investments Archives - CURLY AND CANDID

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I’ve written in the past about how important I feel it is for us as parents to teach our children about financial matters. At this stage, with my children being 3yrs and 8yrs we have limited this pretty much to savings, not buying on credit and choosing carefully what you spend your money on.

Our next stage will at some point be to talk to the boys about more in-depth financial matters. Growing up we didn’t get “proper” financial education at school (unless paying a pound a week into the school bank counts?) and so we’ve been firmly behind Martin Lewis’ campaign to introduce financial education as part of the national curriculum.

Roy and I firmly believe that it is up to us to teach the boys as they grow about the importance of pensions, protecting your identity and financial information and of knowing and understanding your credit rating. As with all things with financial matters if you have a good grounding before you are thrown out into the world where all the temptations of credit products and spend now worry later options exist you will be better placed to make smarter decisions.

We wish that we’d known more about pension plans, investments and insurances when we were younger as our “pots” which are supposed to tide us over when we are older would be a lot fuller than they currently are. With so many products available now, never mind when the boys are older it makes sense to know what you want or at the very least how to find out about what you want and need from a reputable source.

Places like the credit expert website offer an easy to use to tool to help you navigate your credit rating, to fix any errors and to learn more about how you may improve it. While we believe saving up for things before you buy them is important credit does play a part in modern life, with things like car finance and of course mortgages being effected by how well or poor your credit rating appears. We plan to teach the boys the fundamentals of financial planning and ensure that before they are thrust out into the big bad world to function independently that they also understand where to go for help and advice for financial matters.

The old saying goes that money can’t buy you happiness and of course there are more important things however money can buy you security, opportunities, freedom to pursue your interests and ensure that no matter what happens in your life that you are covered so to speak. We have plans and we have products in place to ensure that our kids will be fine, no matter what happens to us and all that we want is for them to have the same peace of mind.

What do you plan to teach your kids about finance and their future? I’d love to know. I really think such matters being covered in school in the future will be an amazing improvement on what is offered now however still believe that it is up to us as their parents to reinforce what they learn and ensure that it is adequate.

Kieran is already a keen saver and we hope to encourage him to extend this into pensions and investments when he is a little older, as well as building an awareness of what a credit rating is and why it matters for himself and his brother.

Recently we’ve been looking at our finances with a different eye. We’ve been pondering pensions (being self-employed I need to sort this out!), savings and even investments. Finding your way through all of the information out there is like play hop-scotch in a minefield and so we’ve decided that at some point we will be looking at getting professional help to advise us.

A while ago I was asked to work on a project all about classic cars and how they make a great choice for investments. I absolutely LOVED the idea, especially when reading through my research at the return rates and besides, how sexy are classic cars??!

Up here in North Yorkshire we have access to some amazing events which feature classic cars and regularly see collectors and enthusiasts travelling through the town (my oldest used to shout “It’s BRUM!”) regularly. I’m not much of an expert when it comes to classic cars however I am more definitely a fan.

My oldest, Kieran next to an absolutely fab classic car

For those who are interested, I’ll share some of what I found when looking at classic cars as a possible investment option.

Basically, experts are telling us that the when investing your money in classic cars that you are pretty much guaranteed a good return. “Pretty much” is the best anyone may offer you these days as of course with any investment there is an element of risk. That said, over the past ten years or so the value of some classic cars has risen as much as 400%. That is a return hard to beat. Generally speaking fine wine, jewellery, watches and the other more common investment pieces are known to give a return of anywhere between 78% and 216% , impressive but £400 AND the opportunity to have your own classic car to stroke?

One case study I came across about investing in classic cars was about TV presenter / radio presenter Chris Evans. He bought in 2010 a Ferrari 250 GTO for (it was reported) ELEVEN POINT FIVE MILLION. Anyone would think spending that on a single car was insane to say the least until he sold in on two years later and netted an impressive £6.5million profit.

You don’t have to have millions of course to invest in classic cars as some models start out rather reasonably. Some people have a number of cars, polished daily and put away so as to protect their money as best they can, while others organise specialist classic car insurance and enjoy their investment piece. We’d probably be the latter and knowing our luck scratch or dent the car to the extent that we’d lose out however the option is there and down the road we’ll definitely consider it.

Fact and figures aside what would you love to invest in? Google seems a safe bet, classic cars a very good bet even; what about something quirkier? Let me know (I’m nosy!).

Showing all posts tagged investments

Teaching the Importance of Good Credit and Sound Financial Planning

Classic Cars and Investments