Adviser's client accidentally saves £5,000 in jam jars

Philip J Milton Chartered financial planner Felix Milton told PA his client "forgot" about the extra cash in his house. In a meeting on Monday (6 January), the client confessed to Milton he had not told the adviser about his cash savings because he had forgotten he had money stashed away in a selection of jam jars at his home. 

According to Milton, the client recently decided to count up one jar, which totalled £300. All the jars were the same size and just as full, and when added together it totalled "at least £5,000".

The client, who is now 83-years-old, told Milton he started putting £1 and £2 coins into jam jars "several years ago" to cover funeral costs as he believed funeral plans were a "rip off".

However, Milton said the client did not know the rules around being able to access money quickly after death from an estate to pay funeral fees, and as such is now free to spend the money elsewhere. 

The client already had roughly £80,000 saved and was advised by Milton to put the jam jar savings into the bank and use the reserves slowly as spending money. Milton said the client intends to take one jar at a time to the bank to see how he gets on with using the cash for his day-to-day living. 

"He realises now that having all of that money in jam jars is probably not the safest from an insurance perspective or a burglary perspective," Milton added.

The Chartered financial planner said jam jar saving was a good saving tactic - minus the insurance risk - but it could be a challenge as most people now use cards instead of cash.

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