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Financial planning is particularly important for members of the Armed Forces Community due to the unique lifestyle, career structure, and financial challenges they may face. Some may take an irregular career path coupled with deployments that can disrupt financial routines; and with many service personnel leaving the services at a young age, a second career is often required.
Having a complete view of finances and a plan in place can help prepare for the unpredictability of military life by bridging any income gaps, preparing for retraining for a second career and build savings for later life plans.
Thinking ahead
Life is busy but do you sometimes stop and think about the things you want for your future? Maybe it’s buying a home, starting a family, having a goal for retirement age so you can spend time with family; or perhaps an extended trip of a lifetime?
We all understand that our personal finances are linked to being able to do the things that we want to in life. Whenever we make a decision with our finances, it has implications. They can be positive or negative, and decisions have to be made. If we have £500 to do something with, we could spend it, put it into cash savings, invest it, or put it into our pension.
The first step towards any goal is to make sure we’re on top of our finances. This is where Octopus Money can help.
1. Get a full picture of your finances
This is where they look at all of the different aspects of your financial life together with all of the things that you want to do. When they make a plan, they take everything into account (your savings, pensions and investments) and give personalised recommendations so that you know exactly what to do to get to where you need to go. It’s like the roadmap to the life you want to live, with all the directions and rest stops mapped out along the way. So when you make a financial decision, you can feel that you’re making a good decision that makes sense for you.
2. Prioritise your goals
We always want to do ALL of the things. But realistically, we only have a certain number of hours in a day. On top of this, we might not want to take action on some of the financial admin we need to do because it seems dull or boring, while we’re excited about doing other things that might not give us the most impactful results.
This is where prioritisation comes in. Octopus Money help you organise your financial life so that you’re checking off the most impactful tasks first.
3. Review your savings
Savings might seem unrelated to investing but hear us out. Because investing is never without risk, one of the most important pillars of investing is having a rainy day fund. This is the buffer that you can tap into for emergencies instead of having to sell your investments at a loss or when you weren’t planning to.
Another bonus to managing your savings is that it ensures you have enough money for ‘current you’ (so you can enjoy wonderful experiences that are important to you) and ‘future you’ (so you can continue to have a great quality of life in retirement – whether you retire early or keep working part-time). Putting your entire life on hold just to save and invest isn’t realistic, and you don’t want you to miss out on the things that bring you joy.
4. Your personalised investment strategy
This is where the real opportunity to grow wealth happens. Everyone’s personal situation and appetite for risk is different, so Octopus Money take everything into account before making any recommendations.
They work with your financial plan and risk profile to match you to one of our ten portfolios. By doing this we can be sure that your investments are in alignment with your investing strategy and how you feel about risk.
Octopus Money is really passionate about people being reassured and having the confidence that they’re investing in the right way for them. Investing in the way that works for you is when you’ll have the best chance of success. Because it won’t always be easy. Everyone’s an expert and happy when the markets are good, but knowing your investment strategy is the right one for you will help see you through when the markets are down.
5. Your ideal retirement plan
This is something Octopus Money look at for ‘the future you’. If you have a workplace pension, you’re already an investor. This is because your workplace pensions are invested in funds in the stock market to give your money a chance to grow over time. This is where they can also help with recommendations on how your investment portfolio should look to get you to your desired retirement.
There are a lot of different things you can do to maximise your pension pot, especially as you get closer to retirement age. Once you do decide to retire, there are some decisions you’ll need to make, and the Octopus Money experts are on hand to support you with this.
A note on pensions: Your workplace pension is separate from your State Pension, which you’ll receive from the government once you reach State Pension age.
6. Dream it and then DO IT
Once your financial plan is ready, Octopus Money will help you keep track of the actions you need to take to get you to where you want to be.
How they do that:
- They introduce you to sister companies from across the Octopus Group that can help in your specific situation.
- They break it all down into a simple, bite-size action list, prioritised for you.
- They answer all your questions.
- They support you and keep you motivated about your goals along the way – like your own personal finance buddy.
If your circumstances change, your plan can change. Octopus Money help you organise all of the pieces of your financial life, and track them in one place. You’ll have a clear view of what your future could look like, and have a step-by-step action plan to help you get there.
Ready to get started? Read more here and book a session with a financial expert today!