Victoria Whittington Financial Planning

Victoria Whittington Financial Planning Helping individuals, families and businesses plan, protect and grow their finances. Hi! My name is Victoria, thank you for making your way onto my page. The 'St.

Providing peace of mind today, by putting in place the building blocks required to achieve your future financial goals. I wholeheartedly believe that everyone has the right to, and could benefit from, personalised, holistic financial advice. No two people are the same. Your dreams for the future, those you hold dear, and your circumstances are all unique. So too should your financial plan be. By g

etting to know my clients I help them create the financial future they want and deserve. After over a decade working at various Investment Banks based in London, in 2023 my family and I took a long overdue leap of faith and embarked on a lifelong dream of living in the Cotswolds. In 2024, I took my first steps towards building my own Financial Advisory business, combining my passion for finance and drive to help people. For individuals and families, I can advise on:
🥰 how to protect you and your loved ones
🏡 help you save for a future goal or dream
🏖️ turn your retirement aspirations into reality. I can also assist with inheritance planning 👵, making sure that everything you’ve worked so hard for can be passed onto future generations the way you want and, in a tax efficient manner. For businesses, I can assist with:
💼 protecting you, your business and your shareholders
💷 tax efficient distribution of profits
🧓 pension auto-enrolment and contributions
📈 investment considerations
👬 employee benefits. Outside of the day job I enjoy being with my family ❤️, playing netball ⛹️‍♀️ and spending as much time outside 🌳 as I can - rain or shine! If you'd like to find out more, get in touch. You can
📞 01285 402309
📧 [email protected]
🛜 www.victoriawhittington.co.uk
🗓️ book a Zoom meeting: https://calendly.com/victoria-whittington

The value of an investment with St. James’s Place will be directly linked to the performance of the funds selected and may fall as well as rise. You may get back less than the amount invested. Pension auto-enrolment schemes are not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Victoria Whittington Financial Planning is an Appointed Representative of and represents only St. James's Place Wealth Management plc (which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority) for the purpose of advising solely on the group's wealth management products and services, more details of which are set out on the group's website www.sjp.co.uk/products. James's Place Partnership' and the titles 'Partner' and 'Partner Practice' are marketing terms used to describe St. James's Place representatives. SJP Approved 5/11/2024

19/07/2026

During PAID maternity leave, your employer must keep paying pension contributions.

Not based on what you were paid while off, but based on what you were earning before you left.

This is a legal requirement, known as the maternity equality rule, currently set out in Section 75 of the Equality Act 2010. It applies to occupational pension schemes, auto-enrolment schemes and salary sacrifice arrangements.

Here’s where it can sometimes go wrong: some payroll systems automatically calculate pension contributions on the reduced maternity pay/SMP rate, rather than your full salary. Employers don’t always realise this is happening. It’s a system error, not usually a deliberate one, but it still costs you money.

This rule applies for the period you’re receiving PAID maternity leave. Once you move into unpaid leave, contributions generally aren’t required from either side, unless your contract of employment says otherwise.

Your own contributions are calculated on your actual pay during that time, which is usually lower, but your employer’s contributions should always be based on your normal, pre-leave salary.

If you’ve taken maternity leave, it costs nothing to pull out your pension statements and check the contributions match what you were earning before you left.

📌 Save this for a friend who’s on leave or about to go.

Sources: MoneyHelper (Money and Pensions Service); Equality Act 2010, Section 75 (legislation.gov.uk)

This post is for educational purposes and does not constitute financial advice.

The value of a pension with St. James’s Place can go down as well as up. You may get back less than you invested.

The levels and bases of taxation, and reliefs from taxation, can change at any time. The value of any tax relief generally depends on individual circumstances.

16/07/2026

We often think of luxury as the big things.. The bigger house, the nicer car, the expensive holidays. The older I get, the more I think the real luxuries are much simpler.

A quiet morning before the day begins. Time with the people you love. The freedom to say no. The ability to enjoy today while still feeling confident about tomorrow.

Money plays a part in creating that freedom, but it’s rarely about having more for the sake of it. It’s about making sure your finances support the life you actually want to live.

Because the best-designed lives aren’t always the busiest or most impressive. They’re the ones that leave space for the things that matter.

16/07/2026

HMRC might owe you money right now, and they’ll never send you a letter to tell you.

If your workplace pension is Relief at Source, your provider only ever adds 20% tax relief automatically. If you’re a higher rate taxpayer, you’re entitled to more, but you have to ask for it yourself. Put in £500 a month and your provider tops it up to £625, the automatic 20%. If you pay 40% tax, you can claim back another 20% on top, roughly £125 a month, £1,500 a year.

HMRC lets you backdate claims for four tax years, so if you’ve never claimed, there could be thousands of pounds sitting there with your name on it.

This applies to a lot of workplace pensions, including NEST and The People’s Pension, plus many personal pensions with providers like Aviva, Aegon and Royal London.

Not sure if yours works this way? Your payroll or HR team can tell you in two minutes.

Follow and comment REFUND and I’ll send you the link to claim.

Source: GOV.UK, income tax rates and thresholds 2025/26 and 2026/27; GOV.UK, claiming tax relief on pension contributions.

Tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and may change over time. The value of any tax benefits or reliefs will therefore vary from person to person and cannot be guaranteed.

This post is for educational purposes and does not constitute advice.

15/07/2026

HMRC estimates that around 1.3 million families are eligible for Tax-Free Childcare, but 556,000 families were actively using the scheme in September 2025.

That means there is a significant gap between families who could benefit from the scheme and those currently using it.
Tax-Free Childcare can support families from nursery through to school holidays.

For every £8 you pay into your Tax-Free Childcare account, the government adds £2, up to £500 per quarter per child. This means a potential saving of up to £2,000 a year per child.

The scheme can be used for approved registered childcare until 1 September after your child’s 11th birthday, including nursery fees, breakfast clubs, after-school clubs, holiday clubs, childminders and nannies.

To qualify, each parent usually needs to earn at least the equivalent of 16 hours a week at National Minimum Wage, which is around £9,518 a year for 2025/26. Neither parent can have adjusted net income above £100,000.

Tax-Free Childcare and the Free Childcare for Working Parents scheme are separate schemes, but both are accessed through the same online childcare service. When you apply, HMRC checks whether you may qualify for both.

One important point that catches some families out is that opening an account is not enough. You need to pay money into your Tax-Free Childcare account before the government top-up is added.

Eligibility also needs to be reconfirmed every 3 months. Missing this deadline means your account moves to pay-only status, so no further government top-ups will be added until you reconfirm.

Sources: HMRC Tax-Free Childcare Statistics, September 2025; Department for Education, Childcare and Early Years Survey of Parents 2025; GOV.UK Tax-Free Childcare eligibility and reconfirmation guidance.

This post is for educational purposes and does not constitute financial advice.

15/07/2026

On an 8% annual growth assumption, starting at 30 instead of 38 turns £38,400 of extra contributions into roughly £461,000 more by age 65.

The difference is not about finding the perfect investment, it’s about giving your money more time to grow. Compound growth means your returns can generate their own returns, and over decades that extra time can make a remarkable difference.

An 8% annual return is used here as an illustration, not a guarantee. It’s broadly in line with the long-term historical performance of the MSCI World Index, which tracks more than 1,000 large and mid-sized companies across 23 developed countries. Over the past 30 years, it has returned around 8% to 10% a year on average in sterling terms, although returns have varied significantly from year to year. Some years have seen strong gains, while others have experienced sharp falls, so this should be read as a what if, not a prediction.

The value of investments can go down as well as up, and you may get back less than you invest. Historically, though, investing over a longer time horizon has helped smooth out some of the market’s shorter-term ups and downs.

If your 30s are the busy, expensive, kids-and-mortgage decade, that is exactly why automating even a modest amount now pays off later. Time is one of the few things you cannot make up for once it has passed.

This post is for educational purposes and does not constitute financial advice.

01/07/2026

These are starting point figures to help bring the picture into focus. Everyone’s retirement will look different depending on lifestyle, goals, health, and personal circumstances. That is why planning is not about fitting into a standard number, but building something that works for you.

Full new state pension from April 2026 is £241.30 per week, £12,547 per year (DWP, 2026/27 uprating, 4.8% triple lock rise).

PLSA Retirement Living Standards 2025 (February 2025, Loughborough University): minimum £13,400, moderate £31,700, comfortable £43,900 per year for a one-person household, all after tax.

These figures assume you own your home outright with no mortgage. If you are renting in retirement, you will need to allow for housing costs on top.

The moderate gap of £19,153 per year requires a private pension pot of approximately £330,000 to £490,000, depending on drawdown strategy and longevity (PLSA and MoneyHelper estimates).

These figures are not guarantees and they are not personal projections. They are a useful benchmark for understanding what the state pension does and does not cover.

Pension values can fall as well as rise.

Source: DWP 2026/27, PLSA Retirement Living Standards February 2025, retirementlivingstandards.org.uk.

This post is for educational purposes and does not constitute financial advice.

19/06/2026

There are no clever figures here, just a filter for the decisions that quietly drain a budget. The “would I buy it twice” test is the one that does the most work, because it catches the things I buy out of mood rather than need.

Financial freedom is rarely about one big change, it’s the slow accumulation of money not spent on things that didn’t matter. Now this doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy my life; I take the holidays, I eat out, I buy the things that will bring me and my family more than just fleeting happiness. But I spend with intention.

Save this somewhere you’ll see it next time you’re mid-scroll with a basket open.

This post is for educational purposes and does not constitute financial advice.

17/06/2026

If your employer matches above the auto-enrolment minimum and you are not using it, future-you is missing out on a “pay-rise”.

Lisa’s own extra 5% is £4,000 a year, which as a higher-rate taxpayer costs her roughly £2,400 after tax relief, and her employer adds another £4,000 on top.

Over the years that gap can change both the size of her retirement pot and when she can afford to stop.

A pension is invested, so the value can go down as well as up, you could get back less than was paid in, and pension rules can change over time. Cash, by contrast, is more stable day to day, but inflation can quietly reduce what it is really worth over the years, which is why many people lean towards investments like equities for longer term goals and keep cash for shorter term needs. Neither is risk free, just different kinds of risk, and the right mix depends on your own timescale and circumstances.

What is harder to argue with is the employer match. It is about the closest thing to free money you will come across, so check your scheme’s maximum match before you do anything else.

Source: MoneyHelper and HMRC pension tax relief, 2026/27.

This post is for educational purposes and does not constitute financial advice.

13/06/2026

Here’s how this genuinely happens. In England, 30 funded childcare hours (term-time) and Tax-Free Childcare both vanish the moment one parent’s adjusted net income passes £100,000. Not tapered, but immediately stopped. On top of that, every £2 earned between £100,000 and £125,140 strips away £1 of personal allowance, so that slice of income is effectively taxed at around 60%.

Family A takes the full salary and loses the lot, but Family B redirects just over £30,000 into the higher earning parent’s pension, bringing their adjusted net income to under £100,000. That keeps the funded hours, keeps up to £2,000 per child of Tax-Free Childcare, and restores the personal allowance, which means the contribution itself attracts up to 60% effective relief on the slice between £100,000 and £125,140.

Overall Family B ends up better off today, and better off tomorrow.

The only “catch” for Family B is that the pension contribution is now locked in a pension until at least 55, rising to 57 from 2028, its value can rise and fall, and these rules can change. It’s not quite free money, but it is money now working for your future instead of in the hands of HMRC.

Which family are you, and have you ever actually run your adjusted net income figure?

Source: GOV.UK, Tax-Free Childcare and 30 hours free childcare (England); HMRC, adjusted net income and the personal allowance taper, 2026/27.

The post is illustrative only, and should be seen as educational and not financial advice. Each family situation is unique, what is right for one family may not be for another.

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