For me, the biggest casualty of the financial crisis, after employment prospects and interest on savings, was a sense of perspective. The numbers were just so vast, dwarfing all previous analysis of the nation’s finances. A newspaper columnist summed up the general confusion saying ‘A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon we’re talking big …
Personal pensions have a bad reputation compared to final-salary company pensions but if you have a responsible employer making healthy contributions, and you’re a higher-rate tax-payer, the level of saving required to achieve benefits equivalent to a final-salary pension scheme is not as painful as you might think. Savings and Retirement Stockmarket returns in the …
Finance is one of those areas where the arcane terminology and concepts can present a barrier seemingly so formidable that many people are tempted to file it away as ‘too difficult’ before even starting to investigate. In this tutorial I want to highlight the fundamentals of finance and explain these in some depth. It would …
The difference between a good business plan and a bad business plan can be summed up in a single word: credibility. To be sure, a good business plan is not the same as a good investment opportunity but, as with so much in business, presentation can make a difference, so it is worthwhile ensuring your …