Beating the income squeeze

Informed Choice chartered financial planner Martin Bamford was quoted in the Daily Mail yesterday, in an article looking at ways to beat the income squeeze currently experienced by middle-class families.

High price inflation combined with low interest rates and volatile stock markets has placed many household budgets under pressure.

This can be particularly difficult for people approaching retirement where lower pension fund values combined with falling annuity rates and a higher cost of living in older age can make life financially challenging.

Within the article, Martin describes our experience of the growing demand for professional advice:

Martin Bamford, managing director of financial advisers Informed Choice, says that his experience as an upfront fee-charging IFA firm has been the opposite.

‘We’ve seen high demand for professional fee-based advice over the last year from the mass affluent group, and our business has increased 57 per cent as a result,’ he says.

Martin goes on to describe our three-pronged defence strategy for the mass affluent worried about their pensions:

1. ‘Have a really good handle on your expenditure. Many of our clients have been able to offset the impact of inflation by taking advantage of low interest rates on their mortgages, or by making smarter spending decisions – buying different things at the supermarket and going on holiday in the UK instead of abroad.

3. ‘Keep things under regular review. In previous economic environments you didn’t really have to do a lot – you could just invest your money and leave it and be reasonably confident it was going in the right direction. These days you have to review it once a year to see what’s changed and tailor it to your own objectives.’

You can read the article in full here. 

Do speak to us if you are worried about this financial squeeze and would like our advice on practical steps you can take to get your pensions back on track.

Photo credit: Flickr/Artotem