What does a financial adviser do?

A financial adviser can help with your investment goals, but they can also offer many more ways to understand and make the most of your money.

You might think that people who use financial advisers are just investing in the stock market or need someone to manage their portfolios. But a financial adviser can do a whole lot more.

Different types of financial advice
For an adviser, it’s their aim to help you achieve your financial goals, but that doesn’t just cover building wealth through investment – their ...

Time vs Timing

When it comes to investing, you might have heard that time in the market is better than timing the market.

Time in the market is another way of describing long-term investing. Investors with a time horizon of at least five years (and in many cases longer) buy an asset and hold on to it. They tend to invest with a goal in mind. A good example is someone saving towards retirement which, depending on the stage of their career, could be 20 years or more in the future.

On the other hand, investors who try to time the market buy ...

End of the tax year checklist

Make more of your money with your adviser, before the end of the 2021/2022 tax year on 5 April 2022.

As the end of the tax year approaches, there’s still time to take advantage of your annual tax-free allowances if you’ve not already done so. This is one of the best ways to make your money work harder and grow, especially with interest rates on the rise. We can guide you through the best ways to use your allowances – depending on your needs.

ISAs
The maximum you can invest across your ISAs (if it’s a cash ISA...

Talking About Money

While, for many, discussions about money can be extremely uncomfortable, experts have long stressed the best approach to financial issues is invariably to talk about them. Indeed, perceived wisdom suggests the more open and honest people are about money, the better their life and relationships tend to be.

Finance: the last taboo
There’s a wide variety of reasons why people don’t like to discuss their finances. In some cases, money is simply viewed as a vulgar subject to talk about, while many individuals lack financial ...

Getting Mortgage Ready

Whether you’re a first-time buyer, a second-stepper or further up the housing ladder, buying a home is always a big move and can feel a bit like a roller coaster ride at the best of times. With 60% of buyers reporting being put off moving because they find the idea overwhelming, here are some tips that can help you navigate the process as smoothly as possible.

Save up
You will need to have saved a deposit - in most cases the bigger the deposit you can put down, the lower your interest rate is likely to be. Open a ded...

Investment Update - A Volatile Period for Markets

High inflation, disappointing earnings results from some tech companies and Russia’s invasion in Ukraine caused turbulence for the financial markets.

The reality of armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine pushed down leading stock market indices during February. Since the start of the year, conditions have been volatile owing to concerns about persistently high inflation and central bank interest rate rises. Geopolitical tensions added further uncertainty, with rapidly changing events cau...

Reckless Caution Is Costing Savers

New research from The Openwork Partnership, one of the UK’s largest and longest established financial advice and investment networks, shows more than 11.6 million are keeping all their money in cash despite ongoing low rates.

Its nationwide study found 22% of adults prefer to keep all their money in cash while the same number will not consider stock market investments despite potentially higher returns as they don’t understand it.

The Openwork Partnership is warning about the risks to savers of reckless ...

Investment Update - Shaken but not stirred

Persistently high inflation is putting pressure on central banks to raise interest rates, which unsettled markets during the first few weeks of the year

At the start of 2022, the World Bank issued a warning that the global economy faces a variety of challenges, including new Covid variants, high inflation and an uncertain geopolitical landscape. Its economists lowered their growth forecasts and suggested that some richer countries might not reach pre-pandemic levels of output until 2023, with poor...

Are you making the most of your ISA allowance?

In the Financial Lives 2020 survey from the FCA, it has been found that older adults were more likely to hold a savings account of any type, than younger adults. For example, 83% of those aged 55+ did, compared with 63% of 18–24-year-olds. So, how could an ISA help you?

ISA
An ISA is an individual savings account that allows you to save tax-free money in a cash or investment account, so you could end up getting more for your money. An ISA is a medium to long term investment, which aims to incr...