Uncertainty can be a big inhibitor when it comes to many aspects of your day-to-day life. From the mundane of what the weather will be like next week, to more important issues around your health and your job. Equally, when it comes to planning your future, financial uncertainty can always seem to pose apparent problems. This can include high-profile issues around market uncertainty, high inflation, and borrowing costs, as well as your own individual circumstances. Financial uncertainty can create a situation where you’re unsure about future financial outcomes. As a result, this could easily affect your decision-making process.  When it comes to your future financial security, and meeting your obligations, it can also cause deep anxiety and stress. In reality,... Read More

Although it’s traditional to see the move from work to retirement as something to celebrate, it can also be a challenging time. You’ll be going from being in work, with all the disciplines and structures involved with a full-time job, to a life where all your time is your own. Furthermore, even if you make a gradual transition into retirement, there will eventually come a time when your income will derive solely from your accrued pension fund and other savings, rather than from a regular income every month. Because of this, it’s important to plan ahead and to be aware of the potential challenges you may face moving from work to free time. Not only in terms of the “pounds... Read More

In one of my previous articles, you read about why you shouldn’t underestimate the cost of your retirement and why planning ahead and budgeting can be so important. As a follow up to that, this article should help get you thinking about how much income you’ll need once you stop working, and some of the key factors that could dictate your financial commitments. How you plan your time will be important A point I made quite strongly in the previous article was that an assumption that your outgoings will automatically decrease once you retire is often an erroneous one. At a very basic level, while you’re working, you aren’t spending money. But once you retire you’ll have more time on... Read More

Growing your wealth is an important part of financial planning. Ensuring that your money keeps up with (and hopefully outpaces) inflation is crucial, as it means that what you save now will help you to afford your lifestyle in future. One of the most prevalent issues that I find clients to have, though, is in deciding how to grow their wealth. Some common options that you might be considering include: Investing on the stock market in shares, funds, bonds, and other assets Creating a buy-to-let (BTL) property portfolio Running a business. Each comes with various advantages and drawbacks in terms of what you’ll have to spend and the returns you can generate. But in my view, this begs a more... Read More

To effectively plan for the future, it helps to try and connect with your future self. One reason you may find it difficult to imagine your future self is that most of us feel significantly younger than we actually are. Even when looking in a mirror, it can be hard to correlate our real age with how we look or feel. In fact, according to a US study of more than 500,000 people, most feel around 20% younger than they are, KFF Health News reports. A key problem with this struggle to imagine our future selves is that it can make it harder to commit to saving for retirement. In our 30s, most of us consider our 60-, 70-, or... Read More