What should I ask at fnancial review?

jem16

willo65 wrote: »

Good to hear that you will go and see what they have to say and are open minded and don't think you know it all like a lot of others on the forum.

My experience of a bank's financial review is that they tried to sell me an Investment Bond that made themselves 7% commission. Without doing a full fact find of my circumstances they tried to suggest this was the best product. You only have to read the Savings & Investments board to see that this is not an isolated incident. It's not a case of "I think I know it all."

To be honest they shouldn't give you the hard sell. I know at the bank I work for they won't try and MAKE you buy anything, at the end of the day this will just put people off.

They are under pressure to sell and of course they will give you the hard sell. It rarely involves a simple change of savings product - that doesn't make them any commission. They will make it sound that the product they are pushing is the best thing since sliced bread and most people will fall for the hype.

I recently phoned to change my BOS current account to the Reward account that pays me £5 per month. Did they just do it? No they wanted to push the Ultimate Reward account where I have to pay £12.50 per month - this would be much better for me I was told. If I didn't know any better I would have taken their suggestion.

willo65

At natwest they complete a form with you to see which benefits you would use and potential savings from them benefits and then you can decide for yourself. After all people CAN'T BE FORCED TO BUY ANYTHING

getmore4less

THe bigger deposit gives you more choice.

One thing people forget when starting out is moving up the lader costs a lot of money, buying and selling is money not actually invested inthe asset, skip a few rungs if you can or aim for something that you could live in for longer.

If you can stretch to a family sized(3+bed) home that could be a good move.

Owning and living in property alone costs a lot of money, buy and share for a bit.

If you have a big deposit you can stretch and get an extra bedroom and get a lodger or two to help get the mortgage down and share the bills, when it is time to settle down you have a suitible place so don't need to move that saves £5k-£20k. and you own a lot more of it than if you had gone for that 1 person place and traded up 1 or two times

Sit tight we have not hit the bottom yet.
Talk to your parents about your plans if they own then they will have been through at least one down turn if not two so have a lot of knowledge to share.