Love is in the air

As you will gather from your inbox, television and general trips to the high street, Valentine’s Day is upon us. I imagine that we all have different responses to this, I have a great deal of sympathy with those who think it’s commercialising love and actually making many people feel entirely left out.

I should probably admit my own biases. I started dating my now wife on Valentine’s Day many years ago (we were at school) and I took her to Paris to propose to her on a Valentine’s Day a few years later. So I’m a sucker for ‘romanticism’! I was a lot younger then and far less experienced (weathered by life). We still celebrate and mark the occasion, but I certainly see the problematic side of commoditising ‘love’.

For me, Valentine’s Day is an anniversary, a reminder of the past and a happy form of accounting. Whilst I am not a fan of nostalgia, I do think it can be helpful to look back and see how far you have come. One of the greater challenges in financial planning is that we are often pointing to the future, the illusive horizon of opportunity, yet it is really important to pause to consider just how much has improved.

Most of you will now have an incredibly low-cost investment portfolio, genuinely designed and shaped around your plans for the future. You can check in to monitor its progress at any time (not a great idea, but you can). It is optimised for tax planning and incredibly well organised. Many will have a far better sense of structure and order having got rid of the deadwood or expensive legacy ‘stuff’ that you once had. You’ve had a proper clean out, a new broom though your finances. It’s a far cry from a collection of dog-eared papers stuffed into files or retained for posterity in their envelopes with nothing seemingly joining up and feeling very random.

Your financial planning now, hopefully feels that it fits you like a good outfit, bespoke to your circumstances and needs. I appreciate that you may not completely remember why an ISA is so good, or what pension rules you are adhering to, the tax and charges saved that you didn’t pay, but you presumably (yes?) trust us to have this under control (and certainly under our responsibility).

It may be a stretch, but might I suggest that your financial planning now holds the imprint of love – your passions, people and dreams. You are living and giving. It’s not simply about you, it’s about you and. Yes that is a deliberate statement, not an unfinished sentence.

“My bounty is as boundless as the sea,

My love as deep; the more I give to thee,

The more I have, for both are infinite.”

Act 2, Scene 2 Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare.

So as we face a world that often seems in desperate need of love; I encourage you to pause to remember how far you have already travelled; you are and have been, taking action to make the world a better place.

Much love.

?

Oh and here is a lovely scene from Romeo and Juliet (1996) directed 30 years ago by Baz Luhrmann with a few very familiar but much younger fresher faces.