Blog

With inflation hitting 6.2% in February and outstripping wage growth, make sure you are paying attention to what’s happening to your money. We explore some ways to help keep your money where it belongs. Tip 1: Make sure you have the right tax code Now that the new tax year has started, it is worth […]

A critical review of how the government taxes child benefits has raised a major question mark over HMRC’s approach to collecting payments.  Child benefit tax, or the High-Income Child Benefit Charge (HICBC) to use its legal name, is a case study in how not to introduce and operate a tax. It was designed as a […]

Ticket fraudsters duped victims out of almost £4 million in the last year, as music and entertainment lovers bought tickets for festivals and events online as coronavirus restrictions eased. New data from Action Fraud, the national reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime, reveals that 4,982 people fell victim to ticket fraud in the 2021/22 financial […]

A good proportion of us shy away at the mention of the word ‘maths’, but in the investing world there are some quirky mathematical outcomes that are worth reminding ourselves of.  The first is that if an investment goes up 100% it only has to go down 50% to get back to where it started.  […]

As 2021 drew to a close, inflation finally forced the Bank of England’s hand. What will higher rates mean for you? The November inflation figures, released in mid-December, once again exceeded the Bank of England’s (BoE) expectations. At the start of November, the BoE had said that CPI inflation was “expected to peak at around […]

The world’s share markets generally produced solid returns in 2021, but UK stocks and fixed-interest investments suffered. Maintaining an international outlook in your portfolio can help underpin its value. 2021 was a good year for most investors in share-based funds, particularly those who had holdings linked to the US market.   Despite the optimism around […]