Charities around the world have felt the effects of the pandemic from both sides: donations have reduced as people tightened their spending; and the numbers in need have increased as more people fall on harder times.

When you support a charity with a donation, there are government financial benefits for you too, watch this video to find out more.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak set out the government’s tax and spending plans as the nation continues to deal with the effects of COVID-19. The Government has borrowed a record £355bn so far fighting the pandemic and has to come up with a way of paying it back. Sunak also needs to continue supporting the millions still out of work or on furlough due to the downturn.

So what did he do, and how is it going to affect you?

When I started in financial planning back in 1995, the biggest obstacle I heard to investing was ‘I’m buying bricks and mortar, that’s my pension’.

This went away somewhat during the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, in part I think because of the difficulties of arranging mortgages, but also because the market became less attractive.

But over recent months we’ve seen a resurgence in property investing brought on partly by the stamp duty holiday. A good friend called this week to ask me, “Why do you always invest in stocks, don’t you ever consider the property market?”, to which I replied no.

There are logical reasons why I believe equities make better investments than property, but we don’t buy with logic, we buy with emotions, justifying our decisions with logic that will back up the choice we made.

I am often asked questions about Bitcoin, and cryptocurrencies in general, on whether they make a good investment.

Bitcoin is just one of over 4,000 different cryptocurrencies globally, according to investopedia.com. While many of these cryptocurrencies have little to no following or trading volume, some enjoy immense popularity among dedicated communities of backers and ‘investors’. Some of the leading cryptocurrencies outside Bitcoin are Ethereum, Litecoin and the new favourite of many, Cardano.

Bitcoin is a form of digital money, meaning that unlike physical money, it’s a currency traded online across a computer network of thousands. That makes it difficult to have a common record of all the transactions, but a technology known as blockchain makes this possible.

They say that more relationships break down over money issues than anything else other than infidelity. So how can you win at the game of money and stay in a happy relationship?

The key to a happy relationship is communication, Start with the big questions about money and goals.

Spending money is an emotional area and from my experience as a financial planner, it can cause a lot of conflict between couples. Secret spending, worried purchases and resentment can quickly snowball.

But if you scratch beneath the surface of the arguments, it’s not the actual spending which is causing the argument; it’s the breaking of each other’s values.

Listen to this podcast or check out the link below to read the article

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https://warrenshute.com/financial-planning/for-love-or-money-finances-relationships/

How much is enough for you to retire? What’s your number?

None of us are getting any younger and time flies faster as we age, so it’s important to plan ahead for retirement, a period of our life that could last 40 years. My wife gets frustrated with me when I spend more time planning our retirement than I do our summer holiday, but it’s a no-brainer… isn’t it?!

We all have what I call a wealth window, a limited period of time to create the wealth to see us through our retirement. As this window gets smaller, it’s harder to climb through. If you have 10 years to go before you plan to retire, you have 120 more paydays to secure your retirement. Is that enough?

For more details visit:

https://warrenshute.com/saving-investing/a-better-tomorrow-depends-on-saving-today/

Useful resources mentioned in this video:

https://www.truthaboutmoney.co.uk

Electric cars, Artificial Intelligence, virtual and augmented reality… the technology that’s in development now makes me excited about what we’re likely to see happen over the next decade. And that’s before you even consider the green revolution.

This is all well and good, but how can you benefit from this boost in the economy and ride the wave into the next decade?

https://warrenshute.com/saving-investing/investing-in-world-economy-over-the-next-decade-tech-led-revival-plus-green-revolution/

The average UK credit card interest rate is estimated to be a whopping 22.5%, according to the Bank of England. Nobody can afford to carry a liability like this. If you’ve had enough of this financial burden on your shoulders, then follow my six-step plan to repay your unsecured debt (credit cards, overdrafts, loans, car finance) in 2021.

For more information read my article here:

https://warrenshute.com/debt-repayment/the-road-to-debt-freedom-in-2021/

When building your "house of wealth", financial foundations are often overlooked, because they aren’t exciting. They might not wow you, but they’re so important – just like your real home, if you start building your house of wealth without strong foundations in place and something goes wrong, it can all come crashing down.

As we saw all too clearly in 2020, things happen in life. In the house analogy, if a hurricane strikes, solid foundations can keep things standing. In money terms, if you’re ill and unable to work, with a solid base in place you’re not going to be destroyed because you have reserves and insurances in place to handle that situation.

There are eight foundations to consider; three that I feel are essential for everyone, detailed in this video, and five that are optional, which I’ll cover in a future video.

To read the article visit the link below:

https://warrenshute.com/financial-planning/your-house-of-wealth-needs-strong-foundations/

We like to do things in life that we enjoy. We find these things easy to do, they take little effort, and we know we’re going to have a good time doing them. Contrast this to our finances: most of us don’t review our money or what’s happening with it because we think it’s difficult, it can be worrying to look at our situation, or we don’t know how to change things. So to protect ourselves, we shut it out of our mind and avoid it instead.