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We find ourselves another year on, wishing you all a very happy and prosperous 2026. At this time of reflection, we welcome in the New Year with a host of resolutions. How many of you can confidently say you took note and utilised the time that has passed, to successfully further your financial goals? The best time to start your planning was the start of your career at the Bar, but if you didn’t take this opportunity or weren’t proactive with your plans last year, the next best time is now. Every day you delay, is another day you fail to capitalise on the power of time and benefit of compounding. Post-Budget and in the run up to Tax Year-End, it is the ideal time to review your financial position, the long-term goals you have set yourself and challenges you must overcome to reach them.
So take the first step and consider your circumstances in light of the considerations below:
Your current position
In our experience, no matter what stage of your career at the Bar, a model financial plan can be broken down into six essential elements. With these in place you can feel confident you are on the path to success. As circumstances develop, your planning needs will also inevitably become more sophisticated and additional needs and financial planning tools will be required to be called upon.
Q: Are you aware of the elements needed for a successful financial plan and have you got them in place?
Your financial goals
Everybody has dreams, they might know they want to buy a house; retire at 65 and travel the world; or pay for children’s education. But, in order for these to truly become attainable they need to be measurable and focused. It is about tailoring the plan to your personal goals and what good looks like to you.
Q: Have you thought in any detail about your ‘life plan’ – like any good business plan, you need quantifiable targets and the infrastructure to support them - have you got yours?
Your challenges
There are many challenges to a financial plan, whether it is accounting and preparing for uncertainty, knowing how much you need to save to get to your target, alongside the wider and ever-changing financial markets and fiscal policies. It is essential you make the right choices to future-proof, to the extent we have control, your financial future.
Q: Have you identified the challenges currently standing between you and your goals and do you know how you will overcome them?
Taking Action
If you are doing your job right, you shouldn’t have time to do ours too. With the financial world and your circumstances constantly evolving, the most important step you can take this New Year is to invest a small amount of time in your future and work with a financial adviser. We reduce your work-load and provide you with peace of mind you have someone acting in the best interests of you and your loved-ones. We ask the right questions to give you the best potential to succeed. As well as keeping you on track, giving you the confidence to invest, and ensuring you avoid scams and are using the right tax wrappers, working with an adviser has tangible financial benefits. On average, a person using a financial adviser is £47,000 better off when they retire (1) , and the value of advice has been calculated to amount to an additional 2% per year on returns. (2)
You can’t add time; you can’t change how you chose to use it in the past, but you can change the future and how you use time moving forwards. So, take action and scan the QR code or use the details below to book a 30-minute discovery session. Together we can start the journey of:
1. Building a plan;
2. Reviewing it regularly to ensure you remain on track; and
3. Achieving your financial goals.
Tel: 01962 353153
Email: enquiries-westgate@sjpp.co.uk
Web: www.westgatewealth.co.uk/specialist-advice/the-bar
The value of an investment with St. James’s Place will be directly linked to the performance of the funds you select and the value can therefore go down as well as up. You may get back less than you invested. The levels and bases of taxation, and reliefs from taxation, can change at any time. The value of any tax relief depends on individual circumstances.
References: (1) The International Longevity Centre UK calculated that if a person received professional financial advice between 2001 and 2006 it resulted, on average, in them being £47,706 better off in terms of pensions and financial assets once fees and charges had been taken into account in 2014/15 (What it’s worth – revisiting the value of financial advice, ILC, November 2019). (2) According to independent analysis by Numis Securities (September 2020) based on comparing annual returns for St. James’s Place clients against those who managed their own investments. The research, which covered all clients’ SJP pension investments, found that between June 2010 and June 2020 the average growth achieved was 7.7%pa. This means £100,000 invested at the start of the period would be worth £210,000 by the end. By comparison, the same exercise for pension clients of a large firm where investors usually make their own investment decisions achieved an average of 5.5% pa over the same period. So on average £100,000 invested by a non-advised client grew to £171,000 over the ten years. This analysis didn’t include any tax benefits from advice and so Numis’s researchers concluded that the main difference between the two was the ‘greater long-term discipline and lower emotion an adviser
provides’.
