7 essential steps for savvy women by Mary Waring

The right of Mary Waring to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright holder except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Applications for the copyright holderâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the publishers. This publication is provided for general consideration only and the information contained herein is not to be acted upon without professional independent financial advice. Neither Informed Choice Ltd nor any author can accept responsibility for any loss occasioned to any person no matter howsoever caused or arising as a result of or in consequence of action taken or refrained from in reliance of the contents herein. First edition published in Great Britain 2012. Contact the author: mary@mary-waring.co.uk www.mary-waring.co.uk

Page 1 T: 01932 698150 I F: 01483 274640 I W: www.mary-waring.co.uk Informed Choice Ltd, Sundial House, 20 High St, Cranleigh, Surrey, GU6 8AE Authorised and Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority

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In this e-book… Page • About the author

• About Informed Choice

• Introduction

• Step 1: Work out your starting point

• Step 2: What are you paying on your credit card debt?

• Step 3: Keep a detailed record of all your spending

• Step 4: Start saving into a pension

• Step 5: Start saving into an Individual Savings Account (ISA)

• Step 6: Review your mortgage regularly

• Step 7: Review your pensions and investments regularly

• What my clients say

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About the author: Mary Waring I’m Mary Waring and I specialise in advice to women providing practical, down to earth, jargon free financial advice. My strapline is “A man is not a financial plan” because I firmly believe that all women, whether married, single or divorced need to take financial responsibility. Let’s face it, we’re the ones who will get most benefit from looking after our finances, so if we don’t take responsibility it’s unlikely anyone else will choose to do it for us. The typical financial adviser is male, middle aged, grey hair and grey suit. Maybe that’s not the type of adviser you’re ideally looking for. Maybe you’re looking for a female who will understand your situation, have empathy with you and take you by the hand to help you take control of your financial planning. Typically I work with: 1. Savvy women, whether married or single, who want to take control of their wealth. 2. Women going through a divorce who need help with negotiating the divorce settlement, implementation of a pension share, advice on how to invest a divorce settlement, or a general helping hand looking after their finances. But don't think that due to my strapline I’m a man hating harridan! I’m married to Tony and have been for nearly 20 years. But I have met so many women who are not dealing with their finances that I’ve decided to specialise in advice to the fairer sex. And actually after many years of working in the City and as a Finance Director in the male dominated world of Financial Services it came as a bit of a revelation to me how much I enjoyed working with females. I hope this e-book gives you the information you need to start taking control of your wealth. Page 3 T: 01932 698150 I F: 01483 274640 I W: www.mary-waring.co.uk Informed Choice Ltd, Sundial House, 20 High St, Cranleigh, Surrey, GU6 8AE Authorised and Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority

If you need some additional help and would like to contact me please do email me at Mary@mary-waring.co.uk or call me on 01932 698150 We can have a chat on the phone or arrange an initial meeting with no cost or obligation on your part. I am based at Hampton Court Surrey and cover the general areas of Molesey, Esher, Kingston, Weybridge, Richmond, Guildford and surrounding areas. I also have meeting rooms available in London in the City and the West End.

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About Informed Choice Informed Choice is a leading firm of Chartered Financial Planners, working with individuals, trustees and business owners to help them to build, manage and protect their wealth. We were named as IFA of the Year at the Money Marketing Financial Services Awards 2010 and we are six times winners of the Gold Standard for Independent Financial Advice. We were named Best Retirement Adviser at the Moneyfacts Good Advice Awards 2010. We are a firm of Chartered Financial Planners. This means we have satisfied rigorous criteria relating to professional qualifications and ethical good practice. It means you can be confident that you are dealing with one of the UKâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leading firms that is wholly committed to providing you with the best possible advice, service and support. To find out more about our advisory and planning services, please visit www.icl-ifa.co.uk.

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Introduction “There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.” Madeleine Albright, Former U.S. Secretary of State I am a chartered financial planner and chartered accountant and have worked in the financial sector ever since leaving university - about a million years ago now, or at least that’s what it feels like! So obviously I like numbers and understand finance. But I come across so many very intelligent women who have a bit of a mental block when it comes to finance and whenever finances are mentioned say “Oh no, I don’t do maths”. But provided something is explained in a down to earth, non-jargon manner there’s no reason why anyone shouldn’t understand a few of the basics. I give a number of talks to local women’s networking groups entitled “A man is not a financial plan”, because I firmly believe that all women whether married, single or divorced need to take financial responsibility and plan for their future. However, before you can take financial responsibility you need to understand a few of the basics. That’s what this e-book will give you. The aim is to show you that once finances are explained there’s nothing over complicated about it. Research from Scottish Widows shows that 2/3 of women over age 50 have inadequate pensions. Research from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that at the age of 56 the average male pension pot is 6 times the size of the average female pension pot. What the statistics show us is that the majority of women are not preparing themselves financially, and are severely at risk of facing poverty in later life if they don’t start to plan for their future. Page 6 T: 01932 698150 I F: 01483 274640 I W: www.mary-waring.co.uk Informed Choice Ltd, Sundial House, 20 High St, Cranleigh, Surrey, GU6 8AE Authorised and Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority

If you don’t take the time to sort your finances now, how are you going to cope during retirement? The options that you may have considered: -

Rely on the state pension. But at only £466 per month this will be insufficient to do anything other than keep you off the poverty line.

- Rely on your husband’s/partner’s pension. But do you know whether there’s enough in that pension for both of you? - Rely on an inheritance. But you have no idea on the timing of the inheritance and long term care needs. Furthermore, inheritance tax will erode the value significantly. - Rely on your kids. But you probably don’t want to and maybe your kids would like to help but can’t afford to. -

Hope & pray!

There is of course another option: take financial responsibility and get to grips with a few of the basics yourself. I hope that this e-book can go some way to correcting some of the statistics and more women can start planning for their future and stop being so daunted by their finances. However, reading and understanding what you’ve read isn’t enough: you need to make decisions and take massive action. At each step there is an “Action step”. This exercise will allow you to get and feel comfortable with your wealth and understand what you can do to improve it. Even if you believe you’ve totally understood what you’ve just read and can complete the action steps, make sure you do actually do it. This e-book is about taking the small steps necessary to improve your wealth. If you don’t start on the exercises the chances are the book will have been an interesting read (hopefully!) but won’t actually have had any impact on you and your future financial position.

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A final thought..... Following on from the wonderful quote from Madeleine Albright above, if you know a women who needs help with her finances please do pass on this e-book to her, or ask her to sign up at www.mary-waring.co.uk. The consequences of not doing so could be severe!

Mary Waring

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T: 01932 698150 I F: 01483 274640 I W: www.mary-waring.co.uk Informed Choice Ltd, Sundial House, 20 High St, Cranleigh, Surrey, GU6 8AE Authorised and Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority

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Step 1 – Work out your starting point If you don’t know your starting point you have no way of measuring whether, or by how much, things have improved. Therefore the first thing to do is work out your current situation: your net worth. Assets: what you own To do this start by drawing a line down the middle of a sheet of paper. Head up the left hand column “assets”. This represents everything you own. Items to be listed in this column are: -

your main residence

any investment property e.g. buy to let or holiday cottage

car

premium bonds

bank account/savings

investments- ISA/stocks & shares

pension

endowments

Against each item list its current value. You will need to speak to a number of the providers to ask for an up to date statement. For property, list its current value even if you have a mortgage on it. If you have antique furniture you can include that. However, I wouldn’t bother adding up everyday tables/chairs/beds etc. It just isn’t worth the effort. You can also include any jewellery of significant value. Once you have noted down the current value of all your assets, add this up to give you your “total assets”.

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Liabilities: what you owe Now, move over to the right hand column and head this up “liabilities”. This represents what you owe. Items to be listed in this column are: -

outstanding mortgage - residential and buy to let

credit card balances

outstanding loans/hire purchase amounts

student loans

overdraft balance

any loans from family/friends

As above, put the value against each of these and total the figure to get your “total liabilities”. Deduct your total liabilities from your total assets, to give the value of your net worth.

Action step: your starting point Set up an excel spreadsheet and list all your assets (what you own) in the left hand column and all your liabilities (what you owe) in the right hand column. Fill in all figures now, even if it’s very rough. You can get more accurate figures later but for now use whatever are the most recent figures you can get hold of.

The net worth shows your current position, and gives you a starting point. Consider where you want your net worth to be in say 12 months time and then have a plan to get to that figure. You may want to increase it by a certain percentage or by a specific amount. You should review it regularly and ask yourself “what steps can I take to improve my net worth?”

Action step: what do you want your net worth to be? So how was it? Was your net worth more or less than you would have guessed? And more importantly what do you want that figure to be in 12 months time?

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How do you improve your net worth? Your net worth is what you own less what you owe. Therefore the way to improve it is either to increase what you own or reduce what you owe, or ideally do both at the same time, to get an improvement at a faster pace. These points are covered by the next 2 steps.

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T: 01932 698150 I F: 01483 274640 I W: www.mary-waring.co.uk Informed Choice Ltd, Sundial House, 20 High St, Cranleigh, Surrey, GU6 8AE Authorised and Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority

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Step 2 – What you are paying on your credit card debt? Although the Bank Rate is currently 0.5% the typical interest rate on a credit card is a whopping 17%- or thereabouts. Obviously it varies from one lender to another, but it’s unlikely to be very much less than 17% and could infact be a fair bit more. Store cards often charge in excess of 20% interest. Knowing the interest rate may be enough to ring large warning bells that you must do all you can to avoid building up credit card balances since it’s hugely expensive. As well as the very high rate of interest, another big issue with credit cards is the period of time it takes to pay off a balance. Typically lenders will ask for a minimum payment each month of 2% of the outstanding balance, subject to a minimum payment of £5. For example, if the outstanding balance is £5,000 the monthly payment will be £100. If the balance reduced to £1,000 the monthly payment will reduce to £20. Since the monthly repayment keeps reducing it takes longer and longer to get the debt repaid. Credit card companies are not doing this to be kind to you. They make a lot of money by doing this! To look at a specific example: Balance owed

£5,000

Interest rate

17%

Monthly payment

2% of outstanding balance i.e. starts at £100

In this example we’re going to assume that no further debt is added to the card, and that each month you pay the minimum monthly repayment. This means that as the debt is reducing your monthly payment is also reducing. Before I tell you the answer have a quick guess as to how long you think it would be before the balance is paid off. Page 12 T: 01932 698150 I F: 01483 274640 I W: www.mary-waring.co.uk Informed Choice Ltd, Sundial House, 20 High St, Cranleigh, Surrey, GU6 8AE Authorised and Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority

What did you guess? 10 years? 15 years? Whatever you guessed I bet it was nowhere near the actual figure of 47 years! Yes, in case you thought that was a typo I will say it again.....47 years. This means anyone over age 20 now with this sort of balance, paying only the minimum each month, will still be paying the balance off when they retire. You will infact still be paying off the debt long after the item you bought has become obsolete, stopped working, given to the charity shop….or whatever you do with it. What a very scary thought! As well as the period it takes to pay off the debt, the other horror is the amount it costs. In the above example the £5,000 that takes 47 years to pay off will actually cost £15,750 when you’ve added the interest cost. It’s not unusual for the amount you pay back to be circa 3-4 times the original price. So maybe the purchase of something costing £1,000 on a credit card will not look quite so attractive when you realise it’s going to cost up to £4,000 to pay it back.

Action step: what are your current credit card balances? List each credit card you have and any balances that you are carrying forward each month. If you pay your card off in full when you receive the statement you can skip this step. The exercise is for those who do not pay their bills in full and are therefore paying a huge amount of interest each month. Against each credit card write down the balance you leave outstanding and note what the interest rate is. List the balances in order of the highest interest rate first.

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Of course, what the credit card companies don’t tell you is that there are a number of ways to improve this position. What can you do to improve this? Instead of paying the minimum amount each month (which reduces each month as your balance reduces), continue to pay the initial amount (£100 each month in this example). This will have a significant effect Instead of it taking 47 years to pay off the balance, it will actually have been repaid in 7 years, and it will have cost £8,476 rather than £15,750. You’ve immediately reduced your total cost by almost half. And remember this doesn’t involve finding any additional money. It’s simply paying the same amount of money as you were paying on day 1. If you can afford it at day 1 the chances are you can afford it each month. But because the lender asks you to pay less you take advantage of this. However, the cost of doing this is significant as you can see. To take it to the next stage: Suppose you were aware of the figures and decided you could infact afford to pay back £200 per month, instead of the initial £100? In this case, the period to eliminate the debt is reduced to 2½ years and costs you £6,099. Since the original debt was £5,000 this means the interest cost in this scenario is £1,099. Compare this to the first example where the monthly payment was 2% of the outstanding balance. In this example, the interest cost was £10,750 The point to consider is that the lower the amount you pay back each month, the longer it will take to pay the debt off. Therefore, if you are thinking of putting a purchase onto a credit card, you must consider what it will cost you in total - not just what you have to pay back each month. Page 14 T: 01932 698150 I F: 01483 274640 I W: www.mary-waring.co.uk Informed Choice Ltd, Sundial House, 20 High St, Cranleigh, Surrey, GU6 8AE Authorised and Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority

Action step: pay the balance back quicker Aim to pay the minimum balance on each credit card except the card with the highest interest rate. On this card pay back as much as you can afford so you reduce the debt at a faster rate. When this card is paid off, transfer whatever monthly amount you were paying on this card onto the card with the second highest interest rate. Repeat this step until all credit cards are repaid. Dependant on the credit card balances it may take some time. But be aware that each payment in excess of the minimum is a step towards improving your wealth.

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Step 3 – Keep a detailed record of all your spending Until you know exactly what you are spending your money on you cannot start to make savings. The best way to do this is to keep a detailed record of everything you spend. And I do mean everything, not just spending on large items. There’s the great saying our parents taught us “Look after the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves.” Well this is how you look after the pennies. Keep a record of all areas of spending, including direct debits, standing orders, cheques, credit cards and cash. If you pay for a lot of things by cash the best thing to do is to carry a little notebook around in your handbag to note things down as you spend. If you wait until the end of the day to note it all down chances are some of the spending will get forgotten. Sometimes writing it down actually works as a bit of a brake on spending and you end up spending less. It’s surprising that when you’re aware of it and are monitoring it you will often want to spend less. On a regular basis, maybe at the end of the day or end of the week, transfer everything from the notebook and all other receipts onto a spreadsheet itemised for the various different categories of expenses. This will allow you to see exactly what you are spending. Until you’ve worked out what you’re spending your money on, you can’t control it. Keeping a detailed record of what you spend is the first step to getting your spending under control. I recommend you do this over a three month period to aim to see what an average months spending looks like. In addition, a number of expense items (e.g. utilities) may only occur on a quarterly basis. Often, having done the spreadsheet is enough to immediately see where you can save money. You may, for example, spend a lot of money on coffee and muffins if you’re early for a meeting and pop into the coffee shop to kill time. Page 16 T: 01932 698150 I F: 01483 274640 I W: www.mary-waring.co.uk Informed Choice Ltd, Sundial House, 20 High St, Cranleigh, Surrey, GU6 8AE Authorised and Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority

If you do this on a regular basis you’d be surprised how much it can build up. You might be spending a lot of money on takeaways and eating out. If so, that’s an obvious place to start to make savings. You don’t need to totally stop eating out. But if you regularly eat out twice a week, can you consider cutting that down to once a week? Or if you eat out at a reasonably pricey wine bar, can you consider going to a cheaper bistro type place? You need to review the results and then consider where you can make savings. Challenge every item on the list and ask yourself “Do you really need it?” If you do, then consider is there a way you can reduce the cost? Your aim is to widen the gap between income and expenditure. You may want to set yourself a target to have improved your monthly cashflow by a certain amount over say, the next 6 months.

Action step: what do you spend your money on? Starting straight away keep a detailed record of everything you are spending. Ask for a receipt or write it down in your notebook. Put this into a spreadsheet to help you analyse it. Look at each item of expense and ask “How can I make savings?”

You need to find a system that works for you. It can’t be so extreme that you actually spend nothing, because that’s not sustainable. You need to find a process that works for you as a means of controlling your spending so you can save, but you can still enjoy life.

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Step 4 – Start saving into a pension All too often women end up relying on their state pension as their sole source of income when they retire. They haven’t necessarily got this as their plan but because they fail to have another plan they end up in this position by default. What a number of women don’t realise is that you need to have worked and paid National Insurance for 30 years to get a full state pension. Therefore any female who has taken time out of the workplace to bring up their family or who has been a carer for an elderly relative, may not reach the 30 years minimum. You do get credit towards your National Insurance record for being at home bringing up children under the age of 12. However, dependent on your work history pre and post childcare, you may not meet the 30 year payment record. For each year you have worked less than the 30 years minimum, there is a reduction in state pension. But even if you are eligible for the full state pension, this is currently £107.45 per week, which is roughly £466 per month. Out of that you have to pay all your utility bills (gas, electric, water, council tax) and your food. Since you now have more free time you may want to take up some new hobbies, want to have some additional holidays, treat your grandchildren to days out etc. It therefore becomes obvious that relying on the state pension will not give you sufficient income. Pensions are a very tax efficient way of saving for retirement. The easiest way to look at this is by an example. Suppose you are a basic rate taxpayer (i.e. paying tax at 20%) and want to save £100 a month into your pension plan. Page 18 T: 01932 698150 I F: 01483 274640 I W: www.mary-waring.co.uk Informed Choice Ltd, Sundial House, 20 High St, Cranleigh, Surrey, GU6 8AE Authorised and Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority

You actually make a payment of £80 into the pension and the pension provider reclaims £20 from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), which represents the tax you suffered on your income. This means that £100 payment into your pension plan has actually only cost you £80. If you are a higher rate taxpayer, paying tax at 40% (i.e. you are earning in excess of circa £42,500 per annum) the position improves even further. As before you pay £80 into your pension and the pension provider reclaims £20 from HMRC to make up the £100 premium. However, when you do your self-assessment tax return you include the payment you have made into your personal pension. If you are paying tax at 40% you will get an additional £20 refund of tax. This will either come back to you by way of cheque or will be used to reduce any additional tax that you owe. In this instance, as a higher rate taxpayer, £100 payment into your pension plan has cost you only £60. The above process is also followed if you are an additional rate taxpayer paying tax at 50%. In this instance £100 into your pension has cost you only £50. Whilst your money is invested in the pension plan it will grown free of income tax and capital gains tax. Capital gains tax is typically charged on any gain made from an investment and will be charged at either 18% or 28% depending on whether you are a basic rate or higher rate taxpayer.

Action step: starting a pension Consider what you can afford to pay into a pension each month. Are there savings identified from step 3 that can go towards a monthly pension contribution? If you retire at 65 you will hopefully live for another 25 years. It’s going to be a very difficult time if you have insufficient funds to enjoy your retirement.

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Step 5 – Start saving into an Individual Savings Account (ISA) ISAs are a very tax efficient way of saving. Unlike a pension you don’t get any tax advantage when you make your contribution, and in a similar manner to a pension fund, the fund grows free of income tax and capital gains tax. However, when you draw the funds all the money is tax free. Therefore an ISA can be viewed as a mirror image to a pension fund. In an ideal world you would have both a pension fund and an ISA to get the benefit of the tax advantages of each. In the current tax year (2012/13) the amount you can invest in an ISA each tax year is £11,280, which works out to £940 per month. It’s a “use it or lose it” allowance. In other words, if you don’t use your allowance this year you can’t carry it forward and use double the allowance next year. But what if you can’t afford to invest the full £940 per month? Is it worth doing a smaller amount? An example I often use with women is child allowance. Child allowance is paid at the current rate of £20.30 per week for the first child from birth until age 18 if your child continues in fulltime education. If you were to invest the monies in the stock market from the date your child is born until age 18 and if you were to receive an 8% compound return each year, then at the date your son or daughter is aged 18 that investment would be worth £42,400. That’s enough to pay university fees, pay for a gap year (with a fair bit left over!) or pay for the deposit on a property. Certainly quite a lot bearing in mind this is effectively free money from the government.

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A lot of mothers I speak to don’t even know how much it is, let alone what it gets spent on. The child allowance is automatically received into the bank account and then it goes into the general pool of money and just gets spent. However, here’s where things get very interesting... Suppose you decide that a lump sum of £42,400 is too much money to give to your son or daughter when they are 18? Therefore instead of giving this money to them you leave it invested in the stock market growing at 8% compound per annum. You don’t add to the investment anymore since the child allowance has now stopped, but you leave it invested. If the plan continued to grow at the rate of 8% compound return each year, then when your child is aged 65 this amount would have grown to £1.58 Million. Rather an enormous sum based on a weekly investment of only £20.30. What this example has shown is that every mother has the ability to ensure their child retires as a millionaire, if only they invested a small amount on a regular basis and received a decent return. This example has been worked out on the basis of investing your child allowance. But suppose you don’t get child allowance? Maybe you don’t have children or your children are grown up? Or maybe you’re about to lose your child allowance because of the amount you earn? Does that mean you can’t make use of this example? The above figures were all based on an investment of £20.30 a week, an amount which represents only £2.90 a day. So if you don’t receive child allowance you need to consider whether you can afford to save £2.90 a day, roughly the price of a coffee in Starbucks or Costa.

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Action step: where can you make savings to fund an ISA? Revisit step 3 and see where you are spending money that can be reduced. Plan to pay this amount into an ISA. If you spend a reasonable sum in a coffee shop on a regular basis, start to consider whether youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d prefer to invest this amount rather than purchase coffee and cake. This would have the added benefit of improving your waistline as well as your wealth!

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Step 6 – Review your mortgage regularly For most of us, our mortgage is the biggest financial commitment we have throughout our life. Given that it provides the security of a roof over our head, it is also one of the most important. As the largest commitment, it is crucial that you get it right and get the most competitive rate available for your circumstances. Given the high capital value of a property, and therefore the size of a typical mortgage, even a small change in interest rate can have a significant impact on the amount you pay. For example a reduction in interest rate of 1½% on an interest only mortgage of £300,000 will lead to a saving of circa £375 every single month. That’s a whopping £4,500 each year. It’s a very significant sum. The mortgage market is highly competitive. Provided you have completed the initial tie-in period there are generally no penalties for changing your lender. For this reason, more and more mortgage holders choose to switch their mortgage on a regular basis. Many lenders offer free valuation and free legal fees in order to attract the business. It is estimated that around 60% of mortgage holders are currently paying “Standard Variable Rate” (SVR), which is the rate that you will automatically move onto once the tie-in period has expired. For many lenders it is not a competitive rate. Since the lender automatically moves you onto this rate it is often too easy to accept this rate without doing research as to whether a more competitive and more appropriate rate is available. If you’re looking at what other rates are available don’t be limited just to what your lender has to offer. Mortgage rates change frequently and lenders will adjust the rates dependant on how much business they want. Page 23 T: 01932 698150 I F: 01483 274640 I W: www.mary-waring.co.uk Informed Choice Ltd, Sundial House, 20 High St, Cranleigh, Surrey, GU6 8AE Authorised and Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority

If they have a lot of business in the pipeline they will often increase rates to allow them a chance to catch up with the backlog of administration. Your research needs to cover what other lenders have on offer too. An independent mortgage adviser would be able to do this research for you and also offer advice on what is the best option for your circumstances. Don’t be put off by thinking it’s too much hassle. A good mortgage adviser will have an initial meeting with you and then deal with the majority of the administration after that. And don’t be put off by having to pay your mortgage adviser a fee. The fee will often be very small in relation to the amount of potential saving. If your adviser charges you a fee of £500, but saves you £15 a month on a 5 year fixed rate, then you’ve saved £900 over the period of the mortgage. That advice is worth paying £500 for. It also means you’ve saved hours and hours of work. The mortgage market has changed significantly over recent years. If you are self employed, looking for a reasonably high mortgage in comparison to the value of your property, or looking for a large mortgage in relation to your income, a mortgage adviser will be able to help you find an appropriate lender. Be aware that if you make an enquiry online to lenders they will often credit search you at this stage. Whenever a lender searches your credit file they will leave a mark on it to show they performed a search. You do have to agree to this but many people will tick the box without realising the implications. Too many marks on your credit report works against you. It looks as though you approached the first lender who turned you down and then approached another who also turned you down etc. Even though it may be that you were simply looking for the most competitive mortgage rate. Page 24 T: 01932 698150 I F: 01483 274640 I W: www.mary-waring.co.uk Informed Choice Ltd, Sundial House, 20 High St, Cranleigh, Surrey, GU6 8AE Authorised and Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority

But on your credit report it gives the impression that you were unable to find a lender who said “yes”. If you have too many marks on your credit report the lender will automatically say “no”. You would then need to wait a significant period of time without any searches on your report for the position to be rectified. A good mortgage adviser will have spoken to the lender in advance of submitting your application to ensure the lender is happy in principle to lend based on your circumstances. The lender won’t give a definite yes until they have performed a credit search. But provided you have disclosed everything to your adviser there is a high chance the application will be accepted with only one mark against your credit report. Do not underestimate the potential problems of trying to save an adviser fee by sorting your own mortgage.

Action step: review your mortgage Check exactly how much is outstanding on your mortgage and what rate you are paying. Is it fixed or variable? Is there a tie-in? If so, make a note in your calendar to review your mortgage about 2 months before the rate expires. If it has already expired and there’s no tie-in, spend some time on the internet checking what other rates are available. Or easier still, speak to an independent mortgage adviser and ask them to do it for you.

Page 25 T: 01932 698150 I F: 01483 274640 I W: www.mary-waring.co.uk Informed Choice Ltd, Sundial House, 20 High St, Cranleigh, Surrey, GU6 8AE Authorised and Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority

Step 7 – Review your pensions and investments regularly Tip one in this report was to calculate your starting point and then to set targets for what you want your net worth to be in say 12 months time. On a regular basis do the exercise again to see whether you have met your target. But in addition, you also need to review how your investments have performed and whether the funds you are invested in remain suitable for your risk profile and objectives. Many people spend time making a decision at day 1 as to what funds to invest in. But that decision is often never reviewed after that. They look at whether the fund has increased or reduced, but because they don’t know what to compare it against they have no idea as to the relative performance. Over time your priorities and circumstances change. An investment that was appropriate when you first made the decision may no longer be appropriate some years later. When you are younger you may be happy to take significant risk since you feel you will not be in need of your pensions and investment for many years. However, as you get older you may not be so happy to take that level of risk. You may have a pension from a previous employer which gave you little choice as to what you could invest in. If you are no longer with that employer you may have an option to transfer your pension to a personal pension with a much greater choice of investment funds. The whole process of looking after and improving your wealth is an ongoing process. The tips mentioned above are great to get you started. But make sure you monitor all your finances on a regular basis so that if an investment isn’t performing or is no longer suitable for whatever reason, then you take the appropriate action to change the investment.

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You donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to get to retirement age and realise your retirement fund has not performed well for the last 20 years. If your investment is not performing well, make sure you review it and take the necessary corrective action.

Action step: review your pensions and investments Using the details from step 1, list all your pensions and investment policies showing what you have paid in, what the value was 1 year ago, and what the value is today. Keep this updated on a regular basis so you can see whether the value is increasing or decreasing. Speak to an independent financial adviser and ask for a review of your investments and pension fund. Your IFA will advise whether the policies are suitable for your risk profile and objectives.

Page 27 T: 01932 698150 I F: 01483 274640 I W: www.mary-waring.co.uk Informed Choice Ltd, Sundial House, 20 High St, Cranleigh, Surrey, GU6 8AE Authorised and Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority

ÂŠ Informed Choice Ltd 2013

What my clients say I love Mary's approach.. having always been baffled by those annual pension statements..I was delighted to find her .. a lovely lady to do business with. Linda Hopkins Mary is friendly,.. very knowledgeable, and thankfully jargon-free. She is always considerate of the cost/benefit element. She is a person of great integrity. I am relieved to have someone of her calibre keeping an eye on my pension investments. Daire McGovern-Duck Mary’s advice is down to earth and straight forward...I know I can ask any question without feeling it’s a foolish question. Her service is absolutely amazing. Dr Diane Keith Mary made the whole process very stress free. She made a difficult situation so easy to deal with. Mrs G, London Mary is a great asset..she’s patiently persistent. Angela Yates Mary has been superb. She is at the top of her game and I cannot thank her enough. Colonel Bob Stewart DSO MP Mary has dealt well with my cynicism and wide ranging "testing" questions with the utmost professionalism and patience! Danny Russell

These are snippets taken from longer testimonials. The full testimonials are available at www.mary-waring.co.uk

Page 28 T: 01932 698150 I F: 01483 274640 I W: www.mary-waring.co.uk Informed Choice Ltd, Sundial House, 20 High St, Cranleigh, Surrey, GU6 8AE Authorised and Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority