Are your personal finances ready for your future?
How committed are you?
We can't predict the future, but it doesn't stop us having aspirations and to achieve them we need to make commitments. Some are emotional commitments, such as getting married, and some are financial commitments, such as investing in a pension for a better retirement. All of these commitments represent clear choices made about your future.
Your commitments change throughout your life and are likely to reach a peak when you are 35-44. They are often driven by a need for security. Your financial commitments frequently underpin your emotional ones and when emotional commitments aren't supported by financial planning, problems can occur.
So it's important to know your commitments and understand how they might change with different life events. Then you can plan your personal finances and feel confident about the future.
Select your gender and then your age to view your commitment profile and see how it can change as you get older.
See your commitment profile:
Select gender:
Select age groups:
| 18-24 | 25-34 | 35-44 | 45-54 | 55+ |
UK Average emotional and financial commitments
What does this mean?Your financial commitments often support emotional commitments. Do you think you're spending enough time planning your finances?
Number of commitments
You are likely to have:
5
financial commitments than emotional commitments
Amount spent
You are likely to spend:
£827 per month
more on your financial commitments
But
You still spend much less time thinking about your finances.
Financial commitments
e.g. pension investment
11 commitments
£914 per month
37 min per day
Emotional commitments
e.g. family and friends
6 commitments
£87 per month
138 min per day
All figures are from research carried out for Standard Life.
Watch Professor Janet Reibstein's views on commitments
Psychologist and commitment expert Professor Janet Reibstein explains our attitudes to different kinds of commitments and the relationships we have with people and money.
Your commitments, your future
"Unless commitment is made, there is only promise and hopes; but no plans" Peter Drucker (American writer and management consultant)
Understanding how your emotional and financial commitments change throughout your life is important if you want to plan ahead and remain confident about the future. So we've carried out extensive research and produced a report to give you real insight into your commitment life stages.
Extracts from Your Commitments, Your Future report
Your commitments and financial planning
Our research highlights a clear commitment peak in the 35-44 age range, when we make the majority of significant decisions, such as buying a house or having a child.
Knowing your commitments
Commitments are central to keeping relationships stable and a lack of them is the largest single contributor to divorce. People make commitments because of a desire for security, and they are as core to any relationship.
Your relationships with your commitments
There is a stark contrast in how we treat our financial and relationship commitments. A quarter of UK adults (23%) recognise that their personal finances would benefit if treated with the same care and attention as they treat their personal relationships.
Your commitment life stages
We have identified three core commitment life stages: The Commitment Sleepwalkers, The Fully Committed and The Commitment Slow Downs. In between each of these is a transition phase.
