This is the latest in our series of articles that consider the financial challenges for clients at a specific stage in life. This time we’re looking at people who are in their 50’s. This is a really important stage in your financial life as it is often the time in life of maximum income and the greatest opportunity to really build your wealth.

Here are some thoughts on how you might approach your finances differently in the second half-century of your life.

We’re now well into 2018 and we often find that the finances of our clients settle down a bit at this time of year. The madness of Christmas is behind us,and a lot of annual financial commitments have often come and gone at the start of the year. Spring is a good time to take a step back and consider how you can maximise the impact of your financial resources in achieving your desired lifestyle.

We’ve done some thinking on this and have set out 8 ways in which careful management of your finances can positively impact your lifestyle goals.

We recently wrote about why people should be thinking about their retirement in their 30’s, and why this is the time when you should start seriously saving to achieve your desired lifestyle in retirement. We got a great reaction to this article, and were asked by a number of people in their 40’s for some tips in relation to managing money at their stage of life.

With markets having powered ahead in recent years, in general people are happier talking about the performance of their investment portfolio. After all, it’s easier to talk about gains than losses! But we’ve noticed some conversations shifting towards consolidation of gains as the prospect of a turn in markets probably moves closer all the time. We’re not in the business of trying to time markets, but help investors to take a long-term perspective with their investments and to build a portfolio that matches your own attitude to risk.

When we’re designing an investment portfolio for our clients, we take into account quite a number of considerations. We start by understanding your investment goals and time horizons, and then we build a full understanding of your liquidity requirements, any asset class preferences that you might have and also the returns that you expect.

Well the short answer is no, you’re not mad to be thinking about retirement in your 30’s. Of course it is not going to be foremost in your mind as there are lots of competing priorities – a house to be bought, maybe a wedding to be celebrated or a family to be started. And these also don’t take into account the holidays, cars and social life that are there to be enjoyed!

So planning for retirement is probably well down the list…

Tax is a necessary evil. If we want to live in a country with access to public services, taxation is the system used to pay for these services. We can (and do!) argue and moan about the different levels of tax payable and whether they are levied fairly. But at the end of the day, the money to be used for public services has to be collected somewhere.

While most people accept that tax must be collected, most people certainly do not want to pay more than their fair share. So as we approach the 31^st October tax payment deadline for individuals (or 10th November if you file through Revenue Online System), we’ve set out 5 ways that can help you to reduce your tax burden either now or in the future. All of these are perfectly legitimate and are not considered aggressive tax practices – they are simply good tax housekeeping that is sometimes ignored.

 

In financial planning businesses such as our own, a relatively small proportion of our time is spent dealing with the implementation and servicing of financial products on behalf of our clients. Because financial planning is so much deeper than simply putting products in place. 

Instead our clients today come to us with relatively simple questions (that are in fact quite complex) such as "Will we always be ok?" or "Have we enough money?" There's no easy answers to these ones! Because to answer them, we need to know what sort of a life you want to lead, and then we need to put a cost on that life. It's only then that we can start to develop a financial plan to help you achieve that life, help you build a risk appropriate investment portfolio, plan for your retirement and protect yourself if that's what your plan requires. 

But sometimes our clients approach us about other financial challenges they might have, or indeed simply want to bounce ideas off us! We’re delighted to help and give you an opinion if we can. And if we can’t help you directly ourselves, we often know someone who can actually help you.

Here are some of the areas we've been asked about.

 

According to the Census carried out in 2011, 12% of families in Ireland are now made up of cohabiting couples.  This cohort of our population still faces some unique challenges when it comes to personal finance and inheritance. In this article, we’re going to identify some of the significant issues to be managed, and set out why it is so important for cohabiting couples to get expert financial advice. Not doing so could result in some very expensive tax liabilities down the road!

 

Small & Medium Enterprises (SME’s) and pensions schemes… they don’t appear too often in the same sentence! Pensions are a real issue for employees working in these small businesses and a headache for their employers. So what is the current situation and what needs to be done?

  

History teaches us many things. Particularly if we’re looking for a bit of guidance in prudent personal financial management, the last decade offers us a wealth of useful lessons.

A marriage breakup is usually a traumatic time. Very significant life decisions are needed about custody of children and access arrangements, and where each party will live. Often relations between the parties become quite fraught… and then financial arrangements need to be agreed.

At this stage, the difficult areas of dividing up the assets, maintenance payments and agreeing the ongoing repayment of debt need to be tackled. Having a financial planner involved in this process is very valuable, as they will approach the task in hand without emotion. Our job is simply to achieve the very best outcome in relation to the financial issues that will inevitably arise.

So to help you, here are some of the areas that we can help you with.

OUR BUSINESS PARTNERS We have agencies with the providers listed below so unlike the Bank or a Tied Agent you will get choice. We will source the solutions that are best suited to your needs and make sure you are getting value for your money.

I recently asked Bill Coyne to review several personal insurance policies and a pension plan that I purchased some time ago. Bill arranged to meet me at a time that suited me and reviewed the policies. He took copies of the policies and contacted me a couple of days later with his findings. He sent me a written report which highlighted some very interesting points. Each policy I had purchased was setup with very large commission for the person who sold it. I was over paying for some cover by as much as €60 per month. The ongoing fees on my policies were excessive. In short Bill managed to suggest several ways to improve my cover while saving me money. I would have no hesitation in recommending Bill and would suggest that anyone who has an insurance policy or pension should let him review them .From my experience he will save you money. Fergus Flanagan - Managing Director of APM Securities Ltd