Go with the experts for guidance

Andrew Sutherland | Ross Johnston/Newsline media

Q What are the advantages of working with a financial adviser, rather than just taking a DIY approach to managing my money?

A We often hear statements such as: “Financial advisers just advise on tax, investments, and products. And I can do it myself.” And: “I can get better investment returns by not paying for advice.”

However, for investment returns, the research says otherwise.

For individual transactions, you can – by and large – do them yourself.

Are you doing that though? And are you doing it with any structure or, more importantly, confidence?

A financial planner will ensure that:

◆ Everything is implemented for you.

◆ You understand why.

◆ You have confidence in your financial position.

◆ You can get on living your life without the concern of doing it yourself.For you as a client, this all means headspace and relaxation in retirement, giving you more time to spend with loved ones.

Seeking professional guidance will enable you to know your objectives and how to achieve them.

Decisions will be based on you, your previous experience with money, your personal values, and your philosophies on money and life.

An adviser will spend time with you running through everything, establishing a lifetime financial plan incorporating your life goals.

The plan will prepare for life events such as retirement or entering a peri-retirement. It will be reviewed at least annually or whenever life events arise, ensuring you remain on track to achieve what you want to achieve.

This means that you can make informed decisions with confidence.

Financial planning isn’t about pensions, ISAs, and insurance, it uses those things as tools in the background to support you.

Financial planning done properly is about giving you a very high level of confidence in your ability to do what you want, how you want, and when.

A report published in the past few weeks by the International Longevity Centre UK shows that people who take advice see significant long-term benefits, with pensions increasing over the course of a decade between 11 per cent and 24 per cent more than those of people who don’t. This clearly has a material benefit for people’s ability to support themselves throughout retirement.

The improvement is further enhanced with subsequent advice being taken underlining the benefits of establishing a partnership with a financial professional.

A key element to all of this is that your financial professional will enable you to zoom out from individual aspects of your financial arrangements, helping you to focus on the big picture. This is exemplified when it comes to investing your money in support of your long-term financial wellbeing.

With news headlines showing constant change –a change of American presidency, political unrest and war in the Middle East, and an ongoing crisis in Ukraine – it is easy to understand why investors react to world events, taking actions with their money trying to avoid bad potential outcomes.

A good financial planner will ensure you tune out market “noise” and you won’t invest money in what happens to be working today – you will support your financial position by investing money in what has worked over the long term.

Ensuring you are focussed on your end goals, and not being distracted by temporary trends and news items, has been proven to help people achieve what is important to them financially.

Ultimately, you will be able to spend more in retirement because you will have the structure and confidence to do so without the concern that you might run out of money.

Andrew Sutherland is a financial planner at Acumen Financial Planning. Contact him at [email protected] or by telephoning 0131-526 3250.

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