Is there such thing as financial advice for poor people?

[Vtfsg]

Hi
I’m wondering if anyone has ever heard of such a thing ?

obviously there are financial advisors, but what about for people who don’t really have that much money , but want to be making the right choices with savings and investments ( albeit on a teeny tiny scale)

over the last year or so I have combed online sites , advice , podcasts, boot camp s ect , and while I have had some good ideas / jargon explained- mainly all these people want to do is sell you a product of some kind.

currently I have
-£800 in an easy access account (I add £75 per month)
-£500 ish in stocks and shares isa distributed in different global funds(I add £5 per week)
-£160 in a Lisa (I add £5 per week. This is to supplement a few years of retirement maybe if the age keeps increasing)
-£75 ish into my pension per month (work puts in x2 of this, from what I can work out I can’t increase this as it’s a db pension)

I save in total about 10% of my wage. (Pt teaching assistant so I’m never going to be rich- ) hubby about 6% of his , so we should really be trying harder.

as you can see I don’t really have the funds to employ any advice- but I would love to know if I’m doing the right thing….

im 36 if that makes any difference and we own our home (with a mortgage of 70k left to pay)

my top tip is to open a Lisa if you can- it is nice to see the government bonus going in. I like to think of it as an extra strawberry daiquiri every month that they are contributing to 🤣
also make your young person get one - it’s free money for their future home , and it’s tricky to get it out without fines/ quickly meaning they are less likely to spend it.

any top tips or suggestions welcome

The Financial Times has developed an online financial course, this might be helpful? I’m not wealthy enough to attract the attention of a FI either, but this has done helpful info resources.ftflic.com/adult-learning/

I don't know if it's US specific but I remember KC Davis talking about this exact thing on her podcast and I'm sure she recommended a company.

There are lots of online resources such as Rebel Finance. I’d also recommend this book https://amzn.eu/d/002QnSJc

Money saving expert? There's enough info out there to financially educate people without money to invest, an IFA comes in when you have actual money to lose.

If you have money to invest you don't come under the definition of poor

Martin Lewis as pp

If you can overpay your mortgage without penalty that is usually the best thing to do because you will most likely be charged more interest on the loan than you earn on any investment.

If you look for advice on micro-investing, this should help. What sort of help are you looking for? You seem to be doing pretty sensible stuff.

Are you comfortable with the level of risk you are exposed to? Are you able to meet immediate or urgent financial requirements? Have you debts, and are they costing more that you can reasonably gain through investments? (i.e. credit card debt at 25% is a priority over investing at gains of 8-10%)

Definitely Martin Lewis.

Saving £75 per month you could probably get a better rate of interest in a regular saver. Mine is paying 6%. You can also drip feed these to max the rate (e.g. max monthly deposit of £200, each month you save £75 from your income and transfer £125 from lower rate savings).

Some of my friends are into FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early I think) which is all about maximising savings and investments, its not for me but there's plenty you could have a look at on YouTube etc.

Just be really careful please with recommendations from randoms on the Internet particularly around specific investment funds.

@GreenBananaSmoothie who is giving 6% these days? I’m only getting 4% on my cash ISA ( Kent Reliance) 😳

UKPersonalFinance on Reddit has a very good flowchart, can also be found online. Agree that MSE has good advice.

@thegander not in an ISA, a regular saver. I have a 6% one with Co-op, I know Nationwide and Lloyds also offer these and also maybe First Direct. As OP has just £800 in savings at the moment she'll be under the taxable interest allowance and won't need an ISA.

Ah, thank you @GreenBananaSmoothie . Something to think about.

Chat GPT is brilliant for this sort of thing.

Agree with MoneySavingExpert, the bulletins offering tips for planning, and info on the best interest rate accounts are really useful. Money Helper is also good for pension planning.

I get 5.5% interest on two regular savers, one NatWest, one Halifax. Max monthly deposit is £150 for each so it’s not mega interest but it adds up. I also use the “round up” function which rounds up card spends and puts the extra pence into the saver - when you look back and see what you’ve saved that way without thinking about it over the course of a couple of years, it’s a nice boost.

Not necessarily. Especially if you are looking for tax/ legal/ medical advice, you’d be wise to double check. It has given me wrong information in the past.

Christians Against Poverty money course, you don’t have to be Christian, it’s free and help with both practical matters and the emotional side of spending patterns. I have helped to deliver it and it’s a really well designed learning experience