Understanding Living Longer

Tag Archives: family

The acid test…

When reviewing your possessions – try this. Ask your close family what they would do with ‘your stuff’ if you were hit by the proverbial bus? Most likely their response will fall into one of a number of categories: – Items of value to be sold (house, car etc) – Items of personal value but […]

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Taxing the dead….

When the chancellor found a hole in his balance sheet he took the easy option and turned to taxing the dead. Inheritance tax thresholds have already been frozen for over a decade – progressively dragging more people into the net and increasing the tax raised. However Covid needed a faster solution so the chancellor looked […]

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The time is right…

Yesterday we said farewell to a colleague who started with me 25 years ago. For them the time was right. Management did a nice presentation at the start of the day and her friends and colleagues put on a wonderful informal lunch. Inevitably the conversation turned to the parallel subjects of Why now? and What […]

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That ‘a-ha’ moment…

That ‘a-ha’ moment… Recently a client captured the essence of what we do: ‘Now get it… at some point I will no longer be here. What EML is asking me to focus on everything I can control between now and then. While our discussions are structured around your six core areas, my success comes from […]

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The final ‘downsize’

A life skill for many people over 50 is being able, both physically and emotionally, to contain their ‘stuff’. Wartime austerity nurtured a caution against parting with anything ‘just in case’ which then extended into and beyond the ‘throwaway’ society of the 60s and 70s. Is there anyone over 70 who doesn’t have at least […]

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A suitable incentive….

Not everyone referred to EML is ready to face the reality of their changing prospects for later life. While fees are sometimes cited as being the issue, they are nothing more than a convenient excuse along with, ‘I’m too young’, ‘I’m too busy’ etc etc. The real message is ‘I don’t want to acknowledge my […]

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Give yourself a little bounce….!

Give yourself a little bounce….! When the family was younger we had a trampoline – complete with a safety net that made it look like an old fashioned gas tower. For many years it gave immense enjoyment, for bouncing on, camping under and even as a playground for the cats. As our young children grew […]

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Maintaining relationships

One simple tool for maintaining relationships is your address book. In addition to contact information I try to include a birthday (if known) or better a date of birth (the latter containing a year – useful for those special birthdays). Birthdays show in my calendar and, for a few quid annually, I subscribe to an […]

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IGWT – Inter-generational wealth transfer.

With a ‘drains up’ review of your finances complete you might well find yourself considering IGWT. For many this is one of the hardest transitions of their life. Up to this point their whole mantra has been wealth accumulation – making money, saving money and wealth accumulation activity. In a beat this all changes – […]

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The big divide…

Long before I ran the world’s largest survey into changing attitudes towards later life I was already aware of the divide between ‘Old money’ and the rest of us. A good friend worked as a land agent advising ‘old money’ on running their estates and through him I gleaned an insight into a totally different […]

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