Is How You Use Your Money Aligned With Your Values? A hamster in a wheel. Have you ever watched a hamster running in a wheel? All that running, all that effort, day after day after day … But the poor little critter never really gets anywhere, does he? Many of us feel […]
The Pros and Cons of Lighting a FIRE Under Your Retirement Goals A popular online movement wants to make 40 the new 65. I’m fascinated by it and follow some of the blogs and stories with interest. FIRE stands for Financial Independence Retire Early. The idea is that by working as hard as you can […]
How to Have More Fun and Meaning in Retirement A blank calendar filled with nothing but free time can be every bit as stressful as a packed work week. That’s the surprising fact that many new retirees confront after a few days of hitting the snooze button and puttering around the house. This is usually […]
Are you happy and content? We are generally wealthier than we were a few decades ago. Our standard of living has increased. Healthcare has improved. But we are no happier than we were back then… So where does that leave us – what should we do? How can we use the money we have to […]
Establishing and defining goals can be a daunting prospect for most of us. If you’re like me you tend to shy away from that and think about something else. Talking about the future in definite terms isn’t easy for many of us. Taking the time to think about the future in the distracted world we […]
Gibson Financial Planning specialises in dealing with clients in the Coleraine and Causeway Coast area who are either approaching retirement or already retired. Nine times out of ten these clients have saved hard and built up substantial pension pots and other sources of income for their retirement. We help them rationalise all this, build and […]
There has been much talk in the press about the imminent pension freedom reforms and a lot of resulting confusion among the public. A few simple points can be made to clarify some matters: If you have already taken pension benefits in the form of an annuity then these new freedoms will not affect you […]
It always takes a few hours for the detail and ramifications of a new budget to sink in. Osbourne’s budget has been hailed as the “Beer and Bingo” budget – a fair comment? It certainly is good news for beer drinkers and bingo players but it has had a huge impact on pensions legislation in […]
It’s a challenge to make a blog post on pensions interesting but I’ll give it a shot! Defaqto, who provide independent financial research, recently surveyed people under 35 years old and found that less than half of them had a pension of any type. In a previous study carried in 2010, Defaqto found that 44% […]