This year has been a difficult one, financially speaking, for households in a range of income brackets. The cost of living has risen substantially as inflation has soared and interest rates are rising. Meanwhile, investment markets have been choppy, which has been an additional source of stress for those planning their financial future. It’s during the hard times that the value of financial advice really shines through.
What does a financial adviser do?
The purpose of financial planning is to help you manage your income and assets so you can achieve your life goals.
You may think that it’s only worth talking to us if you have a specific goal in mind, such as early retirement, or after a big financial event such as divorce or receiving an inheritance, when you have a large sum of money to manage.
Although that’s part of our role, in reality, we can help you tackle a whole range of money-related issues, which include:
- Making the most of your money on a day-to-day basis
- Being financially capable of dealing with the unexpected
- Feeling confident, empowered and knowledgeable
- Making smart use of debt, insurance policies and financial products to help you on your journey
The current cost-of-living crisis presents a huge threat to many people and their prospects of achieving these aims. Although some are more insulated than others, the impact of high inflation, energy bills, interest rate rises and other economic challenges have become widespread.
Despite the 80% rise in the energy price cap now being cancelled with the introduction of the energy price guarantee, prices will still increase for many who will already be feeling the squeeze from previous rises.
We’re here to help you with the most mundane aspects of money management – and the most complex areas, too. Talking about how difficult things are, or how worried you are, is the first step to feeling better about it.
Why financial planning is important
You’ve probably already put in place structures and routines to help you reach your goals. These may include budgeting, savings goals, monthly contributions to pensions or investments, and insurance or income-protection policies.
The challenge is that some of these best-laid plans fall apart. This can be either because people’s incomes are so stretched they cannot keep up with commitments such as pension contributions or savings, or because people actively stop working towards their goals out of fear of what’s ahead.
We spend every day creating plans to help people reach their aims, based on realistic calculations of how much they’ll need. We can tweak and fine tune these so that people who may feel they cannot afford to save for retirement, for example, or keep up their financial commitments, are able to do so.
Managing financial worries
As well as being a sounding board for your financial concerns and creating action plans for getting ahead, we can accurately assess how you as an individual may be affected by the current environment. Whether it’s the impact of inflation on your cash savings or how a recession may affect your business, we can provide a range of forecasts tailored to your circumstances.
These should offer reassurance because your worst-case scenario may not have the terrible effect you fear. Whatever the situation, rest assured that there will be a financial solution – and we’ll make sure you find it.
Get in touch to see how we can help. Contact Avail Financial Planning on 01525 654771 or 07508 810753.
Avail Financial Planning is an Appointed Representative of and represents only St. James’s Place Wealth Management plc (which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority) for the purpose of advising solely on the group’s wealth management products and services, more details of which are set out on the group’s website www.sjp.co.uk/products. The ‘St. James’s Place Partnership’ and the titles ‘Partner’ and ‘Partner Practice’ are marketing terms used to describe St. James’s Place representatives.
