This week David Stevenson wrote about us in Citywire, asking why don’t more people realise trusts are great pension income providers if you care more about steady income than steady capital growth.

My wife is a Kiwi and so combining a winter holiday with visiting relatives and friends is a double win. After a family gathering in Wellington, we took the ferry to the South Island and the start of a five-day hike along The Queen Charlotte Track…

Working with people like you all day, every day, we run several continual, repetitive conversations so I’ve outlined for you here the three dilemmas every client gets caught with, and why the questions are non-binary. There’s a point to noodles, but more importantly we outline for you the three main ways of drawing income from your pension.

This time I cover two aspects of retirement for you – one is what to do with the free time and your Third Age, the other is how to pay for it.

First a quick look at the fun part of retiring, the whole point – stepping away from the desk brings 24/7 freedom so what’s your plan? Here’s what Steve & Judy from the BBC did in the mid-50’s as a change of tack (pun intended) and plan for filling retirement years.

As we approach The Season of Goodwill and Peace on Earth to all men….and women… it seems the narrative is more hostile than ever. Is it social media or are we simply less kind than we used to be?

Today we’ll have a quick look at some items we have come across recently – we’ll show you what Russian bots on the web actually look like and the simple error Norway has made on its wealth tax.

This week we have been running annual updates and valuations for all our clients – the updates include the month by month record of the actual income, and these annual tables are stacked with the prior years to provide clients with the reassurance of just how reliable the income is in reality. You can’t pay bills with optimistic asset allocation.

As an island nation where the seasons come and go, it’s little wonder that we are always talking about the weather. We are famous for it, ridiculed even, but we are addicted to the topic and just can’t stop. As a child growing up in Yorkshire, I can remember…

This was the catchphrase of The Rag Trade, the 1960’s TV comedy series filmed in black and white which was repeated in colour in the 1970’s. Starring Reg Varney, Sheila Hancock and Barbara Windsor the show shed light on gender politics and class war on the factory floor. The female textile workers led by the male foreman and business owner went on strike in just about every episode. Strikes were funny then.

Now here’s a double edged blessing; many moons ago I was at a drinks party hosted by my father and I joined his group swapping tails. He remarked to the eldest of the group that an upside of being older was that he no longer had school costs to pay, to which the reply was ‘Who do you think pays the grandchildren’s school fees?’ Quite…

Babyboomers are finding themselves in great demand by their children – and it’s not just for their pearls of wisdom! Many of those lucky enough to have savings and investments and equity in their property have, slowly, inexorably and perhaps unwittingly, become a brand new institution - the Bank of Mum and Dad. A combination of soaring house prices, stricter lending criteria, and low wage inflation has seen thousands of our ‘young’ turn to their parents for help – particularly as they try to get a foothold on an increasingly out of reach property ladder.

The origins of giving gifts at Christmas began with The Three Wise Men bringing the infant Jesus presents, but what with the price of gold now touching fifteen hundred quid an ounce, frankincense 500 dollars a pound, and myrrh a massive four thousand, The Magi are a hard act to follow.

Do you read the FT? Most readers here will say ‘no’, and that’s as it should be, we’ll show you why. Anxiety free investing? There’s a very real technique in doing this, backed up by a Nobel Prize, so I outline for you how that’s done, and what you definitely should not be doing.

An astute investor I know of in the US, Morgan Housel, is also a very, very accomplished communicator who is effective at distilling practices and experience into simple summaries. The simple litmus test of financial decisions he believes is the question ‘Does this help me sleep at night?’ What he is saying is…

It seems that the expression “political football’ has gathered more meaning as The World Cup starts this week. In fact, it’s not a cup at all, but a trophy, once stolen and found in a hedge by a dog called Pickles…

As we all tighten our belts this week, we still see a relentless assault on our pockets from this year’s seasonal TV ads. Soul-crushing, Mawkish or Downright Twee” suggests the headline of a review of this year’s crop by…

Following on from last week’s note, maybe its only stuffy baby boomers who have noted the irony in the FTX crypto investors rushing to the exit to sell their crypto holdings for cash. Next up on the list of items proving cashflow is king, is Mike Ashley – he’s in the process of…

It's our turn to organise the annual New Year's Eve dinner party for local residents all of whom are in their 60s, 70s or 80s. We sent out invitations last week to around 30 people and asked them to confirm their place and let us know about any allergies or aversions they may have…

As people we know about ‘the law of unintended consequences’, and that rule applies throughout the arithmetic of investment. Some is unintended, some consequences are designed, some are simply natural. Interest rate rises have a…