How advice can put a smile back on your face
What a year this has been, so far. On the whole, 2020 feels as if it’s shaping up to be, well, a bit of a downer, and one to forget, for reasons that hardly need to be mentioned.
And so I’ll hardly mention them: the virus crisis, fears of redundancy, the exam results fiasco, lockdowns and local lockdowns, travel restrictions, furlough and then no more furlough, now a Job Support Scheme, maybe something else by the end of this email, and worst of all, months without a decent haircut!
No wonder that half of us, according to the Office for National Statistics, say we’ve spent the year so far in a state of high anxiety.
Is it time for some good news?
Well, it’s just been proved that one simple way to make anxiety evaporate, and improve your wellbeing, is to get your money sorted.
Simple, that is, if you let an adviser do it for you.
Some nifty new research by Royal London* shows that sitting down with a financial adviser will give you 47,000 reasons to smile. Long-term advised customers saw an average £31,000 uplift to their pension wealth, and a £16,000 increase to the value of savings and other assets.*
However, the real uplift was emotional.
The 4,007 adults surveyed identified the top benefits of financial advice as follows:
· Financial advice helps people to feel more confident and financially resilient – particularly in times of crisis.
· The most commonly recognised emotional benefits of their adviser’s services are having access to expertise, which makes them feel more in control of their finances.
· The report said that just making contact with a financial adviser can be a great relief: a third of those who did it said it gave them great peace of mind.
However, the highest levels of general wellbeing came for those who started an ongoing relationship with their adviser, and who knew them well, meeting once or twice a year to continue to ‘tweak’ their finances.
Those most satisfied were the ones who worked with their adviser, not on one specific product or area of their finances, but across the whole spread of their pensions and other savings, allowing their adviser to take a holistic approach to their situation.
This is where they felt the most value, because there was less focus on products like pension plans and Isas, and more focus on them, their goals, where they wanted to be in life.
This report of course makes me feel great, because I do all of the above, but what’s also interesting is that household income doesn’t make a difference when it comes to financial wellbeing. Those on a lower household income who receive advice still feel more confident than those who don't.
A common misconception is that financial advice is for millionaires only, but everyone needs advice, and it doesn’t have to be heavy going. We’re experiencing one of the biggest financial crises of the last 100 years and advice is needed now more than ever.
And even just making that initial call could leave you feeling lighter and brighter.
If you’d like a no obligation chat about your finances, or even just a sounding board, please just give me a call.
*Report ‘The financial and emotional benefits of professional advice’ by Royal London
** Report ‘What it’s worth. Revisiting the value of financial advice’ by Royal London