Personal finance · UK

The Gild Blog

Practical guides on pensions, ISAs, tax, and planning your financial future. No jargon, no sponsored content.

Financial Planning

What actually happens if you don't have a will (and the decisions to make when you write one)

Die without a will in England and a court decides who raises your children and how your money gets split, not you. Here's what actually happens, and the handful of decisions that matter once you sit down to write one properly.

5 min read
Tax Planning

The 60% tax trap: what it is and what you can do about it

Ask most people the highest tax rate in the UK and they'll say 45%. The real answer, for a chunk of earners between £100k and £125,140, is 60%, sometimes 62%. Here's why, and what to actually do about it.

6 min read
Net Worth

The net worth spreadsheet: why everyone builds one and why it always breaks

Almost everyone serious about their finances ends up building a spreadsheet to track their net worth. Five versions and a couple of years in, here's what it gets right, and exactly where it quietly falls apart.

6 min read
Pensions

How to find a lost pension (and why you probably have one)

If you've had two or three jobs in the last decade, there's a good chance you're sitting on a pension pot you can't describe: no idea of the balance, the charges, or where it's invested. Here's why that matters and how to fix it.

7 min read
Financial Planning

The key financial information checklist: what to write down, and what to leave out

If something happened to you tomorrow, could your partner find every account, policy, and password within an hour? Most people can't. Here's what to actually document, how to store it safely, and a checklist to fill in yourself.

5 min read
Financial Planning

Building your financial foundations: what to sort out first

Before ISAs, pensions, or any investing, there's a boring list of protections most people in the UK skip entirely. Here's what actually matters, the order to do it in, and a few extra things worth knowing if you've moved here from somewhere else.

6 min read