For many working in financial services, we often forget just how daunting the notion of financial planning is for the majority of people.

In the UK basic matters like budgeting and orchestrated saving (i.e. with an end goal in mind) are absent from most households, while conceptually, consumers tend to view financial advice as complex and spanning too many topics.

HSBC has taken an interesting, albeit expensive, an approach in promoting its financial planning arm by buying a broad sweeping editorial section of one of the UK’s leading broadsheet newspapers – The Telegraph.

With UK saving levels sitting at a paltry 2% of GDP – this compares to the near 18% held by citizens of European counterpart, Germany – HSBC is taking an exceedingly basic approach, but perhaps an approach that is needed.

The bank has enlisted one of its chirpiest looking advisers -Dave Cox – to deliver a series of step-by-step approaches to the fundamental aspects of thinking long term and building a financial plan.

As part of the process there are three case studies:

A Family (click here)

A Retired couple (click here)

And a Newly wed couple (click here)

Cox offers six simple steps for people to take in order to help organise and protect their own finances.

His key recommendation? “Remember, good financial planning is about just that: planning.”

The almost Dummies Guide is as follows:

Week 1: Create your own plan

Week 2: Taking control

Week 3: Individual Savings Accounts

Week 4: Investing in your future

Week 5: Investment portfolios

Week 6: Devise your own financial plan

The financial landscape has shifted markedly over the past few years. The fall in the property market means Brits can no longer use the ever rising equity in their homes as piggy banks.

Final-salary pensions will soon become a thing of the past, while most people will now have to work longer before retiring.

The costs of living are on the rise (inflation has risen again this month – up to 4.4%) with gas, electricity, and petrol the primary culprits.

With savings levels so low in the UK, CoreData Research UK is undertaking a quasi-academic study looking into the inhibitors of saving, and how Government, the industry, and related associations can help change this worrying statistic.

So far we have identified eight key drivers that to varying degrees influence people and will be sure to relay the findings via burningpants once the project is complete.