Apparently, 32 million people play the lottery in the UK each week and on average they buy three tickets each.¹ That's an amazing statistic when you consider the astronomical odds of winning the jackpot, the odds of winning the main lotto draw are almost 14 million to 1! It's even 57 to 1 to win £25!² For most people it's just money down the drain.

Is Life and Critical Illness Insurance Money Down The Drain?

Image Credit: Dave Allen

Over the years I have been fortunate to work with a lot of computer programmers, I say fortunate because for the most part, we tend to be on the same wavelength (I write, html, css and php as a hobby sad I know) which makes work more pleasurable and secondly they generally always get the math behind what we are discussing the first time.

Computer programmers are generally pretty well paid especially once they have established and proved their skill set (it's an industry where what you can do is more important than the qualifications you hold) yet it has been my observation (no stats just an observation) that based on age and salary they are often behind where they should be in terms of pension planning.

There is no science behind this article at all it is just sweeping observations from my experience of working with programmers on their retirement and other financial planning needs. So here are the 5 reasons that I think they fall behind where they would like to be in the retirement planning stakes.

Counting down from least to most significant;

Image by Kumar Appaiah 

“Being an Employer Is Like Being A Parent” is something that a client said to me in passing recently because on some levels it is very true.

As a parent, you have someone who depends on you to provide for them and ensure that they have their basic needs met. As an employer, there is a weight of responsibility to keep the business turning so that your employees can earn a living wage so that they can support themselves and their families.