How to Guides

Each day we make thousands of decisions. Some don’t have much impact - such as would you like marmalade or marmite on your toast, or would you prefer ‘white sliced’ or sourdough?

However, some decisions do matter and make a serious difference if they don’t turn out as we hoped. Financial decisions fall firmly in this category; important decisions that can have a long-lasting impact on ourselves and our families if we get it wrong.

ISAs, or Individual Savings Accounts, have been around for over 20 years – since Google had its debut and Bill Clinton was impeached. Rewind to 1999, and the Chancellor Gordon Brown introduced the product in the hope of encouraging us to save more for the future. Since then, they’ve become an essential part of many a financial plan.

One of the key aims of the ISA was to make saving simple. However, as with many things finance-related, successive governments have tinkered with parts of ISAs, added new products and altered limits. The net result is that picking an ISA product and understanding how to make the most of your allowance is not quite as simple as it was initially meant to be!

Our free, 12-page essential guide to ISAs talks you through what an ISA is, the different types of ISAs and why should you choose one.

There are many good reasons to invest rather than just ‘save’ money – and before your imagination runs away with you, we are not talking investment aka the Wolf of Wall Street. That said, at one end of the scale investing can, indeed, provide an opportunity to increase your net worth or perhaps make you independently wealthy. However, the reality is that most of us would be more than happy at the prospect of knowing we’ll have a decent financial umbrella or of being able to retire comfortably or sooner than we’d planned. Investing can

It’s tempting to think of retirement as one long long holiday where we kick back after years of hard work and indulge in hobbies and interests. As a vision that’s appealing, but it fails to take into account that ageing is not a choice it’s inevitable. This is fine to a point, but a more realistic view is to think of retirement as a series of phases during which lifestyle wishes and healthcare needs can change dramatically over decades. The good news is that planning for later-life financial security IS achievable if you are proactive now. To help you along the way, we’ve compiled this baby boomer’s roadmap.

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.