Do you have family finance questions you would like answering in a clear and accessible way?
Legal & General has done some research into the lack of financial understanding and education in Britain: The results are quite shocking really …. 53% of adults have received poor financial education or none whatsoever.
Nigel Wilson, Group CEO, Legal & General said
The introduction of personal financial education to the school curriculum is a good thing, but many adults need help now. The industry needs to provide products that are clear, simple, and understandable, but also new ways to engage with people over their finances, so that they switch on, rather than switch off
Apparently the top five least understood finance issues are …
1. Annuities (42%)
2. Access to personal pension plans (36%)
3. Auto-enrolment (31%)
4. Help-to-Buy (29%)
5. Investments (22%)
In response to their research, Legal & General are hosting a live Goggle Hangout this Thursday (Feb 26th) at 10am , where members of the public can ask their family finance questions to a panel of personal finance experts.
Nigel Wilson, CEO of Legal & General, will be moderating and he will be joined by experts Joanna Elson from National Debt Line, independent financial adviser Stephen Womack and personal finance journalist Esther Shaw. They’ll be answering your questions, sharing useful tips and information on everything from budgeting to how to pay off those half-term bills.
You can watch the hangout here or follow this link
(and a later date I will show you the hangout here in case you miss it live)
Do let me know what your family finance questions are in the comments section below and lets see if we can get them answered.
Alternately you can tweet your questions with the hashtag #MoneyHangout,
I would like to know how to approach pension provision – we both own our own businesses and pensions have not been top of our list over the last few years as we have ridden the stormy recession – is it too late at nearly 50 to pay into a pension plan or are we better off investing in property or wotnot?
We need to change our mortgage as our fixed term has come to an end, but I hear the application process is very different now and we have to prove affordability. What exactly does this mean?
I’m concerned about pensions – as a stay at home mum what options are available for me in regards to pensions?
I would love to know what alternatives there are for the traditional Pension plan?
I am with Amanda and Chris, what should I be doing instead of investing in a pension!
Is it more beneficial for me to pay into a private pension or try and clear the mortgage on a flat we rent out and use that for a pension instead?
I’d love to know more about wills and how to make sure you have thought of everything to protect your children should the worst happen.
I echo the pension questions above, but I have a slightly more specific one about state pensions, National Insurance contributions and Child Benefit and how they all inter-relate.
So, to qualify for a state pension you have to have made a certain amount of NI contributions over the years. However, if you are in receipt of child benefit for a child under the age of 5 (or under a specific age) then as a woman you get NI “credits” which count towards your NI contribution when it comes to getting a state pension. The theory being that women are not pension penalised at home instead of working whilst their children are young.
But, with the latest changes to Child Benefit and you now having to pay it back if your husband earns over a certain amount shat happens with the credits if you opt not to receive the CB? At the moment we receive it and pay it back via my husband’s tax return (which is a faff and not good for in year budget planning) because no one can tell me if I’ll lose my NI credits if we opt not to take it or not.
Are we doing the best thing? And what about of mum is self-employed during a child’s first five years but gets a small earnings NI exception. Do you still get NI credits then?
I have a savings question, and it’s about what to do to help build up some savings for your child’s future. We have an account for my 5 year old, so things like birthday and Christmas money go in there, and we also try and pop in a bit extra now and then, but as it’s a children’s account the interest rate on it is pathetic and it’s not really increasing in value at all. What alternatives are there to keep that little amount safe, but also to try and grow it a bit so that when he hits 18 there’s a good cushion there.
I just find it all so confusing, we need to look at our pensions too. x
Wow the commenters above have asked my questions. I want to know how to protect myself as a WAHM for a future when i am no longer working, it’s a minefield out there.
As we do not own a property currently we have our equity to put into some kind of investment. I’m not sure what might be best. Mich x