Traditionally, once you stop working, you enter ‘old age’ – and from there, there is no return! All that is changing and these days ‘old age’ subdividing into ‘old age’ (the point your first career stops) and ‘frail old age’ (when ‘whatever is going to get you’ starts to emerge). Old age is the world’s […]
I have noticed an increasing number of ads for on-line betting websites -and that worries me. Their level of cynicism is breath-taking. ‘Our app has built in ‘pauses’ to ensure you ‘take a break’ and ‘our app allows you to pre-set your spending limit’ alongside pictures of happy smiling users laughing together and celebrating their […]
When Bismark created the world’s first state pension scheme in the 1880s he never expected to pay out – it was simply a creative (and seemingly popular) tax raising exercise. Life expectancy in Germany at the time was 48, so 65 was selected for benefit payments to start, thus ensuring there were few, if any, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
I’ve been watching Dan Buettner’s series on how to live to 100 (the secrets of the Blue Zone). He focus is on the importance of creating the right environment and he shows how originally this happened by chance, but through careful nurturing similar results can be achieved anywhere. He also shows how easy it to […]
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 […]
A recent article in the financial press highlighted the perils of ‘gifts with reservations’ citing the Inland Revenue guidance on what constitutes a reservation. The rule that made me smile was borrowing more than three books a month from a ‘gifted personal library’- I remember driving around every charity shop in the county trying g […]