2024 White Paper: Retire Well
In our 2024 White Paper, we look at the data and provide a comparative analysis of alternative income drawdown strategies 1986-2023
We collate, tabulate and compare the data from the main retail investors’ drawdown strategies over 37 years, look at the two biggest risks for an individual depending on drawdown income are sequence and longevity, and what we found when we analysed more than 1,239 balance sheets, reserve statements and cashflows.
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How to Guide: Your Essential Guide to ISAs
ISAs, or Individual Savings Accounts, have been around for over 20 years – since Google had its debut and Bill Clinton was impeached. Rewind to 1999, and the Chancellor Gordon Brown introduced the product in the hope of encouraging us to save more for the future. Since then, they’ve become an essential part of many a financial plan.
One of the key aims of the ISA was to make saving simple. However, as with many things finance-related, successive governments have tinkered with parts of ISAs, added new products and altered limits. The net result is that picking an ISA product and understanding how to make the most of your allowance is not quite as simple as it was initially meant to be!
Our free, 12-page essential guide to ISAs talks you through what an ISA is, the different types of ISAs and why should you choose one.
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Britain Cleans up…in Japan
News comes that Britain cleans up in the first ever litter picking World Cup. A UK team were crowned champions in Japan after collecting 83 kilos of rubbish in just 45 minutes…
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For Whom the Till Tolls
It is only a few years ago now that the cash till in our local was nothing more than a wooden drawer slung under the rear counter. No one paid by card. John, the tenant landlord, would work out his cellar order with notebook and pencil and phone it in…
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The Joy of Hitting 62?
“I don’t have to pretend to like the theatre or foreign holidays and I can spend all afternoon in the pub with my pals.”
So says Marcus Berkman in his book - Still a Bit of Snap in The Old Celery - published Thursday this week…
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How to Guide: The Basics of Investing
There are many good reasons to invest rather than just ‘save’ money – and before your imagination runs away with you, we are not talking investment aka the Wolf of Wall Street. That said, at one end of the scale investing can, indeed, provide an opportunity to increase your net worth or perhaps make you independently wealthy. However, the reality is that most of us would be more than happy at the prospect of knowing we’ll have a decent financial umbrella or of being able to retire comfortably or sooner than we’d planned. Investing can
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Now and Then
Everyone, it seems, has a point of view about the latest and last Beatles release.
The Guardian put it this way:
“A moody, reflective piano ballad, it’s clearly never going to supplant Strawberry Fields Forever or A Day in the Life in the affections of Beatles fans, but it’s a better song than Free as a Bird or Real Love…”
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Marrakesh Express
One for the bucket list:
‘Coloured cottons hang in the air. Charming cobras in the square. Striped djellabas we can wear…’ A description of Marrakesh by Crosby, Stills and Nash written in 1969 and just as true today.
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Dyslexics Rule K.O.
Depending on which research you read, dyslexia affects between 10 and 20% of people. The spread is wide because of the number of people who remain undiagnosed. I can relate to this because, until my son was diagnosed, I had no idea I was so cursed…or blessed too.
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Give Peace a Chance
Born in the wake of WW2, baby boomers are the first generation of Britons since the act of union 300 years ago not conscripted to fight. The history of conflict, of course, goes back way beyond then. The Crusades, or Holy Wars started in 1096…
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Secrets of the Blue Zones
“Live to 100. Secrets of the Blue Zones” is Dan Buettner’s Netflix series which explores communities which have significant populations of people who age gracefully and reach their century.
The Blue Zones regions are where a higher than usual number of people live much longer than the average…
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Fans
My first experience of going to a professional football match was on a cold afternoon at Boothferry Park, home to Hull City, to see a dismal, nil, nil draw. My dad and I cycled there and after chaining our bikes to a lamppost, joined my uncle and cousin on the terraces. No seating, just a rail to lean on, or swing from. This was…
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How to Guide: Later-life planning and care
It’s tempting to think of retirement as one long long holiday where we kick back after years of hard work and indulge in hobbies and interests. As a vision that’s appealing, but it fails to take into account that ageing is not a choice it’s inevitable. This is fine to a point, but a more realistic view is to think of retirement as a series of phases during which lifestyle wishes and healthcare needs can change dramatically over decades. The good news is that planning for later-life financial security IS achievable if you are proactive now. To help you along the way, we’ve compiled this baby boomer’s roadmap.
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Blackberry and Apple
What ever happened to the Blackberry? I have a friend, a banker who runs the IT team, and who still has one in daily use. Swears by it. Mind you, he has a vintage Jaguar also in daily use, which says something about him. Launched in 1999, it…
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Pier into the Future
Piers, it seems, are making something of a comeback with today’s younger generation enjoying them as much as we did as children. As a child I was occasionally taken to Blackpool. If it was summer then it was buckets and spades, donkey rides and ice cream, whilst in the winter it was the…
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It's Official. Beer is good for you.
Guinness is Good for You, was the advertising slogan made famous by the firm from the 1920’s until it was banned in the 1960’s, no longer considered a healthy option. Guinness also claimed to Give You Strength, and according to The Royal College of Physicians Museum, Guinness wrote to…
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From Obscurity to Premier Cru
Wine drinking was a habit only for the elite in Britain, but an everyday necessity for our French and European cousins.
In the sixties, cheap, semi-sweet drinks such as ‘Babycham’ and ‘Cherry B’ took over from sherry and eventually Portuguese ‘Mateus Rose’. So exotic was this wine considered that…
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Norwegian Odyssey
The Beatles song Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) was about an extramarital affair that John Lennon was involved in. In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, he said:
"I was trying to write about an affair without letting my wife know I was having one…
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Return to Base
Eighteen months ago, I posted a piece called The Great De-Cluttering Dilemma, as we moved out of our house following an underfloor leak. This week we are moving back in to the house, complete with all our goods and chattels…
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The Big Screen
My dad’s first job was as a projectionist at The Picture House Cinema in the market town of Beverly in East Yorkshire. There was no TV at the time and so news and entertainment were to be found there and he saw it all though the tiny square window of his projection booth. Then he went off to war.
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