Guidance and advice
Guidance and coaching help you understand your situation and your options, and act on them yourself. Advice is a regulated recommendation of what you specifically should do — a product, a fund, a transfer — and only firms authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority can give it. The regulation exists to protect you: an authorised adviser carries liability for their recommendation, and you get access to the Financial Ombudsman and compensation schemes if it goes wrong.
The money coach
A financial coach — which is what Buzz Money Coach is — helps you see where you stand, build a plan, form habits that stick, and follow through. A coach does not recommend products, pick investments, or give regulated advice. Coaching is the right starting point when:
- You're not sure where the money goes each month.
- You have goals but no plan with numbers and dates attached.
- You know what you should be doing but aren't doing it.
- You want to walk into a big decision (house, pension, investing) understanding it.
- You saw an adviser but didn't act on the advice.
Coaching costs less than regulated advice because there is no product, regulated recommendation or liability. Our prices: the Financial Freedom Score is free; the Health Check is free, with an optional 45-minute session with a coach at £39 (waived for Buzz Accounting clients); the Money Road Map, twelve months mapped into ninety-day goals, is £399; the Financial Plan, which models your numbers out to age 100, is £1,500; and ongoing coaching is £69 a month, or £39 per half-hour session.
The financial adviser
A regulated financial adviser recommends specific products and strategies — pensions, investments, protection — and is legally bound to ensure the recommendation suits your circumstances. For some decisions advice is a legal requirement: transferring a defined-benefit (final salary) pension worth more than £30,000 legally requires regulated advice before it can go ahead. Advice also covers investing lump sums, restructuring pensions, arranging protection and complex inheritance tax planning.
What it costs, per MoneyHelper: a first meeting is usually free; after that expect hourly rates of £100–£350 (around £150 is typical), fixed project fees, or percentages — commonly 1–4% of the amount invested up front, and 0.5–1% a year ongoing if they keep managing it. An independent adviser can recommend from the whole market; a restricted one from a limited range. Ask which you are dealing with, and how they are paid, first. How to find a good adviser covers the qualifications, questions and red flags in detail.
Say you have a £120,000 pension pot and an adviser charges 2% initially and 0.75% a year ongoing. Up front: £2,400. Each year (on a static balance): £900. Over five years that's £2,400 + (5 × £900) = £6,900 — real balances move, but the shape holds.
Work out whether your question needs advice, coaching or free guidance before you pay advice prices.
The mortgage broker
A mortgage broker is a specialist adviser for one job: getting you the right mortgage. They search deals across the market, know which lenders will accept your circumstances, handle the paperwork — and often cost you nothing directly, because the lender pays them a procuration fee (typically 0.35%–0.5% of the loan) on completion. Some charge a client fee too, commonly £300–£500, mostly for complex cases. A whole-of-market broker compares more lenders than your own bank offers; here's how it works and what to ask.
Free help
These services are free and impartial:
- MoneyHelper — free guidance on budgeting, pensions, debt, insurance, home-buying; backed by government.
- Pension Wise (part of MoneyHelper) — a free, impartial appointment for over-50s on your options for taking defined-contribution pension money. If you're 50+, book it before any pension decision.
- StepChange and National Debtline — free, expert, confidential debt help.
If a ‘debt management company’ wants a monthly fee, walk away — the charities above do the same work free, and better.
How to check anyone before you pay them
Check the Financial Services Register before engaging any adviser or broker. It's the FCA's public record of who's authorised to do what. And because scammers clone real firms' names and paperwork, contact the firm using the phone number or website shown on the register, not the details on the email or card in front of you. Cold calls about pensions have been illegal in the UK since 2019 — if someone rings you out of the blue about your pension, hang up.
Before you hand over a penny.
- Find the firm on the Financial Services Register — authorised, and for the service you're buying.
- Get how they're paid in writing: fees, percentages, and anything they receive from third parties.
- Ask: independent or restricted? Whole-of-market or panel?
- Ask for the total first-year cost, and each year after, in pounds — not percentages.
- Ask what happens if you want to stop the ongoing service.
How Buzz fits together
Buzz Money Coach provides the score, the plan and coaching. When you reach a regulated decision — a pension move, an investment, protection — we say so. Buzz Money Coach does not give regulated advice. Where you need it, we say so and can introduce you to Equity & General, authorised and regulated by the FCA (No. 474163), through Buzz Money Ltd's introducer agreement. The introduction is optional. Your fact-find carries across, so you arrive at the adviser knowing your numbers.
If you're not sure which kind of help you need, the free Financial Freedom Score takes eight minutes and shows whether your next step is a habit, a plan or a regulated adviser.