Category: Uncategorised

Will we see a reduction in the tax reliefs given to pensions announced in Thursday’s Autumn Statement? Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt are understood to be considering a number of tax rises and spending cuts, with the Resolution Foundation think tank warning that £40bn of savings are needed to meet the government’s fiscal targets. The…

If you are employed you will hopefully be a member of a pension scheme provided by your employer. In that case both you and your employer will be contributing to that pension scheme. However, you may not be aware of the financial advantage of sacrificing part of your salary so that your employer pays both…

As a basis of all good financial planning I want to stress the importance of building and keeping an emergency fund or ‘rainy day fund’. The expression may originate from the days when casual farm labourers needed to save a proportion of their wages ‘for a rainy day’, i.e. for occasions when bad weather might…

What is Cash Flow Modelling? If you are using a financial adviser to assist you with your financial planning you may well have already been introduced to Cashflow Modelling. When I joined the financial advice industry I was working for a single life assurance company and I was essentially selling life assurance based products and…

Report says advisers should be trained on philanthropyAdvisers should receive training to provide better advice on philanthropy, according to a report by The Law Family Commission on Civil Society. The report, titled Mind the Giving Gap: Unleashing the potential of UK philanthropy, found that each year the UK public donates nearly £20bn of their own…

Thank you for your support of the Towards Prosperity website and blog which has been much appreciated. I have decided to change the name of the website from Towards Prosperity to Useful Money Guide and you should use the following link for the website in future usefulmoneyguide.uk Why have I made the change? I chose…

If you invest relatively small amounts every month, or at least fairly frequently, you are benefitting from PCA ‘Pound Cost Averaging’. This is an investment strategy that won’t keep you awake at night when markets are particularly volatile. The strategy was first used in the USA and was known as ‘Dollar Cost Averaging’ or “The…

Polling conducted by ICM Unlimited for Citizens Advice shows that, in the UK, almost 1 in 10 private renters are behind on their rent. This equates to over 350,000 tenants across the country and therefore possibly hundreds of thousands of landlords who are not receiving the rental income they expected. My argument is not about…

I appreciate that the topic of this particular blog may only apply to a few of you but I trust that everyone will find it of some interest. My aim is to cover all aspects of investing and financial planning in my blog and website. There will be a lot of different views in the…

A fairly common question that I have been asked over the years is “How can we avoid Inheritance Tax being paid on our home.” This is often, of course, because the family home is one of the largest assets in a person’s estate and in many cases the single largest asset. This is usually followed…

I am classed as a Baby Boomer, born in the years following the Second World War, when there was a temporary marked increase in the birth rate, up until 1964. If we have grandchildren we look at their lives and the possessions they have and would find it hard to describe our upbringing to them.…

Follow this link for details of the Spring Budget 2021 together with financial planning ideas based on the changes that have been proposed by Rishi Sunack, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. You should be able to quickly find information on any areas that are of particular interest to you. Arthur Childs Request Towards Prosperity Blog

If there is one time in the year when we should pay special attention to our financial planning it is this. Why? Well simply because another tax year is coming to an end on 5 April. A number of tax allowances are like the special bread that the Israelites ate during their wilderness years. If…

You may feel that care fees funding is an odd topic to include in a website dedicated towards prosperity. Certainly, the thought that you might end your days living in a nursing home can be as distressing as thinking about your death. It is only natural to want to push both to the very deepest…

I have dedicated this particular blog issue to those of you who are still dependent on income from employment or self employment. Let me tell you about a rather special magic box. The Magic Box Imagine for a moment that you have won, not the Premium Bonds or the National Lottery, but a Magic Box. …

Tax bills can have a way of creeping up on you. One that really shouldn’t is Inheritance Tax which has been described as a ‘voluntary tax’. This is because during your lifetime you can implement plans which can reduce the size of your estate on death such that no Inheritance Tax is payable. Yet HMRC…

If there is one time in the year when we should pay special attention to our financial planning it is this. Why? Well simply because another tax year is coming to an end on 5 April. A number of tax allowances are like the special bread that the Israelites ate during their wilderness years. If…

What are you still wanting to achieve in your life? As we move into the new year it is good to pause for a moment to think about what we might do differently this year. After all it was recognised by someone back in the 19th century that ‘The definition of insanity is doing the…

Investment Harmony It’s the season for carol services and I have been to one in which my wife was in the choir and watched two that were ‘live streamed’. So much around us is undergoing change. We will, for example, miss having children with us at Christmas for the first time we can remember. In…

There has been a lot of concentration lately on the UK trying to achieve a smooth exit from the European Union. It has made me think about how I can achieve a smooth exit from this life! Don’t get me wrong, I am in no hurry to leave, as I wasn’t with the EU. I…