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Meet Ruth and Jo

Swati and Lakshmi: good friends with very different attitudes to money.

Swati and Lakshmi are flatmates. Of course, there are a lot of expenses involved in sharing a flat, and, fortunately, they get along fine with those. But in all other ways they are very different in how they think about money.

Swati 's hopeless with saving. If she has cash to spare, she'll be spending it. She's more likely to be tempted by risky money-making schemes. She lost her money the one time she actually tried one, but the experience hasn't made her change her ways.

Lakshmi's the opposite – she's very cautious with money. She knows where every paisa of her salary ends up and she has a regular direct debit going into her savings account.

While Swati and Lakshmi's attitudes may be poles apart, they both need to start thinking more clearly about the future. After all, perhaps one day they'll both want to buy a place of their own. And then there's their long-term future too.

Swati needs to tame her wild impulses, sort out her budget and start saving – preferably somewhere where she won't be able to get her hands on the money.

Lakshmi has the saving habit but her savings are growing very slowly. She's naturally cautious, and needs to consider what level of risk she's comfortable with to achieve higher returns.

They both commit to making a plan and set up appointments with few financial planning adviser

 
 
What's your financial personality?
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Try this quiz and find out… (But don't take
it seriously, it's only a little bit of fun.)

You'll need to answer all the questions to find out your financial personality

1 of 7
  • stage 1 selected
  • stage 2
  • stage 2
  • stage 2
  • stage 2
  • stage 2
  • stage 2

Having savings is…

 

 
2

know yourself

Are you a risk taker or do you like to play it safe?

Big spender or penny-pincher? Careful planner or impulse buyer? It's all down to your financial personality.

Step 2 helps you understand what's at stake so you can work out how you really feel about money.

The basics
  • Think about your savings options realistically, consider the risk involved and then decide what you feel comfortable with Think about your savings options realistically
  • Lower-risk products like savings accounts are best suited to short-term saving Lower-risk investments
  • For long-term savings, look at higher-risk investments such as shares and bonds but remember, their value can go down as well as up, and you might lose your money Higher-risk investments
 

The whole story: Know yourself

What's your financial personality? Before you launch into any financial decisions, you need to know yourself and understand how you really feel about risk.

Read step 2 in full

 
 
 
Swati and Lakshmi

Swati and Lakshmi: good friends with very different attitudes to money.

Meet Swati and Lakshmi

Glossary

Bonds

A way of saving that works a bit like an IOU – you lend the government or a company some money and they promise to pay your money back in the future AND to pay you a certain rate of return each year until then.

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Glossary

Shares

Another name for equities. You can invest in them either through collective funds like mutual funds, or else directly in individual companies.

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Glossary

Savings account

A type of bank account which encourages you to save by having a higher interest rate than your everyday current account.

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Glossary

Risk

Risk is the possibility that something negative will happen. In financial planning, the risk is you may not get the return you're looking for, or may even lose some of your investment. As a rule of thumb, higher-risk investments, such as shares, have a higher return than low-risk ones. High-risk investments are better suited to long-term savings as it gives you time to ride out the risk.

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Glossary

ISA

ISA stands for Individual Savings Account and is a tax-efficient way of saving money.

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