It’s World Financial Planning Day!

This week marks Financial Planning Week in the UK, whilst today, 7th October 2020, is World Financial Planning Day. We’re proud to be supporting this initiative, sharing all sorts of useful content throughout the week. For those of you that are social media users, you’ll be able to follow our updates on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, or you can go straight to our website using the links at the end of this article.

Many people often ask what is the difference between financial advice and financial planning?

• Financial advice is very much about buying a product when you have a specific need, so for example, you have a baby and take out some life cover, or get to retirement and make decisions about how to take your pension.
• Financial planning about building a plan and taking control of your finances, mapping out step by step the actions you need to take to achieve your financial objectives.

So, think about the steps in creating a financial plan:

• Being clear about where you want to head, setting yourself some goals about what you want to achieve, in the short, medium and long term
• Get a grasp on your lifestyle and be honest with yourself about what you’re spending
• Have a clear understanding of what plans, investments and policies you already have in place
• Map out the options and steps, taking account of what you already have in place, that will help you achieve your goals

Working with a highly qualified Certified Financial Planner, like myself, we’ll help guide you through all the options and make sure that you are able to confidently make decisions about your finances, understanding the impact they will have on your future financial security. Think of financial planning as an investment in yourself, an investment in your future.

This week is all about spreading the concept of financial planning. We’d be delighted if you would share this article (or indeed any of the others we’re highlighting) with friends, family or colleagues and of course, as always, we’d be happy to speak with them to see if we’re best placed to help.

And here’s those links to our articles, in case you wanted to read more:

• Advice vs planning
• What matters most
• 4 top tips on what to do in the first 30 days of your retirement
• The little-known ISA rule
• Why cash flow modelling is at the heart of our financial planning
• 4 steps to keeping track of your pension
• Have you got a plan?