Saving money is about having the discipline to put aside money and not touching it. It is the power of accumulation rather than just interest that allows an investment to grow. If you were to put aside 5% of your weekly income every week from the time you started work and put it into a tin that you could not open imagine what that would have accumulated to. The problem is that most savings plans are really spending plans. We accumulate and then we spend.

Recently, a client rang wanting information on how he could sell some gold. He had bought some gold ingots 15 years ago and kept them in his bedroom drawer. On many occasions he had been tempted to cash them in but always resisted. Now, he had a family member that needed assistance and it was time to sell. The point is that he bought them cheaply as keepsakes and now as a result of a rising gold price sold them for $28,000, enough to help out the family member.

The point of the story is that we may all have gold at the bottom of our own drawers, and we need to check them on a regular basis. Some of this gold may be in the form of old-style Endowment and Whole of Life Insurance policies which were once a common form of savings, set up by parents in their children’s names and in many cases forgotten about. Many people do not understand how these policies work, their living value and how they might be utilised in a personal financial plan.

A regular review with a Financial Planner will help you to assess the value of those old share investments, old style policies, cash deposits and other forgotten investments. The planner can assist you in determining the real value of these investments, their maturity values and when is the most appropriate time to realise the value of these investments relative to your life financial plan. Together with a planner and have a financial check-up and you might be surprised by the value of the gold at the bottom of your drawer.