Everything is relative, including wealth, yours and theirs. This week I talk about… You - a perspective. And a type of calendar that I can’t imagine being a worse item to have in your house.
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Death and Taxes: financial planning can help with both of them.
And the difference between cost and value: only concern yourself with the areas that make a difference.
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I can barely remember my early visits to Greek Islands, lost as they were to late nights, Raki, Ouzo and Retsina. Art director Terry, who is responsible for much of our graphic content, got marooned in his Cretian holiday home during Covid and never came back. I went to stay recently and had a very different sort of experience this time around.
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According to McKinsey the wellness industry is a staggering $1.5 trillion market worldwide, but is it good for us, or just making us sick? I admit to feeling a little queasy listening to Radio 4’s programme The New Gurus over breakfast this week. The episode was titled Taking the Urine, inspired by one guru, Will Blunderfield’s habit of drinking his. And from there it got more bizarre, explicit and rather sad.
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The Investors’ Chronicle is a virtual bible for DIY investors and we were recently asked to comment on and critique one reader’s portfolio and planning – he was seeking ideas and reassurance as he steps confidently to his impending retirement.
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I felt a ring of empathy with comedian and writer Paul Kerensa’s slot on Radio 2’s Pause for Thought this week.
He started by relating a conversation with his mother who was objecting to the overuse of the word…
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Dying more quickly - the bad news and the good news. Be careful what you wish for, it might bite. And what happened when I was asked by a journalist from the Times to “mark” financial advice provided by ChatGPT (artificial intelligence).
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Legal & General is at 8.18%, Aviva is at 7.38%, Phoenix is at 9.51%: if you held all four of these insurers equally in your ISA those income yields average at 8.99% per year. Two obvious questions arise – why, and should you?
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I am Senior Non-Executive Director of Adnams, the Suffolk brewery and distillery which is celebrating its 150th year anniversary. We were honoured this week by a visit from The Princess Royal who…
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People who have a rosy outlook on the world may live healthier, longer lives because they have fewer stressful events to cope with, new research suggests. Scientists found that whilst optimists reacted to and recovered from stressful situations in much the same way as pessimists, the optimist fares…
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Of all the recent blogs, this one you need to read. All the trusts share prices have fallen in recent weeks due to the Swiss ripping up of the banking rule books, but the reserves of those trusts have not moved a jot – that simply means that each £1 of income they pay is now cheaper to buy than before the crisis. Cheaper to buy means a higher income yield, the maths is quite simple. Remember that…
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There was particular local interest in last Saturday’s Oscars because the immensely kind and talented Charlie Mackesy was nominated for the animated film of his best-selling book, The Boy, the mole, the fox and the Horse. His book broke all records, spending over 150 weeks in the Sunday Times best sellers list and the subsequent film premiered on BBC 1 on Christmas Eve…
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Blimey, it’s enough to keep you awake at night, so much going on it’s quite wise to stand at the side and watch the world go past – after all, you saw all this in the 70’s, 80’s and then the 00’s (the noughties, I believe). In the blog today I have just outlined a list of ten key items that caught our financial eye this week.
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Every weekday evening, just before the news, Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman host the ever-popular Pointless tv quiz show. On Saturdays there is a celebrity version which last weekend featured BBC sports journalist Mike Bushell and news presenter Kasia Madela. We were quite chuffed to see our company name advertised on BBC peak viewing. Then it got me thinking about other pointless things.
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The largest survey of recent retirees in the US found the biggest source of anxiety that retirees suffered from was a lack of routine. We can tell when retirees are bored, they spend too much time fiddling with the detail of their money, accounts, investments, and sometimes ex-City workers keep…
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My two eldest children’s first school was Little Missenden Church of England Infant School, an idyllic establishment catering for just 45 pupils. The next-door churchyard was separated from the playground by a low iron railing fence and often an elderly looking gentlemen would chat to the children at breaktimes. None of the children really knew who he was, but the teachers did.
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In January this year, Kseniia, our Ukrainian analyst, ran comparisons over the last ten calendar years of the Vanguard FTSE tracker (cost 0.09% pa) versus a unit trust JO Hambro UK Equity (cost 0.67% pa) versus the Merchants Trust (cost 0.61%). Kseniia ran two scenarios, both covering 2013 to 2022…
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Fishing is, by a distance, the biggest participation sport in the UK with over 1.5 million taking part each year.
I am no fisherman but have enjoyed a fishing trip three times in the last three years when on holiday. On our latest encounter we…
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Being independent, we are agnostic in our choice of assets, products, managers, platforms, strategies – we have the luxury of being able whatever we want in creating client portfolios. We live and die by the sword though – if the income a client needs isn’t delivered then the relationship is very short lived, so our job is finding the optimal solution to meet your specific needs.
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Spending money – your retirement money – starts off being a science and then moves to the emotional. How people invest money is hidden, not visible, but how it is spent is the opposite and that may be more insightful. Money is a utility, it’s for a purpose; if it is…
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