20 per cent of Brits have no financial goals

A recent poll by wealth management firm Brewin Dolphin has revealed that less than half of adults in the UK have long-term financial plans, and 20 per cent have no financial goals at all.

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The importance of professional advice

Liz Alley, the firm’s divisional director of financial planning, explains that it is only natural for us to find thinking about the far future difficult to do, and making some irrational decisions along the way is only human. That’s why it’s important to engage the services of a financial adviser who can guide the inexperienced toward making sound decisions by helping them visualise their long-term goals in life, from raising a family and buying a home to planning retirement. Advisers can help people understand what is needed to achieve their goals as well as helping with funding options such as those offered by a Gloucestershire Equity Release firm such as https://www.palmermortgages.co.uk/financial-services/equity-release-gloucestershire

Not everyone recognises how valuable professional advice can be. A review from Citizens Advice in 2015 suggested that only one half of UK adults were willing to pay for financial advice on pension choices, for example.

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What are the advantages of using a financial adviser?

Independent financial advisers, or IFAs, are trained to fact-find in order to understand their clients’ financial position and aspirations. A face-to-face meeting exploring what their client feels is important in their life is the most effective way to achieve this. Engage a financial adviser and expect a relationship that will last many years; the more the adviser gets to know their client, the better the service they can provide.

Of course, not everyone feels the need for a face-to-face consultation, and for simpler financial situations, robo-advice may suffice. Financial advisers offer this service, among several other methods of online communication such as specially designed client portals that provide a range of tools for clients to use, from managing their own transactions to having an online conversation with their adviser.

As part of a campaign to encourage people to focus on what they really want from life, Brewin Dolphin suggests that a good way of focusing on what you need in the long term is to write a letter to yourself about what you want from life in the future. Once you have those ideas in mind, approaching a financial adviser would be the first step to help make it happen.

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