By Kevin Peachey
Personal finance reporter, BBC News, Glasgow |
  Robert Smith and David Hollingworth |
While the economic gloom might be lifting in the UK, financial worries still hang heavy for many individuals. So, hundreds have come to the BBC's Money Matters Roadshow seeking reassurance that they have made, or are about to make, the best choices for their finances. Some subjects have come up again and again, with inheritance and employment issues regular themes. The BBC News website dipped into the conversations of some of the visitors to the event at the Buchanan Galleries in Glasgow, to hear what people were asking and what the team of experts has been telling them. The mortgage question Robert Smith, from Glasgow, was made redundant after 35 years in the same trade.  | MONEY MATTERS - GLASGOW Participants: Almost 30 money experts plus some of the BBC's top financial journalists Theme: Helping you with your money problems from savings, redundancy and mortgages to pensions and student finance Venue: Buchanan Galleries, Glasgow - Wednesday 14 October 8am-6.30pm Coverage: BBC One Breakfast, News Channel, Radio 5 live, Working Lunch and Radio 4's You & Yours, Moneybox Live and PM plus BBC Scotland |
The 60-year-old says he was given 12 weeks notice and no financial advice by his employer. Now, having built up his savings over the years, he is dipping into these funds to make his mortgage payments. He is keen to know whether he is organising his finances in the correct way. David Hollingworth, of London and Country Mortgages, tells Mr Smith about the options he has in setting up standing orders and they discuss ways in which he can keep mortgage payments as low as possible as he continues to search for a new job. The shares question Dorothy Martin has shares in RBS, the bank that experienced troubled times through the financial crisis. She bought the shares when she considered them to be at their lowest in February and she thought they would be a good investment as an alternative to saving when interest rates were so low. Acutely aware that the value of such investments can go down as well as up, she talks to stockbroker Morven Whyte, of Redmayne Bentley, about which way the index of leading shares might travel in the future. "As a lay person, you just do not know what is happening behind the scenes," she says. The inheritance question Ray Furminger, at the age of 66, realises that it is time he considers how best to leave money to his family when he passes away.  Ray Furminger and John Whiting |
His 29-year-old daughter is pregnant, preparing to give birth to his first grandchild next month, and he wants to know if she can avoid losing a chunk of his money to inheritance tax. "Age creeps up on you and you realise you are not going to live forever," says Mr Furminger. He speaks to John Whiting, of the Chartered Institute of Taxation, who looks at how he can deal with income from investments, and how he might start transferring some of this investment pot to his daughter now. "It is a horrible subject, but it is better to confront it," says Mr Whiting. "Not enough people take stock. Inheritance tax is a tax that you can plan for." The savings question When Richard Burnett lost his mother in November last year, he inherited a significant amount of money.  Irene and Richard Burnett |
The sum was unlike any he had dealt with in one go before, and it allowed him and his wife Irene to pay off their mortgage. The couple, from Greenock, were keen to put the remainder of the money somewhere that was safe, easily accessible and low-risk. It is a situation that many couples with relatively little financial experience find themselves in, according to Graham Hooper, a financial adviser from Best Invest. He runs through the Burnett's options, including index-linked National Savings products, one-year fixed rate bonds, Isas, and Premium Bonds. He says that, like the Burnetts, it is important to decide the level of risk that people want to take with savings, as well as when they might want to get access to the funds and examine which debts they have left to pay. "We are going away with many things to think about. Some of them - like Premium Bonds - we had not even considered," says Mrs Burnett.
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