Young professionals are in dire need of a basic financial education, with households of 25 to 29-year-olds holding a median net financial wealth of minus £100.
That’s according to 26-year-old IFA Luke Turner, who cited data published by personal finance research firm NimbleFins last month.
“Not many people have that basic financial education, which is why I’ve started to reach out to people my age through LinkedIn posts,” Turner told FTAdviser.
“We’re the only age group in the UK from those 20 to over 65 with negative financial wealth. That’s a problem.”
Turner is a private client director for AHR Private Wealth. Prior to this he worked as a business development manager in Spain focusing on the expat market, before sitting his financial adviser exams.
In recent months, Turner - who is among the industry’s small 6 per cent pool of under-30 advisers - has taken to LinkedIn to try and help young professionals understand their financial positions.
Topics covered in his posts include sustainable investing, how to store your money, tax and how to get started with a few hundred or a thousand pounds in savings.
“A lot of people are messaging me directly and asking to talk to me about their financial plans,” said Turner.
“It comes down to a mindset. People are more inclined to go the other way [i.e. not seek help with their finances] because they get stressed about it.”
Turner mentioned the pressure on many young professionals to get on the property ladder, for example. He intends for this topic to inform his latest LinkedIn post for under-30s.
The 26-year-old adviser said if young professionals are more informed on the basics and have things explained in a simple but not patronising way, they will feel less stressed and be more able to ask for financial advice.
“When you show someone numbers, everything changes. £15 per per month on a protection policy, for example, could cover them for up to £1mn. You can start to visualise how these policies are useful with numbers,” said Turner.
In a LinkedIn post about tax last month, Turner broke down the value of paying into a tax-free Isa using numbers.
“You can pay in £20,000 a year [to your Isa] every single year of your adult life and generate tax-free returns. If you manage to save just £1,000 per month into an Isa from age 25-60, your Isa could reach a value of £1.1mn by the end of this period,” he said.
Turner is also quick to follow up that getting people to consider their options without feeling intimidated is only the first step.
“Investments will go up and down. When you think about it, the largest asset invested is people’s pensions. You have to view savings in the same way, and that’s what I try to communicate with clients.
