People tend to lose sight of the fact that the only thing you can do with money is spend it. If you don’t spend it then your children, or the Government, certainly will.

Most of us are concerned about our financial future. We want to ensure that we find a balance between what we spend now and what we save to spend later. Without a clear picture of what we might need later however, many of us are over cautious. This leads to people ending their lives with money in the bank and regrets over the things they did not do when they had the chance.

Trying to find that balance is where financial planning comes in. It is simply about trying to ensure that you have the money you need available when you want it. To help acheive this, we create a lifetime cashflow forecast as the foundation of a long term plan, with agreed goals and priorities. This helps you to live the life you want to live, and takes away the worry of whether you can afford to spend your money.

Savings schemes, investments, pensions and tax planning strategies are all just ways to try to ensure that the money you have will be able to buy at least as much, and hopefully more, when you are ready to spend it than it could now. Financial products are simply a tool to use, not an end in themselves, and they should not be the things that drive your planning. This is why, at Davenport, we focus on a long term strategy, not a short term product based solution.