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Do you have a good or a bad financial adviser? There are no hard and fast rules but here are a couple of things to look out for.

The adviser needs to be independent and not just tied to one insurance company. Many advisers can simply advise on the products sold by one company thereby dramatically reducing the options available to you. No matter how good the company is they are unlikely to have the best products in the market. Also beware the adviser who may be able to advise on half a dozen companies. The same issue applies but they may try and hide the fact that they cant access the whole market.

A good guide to how reputable the firm is would be if they have any close links with accountants and solicitors. Accountants are unlikely to align themselves to a firm that doesn’t do a good job, as they are likely to lose clients.

Finally avoid the adviser who says he or she can do everything. Financial advice has become a lot more complex and specialised and no adviser can be knowledgeable on everything. Ideally your adviser would have experts in the firm that could be brought in if specialist advice was required on areas such as Inheritance Tax Planning or Pension transfers etc.

Credit Cards today are the bane of people’s lives. The number of individuals paying large proportions of their daily income into the bottomless pit that is their credit card increases daily. With the interest rates being mostly significantly in excess of 20% what was once a convenient source of short term credit becomes a long term spiralling debt as minimum payments do little to limit the debt.

To escape this debt spiral many are turning to bankruptcy as record levels of bankrupt’s evidence.

Debt counsellors provide one way out with many showing ways to enter into negotiation with the card owners.  A lesser route is often to utilise unused equity in a property to provide a release. However despite these solutions the ultimate defence is discipline a trait that unfortunately appears to have slipped this generation by.

Maxi Stocks and Shares ISA is a tax-efficient investment which allows you to invest up to £7000 in any tax year. I have used my full annual ISA allowances for the last seven years as a result of great advice from my IFA. By doing this I have created a portfolio of £100.000. I invest in various types of funds including property funds, equity funds and specialist funds. I will continue to use the full ISA allowance in the future as long as it remains available since it has given me such great results and also as well because that is my IFA’s advice on this matter.

I have recently inherited £2 million and have decided to invest half of this money. I am an ethical investor and would only invest in either ethical companies or companies with ethical stands. My Financial Advisor has created for me a very nice portfolio of ethical funds, which would be invested in an off-shore portfolio bond. At the moment most of the ethical investment funds mainly invest in the UK, European and some North American companies. I was very disappointed as this is not a fully global exposure to equities and ethical companies and I would be very keen to learn of new ethical funds investing a lot more globally.

Sometimes I feel that my Independent Financial Adviser is actually my big brother. This is because he calls me up an emails me every three months to make sure that I am happy with all of my financial arrangements including savings, pensions, mortgages and investments. Almost every time I think of a financial issue I think of him and almost have a feeling that he is watching me at all times. Does this mean that my Independent Financial Adviser is actually my big brother? Fortunately he does not remind me of Jade Goodie or Shilpa whatever.

I have recently graduated form my University and started working full time. Shortly after, I went to see an IFA, who had been recommended to me by my family. After I asked him -“when should I start saving”; his response was –“as soon as you start working”. Having established my regular monthly affordability, we have set up a monthly savings plan to enable me build funds for my future on the medium to long-term. He has also given me very good advice: to increase my savings every time my salary increases. We have also agreed that every time I get any bonuses I would invest these funds for the future.

Many people say that their pension is useless and hasn’t done well. This is likely to be for one of two reasons. Either the costs and charges of running that pension are too high or the fund performance is not very good. There is no excuse for this happening as you can do something about it.

Firstly the newer pension contracts that have come out since stakeholder pensions were introduced have substantially reduced the costs of running a pension. No more do you have to pay bid and offer costs, monthly marketing charges and entrance/exit charges. The new contracts simply have an annual management charge and no other charges so if you do want to move your money away at some point there are no penalty costs to do so.

Secondly a number of schemes out there allow you to use outside fund managers to look after your pension. These will in general do a much better job than the internal funds that insurance companies provide. Always check on the advice if you are simply recommended to go into an insurance company’s managed fund. This is often regarded as a default fund and is unlikely to perform well as other funds that are available.

I have just consulted my IFA to give me some idea in response to my question and to point me in the right direction. The objective of our meeting was to establish my affordability. Although the answer to “how much should I save” is different for everyone, there are some guide-lines to help with this issue. Roughly speaking I should invest 10% of my regular monthly income towards short-term savings up to five years.  These funds should be accessible easily and used mainly in emergencies. For example, medical problems. Another 10% of the monthly income should be invested on a medium to long-term view basis for five to ten years and used for your long-term objectives like buying a home.

A common mistake made in buying life insurance is in not buying a policy that is fit to purpose. In effect many people find themselves insured for most of their lifetime for an inappropriate amount of money. This makes people pay too much for the insurance that they need to have their estate paid more than is wanted or large sums paid in their later years 70+.

One of the solutions to this is to use a family income benefit contract which reduces the required premium significantly (40%+) by paying out instead of a solitary single substantial benefit a smaller recurring benefit.

There is a lot of difference in opinion associated with investing into hedge funds. Most Financial Advisors and the regulatory bodies have a stance that hedge funds are very high-risk and volatile investments and a significant level of caution should be exercised when recommending these. On the other hand, most fund managers and especially hedge fund managers do not believe that these are a high-risk investment. There are several different categories including low volatility, medium volatility and high volatility hedge funds as well as the specialist hedge finds category. I am currently investing a lot of money in these hedge funds and as log as you know which category and risk rating your hedge fund belongs to you should now the overall volatility and risk associated with it.