Who's Bill Shock?

[with apologies to No Bill Stickers posters and graffitti wags everywhere]

Of course Bill Shock is not a person, but was the headline on The Times money section last Sunday. To be fair, I could have picked a similar headline from any newspaper money section over the last fortnight.

The article refers to the fact that from next year, commission on investments and pensions will be banned and all financial advisers will have to charge their clients a fee for their services.

The good news for clients of Green Financial is that we have worked that way for over a decade so it is great that the regulator is forcing other firms to work in the same clear, transparent way we already do.

Premium Bond Win

Around the time I was born in 1971 I was given £7 in premium bonds, each bond £1 in value.

None of those 7 bonds has ever one a prize ... until now!

One came in with a £25 win. So I thought I'd see just how lucky I've been.

Currently, the minimum purchase of premium bonds is £100 (ie 100 units, they are still a £ each)

Since October 2009, the odds per £1 unit winning any prize has been 24,000 to 1

If you have 'average luck' the rate of return should equal 1.50%. All prizes are tax-free

So what is my £1 from 1971 worth? Well, I have data available till 2010. In 2010, £1.00 from 1971 is worth


£11.00 using the retail price index or £19.60 using average earnings

So my £25 looks good value, but of course the other £6 of bonds have never won, so I am about level.
An alternative way of looking at it, without getting complicated or worrying about inflation , is just to divide the £25 return by the number of years held (call it 40) and that gives 0.625% on average (again, forget compounding!) a year.
So on that score, I'm about 2.5x less lucky than average.

Fingers crossed for the £million prize next month then...

What Green Financial can do for you