magazine archive
magazine archive
Money Matters
Investing to cover the cost of care
Thursday 28 Nov 2019Planning for paying for a care home isn’t a fun prospect, but with annual costs running to tens of thousands of pounds, it is smart to be prepared. Here’s our guide to care fees and how to invest to pay for them. WHEN DO YOU HAVE TO PAY? Anyone with savings or assets worth more than £23,250 will...
What is regular investing and will it help me?
Thursday 21 Nov 2019Regular investing can help to smooth out your returns. It is a great way to get into the savings habit and can give you good discipline, but will it generate the highest returns? Rather than saving up your money and then putting a chunk of it into the market when you’ve reached a certain amount,...
How to beat the pension scammers
Thursday 14 Nov 2019Over-confidence, time pressure and being too trusting have all led to people being scammed out of their pension savings, new research has found. Data from the Pensions Regulator and the Financial Conduct Authority found that scammers could wipe out 22 years of pension savings in just 24 hours. The...
Is the Government about to remove the lucrative Airbnb tax break?
Thursday 07 Nov 2019The Government could crack down on a lucrative tax break exploited by those using Airbnb and other home-sharing websites, as the cost of the giveaway has soared in recent years. There has been a surge in the number of people using the rent-a-room relief, which allows you to earn money tax free by...
Are you exposed to the Dividend Dangerzone?
Thursday 31 Oct 2019Lots of UK companies are offering very meaty dividends, but some investors are nervous about future cuts to payouts. In total, 26 companies in the FTSE 100 are forecast to pay a dividend at a yield of 6% or more in 2019, but dividend cover, so the amount that earnings covers the dividend payouts,...
How to get financially fit for winter
Thursday 17 Oct 2019The nights are drawing in, the winter coats are coming out of storage, and central heating is being turned on across the nation. This means it’s a good time to make sure you and your home are ready for winter. From getting the right insurance to claiming all the money you’re entitled to, here are...
How to turn your dream of early retirement into reality
Thursday 10 Oct 2019The FIRE movement sounds nothing like a retirement planning strategy, but it’s a movement where people are saving their cash and retiring young. Financial Independence, Retire Early (or FIRE) in a nutshell involves maximising your income and reducing your spending while you’re in work in order to...
How much are you taking from your pension?
Thursday 03 Oct 2019Half of people who are taking money from their pensions are doing so without taking any advice, new figures show. Data from the Financial Conduct Authority, a regulator, showed how people in retirement are making use of the pension freedoms – the reforms in 2015 that allow people to access their...
The demise of the bank branch
Thursday 03 Oct 2019You’d be very lucky if you live in an area where no banks have closed branches in the past few years – new figures show that a third of banks have shut over the past five years. The calculations, from consumer champion Which?, found that more than 3,000 bank branches have closed down since the...
Self-employed pension saving: is it worth it?
Thursday 26 Sep 2019The UK is in recovery mode from a looming retirement crisis. Automatic enrolment has been introduced for those in employment, nudging millions to save for their future for the first time. But if you’re one of the near-5m self-employed people living and working in the UK, you’ll need to take...