54 New Year New You • Financial & Legal Resolutions


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How will we be spending our money in 2018?


Spending habits are changing, from the food we consume to the way we spend money through apps such as Monzo. We take a look at how you’ll spend in the coming year. Words: Paul Eoin


Disposable income is shrinking for many, an effect of rising living costs outpacing slow wage- growth. As result, people are paying greater attention to how they’re spending. Sustainability is front of mind for many, while new forms of currency are also on the rise. However, this focus on the wider experience


associated with a purchase isn’t purely selfish or self-centred. Increasingly, consumers are aware of the wider social and environmental


impact


of their purchases, and are taking the sustain- ability and ethical impacts of their spending into account, looking to reduce the amount of waste they produce. In the food industry, concerns over the uneth-


ical treatment of farm animals, and the environ- mental pressures of rearing them, are reflected in restaurant menus which increasingly offer vegetarian options on their menus and in super- markets where sales of meat-substitutes such as Quorn have shown sustained increases for several years now.


As Emma Clifford, senior food analyst at Mintel,


reports, “Despite the ingrained popularity of meat and poultry, a clear trend has emerged of people cutting back and limiting how much of these products they eat. That ‘flexitarianism’, a whole new dietary phrase, was coined to describe this movement also highlights its indisputably mainstream status.” Meanwhile, several companies are vying to


be the first to bring artificial meats to market — could 2018 be their year? In a similar vein, it looks like we can expect


plastic packaging and its long-term environ- mental impacts, particularly on marine envi- ronments, to attract greater attention over the coming year as both consumer groups and governments increase calls for more efforts to reduce single-use plastic packaging. On the technology side, financial technology,


or fintech, has been emerging at a rapid pace recently. Foad Fadaghi, managing director of Telsyte, a telecommunications strategy company,


predicts, “Fintech is moving into wearable


technology, into our homes, into our cars, into becoming ‘lifetech.’” Financial service companies such as Monzo and


Revolut are changing the way we spend money and are well on their way to receiving banking licences, allowing them to offer full banking services through their smartphone apps. And apps such as Moneybox, which aims to


improve saving habits by rounding up the value of small purchases and investing the difference into tracker funds, could become of real value to those young people who have little or no savings. Be wary, however, of investing (or should that


be gambling?) with cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin has seen dramatic growth in value recently but there’s no guarantee that this will continue. The real value of getting involved in bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies, is in getting to understand how it all works and the possibilities they offer — possibilities which are certain to extend well beyond 2018.


Divorce solutions for grandparents Llyod Platt & Co January is a prime time for relationship demise, and this year Lloyd Platt & Co will continue to highlight the plight of grandparents who unwittingly get caught in the crossfire. Most grandparents are reluctant to take their own children to court in order to see their grandchildren, so Lloyd Platt & Co has set up a ‘a successful outcomes meeting’ to knock heads together to quickly resolve these disputes. With almost two-million grandchildren deprived of seeing their grandparents, Lloyd Platt & Co are determined to reverse this. divorcesolicitors.com


The experienced view Boodle Hatfield Boodle Hatfield LLP is a 34-partner law firm which has been in business since 1722. It acts for wealthy individuals, families, property owners and businesses in the United Kingdom and internationally. Its main departments are property, private client and tax, family corporate and litigation. boodlehatfield.com


Raising the bar in home cleaning Vorwerk Owned by one in three households in Europe, the VK200 vacuum cleaner by Vorwerk combines German engineering with groundbreaking innovation and stunning design to raise the bar in home cleaning. Whether it’s carpets or hard floors, the specifically designed interchangeable vacuum heads tackle the dirt and dust quickly and efficiently. To see for yourself book a free in-home demonstration today. kobold. vorwerk.co.uk/home


Investing with cryptocurrencies eToro At eToro, one of the biggest cryptocurrency platforms in the world, there are three ways to invest in this asset class. Firstly, you can buy the underlying crypto assets and trade them manually, or short (via a Contract for Difference) to take advantage of price falls. Secondly, traders can explore eToro’s CopyTrading facility allowing clients to match the trades made by top crypto investors. Finally, it’s possible to invest in the platform’s unique Crypto CopyFund, which holds a mix of bitcoin and ethereum, dash and more. etoro.com


Saturday 6th January 2018


Why divorce rates rise each new year


having to ask their parents for financial help. All of this, of course, isn’t totally down to the


effects of Brexit — but much of it has been high- lighted because of it. The fear that jobs could come to a bludgeoning


end, because of the effects of the exit plan, have really caused worry among the young. Their fear of a lack of job mobility in the EU and lack of potential opportunities have spiralled into the relationship. Of course, a lot of these fears are absolutely unfounded and almost certainly fuelled by the media, but to this group, the constant doom mongering has had a dramatic emotional impact. The divorce solicitors at Lloyd Platt & Co often


Every year, divorce solicitors Lloyd Platt & Co is asked why so many couples split up following the Christmas break, to the extent that it feels like it’s competing with the first day of the sales


been unhappy for some time, while others feel they’ve been overlooked and taken for granted during the holiday. Some people complain about favouritism given to one side of the family over their own and there are a few that just hated their Christmas gifts! There is, however, going to be an ever-growing


T


trend during 2018 that Lloyd Platt & Co witnessed starting last year — the rise in divorce among those in their 30s. Up until last year, the rates of ‘newbies’ divorcing was falling, but then Brexit happened. While many may find it bizarre for there to be any nexus between marital breakdown and Brexit, there clearly is. To be clear, Lloyd Platt & Co isn’t suggesting that Brexit is either good or bad, it’s just reporting on its impact. Lloyd Platt & Co observed that during the


referendum there was a clear division between the young, who wanted to remain in the EU for


he reason for the surge in relationship break-ups after Christmas is many fold; some think, ‘new year, new start’, having


work opportunities, and those who were older, and fed up with the rules being imposed from Brussels, who wanted to leave. As more uncertainty has loomed since June last


year, the stress has started to impact, particularly on the 30-40 age group. The difficulties started with little niggles — one party maybe saying to the other that, financially, things would have to change. This was coupled with suggestions that relatively new mums should get ‘back out there’ and contribute towards the household’s financial obligations. Arguments ensued in this particular group as the stress and uncertainty continued. Each of the parties have complained that they felt undervalued and overstressed. In relation- ship terms, the couples who’d previously worked as a team were (and still are) turning on each other in a competitive way that had almost been eradicated over the previous five years. The increased cost of housing for families in


this age bracket has also added to their worries, together with the potential embarrassment of


Vanessa Lloyd Platt


The increased cost of housing for young families has also added to their worries, together with the embarrassment of having to ask both sets of parents for financial help


hear that men are trying to cut back dramati- cally on family expenditure, having lived quite comfortably on their income before.


Some


wives understandably feel confused by the turn of events and the demands that they return to work immediately. This whole issue will be spectacularly highlighted as bills flow in on top of the extra outgoings around Christmas and the New Year, with each blaming the other for the situation. Interestingly, many women have told Lloyd


Platt & Co that they understand their partner’s potential for worry, but if they were given the occasional cuddle or act of affection they say they might have been more able to be supportive. The men in this group say they don’t feel like being affectionate after they’ve watched all the bills falling like confetti. What’s clear is that the media need to calm the


fears of this group and not fuel them — unless they wish to give divorce lawyers a bumper new year boost.


Words by divorce solicitor Vanessa Lloyd Platt


Lloyd Platt & Co T: 020 8343 2998 divorcesolicitors.com


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