Let’s face it, life’s stressful. Pursuing a career or building a business while keeping your family life fulfilled and finances fit is difficult. And that’s when everything runs smoothly. There’s the added pressure of having a back-up plan should something go wrong.

No wonder a major Mental Health Foundation study in 2018 revealed that 74% of people in the UK felt so stressed during the previous 12 months they’d become overwhelmed or unable to cope.

Among other challenges, the daily plate spinning of modern life can make it hard to find time to step back and set up a proper financial plan. While we usually recognise that forward planning is crucial within our professional lives, the same discipline isn’t always applied to our domestic lives – even though, arguably, nothing matters more than financial security.

So we just carry on, worrying about money, our family and the future. And that worry could build up over time.

But take the time to figure out your financial goals and formulate a plan and you won’t just feel financially secure, you could feel calmer and more in control too.

This thinking ties in with some of the ideas behind mindfulness, an increasingly common way that people deal with stress. It’s about paying more attention to the here and now, among other things. And putting a structure in place that stops you worrying about the future of your finances could certainly help with that.

The Mental Health Foundation also released some other research last year that revealed the 11 best ways to prevent common mental health problems. Two of them were ‘try to make the most of your money and get help with problem debts’, and ‘plan things to look forward to’ – two key goals of a good financial plan.

With so many distractions in life, we tend to hurriedly assemble pieces of a financial jigsaw when the need arises without necessarily knowing what the overall picture looks like. Are we putting enough away for our retirement? Should we use savings accounts to grow our money or should we invest? Or both? Are we saving enough for future school fees?

Our Premier managers and team of specialists could help you ensure these pieces fit together smoothly into a coherent whole. It’s what our planners call a ‘lifeline journey’, as Premier manager and area manager Mark Anderson explains.

“We’re here to help you forge a clear path through all your financial goals,” he says. “We work with you to help ensure the way you manage your money matches what you want to achieve.

“This involves looking at the key moments on your lifeline journey and the various ways you could arrange your finances so you’re ready for them. Whether it’s that big holiday of a lifetime in a few years, helping your children buy their first property or your own retirement. We look at the whole lot, covering your day-to-day cash, medium-term plans and long-term ambitions. And we look at it holistically.”

Suddenly the jigsaw could start to come together, and you’re a step closer to the peace of mind you deserve. Money, indeed, can’t buy you happiness. But it could bring you a bit of peace of mind.

To set up a free Financial Health Check, get in touch to set up a meeting with the Premier team.

Eligibility criteria apply. All advice and recommendations will be restricted to investment and protection products available to the Premier manager. The value of investments, and the income from them, can fall as well as rise and you may not get back what you put in. 

Fees, charges and eligibility criteria could apply to any products or services you decide to take up as a result of your Financial Health Check.