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If you hold credit debts and are concerned about how you will meet future debt payments, it is time to take stock of your situation and the reality of the fall-out from the global credit crunch.

Many people experiencing credit debt problems, might imagine their first port of call being debt consolidation via non-profit debt counseling agencies. And rightly so, these credit debt management services have provided ‘life-lines’ to many distressed debtors, enabling them to consolidate their debts with affordable monthly payments at reduced rates of interest. In some instances, debt solution services have even been able to negotiate as little as 0% with credit card companies.

But at a time when the prevailing credit crunch is seeing a knee-jerk reaction from some credit card companies, credit card credit debts seem poised to worsen. It would seem that some lenders’ fears over further credit debt losses in the current climate, has led to previous concessions being stripped away and there appears to be a general clamping down on credit card credit borrowing. These include:

- Drastically slashed credit limits

- Increased rate of rejection for new credit card applications

- Increased interest rate charges

- Refusal by some credit card companies to lower rates for those needing to consolidate credit debts

What The Experts Are Saying About Credit Card Debts

The picture for credit card debt - UK or elsewhere, couldn’t look any more bleak, especially in light of the findings that nearly one in eight Britons have at least four credit cards, with 28% of people applying for a new card over the past 12 months (http://guardian.co.uk).

MoneyExpert.com report that ‘around 13% of people have four or more credit cards, with 3% having five cards and 4% having more than five’. This suggests that credit card consumers are juggling with credit debts by transferring balances from card to card. While this strategy is perfectly fine if people are making full use of 0% transfer deals for credit debts reduction, it is most certainly not a good position to be in if they are struggling to make ends meet.

Yet, at a time when a number of research and surveys shows the true picture of the spiraling credit debt problem from credit cards and mortgage equity release, it becomes all the more worrying where over-reliance on credit for every-day essentials such as food, bills etc., has become the reality for some people.

Those who have addressed the issue of credit debt by releasing equity from their homes to pay off debts, might well have earned much needed credit debt relief. However, for those individuals who have not only released equity to reduce credit card debt, only to find they are still holding substantial credit debts, there may be very little options open to them.

At a time when nearly every expert seem to be predicting the credit crunch and ensuing credit debt crisis is going to escalate, what possible salvation can there be for people who need serious debt advice as well as more practical debt help? Given the clampdown by some credit card companies, what other workable credit debt solutions are there to effectively reduce credit debts?

There is hope! This hope comes by way of….

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Olga Graham Try is a qualified Social Care Practitioner and Life Coach: Read The Full Article Here:

Everyone knows that the younger you are when you start paying into a pension, the more you’ll receive when it’s time to pay out on your retirement. Nevertheless, there are still many who delay making that start and a frightening number of people who believe that their entitlement to a basic State pension will be enough to see them comfortably through old age. While they might be right about the entitlement to a State pension, they are most unlikely to find that the State pension alone will ensure anything like a comfortable retirement. But if taking care of your own pension arrangements is to be an option, where do you go for the best pension advice?

Even a cursory look at the subject of pensions will tell you that it can become a pretty complicated topic, with a bewildering range of different products, to suit different ends and purposes. For example, you might be aware that your employer runs a pension scheme and, indeed, you believe that the employer contributes to your pension on your behalf. But is this an occupational pension scheme. If it is, do you know whether it is salary-related or whether it is a defined contribution or money purchase scheme?

Alternatively, is your employer offering a stakeholder pension scheme or running a group personal pension scheme? You have heard that it is possible to set up your own stakeholder pension. How would this differ from your having your own personal pension arrangement? Is one or the other – a stakeholder or a personal pension scheme – something you should be setting up for yourself?

These are all perfectly reasonable questions, but how on earth do you go about answering them? It’s very much a specialist subject and the ground rules seem to be changing all the time. You have might also have heard, for example, that the government is introducing changes requiring all employers to offer a pension in the future and to make contributions to the schemes set up. This can be the employer’s own scheme or the government’s new central scheme that is being established.

Yet further changes will affect the minimum age at which you can start drawing your pension benefits. Subject to the rules of your particular scheme, the minimum age is currently 50, but this will go up to age 55 by the year 2010 (though you will no longer need to stop working altogether to be able to draw the pension, provided continued employment is allowed by the rules of your particular scheme). To phase in the higher age level, pension fund managers have been given the period from April 2006 until April 2010 to raise the age limit. Clearly, you will need to know when it applies to you.

All in all, therefore, it is clear that questions about pensions can become quite complicated. They are further complicated by your need to know exactly how your own individual circumstances should affect your pension options and decisions. A pension is a long-term investment, which accumulates many thousands of pounds of your hard-earned cash – it’s important, therefore, that you are guided towards the right decisions.

Given the importance of getting it right, the sensible course of action is to consult an independent financial adviser about your existing and future pension options. This will ensure that your decisions are based on the best, professional and expert, independent pension advice.

Steve Wright is Managing Director of Wrightway Financial Consultants, Independent Financial Advisers specialising in Pensions, Investments, Mortgages and Insurance. One of their major areas is pension advice.

At the risk of sounding facetious, an independent financial adviser is someone who gives independent advice on financial matters. In fact, stating the rather obvious in this way put an important stress on the three vital components of the independent financial adviser’s role.

Independent

The independence of the adviser is critical. When an independent financial adviser is consulted, it is important to know that he or she has no vested interest and will not be influenced in any way by selling a single company’s products. Independence means that the client can expect the adviser to act completely impartially, entirely in the client’s best interests, and not because there is an established dependent relationship between the adviser and one particular supplier. The importance of this independence cannot be stressed enough. The adviser needs to be licensed by and is regulated by the Financial Services Authority, and independence is something that is central to such recognition. The client’s faith and trust in the adviser stems largely from the latter’s independence.

Financial

An independent financial adviser needs to have expert professional knowledge of a huge range of financial products and services. Since it has one of the most highly developed financial services industries in the world, the sheer range of products available on the British market means that knowledge and professionalism must be of the highest order.

Because of the sheer range of subjects with which an independent financial adviser needs to be familiar, there is a correspondingly wide range of qualifications available to individual advisers. For example, the adviser might have professional qualifications awarded by the Chartered Financial Analysts (CFA) Institute, the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII), the Institute of Financial Planning (IFP), the Personal Finance Society (PFS), the Pensions Management Institute (PMI, the Securities and Investment Institute (SII), or others. Above all, however, the adviser knows that his is a constantly changing market, with new products and services emerging all the time. He or she will make it his or her business to stay completely abreast of these trends.

Adviser

As an adviser, the third and vital component of the independent financial adviser’s role harks back to the first of his or her qualities, independence. The financial advice given must be “best advice” when recommending any product or service. That is to say, the advice must be the advice that is genuinely in the client’s best interest. It is as though the adviser had stepped into the client’s shoes and was giving advice entirely from the client’s perspective. In this way, the client can be assured that the advice is truly independent, objective and impartial advice that will satisfy the interests that the client himself or herself has identified.

Summary

It is surprising just how much meaning can be packed into the three words that describe the role of the independent financial adviser. But as the above brief, thumb-nail sketchy has shown, each of the three words encapsulates a fundamental and vital part of this professional’s job. Each word describes the obligations that the adviser has towards each of his clients, so that the clients, for their part, can rest absolutely assured that they receive genuinely independent, well-informed and expert financial advice that will serve their own best interests.

Steve Wright is Managing Director of Wrightway Financial Consultants, Independent Financial Advisers specialising in Pensions, Investments, Mortgages and Insurance. One of their major areas is being a Independent Financial Adviser.

Independent financial advice is needed by anyone wanting to ensure that their hard-won money works its hardest for them. There are good ways and there are not such good ways, there are efficient means and less efficient means of literally getting the best value for money – and independent financial advice will point you in the direction of the best routes and the best financial products available.

Britain has one of the most developed and advanced financial services industries in the world. This is great news for the consumer, of course, but it does mean that there is a positively bewildering array of different financial products on the market. Independent financial advice will help to make sure that you are choosing not only the best, but also the most suitable for your particular needs.

Savings and investment

If you want to make the most of your savings and investments, for example, would you know where to start? Could you pick your way through the maze of unit trusts, individual savings accounts (ISAs), Open-ended Investment Companies (OEICs), investment bonds, inshore or offshore investments, or ethical investments? Would you know where to go for reliable stock broking or comprehensive savings plans? The choices are almost overwhelming and this is the point at which you would want a well-informed, qualified and independently expert adviser to step in and advise you of the pros and cons of each.

Pensions

One of the major areas of development and sophistication has been that of pensions planning. Once again, independent financial advice will be essential to ensuring that you make the most of your money for the longest possible time. Whether it is advice and guidance on personal pensions, annuities or finances on retirement, consultation with an expert will pay dividends.

Personal finances, protection and insurance

In today’s uncertain economic climate most people want to make sure that every penny counts. Independent financial advice is essential to the best management of your personal finances and that of your family. In the field of personal and family insurance, for instance, there is already a huge range of products to choose from – and the choice is growing all the time. Whether your interest is in life insurance, critical or serious illness insurance, health insurance, or endowments, independent expert advice will be needed to ensure that you and thoroughly understand what you are buying, but that you have chosen the most appropriate cover for you and your family’s needs.

Although sound, independent financial advice might have helped you to manage your debts in a sound and stable way in the past, if problems have begun to appear or debts seem to be getting out of control, then advice can also be given on debt consolidation or other debt management solutions.

Mortgages

A whole field of independent financial advice is also available to those looking for help in obtaining the right mortgage. Today’s mortgage market, of course, is something of a minefield and expert advice is needed to tread a clear and confident path through the available offerings and choices between repayment, fixed interest, interest-only, endowment and pension mortgages (to name but a few).

Steve Wright is Managing Director of Wrightway Financial Consultants, Independent Financial Advisers specialising in Pensions, Investments, Mortgages and Insurance. One of their major areas is independent financial advice.

When the investment in your personal pension plan reaches maturity when you retire, you will need to transfer its accumulated value into a regular income for the remainder of your retirement. This is achieved through the purchase of a pension annuity – a seemingly simple and straight forward transaction that exchanges the final value of the pension fund into which you have been paying into a regular income.

Whilst the principle of a pension annuity is seemingly very straight forward, however, things are rarely quite as simple as they seem.

The first and probably most critical aspect of buying a pension annuity is that it is a long-term, one-off commitment. You have just one shot at it, since there is no going back and asking for a refund of all of the capital simply because, after the event, you have found a better deal elsewhere. In other words, it is very important that you make the right choice.

Making the right choice is made no easier by the fact that a host of different annuities all offer a host of different annuity rates – i.e. will offer a different level of income for the same amount of pension investment.

The difficulty is further compounded by the sheer number of different types of annuity available these days.

Standard annuity – the most conventional form of annuity is one that pays you a fixed income throughout the remainder of your life. The income is known in advance, so you have the security and peace of mind in knowing just how much that will be;

With profits annuity – as the name suggests, this relates the income you receive to an element of your initially invested sum that is in turn invested again in equities, bonds and gilts. In this way, your annuity reflects some of the risks inherent in such investments;

Unit-linked annuity – this is probably the choice for those prepared to take the greatest risk on an annuity that is entirely subject to the fluctuations of the investments made;

Immediate (”temporary” or “purchased life”) annuity – this form of annuity needs to be purchased either from the cash element of your matured pension fund or some other cash resource. The advantage of this kind of annuity is that part of the annuity is treated as a return of your initial capital and, therefore, is not taxed, whereas the whole of your pension annuity would be subject to income tax;

Impaired life annuity – this is a type of annuity designed for those whose actuarial life expectancy is lower than someone of the same age in the general population. Different annuities will operate different definitions of what amounts to “impairment” of life, but it is generally a question of an existing serious illness or lifestyle factors such as smoking, obesity or past occupation.

Summary

The seemingly simple and straight forward question of converting the final value of a pension fund into a regular, income-paying annuity actually requires the kind of advice you can best receive from an independent financial adviser, since:

• Your pension annuity decision is of a one-off type that you need to get right the first time;

• There is considerable variation in the level of income paid by any one annuity – naturally, you would want the highest paying;

• There is a wide range of different types of annuity – some higher, some lower, risk – an independent financial adviser will be able to help you choose the one you want.

Steve Wright is Managing Director of Wrightway Financial Consultants, Independent Financial Advisers specialising in Pensions, Investments, Mortgages and Insurance. One of their major areas is pension annuity.

A brief scan of the financial pages of the national press might give you some idea of the number of employers these days why are eager to switch their employees from final salary pension schemes into other, personal pension, plans. Many employers are so keen to encourage such a switch that they are offering a lump sum cash inducement for those who elect to transfer their pension rights in this way. Despite such an apparently attractive inducement, however, where can the employee get pension transfer advice that he or she can feel secure in knowing the transfer is in their own best interest?

The reason for many employers wanting to shift employees away from final salary schemes is that such schemes tend to be relatively expensive. For the employee, however, the attraction may well be the certainty offered by a final salary scheme, since it will be known all along just how the pension is calculated and what it is likely to amount to. A personal pension plan, however, will depend on the performance of the pension fund’s investments and the equally unknown variations in annuity rates. So, the personal pension plan could do better, or it could do worse than, the occupational final salary scheme. How can the employee begin to compare the two, therefore, to know whether to accept the employer’s incentive to quit the safety and certainty of a final salary scheme?

The answer is that it is an extremely difficult decision to make and not one which should be made without dependable pension transfer advice. The complicated nature of pension transfers is no idle judgment, but one that comes from the financial services industry regulator, the Financial Services Authority (FSA). Speaking about the responsibility of pension fund trustees towards any of its members who are thinking about a pension transfer, the Authority states: “Although it is not compulsory, the trustees should encourage members to take advice as pension transfers are complicated and it is difficult to make suitable decisions without advice, even when all the relevant information is provided”.

So, the FSA itself would encourage anyone thinking of transferring from one pension scheme to another – and that includes a transfer out of a final salary scheme – should first consult an independent financial adviser. It is the independent financial adviser, for example, who can begin to make sense of the next most important piece of information you will need in order to weigh up the pros and cons of any transfer. That is a transfer value analysis and an estimate of the benefits that your present scheme would pay. Fairly obviously, this is something that would be needed before any comparison between the existing and new scheme could be attempted. Furthermore, the transfer value analysis is something that only the trustees of your present scheme could provide.

Summary

For whatever reason you are considering taking pension transfer advice, the best-placed source is an independent financial adviser because:

• Independent financial advice is recommended by the Financial Services Authority;

• You will need someone who can help you understand and interpret the transfer value analysis provided by the trustees of your current pension scheme;

• You will benefit from professional advice in weighing up the benefits and drawbacks of your present scheme compared to any alternative.

Steve Wright is Managing Director of Wrightway Financial Consultants, Independent Financial Advisers specialising in Pensions, Investments, Mortgages and Insurance. One of their major areas is pension transfer advice.

If you know more or less all there is to know about investing directly in stocks and shares, or in collective forms of investment, or the management of your investments, or the tax implications, or the pros and cons of offshore investing, then you might not need much more in the way of financial investment advice. Unless you happen to be one of those very rare individuals, however, you will almost certainly benefit from the sound and impartial financial investment advice of a professional, independent financial adviser.

Types of Investment

Direct Investment

Your choice of investment types fall into two basic categories – direct investment in the shares of a particular company or its issued bonds or, in the case of government-issued bonds, its “gilt-edged stock”. The price of company shares, of course, will fluctuate as they are traded on the stock market and the dividends to which you are entitled as an owner of those shares will be determined by the performance of that particular company.

In the case of bonds issued by a company, or gilts issued by the government, however, you will be assured of the rate of interest on what is effectively your loan to that company or the government, and you will be assured of the full return on your investment once the bond or government stock reaches its maturity date. Because of these in-built certainties, there is a lower risk inherent in the investment in corporate bonds or government gilts, and the returns, therefore, tend to be lower than in the more volatile market for shares.

Both corporate and government bonds can be traded in the market, however, before they reach their maturity date. During this time, their price will be determined by the prevailing rates of interest in the stick market, compared to the rate attached to the bond itself.

“Collective” Investment

If you want to avoid putting all your eggs in the one basket of a particular company’s shares, it is possible instead to spread the risk of your investment by pooling it (with other investors) into a range of different investments. In this case, the pooled investment is managed by a professional fund manager, who makes decisions on the range and types of investment. Such collective schemes fall – again, broadly – into three different types: unit trusts, investment trusts and Open-ended Investment Companies (OEICs).

Once you have reached this level of investment decision-making, however, the vast range of unit trusts, investment trusts and OEICs available can open up a veritable Pandora’s Box of choices. In order to avoid making potentially very costly mistakes or rash investment decisions, therefore, this is the stage at which – if you have not done so before – you should consult an independent financial adviser.

Summary

Financial investment advice is wisely taken because of the sheer range of investment vehicles available:

• These fall into the two broad categories of direct investment or “collective” (pooled) investment;

• Direct investments include the purchase of stocks and shares or corporate or government (so-called “gilt-edged” stock);

• The principal types of collective investment are in unit trusts, investment trusts or Open-ended Investment Companies (OEICs);

• Whatever your personal intuition regarding the best investment type for you, however, the best financial investment advice is going to come from an independent financial adviser.

Steve Wright is Managing Director of Wrightway Financial Consultants, Independent Financial Advisers specialising in Pensions, Investments, Mortgages and Insurance. One of their major areas is financial investment advice.

Everyone would like their money to be working as hard and as profitably for them as possible. The problem is that, with generally low rates of interest, hoarding any spare cash in the relative security of a bank or building society account is not going to achieve a very attractive return. There are other investment opportunities available, of course, but just where should you start to look? The safest and most reliable source is to turn to your independent financial adviser for investment advice.

There are literally thousands of different products you can choose from in order to invest or save your money and an independent financial adviser can help you pick the ones that are best suited to your own personal circumstances. That, of course, is the beauty of consulting an independent adviser. The adviser will not be offering you an off-the-peg, one-size-fits-all solution, but something tailored uniquely to your particular needs. This is made possible by the thousands of products available – provided, of course, that you know what there is and you know where to look. And that is precisely the financial adviser’s job – a job demanding financial knowledge and expertise, delivered in a totally impartial and independent manner, with advice that suits only your own best interests (not his or anyone else’s).

So, you do not have to negotiate the bewildering maze of choices between individual companies in which to invest; or whether you should instead choose one of the Unit Trusts as a way of investing in a collective of companies; or whether you would be better off with an Investment Trust or with an Open-ended Investment Company (OEIC); or whether you should really be going for the tax-efficiencies of an Individual Savings Account (ISA) – The independent financial adviser can be there to guide you through this whole maze of competing products and identify the ones that will work best for you alone.

These sorts of decisions might once have been the preserve of only the very wealthy. These days, however, investing is increasingly regarded as a way for the majority of people to invest in their future. Investment is a way of making your financial future more secure. So what better way to provide for your future than a pension based on the investments under your own control?

So, if you are looking to invest in your future by way of a pension savings and investment plan, the independent financial adviser is once again the best man for the job. His combined knowledge of investment options and of the vast range of pension plan alternatives makes him the ideal counsellor and someone without whose advice you probably would not want to make a decision.

Summary

If you are in search of investment advice, remember that:

• An independent financial adviser is best placed to guide through the maze of competing financial products;

• The advice will be entirely independent and tailored to your needs – an no one else’s;

• If your concern is for an investment and savings plan to meet your pension needs, the independent financial adviser is once again the person without whose advice you would not want to enter into any commitment.

Steve Wright is Managing Director of Wrightway Financial Consultants, Independent Financial Advisers specialising in Pensions, Investments, Mortgages and Insurance. One of their major areas is investment advice.

Before considering whether it is a good idea, it might be helpful to take a quick look at just what is pension drawdown.

Replace that “drawdown” with “withdraw” and it can perhaps be most readily understood as the ability to withdraw money from your pension fund and leave the balance invested, so that (hopefully) it continues to grow. This ability therefore gives the pension holder an additional option on retirement: instead of using the pension for the one-off purchase of a lifetime annuity, funds can be withdrawn or drawn down for the purchase of an annuity at a later date. And the later the date, of course, the more attractive the annuity should be. Tit does mean, however, that you will probably need an alternative source of income in the meantime.

Clearly, this will give you a much greater degree of flexibility in the use of your pension and preserves the opportunity of a remaining pension fund that you could pass on to your children on your death (provided, of course, that the fund is still a reasonably significant amount).

If the pension fund is sufficiently large, you will be able to draw down income and continue to manage the balance of the fund, making any necessary investment decisions for yourself. In other words, it allows you to stay in control of a significant source of savings and investment.

Pension drawdown could also result in your being able to increase your income when you are older. Obviously, this will depend not only on there still being a sizeable balance in the pension fund, but also that the investments perform well. The opposite is also true, of course. If the investments do not perform well, then the fund can become seriously depleted and the income in your old age could in fact be significantly reduced.

Pension drawdown thus offers a more flexible alternative to purchasing an annuity as soon as you retire. This will suit those people who feel that the one-off purchase of an annuity at too early a stage locks them into an arrangement which might not represent the best deal over the longer-term. They might also be concerned about the relatively limited death benefits that come with many annuities.

From the foregoing, therefore, it can be seen that there are attractions to a pension drawdown. But these attractions come at a price. And that price lies in the risk of things going wrong or you miscalculating a number of factors. In other words, pension drawdown represents a risk. If the worst came to the worst, your decisions could leave your remaining pension fund seriously – if not totally – depleted. This would leave you without a private pension at all in your old age.

The risk is sufficient, certainly, for it to be very unwise to consider this retirement option without first consulting an experienced independent financial adviser, who can warn you of the pitfalls and carefully explain not only the attractions, but also the drawbacks of a pension drawdown.

Steve Wright is Managing Director of Wrightway Financial Consultants, Independent Financial Advisers specialising in Pensions, Investments, Mortgages and Insurance. One of their major areas is pension drawdown.

One of the reasons for searching out the services of an independent financial adviser is that pension matters are awash with esoteric terms, labels and descriptions. The self-invested pension – or Self-invested Personal Pension (Sipp) as you’ll often see it called – is a good case in point. The underlying principle is relatively straight forward and attractive, but to make the most of the opportunities it represents, it really is essential to take expert advice especially if you are considering transferring to a self-invested pension from an existing pension scheme.

What it is?

A self-invested pension shares the same basic features as any personal pension plan regarding such things as eligibility, contributions and tax relief. Instead of pension contributions being paid into an insurance policy investment however, the self-invested pension remains very much in the hands of the pension holder, even when it comes to making the investment decisions. For example, the holder can choose to invest in anything from individual shares to unit trusts, gilts, traded endowment policies, residential or commercial property and even investments in art or vintage wines.

In other words, it is the pension holder (or his financial adviser) who can make the investment decisions, rather than being tied into the insurance company’s investment portfolio in a conventional personal pension plan. If the self-invested investments are not performing as expected, therefore, it is a relatively straight forward matter of switching to higher-performing investments.

Provided you earn more than £30,000, you can also operate a self-invested pension alongside a regular occupational pension.

As with all other personal pension plans, you will not be able to draw on a self-invested pension plan until you reach the age of 50 (or 55 after the final implementation date of April 2010). Until retirement age, however, you will be allowed to contribute to your self-invested pension as much as the equivalent of a year’s salary, less any contributions you might be making to any other pension plans. As with other personal pension plans, you earn tax relief on your contributions. Effectively, therefore, for every £1,000 that is invested, you only pay £780, with the remaining £220 being paid by the Inland Revenue in the form of basic tax relief.

Self-invested pension plans have also become rather more accessible these days to a wider number of people. It is possible to set one up, for example, with a monthly contribution as little as £50, or if you are transferring from another pension, a transfer value of as little as £5,000.

Summary

A self-invested pension puts more of the investment decision cards in your own hands. You can keep a personal control over the investment strategy or appoint a financial adviser or fund manager to make the investments for you.

For those who want an active, hands-on approach to their pension management, there will be decided attractions in a self-invested pension. Nevertheless, as emphasised previously, the decision to set up a self-invested pension or to transfer funds to one from an existing pension scheme should not be taken without first consulting an independent financial adviser.

Steve Wright is Managing Director of Wrightway Financial Consultants, Independent Financial Advisers specialising in Pensions, Investments, Mortgages and Insurance. One of their major areas is self invested pension.