Blog entries http://www.smartfinancialplanning.co.uk Thu, 09 Sep 2010 12:51:53 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.smartfinancialplanning.co.uk/blog/zone-financial-joins-the-smart-financial-planning-group.html <p>Altrincham based Smart Financial Planning Group has expanded its portfolio by welcoming Zone Financial to the Group.  This new venture sees the launch of a new mass market fee-based financial planning service, incorporating and adapting Smart’s technical expertise, guidance, investment strategies and commitment to continued excellence.  Zone Financial’s first office is located in Glasgow.</p><br/><p>Zone Financial will be offering independent financial advice, whether on a one off basis or if clRead More... Smart Financial Planning Thu, 01 Jul 2010 15:27:18 +0100 http://www.smartfinancialplanning.co.uk/blog/emergency-budget-2010.html <p><br/><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Very Impressive budget delivered by George Osborne. The highlights are as follows.</p><br/><p><br/><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">&nbsp;</p><br/><p class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-indent: -18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;">&middot;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Compulsory annuity purchase to be abolished! &ndash; not mentioned by GO.</p><br/><p class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-indent: -18Read More... Steven Martin Tue, 22 Jun 2010 10:38:51 +0100 http://www.smartfinancialplanning.co.uk/blog/smart-financial-planning-grows-again.html <p>We are delighted to announce that we will be joined on Monday 14th June by Christine Hobbs. Christine will take the responsibility of PA to our Managing Director and assist with the overseeing the office. This is fantastic news and will allow us to provide an even greater level of service to our clients and allow Steve to spend more time with our existing and new clients and helping Stuart become established in our Zone Financial Planning Ltd office in Glasgow.</p> Steven Martin Tue, 08 Jun 2010 14:05:33 +0100 http://www.smartfinancialplanning.co.uk/blog/100-push-up-challenge.html <p>As part of Smart's belief in 'Healthy body, Healthy mind' we have committed to a new challenge. In 6 weeks Stuart, our new adviser in our Zone Financial Planning Ltd business, and Steve Martin CFP plan to be able to demonstrate their new found skill and will record the result and post on You Tube. You can follow our progress via twitter updates, @stevemartincfp and @stuartwhiteIFP or via our pages on the Smart and Zone Websites.</p><br/><p> </p> Steven Martin Mon, 07 Jun 2010 11:44:30 +0100 http://www.smartfinancialplanning.co.uk/blog/terry-hewes-takes-his-first-steps-not-literally.html <p>Smart Financial&nbsp;Planning&nbsp;is delighted to announce&nbsp;that&nbsp;Terry Hewes has made taken the first step to Certified / Chartered status by passing his first&nbsp;professional&nbsp;exam. Huge&nbsp;congratulations&nbsp;from the rest of the team and we hope he enjoys his Football Team tour to Newquay this weekend with his exam passing bonus before return to start preparing from exam 2 on&nbsp;Tuesday!!</p> Steven Martin Thu, 20 May 2010 19:32:28 +0100 http://www.smartfinancialplanning.co.uk/blog/smart-recruiting-again.html <p>As part of our drive to&nbsp;constantly improve the service we offer we are looking to recruit an additional member of&nbsp;staff. Working as a PA to the Managing Director and taking the&nbsp;responsibility for the&nbsp;general&nbsp;office&nbsp;administrator our new recruit will be the next piece in the jigsaw of providing the very best&nbsp;service&nbsp;to our clients at all times.</p><br/><p>If you wish to join the Smart Financial Planning team please contact us at info@smartfinancialplanning.cRead More... Steven Martin Fri, 14 May 2010 09:04:17 +0100 http://www.smartfinancialplanning.co.uk/blog/client-questionnaire-the-results-are-in.html <p>A huge thank you to those of you who took part in our client questionnaire. I know many people find filling in questionnaires a bit of a pain so we really appreciate the time you took to tell us what you think. This feedback has been extremely useful and we have already started to make improvements to our business as a result of what you told us. We said we would share the results, so here are some highlights from the questionnaire;<br /><br />We were absolutely delighted to hear that;</p><br/><br/>1Read More... Smart Financial Planning Mon, 19 Apr 2010 12:17:41 +0100 http://www.smartfinancialplanning.co.uk/blog/the-election-promises-hot-up-what-is-good-for-you-and-who-is-leaving-the-uk.html <p>Good morning and welcome to the 12th of April Smart TV Review of the weekend's papers.</p><br/><p>A few things have caught my attention. Last weeks news was of course that Gordon Brown and the Government of the day believe that business leaders don't know what they're talking about, that they've been mislead, some might suggest that they're suggesting that they might be stupid and that they don't understand the impact of the 1% national insurance rise on employers national insurance.</p><br/><p>ForRead More... Smart Financial Planning Wed, 14 Apr 2010 14:16:21 +0100 http://www.smartfinancialplanning.co.uk/blog/national-insurance-rise-brown-or-business.html <p>Easiest article that I have ever prepared. Who do you trust with &pound;6 Billion? Companies in the UK or the Government, irrespective of colour.&nbsp;</p><br/><p>How straightforward, a 1% increase in national insurance will create 1% less jobs, a 1% increase will create &pound;6 Billion for the Government to spend on job seekers and disability benefits for the people who don't have jobs!!</p><br/><p>The&nbsp;election&nbsp;should&nbsp;not be fought on&nbsp;whether&nbsp;to increase employers NI to 13.Read More... Steven Martin Thu, 08 Apr 2010 12:57:40 +0100 http://www.smartfinancialplanning.co.uk/blog/budget-2010-tax-planning-tips-review-of-the-weekends-papers-290310.html <p>Good morning and welcome to the 29th of March Smart TV Review of the weekend's papers and in particular a review of the impact of the budget.</p><br/><p>I hope you've had a good week. I'm sure you've been inundated with all of the various changes and non-changes that you've been presented with; clearly there is no point in us revisiting those. So what I thought I would do is just point out to you again some of the other things you can do to help mitigate either the current rules or some of the neRead More... Smart Financial Planning Tue, 30 Mar 2010 16:42:58 +0100 tax Property pension isa financial planning financial planner capital gains http://www.smartfinancialplanning.co.uk/blog/cuts-on-the-cards-cutting-through-the-confusion-and-getting-to-the-point.html <p>Unless you've been hiding somewhere, you can't have failed to notice all the chatter about the impending public service cuts and the debates surrounding how big they will be, when they will happen and whose approach you support, Conservative or Labour?</p><br/><p>What strikes me is that all this discussion and even the arguments amongst economists are all distracting from one key fact. That is, that regardless of which party you support, never before in history will we have experienced such huge Read More... Smart Financial Planning Mon, 29 Mar 2010 07:20:00 +0100 tax public service cuts http://www.smartfinancialplanning.co.uk/blog/use-it-or-lose-it-3-massive-year-end-tax-planning-tips.html <p>Good morning and welcome to the Monday 22nd of March Smart Financial Planning Review of the Weekend's papers.</p><br/><p>All of the papers are concerned the weekend about making sure that you've taken every possible advantage you can before the conclusion of the tax year.</p><br/><p>So there are 3 massive things that you need to think about. Firstly, as of April, there will be a new 50% tax rate that will be applicable to all earnings above &pound;150,000. If this is a category that you're going to fRead More... Smart Financial Planning Wed, 24 Mar 2010 14:15:20 +0100 tax Smart Financial Planning pension isa http://www.smartfinancialplanning.co.uk/blog/review-of-the-weekends-papers-150310.html <p>Welcome to this weeks review of the weekends papers.</p><br/><p>The main thing that caught the eye this week was the announcement from the Nationwide, that we've had the smallest increase in house prices since records began. What that seems to indicate, without doubt, that there is a slowdown in the residential property market.</p><br/><p>The concern is that it is an indication that money is being extracted from the system and that we are looking at this much fabled double-dip recession. In case you Read More... Smart Financial Planning Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:20:29 +0100 Recession Property Mortgages http://www.smartfinancialplanning.co.uk/blog/use-them-or-lose-them.html <p>With the end of the financial year approaching fast, you've under a month to make sure you have taken advantage of all the tax allowances that exist.<br /><br />So, make sure you have filled up that ISA to get the maximum tax free savings or sold any assets that have increased in value to allow you to utilise your Capital Gains Tax allowance.</p> Smart Financial Planning Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:36:26 +0100 tax allowances tax isa capital gains http://www.smartfinancialplanning.co.uk/blog/smart-welcomes-terry-hewes-into-its-team.html <p>Smart Financial Planning is proud to announce the appointment of Manchester Metropolitan&nbsp;graduate&nbsp;Terry Hewes to the new&nbsp;position&nbsp;of Financial Planning administrator. Terry will join us on 1 March to provide support and assistance to the clients of Smart Financial Planning as well as becoming part of Steve's Client Team. Terry will be sitting the&nbsp;Certificate&nbsp;in Financial Planning exams during 2010 with the option to move into a Paraplanning role in 2011.</p><br/><p>SRead More... Steven Martin Mon, 22 Feb 2010 09:00:00 +0100 Smart Financial Planning http://www.smartfinancialplanning.co.uk/blog/performance-related-fees-are-not-smart.html <p>Investment news' Jeff Benjamin published his view that in future Financial Planning firms will be encouraged by their clients to charge fees commensurate with the investment performance that they achieve. http://www.investmentnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100214/REG/302149992</p><br/><p>I feel that this entirely misses the point of a Financial Planning firm. Financial planning is about aligning clients assets and goals and work on getting from one to the other. Where in that process is iRead More... Steven Martin Fri, 19 Feb 2010 09:00:00 +0100 stevemartincfp steve martin fees certified financial planner http://www.smartfinancialplanning.co.uk/blog/well-i-didnt-expect-that-to-happen.html <p>On Tuesday I wrote a letter to the Association of Independent Financial Advisers, on Tuesday afternoon Professional Adviser, an industry magazine, decided to do a story on it http://www.ifaonline.co.uk/ifaonline/news/1592154/aifa-shame-pandering-gcse-level-advisers.</p><br/><p>By Wednesday night 30+ people have strongly disagreed with eveything i have said and have me lined up as the new bogeyman! I have never been more proud. My letter was intended to move the IFA industry forward with higher sRead More... Steven Martin Wed, 17 Feb 2010 19:13:05 +0100 stevemartincfp steve martin Smart Financial Planning independent financial adviser certified financial planner http://www.smartfinancialplanning.co.uk/blog/association-of-independent-financial-advisers-thanks-but-no-thanks.html <p>Open letter to Chris Cummings, Director General of the Association of Independent Financial Advisers (AIFA), Thank you for your letter dated 5th February 2010 following my attendance at the New Model Adviser conference in January.</p><br/><p>I will not however be taking up your kind offer to join AIFA as I feel that your organisation in no way represents the highly qualified, fee based, Financial Planning profession to which I belong. For as long as AIFA continues to promote the interests of advRead More... Steven Martin Tue, 16 Feb 2010 13:45:32 +0100 steven martin stevemartincfp steve martin Smart Financial Planning independent financial adviser certified financial planner http://www.smartfinancialplanning.co.uk/blog/save-tax-invest-for-success.html <p>Good morning and welcome to the 15th of February Smart TV review of the weekend papers.<br /><br />A couple of things this week, it looks increasing likely that the VAT rate is going to be increased to 20% over the next election. This is not a great surprise, the increase from 17.5 to 20% is expected to generate something between 20-30 billion pounds of additional revenue, and it has historically been seen to be easy revenue to take, because it is only revenue when people actually choose to sRead More... Smart Financial Planning Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:59:45 +0100 http://www.smartfinancialplanning.co.uk/blog/the-smart-financial-planning-blog.html <p>Through our blog section, we aim to keep our website users updated with the latest news from the financial world and from within Smart Financial Planning. We aim to provide news updates, advice, links to helpful documents and more. So if you want to learn more about making the most out of your money, bookmark this page and check back regularly. </p><br/><p>Why not subscribe to the SFP latest news RSS feed to be kept updated with all of our blog posts click here SMART RSS<br /></p> Smart Financial Planning Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 financial planning