Jeff Prestridge  

Are we on the cusp of an almighty recovery?

Jeff Prestridge

Jeff Prestridge

With this spending will come a strong economic recovery, aided and assisted by vigorous spending from both business and government, he adds.

I hope he is right and that the economy is on the cusp of an almighty recovery. But irrespective of how much of this lockdown savings is eventually spent, what the past 12 months have demonstrated beyond doubt is that the savings habit in this country has been rekindled — music to the ears of a personal finance journalist.

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Even if 10 or 20 per cent of this £250bn ends up being spent, it still means that there will be an extra £225bn or £200bn of household savings compared with what existed prior to lockdown.

Some of this extra saving will now be employed by households to provide the financial buttress they did not have in the run-up to lockdown. Fantastic.

Golden opportunity for IFAs

Yet there will also be a big slug of this extra saving that will be lying around in cash waiting for someone professional to come along and advise on how best it can be put to use. For independent financial advisers looking to extend their client bases, it surely represents a golden opportunity.

Anecdotally, I believe there is a huge appetite out there for financial advice. Over the coming months, I have received hundreds of emails from readers asking how they can best maximise the returns from their lockdown savings.

I have had to gently bat them away, but in many instances it is quite obvious that they need to have a conversation with a professional financial adviser rather than follow their instinct, go it alone, and invest in some soaraway technology shares.

So I say to you, stay safe, seize the moment, wave the flag for independent advice, and start helping to improve the long-term finances of many of those households that have saved like fury during lockdown – but who are now in desperate need of advice.

Over to you.

Jeff Prestridge is personal finance editor of the Mail on Sunday