FINANCIAL PROTECTION Archives - Financial Planning in Surrey

The Unspoken Cash Crisis

Dominic Thomas
Jan 2025 • 2 min read

The Unspoken Cash Crisis

There are lots of topics within the subject of a cash crisis. This could mean anything from struggling to find a bank to deposit a cheque, the growing number of retailers and businesses refusing to accept cash as a form of payment, struggling businesses, individuals, families, local authorities and national institutions. However, I’d like to turn to some rather alarming recent research about the level of savings that the general population has.

According to some recent research by a much-loved Building Society in the north east, the average adult doesn’t have much cash to fall back on in a crisis. Whilst admittedly a small survey of 1,200 adults (you’ve seen adverts for women’s products from multinationals who seem to have barely left the building to ask such small numbers of people and then claim 8/10… but I digress) only 13% had at least a month’s salary saved (in cash, not pensions or investments).

The younger members of the survey unsurprisingly fared worst with 57% of 18-25 year olds having no savings at all. The “at retirement group” aged 55-64 still had an alarming 34% without any cash savings at all.

There is, of course, multiple millions saved in bank and building society accounts. Data from the Building Society Association suggests that by the end of October 2024 there was £381,581,000,000 in Cash ISAs, but despite recent rises in interest rates, the average saver is getting a paltry 2.5% interest or 4.2% for those who have actively sought a one year fixed rate.

Today, cash management systems like Akoni, Insignis or Flagstone all offer a portal service to multiple banks and building societies, enabling you to receive very competitive rates, spread across different banks, with the added advantage of spreading your FSCS collapse insurance around without hassle.

Cash, as I have said before is always good to have. It’s there for planned projects and emergencies. There are no hard and fast rules about how much, but as a guide … 3-12 months of normal spending ought to be enough for most people who have not retired, but also allow for your projects and I’m not including your ‘saving to spend’ pots for your holidays.

Any questions, please ask.

As an aside – Accountants are currently in the throes of finalising 2023/24 tax returns and some have expressed surprise at just how much extra interest our clients have gained using cash management platforms (which, unfortunately, is subject to income tax).

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The Unspoken Cash CrisisJemima Thomas2025-01-27T13:44:00+00:00

Lasting Power of Attorney – the DIY option … ?

Debbie Harris
Nov 2024 • 2 min read

Lasting Power of Attorney – the DIY option … ?

Last month, I sat down with my elderly parents (it still feels weird referring to them in that way – they just don’t seem ‘old’ to me!) and we thrashed out their lasting powers of attorney instructions.

We interspersed the tough conversations with lots of gallows humour (that’s how we do it in my family) and submitted the applications to the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG). We could have done it online, but my dad is a self-proclaimed dinosaur and insisted we send them in the post (with cheques … none of that new-fangled online banking stuff for him!)

About a month later we received confirmation that the applications had been received and could take around 12 weeks to be processed.

To my surprise then about a week later, we received another letter (or rather four of them – one for each LPA) to say that the applications had been processed (and not rejected!) and we could expect to receive certificates within about five weeks. Well played OPG – under-promised and over-delivered!

Anyway – despite the intense stress of making sure everyone signed everything in the right place and in the right order (that’s important!), the process was remarkably straightforward and simple.

Dominic and Daniel (our financial planners here at Solomon’s) have been encouraging clients to put LPAs in place sooner rather than later and to have a go at doing it yourselves rather than incurring the expense of engaging a legal representative (we were quoted over £1,000 for a solicitor to do it!).

I am pleased to confirm that my experience of helping my parents do theirs was really positive. It’s always great when someone in the team here has the ‘actual’ lived experience of things like this, so that we can confidently make recommendations to you and explain the process and the potential obstacles. If Daniel or Dominic have advised you to ‘have a go’ – I would encourage you to do so – it feels daunting I know, but it really wasn’t difficult in the end.

Just a couple of things to bear in mind …

~ you need someone to be the applicant and someone else to be the ‘proposer’ (an independent person – could be a friend or trusted colleague) to say that they have discussed the LPA with the donor (the person who the LPA is for) to ensure that they are not under any duress to sign their powers away! You need attorneys (and possibly replacement attorneys). And they all need to sign the forms in the correct order. With the ones we did – we were all together in the same place at the same time, so it was easy to do this; but will be slightly more difficult if you cannot arrange such a gathering (we did it over a shared meal together which made it a far more enjoyable experience!)

~ there are two types of LPA – one for finance and property related matters and another for health and medical issues (the cost currently is £82.00 per LPA per individual)

~ get them in place well in advance of when you think you might need to enact them (as it can take many months to complete the process – especially if the application forms are rejected at any point)

As ever – if you need any further information or help with this, please get in touch – we are always happy to assist.

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Lasting Power of Attorney – the DIY option … ?Jemima Thomas2025-01-21T15:19:51+00:00

Are you under the finfluence?

Daniel Liddicott
Sept 2024 • 2 min read

Are you under the finfluence?

Social media has become awash with financial influencers (also known as ‘finfluencers’) over the last few years. Whether they are talking about tax on TikTok or informing people about ISAs on Instagram, there is a real danger that those viewing their content may be at risk of making harmful financial decisions as a result.

Giving financial advice as we do is extensively, and rightly, regulated to ensure that any recommendations that are made to you are coming from specialists who are authorised to do so. Whilst more generic financial information is not necessarily harmful i.e., explaining the ISA annual allowance; some information given with good intentions to the wrong group of people could lead down a dangerous path.

I have seen one such example from a YouTuber (naming no names). She explained junior ISAs (JISAs) and how she and her husband have started paying into one each month for their toddler. Not an overtly bad thing to do by any means. She continued to show projections of what she believed the value of the JISA would be at their child’s various milestone birthdays – a powerfully persuasive method of showing the benefits of doing this.

However, there are problems with this. She used returns figures for her projections that are unrealistic (even if using a stocks & shares JISA over the long term). She did not once mention that the value of investments can go down as well as up and that the funds could realistically run out. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that some people viewing this content might then have opened a stocks & shares JISA for their child without fully understanding the risks involved.

This is just one relatively small example of how providing generic, selective information could lead to potential financial harm. Finfluencers have also been known to promote high risk, unregulated products such as cryptocurrencies without truly understanding or conveying the risks involved.

When under the finfluence, caution is required.

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Are you under the finfluence?Jemima Thomas2025-01-21T15:19:38+00:00

Have you been scammed?

Dominic Thomas
Sept 2024 • 2 min read

Have you been scammed?

According to a recent report for LV, roughly one in seven adults have been the subject of an attempted pension scam in the last 12 months! That’s an enormous number, translating into about 7.3 million people.

A staggering 14% were encouraged to transfer money from their pensions by text message. It may interest you to note that about 4 million British adults lost money to such scams over the same period. That is an awful lot and begs the question – are the regulators really focussing on the right things?

Pensions are both simple and complex. Simple in the sense that they are a savings plan that you access to provide income in your retirement. Ideally this needs to last for the remainder of your lifetime, which then presents the inevitable question “how much is enough?” which of course is subjective and dependant on your expectations and lifestyle.

Pension rules are ludicrously complicated, made by successive Governments, each of which has been utterly lacking any long-term thinking. Complexity is perhaps a double-edged sword. Most people know enough to realise that they probably need advice, but the cost of this is prohibitive. A lot of the cost is due to regulation, but in fairness most of the regulation is well intended.

A problem we all face is that scammers are getting better. Deepfake technology makes a decent scam difficult to spot. It is relatively easy to set up an email, phone number and website that all look perfectly legitimate. Something like 36% of scams were reported as fake HMRC emails and text messages.

Regulators, pension companies and advisers would all likely say the same thing – please seek advice. The scam rate amongst regulated advisers is very low (contrary to press-driven opinion). The majority of scams take place through the everyday technology you use at home. If you come across friends or family who you suspect may be about to make a catastrophic blunder, please (please!) get them to call us. Certainly not everyone is going to be a suitable client for us, but if we can save someone from self-destruction, we are happy to take calls or emails.

Don’t wait for a friend to get scammed, get them in touch with us, so that we can ensure that they don’t get caught out.

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Have you been scammed?Jemima Thomas2025-01-21T15:19:59+00:00

What decisions would you alter from your past?

Dominic Thomas
August 2024 • 3 min read

What decisions would you alter from your past?

The appearance of Michael J Fox on the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury with Coldplay was a reminder of the need to savour the moments that we have.

For those who don’t know, Michael J Fox has had a successful career in film and television, most notably for his performance as Marty McFly in the Back to the Future movies. He has since revealed his battle with Parkinson’s disease which has had an increasingly debilitating effect.

In the original movie, teenager Marty McFly travels in time from 1985 to 1955 and meets his parents when they were at High School. The difference in fashion, attitudes and culture in just three decades made for good entertainment. Today it is now longer since the film was released than the time travel that Marty experienced, nearly a decade longer! As with most time travelling fantasies, the lesson learned is that a change in the timeline will likely lead to different outcomes.

Aporia is yet another film on the topic, but rather than travel back, time is bent to change the past. Malcolm’s sudden death as a result of a drunk driver leaves Sophie widowed and struggling to make ends meet, their daughter Riley is becoming increasingly disinterested in school or friends. Malcolm’s friend seems to have done the impossible in his spare room and invented a working Time Machine. Sophie (despite having seen Back to the Future!) decides to interrupt the time continuum with the hope of preventing the fatal accident.

I am sorry to say that my pedantic self took over as events unfold, I immediately thought, why don’t you now take out a decent level of life assurance! This is your warning, you have seen how difficult life can be when tragedy strikes and a lack of funds merely compounds the difficulty. Whist money does not compensate for the loss of a loved one, it certainly helps survivors to cope and continue.

No, it’s not terribly romantic of me is it! But then my view is that romance is for the living. Early in my career there was a well-known training film about the impact of death on a family. Its aim was to highlight the importance of life assurance and the relieving of stress on a widow… which of course had the agenda of getting me (and every other adviser) to sell more life assurance.

Over the years I have worked with many people who have lost a loved one. Some were far better prepared than others and some were not prepared at all. We get constant reminders that life is short and death is inevitable; yet most of us avoid thinking through the consequences of our death on the families and businesses we may leave behind.

It’s time to change that. You can take action today, there are not as many tomorrows as you think.

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What decisions would you alter from your past?Jemima Thomas2025-01-21T15:41:28+00:00

Are you falling in love with a scammer?

Jemima Thomas
June 2024 • 3 min read

Romance scams – preying on the kind hearted

I apologise if I’m becoming the bi-monthly agony Aunt in reminding you about the importance of financial trust in romantic relationships; but being able to trust your partner in any relationship is imperative. It’s also important to remind those of you who are single, divorced or widowed that it is vital that you’re not taken advantage of when establishing a new relationship.

We know that you, our clients, trust our advice and expertise, which is why we’d like to think that if any significant financial decisions needed to be made – you’d get in touch with us.

Unfortunately, preying on the kind-hearted isn’t at all unusual in the landscape of financial scams and fraud. We hope that all our clients would call us if you were getting a ‘gut feeling’ when something doesn’t seem or ‘feel’ quite right. We are here to reassure you on things and to flag up anything out of the ordinary to prevent you coming to any ‘financial harm’.

Lloyds Bank research shows that the number of people falling for so-called ‘romance scams’ rose by over 22% in 2023 (on the previous year). The statistics revealed that men and women aged 55-64 were the most likely group to be tricked by “fraudsters masquerading as love interests”. However, it is 65-74 year olds who lose the most money in these scams, giving away an average of over £13,000.

The fraud prevention director at Lloyds Bank, Liz Ziegler, weighs in:

“Targeting those looking for love is a cruel, but sadly common, way for fraudsters to cash in. Scammers can be incredibly convincing and leave their victims both emotionally and financially drained’’.

I appreciate that this is a delicate topic; some people loathe to talk about such personal circumstances with their financial adviser, but your relationships intertwine with your finances and we are very honoured that our clients are willing to share these details with us. Rest assured – like a close friend or a doctor – your stories and questions will always be confidential and received without judgement.

On the same note, I would like to remind all of you about the importance of both parties (if in a couple) attending initial or annual review meetings with either Dominic or Daniel. It is crucial that nothing is ‘lost in translation’, and this way we can ensure that we keep everyone as included as possible. For us, it is all about transparency and clarity for each and every one of you.

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Are you falling in love with a scammer?Jemima Thomas2025-01-21T15:41:28+00:00

You know when you’ve been tangoed

Dominic Thomas
May 2024 • 5 min read

You know when you’ve been tangoed

I read a recent report which, to be blunt, left me a little speechless (an achievement in itself). To my mind it merely confirms the need for detailed planning rather than a back of the envelope guesstimate. I will concede that anything to do with the future is a bit of a guess, but an educated one, based on relevant data is somewhat more reliable.

Does my Boredom Look Big in this?

I am on fairly safe ground if I suggest that most tedious aspect of working with me is gathering and providing details about your spending. For this we have the Spending Plan (I’ve included the link for you here) but it also needs updating. This is a total pain, but until most of us have confidence that banks will accurately share your data with us via technology (probably no time soon for most of you) then it’s a hard graft.

Anyway, the purpose of it is foundational to any financial plan. If we don’t have a good idea about what income you have and how you spend, then frankly we have as much chance of being vaguely right as any other economic forecast (not very).

Imagine my surprise on learning that the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) increased the amount of the income they expect to provide a single person with a ‘moderate’ standard of living in retirement from £23,300 in 2022/23 to £31,300 this year, an increase of 34%. For context, according to the ONS, the average salary in the UK at April 2023 was £35,464. You can find the RLS here. Yikes! That’s some increase, substantially above the rate of inflation. That’s an orange fella’s slap round the cheeks wake up call if ever there was.

To give you some context a full State Pension (35 qualifying years of National Insurance payments) is about £11,502 in 2024/25 meaning that even by their error prone forecast most single people will need about another £19,798pa from other sources (in todays money). As we have set the bar as guesstimates, that’s a pension and/or ISA/investment fund of about £494,950 to provide £19,798pa. (Please assume all the warnings about assumptions and investments blah blah blah..). In my guesstimate, I’ve used the 4% rule, which is contentious, but a better guide than most. Let’s just call it £500,000.

Little wonder then that one in seven retired people are currently having to return to some form of work to top up their income to make ends meet. This is having to, not choosing to.

Financial Adviser Truth…

As difficult as it may be for pundits, compliance officers and regulators to accept, most people need a fairly aggressive investment strategy to stand much of a chance of getting the target income they actually want. That means a high allocation to shares (or equities – same thing). Holding fixed interest securities because you don’t like seeing your statement valuation reduce is not going to get you where you need to go, at least its unlikely, but I can only really tell you if you engage us to do a proper plan for you.

If you are a client already, this is why we request that you check our reports for you and you provide details of your income (before tax) from all sources along with your spending details – ideally rounded up and inflated by you for good measure.

Of course, if you want to return to work that’s an entirely different matter, but good financial planning is about enabling you to maintain your standard of living, your lifestyle, for the remainder of your life.

If you have no idea what I mean about being tangoed, here is the advert from many years ago, I’m presuming that the drink is largely available at all beverage retailers. (No I am not about to paint myself orange to make the point).

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You know when you’ve been tangoedJemima Thomas2025-01-28T10:03:28+00:00

The Beekeeper

Dominic Thomas
March 2024 • 2 min read

The Beekeeper

There was a click of the call suddenly ending. She stared at the monitor, the sudden reality of what had just happened began to flood her body. Her account balance stared back at her; it was all gone.

If you have ever been scammed, you will understand the mixture of feelings – shame, embarrassment, anger and a deep despair. “It’s not personal” is a response that has a hollowness of the desensitised. Fraud is a very real form of abuse, abuse of the uniqueness of the human character.

The Beekeeper is an action film that plays to our very ordinary desire for revenge. It may not be your cup of tea, but I found it amusing and cathartic. My inability to understand why some people choose to rip off others without any motive other than greed is just part of my own hardwiring. It makes me very angry.

Jason Statham, a man ticking the box for the perfect assassin, whilst seemingly very able to not take himself or his roles too seriously, plays Adam Clay, a ‘Beekeeper’ which is some black ops Government-sanctioned sword of Damocles, who takes matters into his own hands in the pursuit to end the call centres that scam the vulnerable with their promise of fixing a computer.

Of course it’s daft, but satisfying if, like me, you achieve a sense of a ‘balance in the Force’ through fiction because our reality of justice is often deeply disappointing. It’s not for all, it knows its audience, but even if that isn’t you, the scene early in the story of how a malevolent call centre loots an intelligent elder of their life savings is worth the educational value and disturbance to your sensibilities. I would counsel you to learn about and be alert to this and similar scams. Money is never just money if you understand what it represents.

Here is the official trailer:

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The BeekeeperJemima Thomas2025-01-21T15:41:28+00:00

The Bogus ‘Financial Adviser’

Dominic Thomas
Sept 2023 • 4 min read

The Bogus ‘Financial Adviser’

There are some lessons to be gleaned from a recent sorry tale about Peter Holbrook who posed as a financial adviser. As often is the case, his focus was on fairly vulnerable people who were recently bereaved.

Holbrook was recently sentenced to prison for five years and three months, so in theory he will be held at his Majesty’s pleasure until he turns eighty. This is for conning seven people out of £850,000 which he used to fund his gambling habit.

The scam lasted 10 years and seems to have involved persuading his victims to allow him to handle Probate and reinvest the proceeds of the estate. His fraud involved forging letters from investment companies and writing Wills, for which I understand he had no formal qualifications or training.

Obviously being conned out of your own money can have devastating consequences. Families are left with a lack of resources in a world which we all know is quick to consume them. Not having enough is pressure enough, let alone having it stolen. Holbrook, like many people, formed a gambling habit. All gambling is based on the erroneous belief that the system can be beaten, the constant winning and losing inevitably leads to a deficit on the balance sheet, the pressure can in turn cause addicts to make decisions that they would be unlikely to make had they not gambled in the first place.

I don’t gamble and if I’m being candid, I don’t believe it’s a good idea. That said, I don’t really think there is anything particularly wrong with the occasional bet for a ‘bit of fun’, but in all honesty I can find more interesting things to do with money. However, in a culture in which many football teams (eight of the 20 [40%] current Premier League teams), or sports teams in general, are sponsored by gambling companies; clearly it will take the usual required will power to go against the crowd. Many have a story about ‘a win’ that they had, but few relay tales of loss.

Sadly, investing is often compared to gambling, which is a failure of education. The association is one of loss. Companies can and do go bust, regularly. If all your money is in one or very few shares, then frankly that is very like gambling (though you are holding real shares in the assets of those companies). Anyone holding shares in Enron will corroborate this. However proper investing is buying shares in a globally diversified portfolio of companies around the world. All working to improve products and services and design new ones. This is how commerce works. It isn’t a perfect system, but it has a long pedigree of success.

We all know that there are some difficult realities of life. We all will die, nobody escapes mortality. Money pays bills, it provides choice, but it needs looking after and getting one’s affairs in order is often tedious and other than peace of mind, provides little ‘buzz’; certainly you are unlikely to get a giddy feeling of anything resembling that of having won the lottery! Investing should be dull; it should be boring. If it isn’t, you are probably holding the wrong cards or playing the wrong game. Finding someone to trust in a world that seems deliberately set up to confuse with jargon and costs isn’t easy. There are only around 28,000 financial advisers in the whole of the UK. That’s not many for a population of 66million.

Nobody wants to be the victim of a fraud or scam, please check with those you care about that they have a bona fide adviser.

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The Bogus ‘Financial Adviser’Jemima Thomas2025-01-23T10:54:08+00:00

The small print

Daniel Liddicott
Sept 2023 • 3 min read

The small print

Have you ever signed a contract without reading the small print? If so, you may have missed some important details that could affect your rights and obligations. The small print, also known as the terms and conditions, is the part of a contract that contains the specific and often complex details of an agreement. It may include clauses on fees, penalties, warranties, exclusions, limitations, dispute resolution, and more. Reading the small print can help you avoid unpleasant surprises, protect your interests, and make informed decisions.

Prior to a house move last year, we were encouraged by the estate agents to consider using One Utility Bill, a company who (as their name suggests) amalgamates all of your utility bills into a singular monthly direct debit. Drawn in by the idea of easy setup and management, as well as a call with a convincing salesperson over the phone, we signed up to this service on a 12-month contract. We proceeded to provide meter readings through their online portal.

Our bills were fixed at a relatively high rate though, with the cost-of-living crisis being at the forefront of everyone’s minds, we were happy to know exactly what we were paying for the term, with expected rebates should we overpay against our usage.

Fast forward to the end of the contract, at which point we had decided to go directly to providers instead and had given our required 30 days’ notice. When informing them that we were leaving, we were informed that no refunds for overpayment would be given – something that was not made clear or even mentioned during the sign-up process.

Sure enough, further inspection of the Terms & Conditions showed that this was the case, though they had not been forthcoming with this information during the sales process and the T&C document was sent to us post-sign up. Had we read the small print, even after having just signed up, we would have been able to cancel the contract within the cooling off period.

We had been paying at least £100 more than we should have been each month. An expensive mistake to make.

Reading the small print may seem tedious and time-consuming, but it can save you a lot of trouble and money in the long run. Remember, a contract is a legally binding document that can affect your rights and responsibilities. Therefore, it is important to read it carefully and understand what you are agreeing to. Make sure that you know what you are getting into before you sign on the dotted line!

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The small printJemima Thomas2025-01-21T15:41:29+00:00

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