Your family financial to-do list for 2025

At a glance

• Financial planning today frequently means thinking about more than one generation and more than one life stage.
• Having a clear to-do list of actions can help future proof and prioritise your family’s finances – and wellbeing.
• A financial adviser can help you start talking and thinking about financial planning as a family.
  

Thinking about money as a family

We believe financial planning and advice is a family affair.

More and more of us want to use our money to create family wealth, not just personal wealth. According to recent SJP research, almost 70% of us expect to support our families financially, both before and after we die.¹

By having a clear idea of what’s right for your family, and for you, it’s possible to create a financial plan that works for everyone and lasts beyond your lifetime.

This financial to-do list covers the ten steps you can take right now to begin planning for and protecting your family and its assets.

Your financial to-do list

• Think about both your short and long-term future plans. Do you have some immediate goals that you want to save for, such as a family holiday, a wedding, or school fees? Or life events that may seem a long way off, such as reducing your work hours or helping pay for social care.
• Work out how much you’re worth. List how many pension pots you might have if you’ve changed jobs, find share certificates, check in on your ISAs or savings accounts.
• Earmark an emergency, easy-to-access cash fund just in case life throws you a curve ball. Ideally enough to keep you afloat for six months.
• Start protecting the people that you care about, your family home and your lifestyle. An insurance policy could literally be a lifesaver for your family.
• Encourage your children to get into good money habits from an early age by encouraging them to save and explaining what budgeting means.
• Start thinking about the legacy you want to leave, and to whom. Hopefully that time is a long way off, but small steps, taken early, can make a big difference to your family.
• Make a Will, especially if you have children, or your family situation changes. It’s probably the most important legal document you’ll ever make to secure your family’s future.
• Set up a Power of Attorney. A PoA means that someone you trust can make financial or welfare decisions on your behalf if you lose mental or physical capacity.
• Consider what means most to you and your family. Understanding your personal values will help you set clear goals.
• Talk to your family about your short-term and long-term plans and involve them in your decisions and plans.
  

The value of financial advice

So many more people's lives and futures could be improved simply by getting access to the support they need. It's about helping people through life's changes and navigating financial complexities with confidence and care.

• 92% of those taking ongoing financial advice said it had significantly improved their mental wellbeing.¹
• 47% say it has enabled them to reach a specific life goal or tackle one of life’s hurdles.¹
• 1 in 4 of those who had a financial adviser said they felt less stressed and worried less about money as a result.¹

Source: SJP’s Real Life Advice Report chapter published Sept 2024. The Real Life Advice Report was commissioned by St. James's Place. Opinium surveyed 12,000 UK adults between May and August 2024. Quotas and post-weighting were applied to the sample to make the dataset representative of the UK adult population. Quantitative data referenced is sourced from the first poll which had a total sample of 7,995 respondents. Survey included those aged 18-34 (1,940), aged 35-54 (2,654) & aged 55 and over (3,401).

Planning for many by thinking as one

Whatever we want for ourselves, we often want to support the people around us too.

If there’s more money in one part of the family than another, there are many ways you can divert it tax efficiently to help the financial security and wellbeing of the whole family – especially if you have more than one. You may want to share the costs of education or pay towards social care for your older relatives. Or help relatives upsize or downsize their family homes. Today’s financial advice can help move money so that it’s in the right place, in the right time, for the right people.

Creating a financial plan for the family

If you find conversations about money difficult, you’re not alone.

When it comes to fights about finances, often people aren’t arguing because of a shortage of money – it’s that they’re unable to agree on important decisions they need to make as a family.

But if we don’t have those meaningful conversations, we can find ourselves rushed into decisions that could cost us both emotionally, and financially in a crisis.

Having a third party, such as your financial adviser, on board can be invaluable in bringing people together to talk openly about money.

We have been helping families start these conversations for over 30 years. We can help you find the right words to start talking and planning with your family.

We can help

If you need help creating a financial plan for you and your family, get in touch with us today.

The value of an investment with St. James's Place will be directly linked to the performance of the funds you select and the value can therefore go down as well as up. You may get back less than you invested.

The levels and bases of taxation, and reliefs from taxation, can change at any time and are generally dependent on individual circumstances.

Will writing and Powers of Attorney involve the referral to a service that is separate and distinct to those offered by St. James's Place and are not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

Source

1 Research conducted for St. James's Place by Opinium, among 4,000 UK adults between 27th February – 8th March 2024. All results are weighted to nationally representative criteria. Estimating the number of families with multiple retired generations relies on looking at the age of children of the eldest age groups and projecting how changing demographics will impact these figures. We know approximately how many older age groups have a child aged 65 and above currently, and we have applied those percentages to the ONS projections of increased numbers of adults aged 80-89 and 90+, to ascertain future numbers of families with more than one generation in retirement.

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