Read the latest news and articles from the Gem & Co team
Financial planning is all about helping you to reach your life goals. Ultimately, the objective is for your wealth to allow you to achieve all the things you want to do now and in the future. That might be as simple as being able to relax and enjoy a comfortable retirement or helping your children
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When was the last time you stopped and paid attention to the sounds around you? It’s easy to become accustomed to the racket of your busy life – honking traffic, dogs barking, phones ringing – but just because you can ignore the constant noise doesn’t mean you should. A 2006 study on music unexpectedly discovered
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Trade wars and fears that tariffs could spark recessions meant investment market volatility continued in March 2025. Read on to find out more about some of the factors that may have affected the value of your investments recently. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development slashed the growth forecast among advanced economies this year due
Read moreThe month got off to a gloomy start, especially if you are a Guardian reader. Five signs the global recovery may be an illusion was the headline on one of its main analysis articles, which pointed out that the world of 2014 was not very dissimilar to the world of 2004 – when (we now
Read moreCompany directors and owners of SMEs make plans and do forecasts all the time. Cash flow forecasts, SWOT analyses, plans for renewals and refurbishment; there’s hardly a day when they’re not eyeball to eyeball with a spreadsheet. So why do so many of them fail to plan their own retirements properly? In our experience company
Read moreThe average UK household overall is 26 days from the breadline, but this reduces to just 11 days for those of working age (18-64 years old). People estimate their savings will last them 72 days – almost three times the actual deadline to exhausting reserve funds. Wales and the North East have the shortest deadlines
Read moreIf you are lucky enough to have a pension pot or a pension plan that works out your savings as being worth more than £1.5 million, then when you take your benefits, it is likely that you will have to pay a lifetime allowance tax charge on the excess. The existing fixed Lifetime Allowance (LTA)
Read moreVirtually all the headlines surrounding George Osborne’s recent Budget were about the changes to the pensions rules. Rightly described as the biggest changes to pensions legislation for a hundred years, they will have far-reaching implications for the financial planning of many of our clients. With all the attention devoted to pensions, it was easy to
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