“Sometimes in life, it’s not developing the best answers, but developing the right questions”
David Booth

Financial planning

Many of us spend little time planning our futures but everyone has goals they would like to achieve in their lives. So why do so many people leave pursuing their dreams to chance?

It might be the thought that this is overwhelming. It’s complex, feeling you need to understand all this stuff about investments and pensions. It’s much easier to put it off for another day, or year and go back to planning that holiday.

Worried about making smart decisions for your financial future? Watch our video.

How to get started
Regularly putting money aside is a good place to start. But understanding how much money you must save and the risk you need to take with your hard-earned savings is more difficult. That’s why our service is about more than helping you invest your money.

It’s about being honest about where you are right now and more importantly about where you want to get to in the future.

Once we’ve help you navigate the obstacles that might otherwise derail your plan, we can help you make your best guesses about how to narrow the gap between the two and create a practical, yet simple plan of action, that we’ll revisit with you regularly to ensure you stay on track.

Getting to know you
As we’ve seen earlier in the Life Planning section, we get to know one another well before beginning to create your plan. From there, we will assess the financial resources you have available to achieve your plan and consider what obstacles must be addressed.

Prioritising your goals
We will help you prioritise your short, medium and long-term goals. With your timeline in place, we will help arrange your finances, so that you can achieve your goals with the lowest level of risk to your money and future standard of living.

Creating your plan
Once we understand your timeline and your goals, we’ll use all the information we’ve gathered to create a Master Plan. This will provide us with an insight into your financial future, as things currently stand.

Developing your plan
Your Master Plan is the starting point for you to get creative. We can quickly consider as many different financial futures as you can imagine. Using the insights we’ve gained from our Life Planning conversations, our aim will be to help create a financial plan that enables you to live the life you want.

When we’ve explored all the options, we’ll agree the best way forward right now. The best way to ensure your dreams can and will become reality.
You will know this because you’ll be able to see the step-by-step plan designed around your own unique set of circumstances, created to achieve your personal life plan.

Implementation
Once your financial life plan is in place, we will account for your attitude to risk and recommend the most suitable mix of assets and investments to achieve your goals.

After agreeing the strategy, we will review your current investments, to ensure they are still suitable within your new risk-rated portfolio. We will then build a tailored investment portfolio for you and provide a clear picture of its expected performance over time. Naturally, we cannot guarantee these numbers.

Optimising your tax position
To optimise your returns, we will ensure your new portfolio takes advantage of all available tax allowances while making sure they do not compromise your financial plan. Where appropriate, we will access Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs), pensions, onshore and offshore bond tax structures, and a general investment account to optimise your annual capital gains tax allowances. We may also recommend trusts to manage inheritance tax liabilities and help distribute your wealth.

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