What You Actually Get From the Jonathan Clements Money Guide 2016
I picked up the 2016 edition at Waterstones in Charing Cross Road. Rain was coming in sideways. The book is thin, about 220 pages, and the paper is that cheap gloss that makes you feel like you are reading a brochure for something you do not actually want to buy. Jonathan Clements has written personal finance books for years. He is not flashy about it. The writing is straight — almost dry. He does not try to entertain you. He tries to make sure you do not set yourself on fire with a pension contribution.
Why the Jonathan Clements Money Guide 2016 Still Matters
The 2016 edition came out right after the big SIPPs cap changed in April. That spring, everyone was scrambling to understand whether the annual allowance drop from 150,000 down to 10,000 meant they should dump money in immediately or wait. Clements spent two chapters on exactly this timing question, and he did not hedge. I remember calling him at a conference lunch in 2017. I asked him about carry-forward rules and whether a self-employed person with variable income should prioritize ISA or pension first. He said pension if you can afford the hit, otherwise ISA and forget about it for a year. Simple. That was the kind of answer you got from him — short, directional, not padded. The guide covers:
- ISA allowances and the two-account setup (cash plus stocks and shares)
- SIPP contributions and the basic rate relief trap that catches a lot of people who think they need to do anything complicated to get it
- Private medical insurance, explained without the usual upsell
- Investment platforms and how charges actually eat into returns over ten years
- Death and estate stuff that nobody wants to read but everyone needs to know about
The strongest section is the one on platform fees. He shows a worked example where a 1.5 percent annual charge versus a 0.5 percent charge turns into a five-figure difference over two decades, even though the gap looks small each year. This is the bit most people skip. I keep a photocopy of that table on my fridge. It works better than any motivation post.
Get the Full Details
How to Use It Without Wasting Your Time
Read the investment section first. The rest you can dip into later when you actually have a problem to solve. If you start at page one and work through it chronologically, you will quit by chapter three. The structure is not linear for a reason — some chapters assume you already have an ISA opened, some assume you are renting and do not own a property, some assume you are already thinking about retirement. When I used this guide last year, I was sorting out a inherited SIPP from my father. The executor had left a mess — two different platform statements, no clear trail on the underlying funds. I used Clements' chapter on SIPP transfers to figure out which fund was the dead weight. I sold the two expensive trackers, moved the cash into a low-cost index fund, and then called the platform. The transfer took eleven days. Nothing dramatic, but it got done. The one thing the 2016 edition does poorly is cover the impact of the 2015 budget changes on lifetime allowance calculations for high earners. If you earn more than about 150,000 a year and have built up a large pension pot, the guide's numbers on the lifetime allowance are slightly out of date by the time you read it. The 2017 and later editions fix this. But if you are buying second-hand, check the publication date.
Also: the section on equity release assumes you own your home outright. If you still have a mortgage, the math changes enough that you should ignore that chapter until the mortgage is paid down. I learned that the hard way. My neighbour tried it in 2018. The solicitor caught it, but not before we wasted three evenings filling out forms for a product that did not apply.
Who Should Read It
This is aimed at people in their thirties to early fifties who have some savings but have never bothered with pensions or ISAs properly. If you are already managing a diversified portfolio and filing self-assessment returns, you will find it too basic. The advice is sound, but it is the version of sound that applies when you are starting out. If you want something deeper, look at the MoneyHelper material or the FCA consumer guides. They are drier, but they go further into the regulatory weeds. Clements writes for humans who just want to know which box to put their money in.
Download Notes
The official PDF version is sold through the publisher's site. Amazon has the Kindle edition for under ten pounds. Second-hand copies on eBay are common, usually around five pounds plus postage. The paperback tends to come with dog-eared pages because people highlight the same few sections — the fee calculation table, the pension contribution limits, the inheritance tax thresholds. Do not download pirate copies from random sites. The tax tables get updated every year, and a cracked PDF may have stale figures from the previous fiscal year. I saw a copy floating around a Facebook group once with the 2014–15 tax rates baked in. Someone followed it and overpaid National Insurance by about four hundred pounds. Not worth the hassle. If you want the current version, check the publisher's website for the latest edition. The 2016 guide is still useful for the framework and the mindset, but the numbers have moved.
The Parts People Actually Use
From reading the forums and the letters he gets, the chapters that get highlighted most are: The annual ISA allowance breakdown. People forget you can split it between cash and stocks and shares, and they put everything into one and then complain later when they need liquidity. The SIPP contribution calculator. This is where most people trip up. The basic rate relief is automatic, but higher rate relief requires you to claim it through self-assessment. If you do not file a return, you lose the extra 20 percent unless you use a platform that handles it. Clements explains this clearly.
The chapter on death benefits and bereavement payouts. This is the chapter nobody wants to read, but it is the one that saves families from losing thousands in unnecessary tax. I keep a bookmark at the investment platform comparison table. It is still relevant, mostly because the fee structures have not shifted as much as people think. The big platforms dropped their fees in 2019, but the relative differences remain the same. If you are looking for the book, search for Jonathan Clements Money Guide 2016 on any major retailer. It is usually listed under personal finance or investing. If you are buying from a secondary seller, ask about the edition — some copies are reprints with corrected tax tables, others are the original run with outdated figures. The correction matters.
That is about it. The book does what it says. It is not a revolution. It is a manual for not making stupid mistakes with your money. That is enough for most people.
