Right time for a cash plan
Make intelligent choices for your future with free expert advice during Financial Planning Week
IT’S time for my annual reminder that next week is Financial Planning Week. As we come out of lockdown and many of us go back to work and get out and about a bit more the way we deal with our money is more deserving of our attention than ever before. Consumers are being invited to connect with financial planners for free personal finance guidance sessions in the Chartered Institute of Securities and Investments’s Financial Planning Week. It begins on Monday and runs for a full week. The annual campaign aims to encourage consumers to seek out qualified, professional financial planners, who will be giving their time pro bono to help people manage their money. Sally Plant, CISI’s head of financial planning, said: “Financial Planning Week is the opportunity to empower so many to build their confidence to take control of their financial goals and dreams by making all-important financial decisions, big and small. “It highlights to consumers the importance of identifying qualified financial planners through not-forprofit, professional body directories, thereby obtaining fair and professional financial guidance. “Our financial planning community, including our Certified Financial Planners, are best placed to share their expertise to support the public in doing so.
“By offering free personal financial planning sessions, the community will be helping people of all ages and incomes to put plans in place for their future.
“Our planners are committed to giving their pro bono guidance to all consumers to help convey the true positive benefits of having a financial plan.”
Many of the emails I receive from readers every week ask about the best way to manage their money.
Most of us float along from month to month without really understanding if we are using our money as efficiently as we can.
Are our bank accounts doing the things we need them to do?
Are we paying more than we need to for the insurance policies we have?
Have we arranged our finances in such a way that when we decide to retire we will have enough money to keep us going until we die?
And when we die have we arranged our money so that our loved ones can access it as easily as and tax efficiently as possible?
These are some of the questions that the planners will try to answer next week, according to Amyr
Rocha-Lima, chair of the CISI Financial Planning Forum.
He said: “The aim of the CISI’s Financial Planning Week is to promote the benefits of planning ahead financially in areas such as savings, retirement, protecting loved ones and setting money aside for a rainy day.
“Through this campaign we can help people by highlighting the simple steps they can take to build an emergency fund, protect their assets in case of an early death or diagnosis of a critical illness, to fund a retirement that might last 30 years and to leave a tax-efficient legacy to loved ones and charitable causes.
“These are the real things that real people really yearn to accomplish and don’t know how.
“After all, we may not have the answers people want, such as what will the stock market do next but, much more importantly, we do have the questions they need.”
During Financial Planning Week, financial planners and their firms will be offering free consultation surgeries, via video call (Skype, Microsoft Teams, or Zoom) or over the phone for members of the public as well as providing talks to local schools around the country to share the merits of the financial planning profession as a career.
There will also be opportunities to “Ask A Planner” a question in online sessions or offer written responses to individual queries.
Keith Mackie, director of Acumen Financial Planning, reckons more of us need to understood what financial planning is all about.
He said: “Financial planning is at the heart of what we do and the more people to take advantage of expert financial advice from all the firms taking part, the better.
“For anyone who hasn’t engaged with a financial planner before, this is an ideal opportunity to find out more about financial planning and the positive impact this can have on their lives.”