Pensions and Inheritance Tax: what the April 2027 changes mean for your family
For most of the last decade, pensions have been one of the most tax-efficient ways to pass money to the next generation.
Making gifts work: reducing Inheritance Tax during your lifetime
Giving money away while you are alive is one of the simplest ways to reduce a future Inheritance Tax bill - and to see your family benefit while you are still around to enjoy it.
The nil-rate bands explained: how £325,000 can become £1 million
Inheritance Tax has a reputation for being complicated, but the core allowances are more straightforward than they first appear.
Building financial resilience: the emergency fund and beyond
Before anyone talks to you about investing, pensions or tax planning, there is a more fundamental question: what happens if something goes wrong next month?
Cashflow planning: seeing your whole financial life on one page
Most financial decisions are made in isolation. Should I overpay the mortgage or top up my pension?
Protecting what matters: life cover, income protection and critical illness
Protection insurance is the part of financial planning people most like to avoid thinking about - and the part that matters most when it is needed.
Risk and return: the trade-off at the heart of investing
Every investment decision is, underneath, a decision about risk. Understanding what risk really means - and the different forms it takes - is the single most useful thing you can do before putting money into markets.
Don't put all your eggs in one basket: diversification and asset allocation
Diversification is the closest thing investing has to a free lunch. Spreading your money across different investments can reduce risk without necessarily giving up much return - because when some holdings are struggling, others may be doing well.
Costs, tax wrappers and compounding: keeping more of what you make
Investors spend a lot of energy trying to pick winners. Two far more reliable levers - keeping costs down and using tax wrappers well - get much less attention, yet they are largely within your control.
The pension annual allowance explained (and the traps to avoid)
Pensions are one of the most tax-efficient ways to save, but there are limits on how much you can put in each year while still getting tax relief.
Life after the Lifetime Allowance: the new lump sum allowances
For years, pension savers had to keep an eye on the Lifetime Allowance - a cap on the total pension wealth you could build up before extra tax charges applied.
Defined benefit vs defined contribution: knowing what you've got
Not all pensions are the same, and the differences are fundamental. Broadly, workplace and personal pensions fall into two families - defined benefit and defined contribution - and knowing which you have shapes almost every retirement decision you will make.
How much is enough? Working out your retirement number
'How much do I need to retire?' is one of the most common financial questions, and one of the hardest to answer with a single figure - because it depends entirely on the life you want to lead.
Turning your pension into income: drawdown, annuities and blends
Building a pension pot is only half the journey. The other half - turning that pot into a reliable income that lasts the rest of your life - is where some of the most important, and least reversible, decisions are made.
The State Pension in 2026/27: what you'll get, when, and the tax trap
The State Pension is the backbone of most people's retirement income - a guaranteed, inflation-protected payment for the rest of your life.
Pensions in divorce: often the biggest asset after the family home
When a marriage or civil partnership ends, attention naturally turns to the house, the savings and who keeps what.
Three ways to deal with a pension on divorce: sharing, offsetting and attachment
Once a couple and the court recognise that pensions form part of a divorce settlement, the next question is how to divide them.
What a Pension on Divorce Expert (PODE) does - and when you need one
When pensions are significant, or complicated, in a divorce, a specialist called a Pension on Divorce Expert - a PODE - is often brought in.
External pension sharing: how your share becomes a pension of your own
A pension sharing order settles who gets what on paper. In England and Wales, it usually expresses the transferee's share as a percentage; Scotland has a different framework and can use different documents and fixed amounts.