It has often been the case that people have seen getting financial advice or having a financial adviser as an extravagance that they cannot afford. People have perhaps felt that why should they spend money on getting someone to tell them how best to look after their money and make more money. Maybe the general feeling has been not to spend money on a financial adviser for a start. This might have been the case when the economy was doing well. Back then house prices were rising strongly, and so you pretty much knew that you money was a safe as houses if you invested in bricks and mortar. However, since the market collapsed 3 or 4 years ago, the housing market hasn’t really recovered, and has instead been flat lining. This leaves you with a decision – should you invest in property now when it is still a relatively low price, or should you rent for now. Is now a good time to get a mortgage?
Stocks and shares were always also seen as another sound investment, but the FTSE-100 has been particularly unstable in the last couple of years, reaching unparalleled lows, and for anybody who doesn’t know what they are doing then they are a bit of a minefield. You don’t want to enter at the wrong time and suddenly find yourself in deep financial trouble. Similarly, government bonds were always seen as the closest thing you could get to a safe investment, but even those aren’t looking that great any more.
That of course leaves the option of just putting your cash in the bank, but any saver will know that this is not a great option at the moment. With interest rates at an all time low, savers get very little return on their cash in the bank, and whatever interest they do get is pitiful compared to the high rate of inflation, meaning that your money will be worth less money when you take it out of the bank than when you put it in.
An example of what can go horribly wrong with your finances was the Icelandic banks investments of a few years ago, where people rushed to invest their money in Icelandic banks, only for them to go bust and for the British government to use terrorism laws to try to recover the money. With the Eurozone going through an incredibly unstable time, and Ireland, Portugal, Greece and now Italy having gone through incredibly choppy waters, it is hard to know where best to invest your money. If the Euro goes down, it will have grave repercussions on the rest of the world, and most of all on the UK.
The way the UK and global economy is at the moment, making large and long term investments without a good financial adviser would be like jumping out of a plane without a parachute. All the signs are that the UK is about to go back into recession, if it hasn’t already done so. Now is not the time to leave your financial affairs to chance, but instead leave it to the professionals.
Stocks and shares were always also seen as another sound investment, but the FTSE-100 has been particularly unstable in the last couple of years, reaching unparalleled lows, and for anybody who doesn’t know what they are doing then they are a bit of a minefield. You don’t want to enter at the wrong time and suddenly find yourself in deep financial trouble. Similarly, government bonds were always seen as the closest thing you could get to a safe investment, but even those aren’t looking that great any more.
That of course leaves the option of just putting your cash in the bank, but any saver will know that this is not a great option at the moment. With interest rates at an all time low, savers get very little return on their cash in the bank, and whatever interest they do get is pitiful compared to the high rate of inflation, meaning that your money will be worth less money when you take it out of the bank than when you put it in.
An example of what can go horribly wrong with your finances was the Icelandic banks investments of a few years ago, where people rushed to invest their money in Icelandic banks, only for them to go bust and for the British government to use terrorism laws to try to recover the money. With the Eurozone going through an incredibly unstable time, and Ireland, Portugal, Greece and now Italy having gone through incredibly choppy waters, it is hard to know where best to invest your money. If the Euro goes down, it will have grave repercussions on the rest of the world, and most of all on the UK.
The way the UK and global economy is at the moment, making large and long term investments without a good financial adviser would be like jumping out of a plane without a parachute. All the signs are that the UK is about to go back into recession, if it hasn’t already done so. Now is not the time to leave your financial affairs to chance, but instead leave it to the professionals.
RSS Feed