A lot of people tend to view savings and investments as the same thing but from our point of view we look at them differently.  When we talk about savings we tend to look at short term, cash based, accounts that are there for “a rainy day”.  This will typically be a bank or building society based savings account.  This can also be though Cash ISAs or National Savings accounts, such as Premium Bonds.  The idea being that you can get at your money nearly instantly when you need to.  These are also fairly risk free with the fact that you will get back the same amount of money that you put in, with potentially some interest.

We always recommend that clients have an emergency fund, or cash reserve, but the trick is making sure that this is not too large or too small.  The reason for this is that inflation tends to erode the real value of cash savings over time.

From childhood most of us are told to put away money to save for the future – perhaps for something special? Or perhaps to be sure that when we really need something we have the funds to acquire it, without taking on debt?  Whether you place your money in a piggy bank, or in a multinational investment house, our aims are broadly the same; to provide for our future needs, and to protect ourselves against unexpected causes of expenditure.