🟣🟢 Grape stomping in Bristol

👋 Welcome back

In today’s Financial Stuff we’re covering:

• 🍇Grape expectations

• 🔦 ISAs in the spotlight

• 👀 The pension perk that everyone’s watching

Let’s get started 👇

I like to challenge myself to find some ‘feel good’ news at the weekend. Even better if it’s local to Bristol.

So, I was rewarded this week with a lovely piece from the The Guardian about how Bristol locals are turning back gardens and allotments into mini vineyards.

They’re growing Chardonnay and Rondo grapes which they ‘foot stomped’ to make into natural wine, selling at £7 a glass in local wine bars!

ISAs in the spotlight (again)

Meanwhile, the Financial Times was serving up something a little drier, reporting that Rachel Reeves is weighing up changes to ISAs and how we save.

It’s a familiar theme (the conservatives tried and dropped it) but one that seems to be gathering momentum as the government looks for ways to stimulate growth.

The idea being floated is that the government might cap how much of your annual ISA allowance can sit in cash (£10,000 rather than £20,000), pushing more savings into investments, especially UK shares.

There’s also talk about reducing stamp duty on share purchases in ISAs and requiring a minimum percentage to be invested in UK companies.

So, what’s the reasoning behind this?

The Treasury’s thinking seems to be that too much household wealth is sitting in cash, earning little and doing nothing to support UK businesses.

By limiting cash ISAs they hope to redirect some of that money into investment giving markets and the wider economy a boost.

That’s the theory. In practice, changing behaviour through rule changes rarely works.

Most people hold cash because it fits a current need.

They want security, access, and certainty. Capping cash ISAs doesn’t change that need; it just makes it harder to meet it tax-free.

And if savers can’t hold as much cash in an ISA, many will simply move it into non-ISA accounts, so the money doesn’t necessarily move into investment anyway.

Still, there’s something worth paying attention to here.

The government’s direction of travel is clear. They want more investment, more risk-taking, more growth.

Whether that’s realistic depends on whether savers trust the markets enough to play along. That’s not something policy can dictate.

For most people, the real question isn’t “should I be in cash or shares?”

It’s “what is this money for?”

Cash is right for short-term needs and peace of mind. Investments are for future growth.

So make sure your plan drives your money decisions. Not the headlines or whoever happens to be Chancellor this year.

The pension perk everyone’s watching

It’s not just ISAs making headlines. There’s also been renewed speculation about what might happen to the 25% tax-free lump sum from pensions.

Several papers, including The Telegraph and Morningstar, picked up on this theme last week, asking whether it’s worth taking the lump sum now “while it’s still available.”

It’s a tempting thought but one that’s mostly driven by rumour, not reality.

According to recent figures, pension withdrawals have already hit record levels this year. Over £70 billion has been taken out across all types of pensions, with around £18 billion of that being tax-free cash.

That’s roughly 60% more than the previous year. The trend is being blamed on speculation about future tax changes and a general loss of trust in long-term policy.

Recently HMRC and the FCA have both reminded savers that once money is withdrawn from a pension, there’s no cooling-off period. You can’t simply put it back if the rules don’t change after all.

And taking large sums out too soon often creates other issues: unnecessary tax, lost investment growth, and money sitting idle in cash ISAs that may soon be limited anyway.

For now, there’s no formal proposal to remove or reduce the tax-free lump sum.

The best response isn’t to rush, but to plan.

Understand how and when you might want to use your lump sum, how it interacts with your income strategy, and whether you’d still achieve your goals if future rules were less generous.

In other words, don’t let headlines dictate your timing. Let your financial plan do that instead.

👉 Book a call with me here (or if you prefer, call one of my team on 0117 9629696) and I’ll help you make sense of what you’ve got and what it could be doing for you.

😎 THAT’S IT FOR THIS WEEK!

If you have any questions at all, do ping me a reply.

Hilary 😎

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