Financial MOT - worth paying for?

[TaupePanda]

We are considering paying for a financial MOT - its [supposedly] a complete 360 look at our finances and how we can improve for the longer term.

It isn't cheap, which is why we haven't pulled the trigger.

I am in a quandary about it. One part of me feels we ought to be managing our money better. We don't because we have enough money to not worry in general and we both work long hours, and have 2 children (one under SEND) and so haven't a lot of time. This leads us to say 'don't worry, we can sort it out at a later date' so we can focus on the here and now.

The other part of me thinks that we will pay a lot of cash for not a lot of benefit. I am not interested in someone trying to sell me sold insurance products that I'm not going to pay for.

But then I loop round to thinking, at some point we'll have missed the boat for making the most of the earnings that we work so hard for and once its too late then its too late. You can't go back in time and start a growth fund to cover university, for example.

Anyway, has anyone ever paid for a financial MOT? Did you feel it was worth it?

TIA

Good grief no op
unless you are very wealthy and have multiple investments, pensions, savings etc

just sit down one evening and work out what you have coming in and going out every month, and what savings and liabilities you have e

What kind of price is it and what kind of things are you hoping to get out of it? If it was a fairly modest sum - no more than a couple of hundred quid I would probably consider it as we have a small amount in savings, circa 20k that I’m sure could work harder for us, I’d like to know if my pension is in the best place, that kind of thing.

Spend a bit of time going through things yourself and look up things you don't understand online or on financial forums. If you still think you need help go for it, but at least you will understand what the advisor is talking about and you may well find he has nothing new to offer, or you don't agree.

You should be looking at pensions, how much you save, long term and short term savings, ISAs, Stocks and Shares, children's savings, your mortgage, long term goals, etc as a starting point

@TaupePanda it's a no from me unless you have a lot of money in very complicated storage, so to speak!

How much are they asking? You don't know that they will give any advice you actually agree with.

You would be better off devoting a couple of evenings or afternoons to this. Look at the current situation. Then look at where you'd like to be realistically. And look at options for achieving it.

You'll have to spend a bit of time getting your finances organised yourself anyway as you'll need to "spoon feed" the adviser as to what assets and debts you already have and your typical spending patterns. Otherwise they'd have nothing to work with to give advice. Once you've got all that down on paper in front of you, you could probably do a lot of re-organising and planning yourself. I.e. if you know what you've spent your money on over the past six months, it can be used as a tool to reduce unnecessary spending in the next six months, i.e. reducing takeaway coffees, not shopping at the cheapest supermarkets etc., thinking about changing utilty/phone/tv contracts etc.

Unless you have complex finances with multiple income streams then it is not worth it at all.

Go on to Money Saving Expert.

They will probably have templates.

Work out all your income and outgoings which is easy, do it over the last year.
Are you making good use of your tax allowances? Just read around the subject.

Look up th financial flow chart and follow the steps in that.

Have a look at the Emma app- allows you to see and analyse all your spending in one place. You can do a free trial and, if you like it, it's about £60/year.

Most financial stuff is very easy unless you have complicated circs- you don't need to pay someone to tell you what you're spending or how to put money into a savings account, pension or S&S ISA.

Lots of good podcasts and books available- Meaningful Money is one I would recommend.

There is a personal finance flowchart on Reddit which is quite helpful.

Most high street banks will do a financial review for free.

And persuade you to open a load of uncompetitive accounts.

Moneysavingexpert.com will guide you through it for free

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/money-help/

Just spend a few hours on MSE. Listen to Dave Ramsey. I’d follow his baby steps - so do you have an emergency fund? Pay off any debt. Then save to buy a home on a 15 year mortgage. Then consistently pay 15% into retirement

How would you categorise your financial situation?
What would you be hoping to get out of the appointment?
Is it managing savings, debts, optimising your outgoings?

It might feel like a lot to do in one go but start small and pick a day a month or every other month for the next few months until you have started to get things in better order. We have a spreadsheet which has all of our income and outgoings. This is a good place to start as it should only take looking at a small number of accounts. If you have debts prioritise understanding them ahead of savings. Then look at savings, optimise your interest rates, I use money saving expert to guage decent rates but practically some times will accept a slightly lower rate (0.2-0.4%) if it just means renewing an account with an existing bank of mine because of time (or perceived time!). Have another sheet in your spreadsheet with a list of the accounts, the savings rates and the dates that they expire. Then go through you outgoings spreadsheet what can you regularly save then critically go through the bills and ensure that you are getting the best deals especially for internet mobile and energy bills as these can increase quite significantly once you are out of contract. Once you have this sorted add the date that the deals expire.

Once you have done this you'll find that a couple of times a year you need to review your spreadsheet, update values and deal with any of the accounts that have deals that have expired. It took us time to set up the spreadsheet but now it's massively reduced the burden of managing finances because we know which bits need attention and when.

Once you have a good understanding of your day to day finances and got your head in the finance game you can start looking at the longer term stuff

I listen to a lot of consumer podcasts when working and that helps me prompt me to check various things too.

Another vote for MoneySavingExpert - wealth of advice and all free.

No. Start by doing this Financial MOT which takes a couple of minutes, is free, does not sell you anything.
https://mot.moneytothemasses.com/

Now you can focus on learning about areas that need improvement, be that protection or investing, or money management.

Lots of free resources online and in books.
If you find there is something you need advice on, then you can find an adviser. For example if you feel the need to setup a special needs trust. However that’s jumping in the deep end, so start with the easy things of getting your spending under control, being investing for the future.

You'd do better to spend the money on a YNAB subscription (You Need A Budget) or at least watch their free videos to get an idea of the principls. This method was life-changing for us.

You get 1 month free and feel free to DM me if you'd like a referral code.

(I'm not a YNAB employee or anything, just one of their many satisfied customers!)

Go on YouTube and sign up for the free Rebel Finance School. It'll be like doing your own financial MOT but you'll be learning how to understand money, your attitude to it, how to budget, save and invest. It's good fun too.

Out of interest, how much would this MOT cost?