Who's behind this, and why

Due North Money started with a conversation between people working in financial planning across the North East. Between us we'd spent years answering the same questions — am I saving enough, when can I actually afford to stop, will the taxman take a chunk of what I leave behind — and we'd all had the same passing thought about putting some of it in writing somewhere people could find it.

The problem with that thought is what usually happens next. One person writing in the evenings produces a handful of pages, covering whatever they happen to know best, with obvious gaps everywhere else. Pensions but nothing on tax. Investments but nothing on what happens when someone dies. Useful as far as it goes, and then it stops exactly where your question gets interesting.

So we pooled it instead. One site, written by people who do this work every day, each covering the ground they know properly rather than everyone covering everything thinly. It means we can go into the detail that actually decides things — the order you draw your pensions in, what Business Relief really costs you in risk, why the 4% rule doesn't travel well to Britain — instead of stopping at the definitions.

We're all based in the North East, and that's not just where we happen to live. If you read something here and decide you'd like to talk it through properly, the people you'd be speaking to are working in the same region you are, not in a call centre several hundred miles away.

For a lot of people, the information on its own is enough. If you read a few pages, run your numbers through a calculator and come away knowing what to do next — brilliant, that's the site working exactly as intended. You don't owe us anything and there's nothing to sign up for.

And if you'd rather have someone look at it with you, that's what the contact form is for. Enquiries go to independent, FCA-regulated advice firms. The first conversation is about whether they can help, and any costs are explained before you commit to anything.

You'll notice we haven't put names and photographs all over this. That's deliberate — we'd rather the writing stood on its own than have it read as a shop window for any one firm. If you do get in touch, you'll be dealing with a named, regulated adviser from the start.

Due North Money is an independent education website. It is not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and does not provide financial advice. Nothing on this site is a personal recommendation.