I hope those of you who have been away recently on holiday had a really good break. Recharging the batteries is so important, and I know in August many clients arrange it so they can get away and enjoy some family time.
We did our usual jaunt to Saundersfoot in South West Wales, and had a great week on the beach (honest!) as well as a bit of reading and visiting nice restaurants. Being 11, my daughter just loves getting dolled up to go out. Though by the time she has finished she looks nearer 17!
We also had a few days in Scarborough in North Yorkshire. I dont know how many of you have been to Scarborough, but we always enjoy visiting, as well as a look in to Whitby. Charlotte (Chalk) took a friend Annie (Zebbie), and once again the beach was the highlight for them. We managed to have a couple of hours on the beach each day as the weather was quite warm, and it conveniently rained at night.
The other popular option was to go on the simulator. You know the kind of thing. You sit in a spacecraft type thing and the screen in front of you makes you believe you are actually in a race car or on a rollercoaster. The whole machine dips and twists to add to the illusion, and Chalk & Zebbie adore it!
Its not exactly cheap either, and the girls were always begging to ‘have just one more go’. But I must admit it was fun, although a tip here is to have a go before lunch. A slight complication was that Zebbie said she fancied the boy operating the machine (11!), and I tried not to laugh as she persuaded Chalk to take a photo of her with the simulator with this Adonis in the background.
There was one downer – our favourite mexican restaurant had closed. No one knows why, but the whole place was shut up tight, and had no notices announcing a reopening.
The girls were very disappointed as it had become a bit of a tradition to go there, so we sourced another mexican restaurant in the hope it was as good. It wasnt. Oh well.
On getting back to work, there was the usual deluge of emails. Hundreds! It was nice to see that some were from clients and other important messages, but there were loads of junk emails. Having got rid of these, there was an awful lot of snippets of news from the various google alerts and articles I subscribe to.
So I thought I would share a few of these with you:
Financial Planning Week
This is being arranged by the Institute Of Financial Planning, and is designed to make people aware of the need to get good independent advice and – yes – plan.
They are getting the media involved, and I am writing in the North Easts Journal newspaper about how we helped a Durham dentist.
NHS Pension
News was announced that the combined liabilities facing the U.K’s 8,000 private final salary pension schemes has climbed above £1 trillion.
This coincides with hints that, due to the massive liability of public service pensions, these will be looked at again. It is ironic that Unison, the union that has campaigned against cuts in public sector pensions, is now looking to make similar cutbacks to its very own final salary scheme.
Any changes will presumably include the NHS scheme, and this just after a major review recently with changes made with the 2008 version!
Various utterings include limiting the payouts to the larger earners, and as this will potentially affect our clients we will be keeping our eyes wide open on this one!
Stockmarkets
These have seen large increases for the last few months, and as usual there are pundits saying ‘get out now or ‘get back in now if you have been out’.
Who knows of course, but one interesting aspect of this summer has been that the FTSE has risen to near the 5000 mark, when traditionally summer months can be quiet. This is an increase of 23% over the March level! (but is still down somewhat from the highs seen in 2008).
Debt
For the first time in many many years, in July, net repayments of debt have been higher than the amount lent to individuals.
Gold
This is currently at around $900 an ounce, and the pundits are getting very excited about it not only breaking through the $1,000 mark, but even doubling from there to $2,000!
Banks
Yes, yet again, more scandals here. Reports talk about many elderly people being missold inappropriate investments, and losing huge chunks of their lifetime savings.
Complaints against Banks are on the up, with a latest report showing Banks have 50 times the amount of complaints compared to independent advisers. It seems that there will be more and more cases that come to light here, and as usual we are not surprised.
Also, the chairman of the FSA, Lord Turner, has said that the large systemically important banks need to produce ‘clearly defined plans of what they would do if they thought they were heading for trouble. Is this stating the obvious or what?
About Graeme Urwin
