I have about £100k in cash earning at best 0.5% - is it worth bothering with an adviser?

I am just 80. I have a high pension income, house mortgage free, surplus monthly cash. Reasonably healthy. I have about £150k of savings of which I have about £50k in funds all the usual names and the balance in cash earning at best 0.5%. My questions are have you any advice on what % of savings I should have in funds and any ideas of doing better than 0.5% on cash savings? Is it worth bothering with an advisor?

Dear Roland,

You are holding a significant amount in cash earning very little, certainly substantially less than inflation.

As you say you are in reasonable good health, so if you live for another ten years or more, you are reducing your spending power as you are only achieving capital growth on a third of your money.

If you take advice from a Financial Planner and especially one that is an Accredited Financial Planning firm so that you know they carry out true financial planning, they would help you to work out how much you need for your day to day living and in the event of death (if you have a partner) or needing long-term care, add some growth rates, average rates of inflation and make some projections to your age 100. This would then help you to work out how much you should have in cash, lower if your income is usually in excess of your expenditure and higher if not.

I would normally ask a client how much they need to sleep well at night as I know sometimes cash savings psychologically provide security. Once we have established that, then you could look at investing the rest and carry out a review of what you already have. Having an accurate idea of the risk you are prepared to take, will then help to put together the right portfolio for you, making use of any allowances.

So, yes, I would say definitely you should seek the advice of a Financial Planner.