One of my colleagues has just finished telling me the story of his weekend. Late on Sunday evening he was driving home with his wife, daughter and dog when he had a problem with his car. Overtaking in the outside lane of the M3 his car lost all its power and he had to manoeuvre […]

I have been working today with our Senior Paraplanner, Amelia. Working together we have been preparing for a client strategy meeting later this week. The client has some great questions that she needs answering. These questions are wide ranging and really demonstrate the importance of not making decisions in isolation from other aspects of a […]

Transparency is an important part of our business culture. We want to ensure that our clients have full and complete understanding of the charges they pay to an investment or product provider, investment fund managers and, of course, any fees that they pay to us as their Financial Planner. Before we start work with a […]

There are many economic milestones in life – buying your home, paying off your mortgage, leaving employment – which take place on one particular day. These are the financial changes with which we easily identify. It’s more difficult to decide when to act when gradual changes are taking place, and particularly when we would rather […]

One of the regular questions asked of us by clients is, “Do I have enough money?” The unasked part of this question is “…to last me through my retirement?” Some Financial Planners describe this as “the number” in the context of the question, “What is your number?” The answer for everyone is of course different. […]

Clients often ask Financial Planners whether they are spending more, or less, than everyone else. For those who are interested in an answer to this question, the Office for National Statistics’ Family Spending Report, which was released last week, is a goldmine of information. It samples a huge number of households, and sets out how […]

One of the principles we subscribe to here at Informed Choice is continuing professional development. It’s a regulatory requirement, sure, with the Financial Conduct Authority insisting that all approved persons carry out a minimum of 35 hours of CPD each year. But part of our culture is about lifelong learning and always looking for ways […]

In my recent blog posts about transition events in a person’s life I spoke about the need for a Financial Plan to ensure good decisions were made. One transition event, sadly, is the death of a relative. This week I have spent some time listening to the story of a client about the death over […]

One of the most powerful ways to boost your income and capital in retirement, and to increase the amounts you can leave to your family, is to keep the amount of tax you pay to a minimum. Your approach to tax saving in retirement needs to be quite different to the approach you used when […]

Following on from part one of my blog post last week, I’m continuing our look at life’s transition points. These are times and events where having a Financial plan can add real value to your life; 6 – You have received a financial statement The envelope lands on the doormat. You open and read it […]