The Meaningful Money Personal Finance Podcast

Here at the end of Season Six we’ve covered a load of practical aspects of your finances and taken a good look at each. Now we need to turn the spotlight on YOU to audit your habits.

As we hit later life, our minds often start to turn to what happens when we’re gone. In fact it should be a part of our planning at every stage, ands today I’m going to give you the things you need to know and do to stay on top of your estate.

https://meaningfulmoney.tv/PFA9

In this season so far, we’ve talked a lot about the practicalities of managing your personal finances. But what is it all for? Investing, saving, paying into pensions, taking out insurance - all this should be done towards a defined goal. But sometimes those goals fade, sometimes they change, sometimes they need to be abandoned and sometimes brought back to life. Your plans, like all the practical stuff sometimes need to be looked at closely, and that’s what I’m going to be talking about this week.

Hands up who likes dealing with paperwork? Well, there are some of you out there, but most people avoid it like the plague. But out-of-control financial paperwork can actually add to the burden of stress you have around your finances, and getting it sorte

Benjamin Franklin apparently said that there are only two certainties in life, death and taxes. Today I want to look at the tax you may be paying, and how to make the best of the various tax allowances available.

In this season, we’ve been looking at each individual area of your personal finances, to make sure that nothing has drifted from lack of attention. Financial success requires you to be intentional and deliberate in everything you do, but so many people drift through life amassing pensions, investments and policies, and often have the underlying money invested in poor, default funds.

So today we’re turning the spotlight on your portfolio, that is, the underlying investments which will drive your financial success.

https://meaningfulmoney.tv/PFA5

For many of us in this latter half of the 20teens, a platform is an essential part of our investing. But like all aspects of our financial lives, we should make sure that our chosen platform continues to serve our purposes.

Back when I started in the financial advice world, there were no such things as platforms. Then the first fund supermarkets arrived and these were followed by the very capable systems we have available now, with multiple tax wrappers, complex reporting tools and all that. These days, not many of us invest directly with the fund houses, but use a platform to make our lives easier. So what should you be checking to make sure the platforms we’re using and the tax wrappers we hold on them, continue to serve us well?

Remember that the notes and links from today's show are at the shownotes, including a cheatsheet and a full transcript. It’s the only link you need to remember: meaningfulmoney.tv/PFA4

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This podcast is brought to you with the help of Seven Investment Management, a firm of investment managers based in London. They specialise in multi-asset investing, bringing institutional investing techniques to ordinary people like you and me. 7IM put their name to my show and to my site because they believe in what I’m doing, trying to get decent, easy-to-understand financial information out to the world. I’m very grateful to them for their support. You can see what they’re up to at 7im.co.uk

So let’s talk about a foundation. When building anything, the foundation absolutely has to be right. If you build a house without an adequate foundation, at best you’re going to get some unsightly cracks, and at worst the place will fall down.

Life throws things at us which we don’t expect. Some of those things are worse than others. Some have a greater financial impact than others. But a prudent person takes some steps to ensure that if some or all of these things happen, then the longer-term financial security of you and your family need not be compromised.

Here's the cheatsheet I've put together to summarise the things I talk about in this session: Podcast: Session 7, Protecting Your Future Podcast: Session 22, All About Trusts

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