In January 2017 I set myself a target that I would only be working a four day week and that I would be having the school holidays off. We work so hard to help our clients achieve their goals – this was one for me, time for myself every week and time with my girls during the holidays.

This last month, I’ve been reminded how great a community we have in Financial Planning.

At first glance, how the Financial Conduct Authority intends to improve retirement outcomes for non-advised consumers may appear of little relevance to advisers. 

The launch of a new Financial Planning firm, Schroders Personal Wealth (SPW), is exciting news and I believe new entrants to the financial advice market must be welcomed not feared, writes Simon Goldthorpe of Beaufort Group.

The client should be at the forefront of everything we do in the financial planning profession. Along with the members of my team, it’s our clients who make our business. Without them, we simply wouldn’t have a business.

I’ve never been a particularly big fan of events for Financial Planners and I'm not alone on this.

Towards the end of June I had the pleasure of attending a special conference for dads. The purpose was to help equip each other to be better in our role as parents.

Over many years the big insurance and investment companies have been portraying retirement as one big vacation where sensible savers can play golf or lounge about on sandy beaches, living their retirement dreams.

I went to a financial seminar recently and on returning to the car park at the end of the day, the number of fancy cars got me thinking about measuring success and whether the Financial Planning community is as bad at coveting material things to demonstrate success, as some of our clients are.

When I was considering what to write for my column, I thought you might be interested in hearing about the “No Spend Challenge” at Magenta.