The wonders of Apple Pay and Apple Wallet
I recently went shopping at Milton Keynes shopping centre with my daughter Devon, who has just turned 25. She was shocked when she was told at the counter that the shop didn’t accept Apple Pay! She told me she used Apple Pay everywhere to pay…
How to become financially free the easy way
The great aspiration for most pre-retired people is how to achieve financial independence early in order to live the life of their dreams. Well guess what? Financial freedom is easier to achieve than you ever dreamt possible! A great way to learn how to achieve…
The tale of the saver and the spender
One of my previous blogs covered the subject of needs and wants. It highlighted the fact that human beings are flawed addictive creatures. We have needs and wants and too often our wants get the better of us and our money! I explained that we…
The surprising benefits to you of the Curve card
I was chatting to a friend recently over a cup of coffee in a well-known coffee shop appropriately named with money in its title, you guessed it, Starbucks, when he showed me a bank card called a Curve card. I am pretty well versed in…
Our Exciting Fund Launch
I formed a fund management company called Minerva Money Management in 2015. After 3 years’ hard work getting the company authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), finding a fund administration company to work with called Carvetian Capital Management and obtaining the FCA’s authorisation for…
9 Tax Planning Tips
We all have to pay our taxes. Arguably we should be happy to pay a certain level of taxes to maintain the services we, and our families use. But why pay more than you need to? Especially when there are numerous ways you can maintain…
Wealth and happiness
The old adage that money doesn’t make you happy is true. Well not totally true. However money certainly does give you more choices in life and it frees you from the stress of not having enough. The old saying that the best things in life…
Want to earn more money and save money? Read on!
Regular readers of this blog will be conscious of my consistent advice to save money and create additional sources of income, especially passive income, as the bedrock of sound financial planning. I have recently made the decision to become both a member of, and a…
Fees vs investment returns
A long standing client of mine recently referred her parents to me. They had a significant amount of cash in various banks and building societies earning them less than 1% a year in interest. They also had an Inheritance Tax problem. My solution was an…
How to minimise taxation on your investments
I recently asked my wife what was the biggest cost of investing money. She couldn’t think of anything beyond the Fund managers’ fees, the platform fees and the adviser’s fees. I carefully explained to her that the biggest cost was in fact taxation. The one…
Wants and needs
In today’s consumer driven society it is more important than ever to not succumb to the many marketing messages you are bombarded with each day urging and persuading you to buy the latest gizmo or toy that in your heart of hearts you know you…
The value of a financial adviser
The fund manager Vanguard first produced a study in 2001 called Adviser Alpha which sought to determine the difference between the return that an investor might achieve with the adviser’s help and what they might have achieved on their own. Vanguard has put a value…