Financial Planning Archives - Financial Planning in Surrey

Can you solve a Rubik’s Cube?

Debbie Harris
April 2026 • 2 min read

Can you solve a Rubik’s Cube?

I spotted a video on social media recently posted by Guinness World Records where a group of people from Hong Kong were building the world’s largest Rubik’s Cube.

Fascinating though it was (I was riveted!), I did have to chuckle at the pointlessness of it – what on earth is the use of making a giant Rubik’s Cube that requires at least four people to move the pieces and solve it … surely the beauty of the ‘simple’ Rubik’s Cube is that you can hold it in your hand and complete it at your leisure.

[Side note – you may also have seen children as young as nine or ten attempting to break the ‘fastest solve’ world record too – they do it in less than 10 seconds! I am embarrassed to admit that I have never ONCE in my life even completed the Cube, so these folk – with their youthful dexterous digits – have my utmost respect!]

Anyway – back to my point about the seemingly pointless ‘scaling’ up of this particular project – it caused me to reflect on ‘growth’ in general.

As you know, Solomon’s has been ‘growing’ over recent years and we appreciate that some clients may be wondering whether our service standards will drop; whether we will become more automated; whether we’ll lose the personal touch (that we and you value greatly).

I would like to take this opportunity to reassure you that we have not ‘scaled at speed’ – our growth has been steady and organic; which has enabled us to maintain all the best bits of what we do here.

We can all probably attest to the fact that firms scaling up usually end up losing some things but gaining others and I am very proud of the fact that here at Solomon’s we are working really hard to ensure that our growth has been thoughtfully and carefully managed so that you (our clients) remain at the very heart of everything we do.

The proof in the pudding is ultimately whether or not you have noticed any changes for the worse – if you have, this would be incredibly useful feedback for us – so do please drop us a line.

We are continuing to grow – steadily and mindfully – as we are looking to serve clients for generations to come.

If you can think of anyone who might benefit from having a conversation with us about their financial planning – please do send them our way.

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Can you solve a Rubik’s Cube?Jemima Thomas2026-04-02T10:16:51+01:00

How would you Cope?

Dominic Thomas
Feb 2026 • 3 min read

How would you Cope?

Amour

It’s the award season for films and one previous winner is the French film Amour (2012). It’s beautiful but a really tough watch about a topic that many of us will experience.

George (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) are a retired couple, they have been married for decades and are enjoying their retirement in Paris. Anne used to teach piano and has helped launch several professional careers.

Life changes dramatically for them when Anne has a stroke and the couple navigate all it entails. This is a brutally frank depiction of living with a degenerative condition. They experience a mixture of responses and support and have some firm views of their own.

The sudden upheaval shifts their focus from the finer things of life to the basic tasks of surviving as comfortably as possible. Fortunately they have ample financial and emotional resources to weather the initial challenges and are able to look back appreciatively on their long life together.

When we create your financial plan, we emphasise the importance of living on your own terms and having those experiences that you can whilst you are fit and healthy enough to do so. When we have a decent level of health we take these things for granted, often ignoring the warnings from health experts and our good fortune.

None of us know how long we will live, but it’s also the case that we don’t know how long we can live with good enough health. The ONS data for 2024 showed that in England 531,953 people died, the bulk of them (69%) were over 75 as you might expect, but 26% were 50-74 (yes, so 5% were under 50). The data doesn’t tell us how unwell they were or for how long; we do know most causes of death but not the duration of the decline. Strokes account for nearly 10% of deaths each year.

You may be reading this and thinking – come on Dominic, could you be a bit more cheery and less pessimistic. In truth, I doubt the data will really encourage anyone to make the most of this short time on earth, what may be encouraging is the confidence you can take from a well-crafted financial plan, based around your values and hopes about the future.

It’s the ‘living with regret’ that I think most people struggle with, realising a little too late that they had other choices. Your plan can be a bit like a sliding doors moment, a what if …

Let’s ensure that you live your life on your own terms as far as possible, and whilst we are at it, let’s tell everyone that this is the real purpose of a decent financial planner, not simply to find a better ISA or pension. Those are the tools not the purpose.

It makes a lot of sense to also talk through the difficult issues of personal crisis and life changing health issues.

The charity The Stroke Association report that on average around 400 people a day in the UK have a stroke. That’s about 1 every 3 minutes.

Here is the trailer for Amour which took best film in a foreign language at the Oscars and BAFTAs in 2013. This may be a good way to prompt some discussion about the subject and how we might think about it together in relation to your plan.

Click here to tell a friend about the power of a proper financial plan.

References:

How many deaths in the UK?

What is the data for Stroke in the UK?

What is Critical illness cover?

What is Estate Planning?

Who do Solomons help?

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How would you Cope?Jemima Thomas2026-03-24T16:25:22+00:00

Are Giants Falling From The Sky Yet?

Dominic Thomas
Feb 2026 • 3 min read

Are Giants Falling From The Sky Yet?

We have all heard the warning “be careful what you wish for”. Stephen Sondheim reminds us, using the most basic of story forms that wishes have consequences, in his musical Into the Woods. Sondheim brings together several well-known fairytales, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, Cinderella and Rapunzel into a funny and poignant musical yarn for adults.

The lasting lesson is that each of the characters want something more from life, something that they believe they lack, that this will make their lives complete. By the end of the first act they have all had their wishes granted and should thus be living happily ever after. However, this is the real world and everything has a consequence.

The paths we choose and the manner in which we attempt to attain our desires have an impact on others and ourselves. This is obviously not a new idea, though it would seem that the concept of actual accountability is something that many adults will do almost anything to avoid and ignore. Take the Epstein files and those in ‘elite’ powerful circles who are caught up in this vile network of villainy, including ‘our own’ royal family, politicians and businessmen. The similarities with fairytale characters is remarkable.

The arrogant entitlement of princes, the scheming consumption of the wolf, the wicked stepmother enslaving children, the witch locking away a child, the baker and his wife so desperate for their own happiness that they will do anything. The foolish Jack who will steal to impress, not simply survive and will sell his best friend for a few beans. The vacuous stepsisters who delight in despise and the steward “I don’t make policy, I just carry it out”. The young girls, becoming young women, who are prevented from exploring who they are and might be. Jack’s widowed mother, frustrated by her inept son and struggling to survive in a system that actually does not reward hard work.

Fairytales were always meant to be broad warnings about life, identifying common fears and making light of them. The journey to adulthood is far from an easy one, we all go into the woods and despite healthy feelings of anxiety tell ourselves that “the woods are just trees, the trees are just wood”. Denial, as any therapist will tell you, is an incredibly powerful force.

Still, we live at a time when liars are in power (or seek it) and will do whatever they can to protect their own interests and have little, if any, regard for yours and mine. Truth has become shaped by those who own the looking glass, poisoned apples are sold by the basket. Vanity, greed, envy and power have welcomed hatred and truth is the victim that lies centre stage whilst stepped over, around and ignored.

We all have an ability to resist reality, we are all capable of drawing from the deep well of denial, but a proper conversation about your values and hopes for life means confronting some truths, choices, paths and crossroads. Your financial plan might be a map in a deeply flawed Kingdom, but you still get to make the choices, select the path and decide what is important, necessary and actually fulfilling. Be wary of those playing the proverbial golden harp of things you wish to hear – comforting lies – and those offering a constant supply of golden eggs, the truth is that our choices have consequences, both personally, locally and internationally. A great financial plan isn’t wishful thinking, it’s grounded in your values and adapting to the unfolding reality. It is your story.

Over the coming months, hopefully (please) we will see some justice, but beware of giants falling from the sky – they leave an impression.

Some 40 years after its premier, Into The Woods directed by Jordan Fein is currently performed at The Bridge Theatre (near Tower Bridge) and is a marvellous production. Kate Fleetwood plays an impressive Witch with a real ensemble cast. Into the Woods runs until Saturday 30^th May 2026. The performance that I saw was fabulous, click this link for (tickets) and here is the official trailer.

Careful the things you say, children will listen. Careful the things you do,
Children will see and learn. Children may not obey, but children will listen. Children will look to you for which way to turn, to learn what to be. Careful before you say, “Listen to me.” Children will listen.

Stephen Sondheim, Into The Woods (1986)

#Release the Epstein files.

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Are Giants Falling From The Sky Yet?Jemima Thomas2026-02-19T13:18:57+00:00

Do you feel invisible?

Dominic Thomas
Jan 2026 • 3 min read

Do you feel invisible?

One of the statements I hear increasingly, perhaps I am more aware of it myself, is that with age, there is a growing sense of feeling invisible. Lately a number of thrillers or crime stories have played with the idea of being invisible in plain sight.

I was struck by this and had the sense rather amplified by an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art by Kerry James Marshall. His work depicts his background (a black man born in 1955 Alabama and living in the United States) and confronts this stark reality. An entire room is entitled Invisible Man based around the 1952 book by Ralph Ellison which I bought last year and still haven’t got around to reading. His study is fascinating and deeply unsettling at the same time.

His work confronts injustice, inequality and his African roots all whilst deeply engaged in various foundational aspects of art history and process; incorporating contemporary, even very temporary, aspects of pop culture. A striking piece is his 2003 Black Painting which is totally in black (a comedy sketch from The Fast Show immediately comes to mind as I write) but this is the polar opposite – a couple lying on a bed, the room gradually coming to life as you notice different items and symbols such as the Black Panther flag. It’s very potent indeed and may be an imagined depiction of Fred Hampton moments before he was murdered by Chicago Police in 1969.

What on earth has art got to do with financial planning? Nothing and everything. Art is story and an insight into how the world is seen through the eyes of an artist, yet of course we are largely surmising and viewing through our own lens. When we are building your financial plan, and you are asked about what you may wish to do in the future, it’s common to think that you are expected to offer up some ideas of the places you would like to visit, the beaches you wish to experience, on your yacht whilst popping off for a hot air balloon ride, the golf club membership and advanced skills that you can acquire. There is nothing wrong with any of these things of course, but they are invariably dreamt up by the Don Drapers (Mad Men) of this world and not necessarily what you really wish to do. The truth is that our unique sense of who we are can become invisible even to ourselves as we become so accustomed to social expectations of what we should want from life. I also tend to believe that “if you don’t sacrifice for what you want, what you want becomes the sacrifice”. The question I ask you may even be unfair in the sense that it is so rarely asked at a deep level, and to provide an answer immediately is far from straightforward.

Most of us will struggle to explore much of our personality beyond the boundaries of our upbringing, which is perhaps why there is currently a palpable sense of rose-tinted nostalgia of a time “when things were better”, for which most of us really mean – less different or less challenging to an inability to address the life force of life – growth. It is evident that the struggle for equality is ongoing, the word itself seems to be a nuclear trigger to right wingers.

To honour who you really are and to embed your values deeply into your financial plan, to my developing mind, seems to require a sense of where you wish to arrive (if indeed that is possible) but certainly what impact, memory, impression or legacy you wish to leave with those who care about you and hopefully ‘know’ you.

I suspect that a common problem is the notion of being ‘ordinary’, but I believe that ordinary is surely what we wish to be, an acceptance of who we are yet a willingness to learn, change and improve what we can. The inability of world leaders to own the reality of their ordinariness is the fuel for their narcissism and inability to actually serve. However there is the other sense of ordinary, being ordinary but uniquely appreciated.

Anyway, you are appreciated and certainly not invisible to our small team at Solomon’s. We recognise and value your story and seek to help you to allow it to unfold. Whether you realise it or not, you have already made an impression on us. I certainly hope that you do not feel invisible when dealing with any member of the team.

Remember, the goal isn’t more money, the goal is living life on your terms.

The Kerry James Marshall: The Histories exhibition runs at the RA until 18^th January 2026. Here is a link to a video of Marshall talking about nine shades of black. https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/video-kerry-james-marshall-black-paint

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Do you feel invisible?Jemima Thomas2026-01-26T11:51:55+00:00

Are you building a bridge to your future?

Dominic Thomas
Jan 2026 • 2 min read

Are you building a bridge to your future?

Financial planning straddles the past, present and future. Here at Solomon’s, we like to start with the end in mind, the second habit of “highly effective people”. We need to know what you are aiming for and where you are now. It’s helpful, significantly so, to also know enough about the history that has lead to where you are presently.

One of the many problems with great financial planning is that it requires time and therefore patience. A combination that is not something that is easy to master and arguably the antithesis of our current cultural impulses; it’s also problematic because you only get the long-term once.

Compounding investment returns is a crucial part of your plan, in practice we are not magicians and really have three main ‘dials’ to operate – spending, contributing and time. So I wonder if you would consider the example of an actual bridge – the one that you have probably known about since early childhood nursery rhymes and probably crossed more than once … London Bridge. Construction of the first stone bridge started in 1176 and took around 33 years to complete; at the time it was the sole bridge across the Thames.

For hundreds of years, London Bridge was the only crossing of the River Thames. It had a total monopoly.

If you wanted to cross the bridge to get to the City, you paid a fee
If you wanted to sail under the bridge, you paid a fee
If you wanted to fish off the bridge (ill-advised in the Thames most of the time!), you paid a fee
If you owned one of the 140 shops/houses on the bridge, you paid a fee

Since opening in 1209, those payments have been accumulating and administered by Bridge House Estates (now called City Bridge Foundation). To give a sense of scale, the 816 years of being open for business until 2025 is obviously a very long time indeed.

To give you a sense of what compounding can do, if you’d invested the princely sum of £100 in 1209 and made a 3% return every year for the last 816 years, you’d have £2,986,588,300,073 today.

Today, now a charity doing all sorts of work and also the owner of Blackfriars Bridge (1769), Southwark Bridge (1819), Tower Bridge (1894) and the most recent Millennium Bridge (2000), the Foundation has annual income of over £42m a year, of which around £10m is from admissions and visits. The latest accounts report assets worth over £1.6bn. This gives rather a lot of meaning to terms like “spanning the generations” and is some serious legacy planning! Imagine the wealth of history that the bridge has witnessed – albeit rebuilt several times.

References:

Report and Accounts: https://www.citybridgefoundation.org.uk/about/governance/annual-reviews-and-reports

Charity: https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/en/charity-search/-/charity-details/1035628/assets-and-liabilities?_uk_gov_ccew_onereg_charitydetails_web_portlet_CharityDetailsPortlet_organisationNumber=1035628

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Are you building a bridge to your future?Jemima Thomas2026-03-24T16:26:11+00:00

The significance of your documents

Dominic Thomas
Aug 2025 • 4 min read

The significance of your documents

It ought to be obvious that trust is the ‘bar of entry’ when being a financial adviser, yet on an increasingly regular basis there are rather sad stories within our sector media about financial advisers who have committed fraud.

There may be a myriad of reasons that result in someone stealing your money, but whatever they are it’s obviously wrong. Stealing from you should be pretty difficult, granted I am well aware that I might call some investment companies and advice firms out for their excessive charges, but however much smoke and mirrors are used, it’s not stealing, that’s fairly typical ‘ripping off’ which is unpalatable and is often a reason why having been over-charged, many eventually realise and come to us so that we can sort it out for them, often saving thousands of pounds in the process.

One of the many safeguards we have is to use third party platforms. These act as investment administrators taking the deposits for new investments or the proceeds of existing ones. They also make the payments directly to your bank account. They issue the statements of investments and documents to support your HMRC self-assessment returns. To be blunt, I don’t know why more advisers don’t use them. They even link live valuations to our secure portal, which is a fuller, deeper version of their own (but only showing assets you hold on their platform).

Advice is highly regulated, some might say too much so, but in my world any and every investment or pension will have to produce a valuation statement at least once a year and ought to be producing contract notes showing sales or purchases (when you buy or sell an investment, or make a payment to your pension). These will normally be sent to you electronically these days, directly by the product provider or platform. You may need to login to their platform, but you will at least have an email advising you to do so. When they are not, alarm bells ought to be ringing.

In this digital age of ‘deepfake’, it is relatively easy to reproduce a document and therefore make something appear different from reality. It would appear that ‘adviser’ Lisa Campbell did precisely this, making up statements for investments that the investor thought were placed, when in reality funds had been sent to her. This is one reason why cheques or payments to us are only for our fees, not for your investments (it’s a safeguard).

Campbell, based not a million miles away in Hampshire, stole around £2.3m from her clients. Some of whom were friends and family. This happened over a 10 year period from 2013. She attempted to cover her tracks by also sending false documents and statements to our regulator the FCA. She was due in court in May. The FCA essentially removed her permissions two years ago, but had at the time rather underestimated the size of the fraud. Hopefully you don’t know anyone who was ‘advised’ by her through Campbell & Associates or Campbell & Raffle (perhaps an ironic name).

Only a few days later another, similar case was announced by the FCA. This time Kerry Nelson and Jacqueline Stephens of Nexus IFA were also charged with defrauding four clients of £2m between 2019 and 2023. Once again documents were forged and the money … well used to “fund a lavish lifestyle”.

As your adviser, we are copied in on correspondence to you by providers, not always, but most of the time. We do not receive statements to forward on to you. In the Campbell case, it seems that investors thought they held Bonds with a Bank; the Bonds never existed.

I suppose that for most investments, it would be a bit of a faff for an adviser to produce fake daily valuations; should you really want to see what your portfolio is worth today and tomorrow you can 24/7.

If you do come across people who you believe could benefit from our low-cost evidence-based investment solutions and impartial fee-based advice (some 13 years before it was compulsory) please do pass on our details. You may be saving your friend an awful lot of money and perhaps from financial ruin.

Reference:

FCA report: https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-releases/fca-charges-hampshire-based-independent-financial-adviser-multiple-fraud-offences

https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-releases/fca-charges-two-individuals-multiple-fraud-charges

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The significance of your documentsJemima Thomas2025-08-21T15:40:33+01:00

Setting Sail for (un)Chartered Territory

Daniel Liddicott
June 2025 • 2 min read

Setting Sail for (un) Chartered Territory

Throughout my time at Solomon’s, learning has been one of my primary objectives. When first starting on the journey of becoming an adviser (which now feels like a lifetime ago) this was, of course, an absolute necessity. To ‘learn the ropes’, so to speak.

“Learning the ropes” is a phrase that has its origin in sailing. Each sail has its own set of lines (or “ropes”) and knowing which rope did what was crucial for managing the ship effectively. Sailors had to know this to perform their duties successfully, becoming familiar with the vast and complex network of rigging used to control the ship.

We often talk about having “different levers to pull” when considering your financial plans and the best options available to you. Taking pension income as an example, pulling one lever i.e., taking income by one method can have a vastly different outcome from using another method. We help you navigate your way through the complexities of income tax laws to help to keep your financial plan on course.

Anyway, I digress…

Advisers are always learning. Not least due to the many alterations to regulations and tax law that seem to occur with each passing Budget, but also to continually improve and build upon our knowledge. I have now begun a new journey – the journey to become a Chartered Financial Planner.

This, as before, entails a whole new set of exams and accompanying textbooks that would be fit to anchor the Icon of the Seas cruise ship (no sails on that one!). As you might expect, the process is not a quick one. I am anticipating the exams taking two years to complete at a minimum.

Fortunately, my thirst for knowledge has not waned and embarking on this voyage has been something that I have been keen to do since originally qualifying as an adviser. Some would say that I am a glutton for punishment but, thankfully, the thirst for knowledge appears to be a common trait amongst the wider adviser crew.

No more ships or sailing puns, I promise!

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Setting Sail for (un)Chartered TerritoryJemima Thomas2025-06-26T09:46:58+01:00

The Last Showgirl

Dominic Thomas
May 2025 • 3 min read

The Last Showgirl

Rare is the day that the word ‘pension’ is mentioned half a dozen times within the first half of a film, yet as I sat in my local cinema recently, I couldn’t help but notice this unusual occurrence. A new film written by Kate Gersten and directed by Gia Coppola with Pamela Anderson in the lead role is probably much as you might have anticipated. Anderson plays Shelly, a senior (57-year-old) Vegas showgirl, both the show and her career are forced to face the cold reality of dwindling interest.

In the gambling capital of the US, Shelly’s story is of a woman who assumed that her career could continue uninterrupted. For her, the spotlight of the much-needed attention was almost reward enough except sadly she has not reaped any financial rewards beyond merely managing to stay a little ahead of the next set of bills.

We learn about her struggle to balance life and the personal sacrifices she makes for her career that result in an estranged relationship with her daughter. The experience that many (most) women have in the workplace juggling childcare (and care for parents), relationships and a career and the brutal savagery that the loss of a youthful appearance is rarely a career-ending problem for men. This is, albeit a fairly untypical example, one of the various structural problems that many women face and why so few have careers, pensions or investments that are on a par with men. Scottish Widows run an annual report on the gender divide, the latest is here: https://www.scottishwidows.co.uk/employer/insight/eh-insight-gender-pension-gap.html

Annette (Jamie Lee Curtis) has perhaps an all-too-common experience for women towards the bottom of the economic ladder. Already dropped from the showgirls, she is working as a waitress on a zero hours contract and minimum pay. When asked if she will save her gambling winnings for her retirement she answers:

Annette: Retire? like, bankers retire. Waddaya think I have a 501K? I’m gonna work and then I’m gonna work some more and then I’m gonna die. I’ll probably die in my uniform. That’s my long-term plan.

Jodie: You don’t want to retire?

Annette: It’s not an option, Jodie.

Our opinions about the American dream may have altered over the years as it evidently has not worked for the many; but certainly for a very few. Annette is for me, symbolic of the optimism that Americans have, having the courage to keep going, but numbing the pain of reality with another margarita. You won’t forget the performance by JLC.

Men by comparison have it easier (there, I said it). Men also have it cheaper – we simply don’t have anything like the pressure of appearances. However, life is clearly more complicated and nuanced than I suggest. On the one hand, this is a tale about the consequences of a lack of planning (and saving), making assumptions about the future, which all too swiftly arrives ready to consume hope. This happens to lots of people (most) irrespective of gender, but certainly women generally are at a significant disadvantage.

The film has received a warm response. There are rather obvious parallels with Anderson’s own life (though I imagine she was and is better resourced financially) known primarily for her ability to run across a beach in Baywatch (1989-2001) which at one point was the most watched TV series with a weekly audience of 1.1bn.

In some senses, this is a story of consequences, of not paying attention to the important and being caught up in the familiar. At 57 it isn’t impossible to start a new career or finally start saving for your future into a pension, but it is certainly a lot harder.

The financial services sector hasn’t been the most welcoming to women, there are relatively few female advisers or business owners in the sector, but things are improving. Here at Solomon’s more than half of our clients are women, I hope it’s partly due to the sense of trust and transparency in our advice and connecting money with being used to facilitate the really important things in life, something which many men simply neglect in the pursuit of more.

The sooner you speak with a financial planner who puts your interests first, the better. Whether you are 24, 34, 44 or 84, I can assure you that we can make money make sense.

Here is the trailer for the film The Last Showgirl

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The Last ShowgirlJemima Thomas2025-05-06T10:24:53+01:00

If your portfolio was your house

Dominic Thomas
April 2025 • 2 min read

If your portfolio was your house…

As you come across news stories about sudden market falls, (I doubt you have read one about a sudden market increase, unless it’s designed to prompt feelings of envy), I wonder if thinking of them is better if you consider it in the context of your home.

“HOUSE PRICES AT LOWEST POINT IN 5 YEARS”

If you read the headline above, you may be a bit miffed, but you are unlikely to change your plans. You almost certainly don’t ‘panic sell’ your home worried that the value may fall further. Panic selling a property is also generally pretty difficult, even with the most attentive broker, conveyancer, lender and buyer, it’s unlikely that the process will complete within three months, certainly not the next day. This process, whilst decidedly unhelpful to people buying and selling, does help reduce the impact of panic.

If there is a property crash, generally you sit it out, waiting for things to improve. A few people may be caught out, those in the middle of a sale or who have to move for various reasons – it is these people who are most likely to suffer the pain of a downturn.

Similarly, your portfolio is set up to provide a lifetime of income and capital. It is anticipated that the value will vary each day. Unlike your home, share prices are based on corporate results, track records and expectations for their trade in the near future. Your home is valued based on similar properties in the area; what you think it’s worth and what someone else is prepared to pay are often very different.

In short, your financial plan is designed for you, stretching out over the years to come. Yes; we don’t know how bad things will be in the short term, or indeed how quick or how full the eventual recovery will be, but it will happen.

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If your portfolio was your houseJemima Thomas2025-04-27T19:24:52+01:00

Money & film: A Complete Unknown

Dominic Thomas
Jan 2025 • 2 min read

Money & film: A Complete Unknown

The New Year is very much underway; my inbox has been full of emails from investment companies telling me what they expect from 2025. These days I’m rather more circumspect and much more defensive about your money than I was 25 years ago. It’s a year like any other; unknown. We know some things will almost certainly happen (they are in the diary); things we expect to happen and then a plethora of stuff we suspect might happen and then the things we will be surprised by. Sounding a little like Donald Rumsfeld – we don’t know what we don’t know.

What we do know is that your financial plan is best based around your own values, circumstances and expectations. We know that over the longer term, holding global equities provides the best chance of maintaining and improving the purchasing power of your money, but with this comes volatility.

There’s a new film A Complete Unknown; the story of Bob Dylan, a man whose name most people will know. It charts the start of his career in 1961, aged 20, meeting Woodie Guthrie and Pete Seeger, both successful musicians of their day who recognise his talent which provides the platform for his arrival on the scene. It’s a time of change, JFK is sworn in as Number 35, The Beatles are starting out, The Bay of Pigs invasion, civil rights protestors are harassed by Police, beaten by KKK. There are riots in Paris, a host of stand offs between Soviets and the US, the Cold War really starts and the year closes with JFK sending 18,000 special military advisers to Vietnam. Despite all the disasters and uncertainty, 1961 saw the US market up about 19%.

The film explores Dylan’s rise to fame as a folk singer, his relationship with Joan Baez and his need to continually change, adapt, leave and move on. Some, it would seem (like Seegers), wanted him to help restore folk, but Dylan found this suffocating and a tie to the past that was unhelpful. His transition to the electric guitar was unwelcome by most in the folk scene.

Dylan is now 83 and has his next birthday in May. He is undoubtedly a survivor, his career has been long in the making with over 125 million records sold world-wide making him one of the best-selling musicians of all time. He has been the change and witnessed it, but often it has been a slow train coming…

Your planning is best viewed in the long-term. Whatever the world throws at us in 2025, take the long-term view. Change is constant.

Here is the trailer for the new film.

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Money & film: A Complete UnknownJemima Thomas2025-02-07T15:53:47+00:00

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