping you feel more comfortable. Likewise, saving money can be about more than cutting back on what you buy (although that can be a part of it), it can be about being more astute about what you buy, when and how. For example, could you team up with other people you know to shop in real bulk for the best deals? This may take a little organisation, but could lead to real savings. Inflation and retirement Inflation will be a fact of life in your retirement, which means it really pays to plan ahead so that you can have a reasonable degree of assurance that your retirement income will at least keep pace with it, particularly since the “Triple Lock” guarantee (that pensions would rise by the lowest of average earnings, inflation or 2.5% was a 2015 pledge for the duration of that parliament. There has been a conspicuous absence of a pledge to keep this guarantee for the duration of the next parliament, let alone beyond. Hence, private individuals would be well advised to do everything they can to ensure that their retirement funds can stand the test of time, which means standing the test of inflation.