I'm Justin Modray, the founder of www.candidmoney.com. A totally independent, free and impartial financial website.
The aim of this site is to arm you with sufficient knowledge and confidence to help you better look after your finances and avoid falling foul of unscrupulous
financial providers and advisers. Among the features I hope you'll find useful are:
- Clear and concise explanations of the financial topics most likely to matter to you.
- The opportunity to ask me questions on your finances and receive a personalised answer, for free!*
- Impartial, no-nonsense reviews of many financial services products and services, from both myself and other users.
- Over 80 useful financial calculators to help you with numerous tasks, ranging from school fees planning to managing your debts and checking investment costs.
- Tests, both beginner and advanced, to see just how good your financial knowledge is.
- Comment to keep you up to date on important financial news and issues.
- A forum where you can swap your views, tips, experiences and useful information with other users.
I've tried to pack in as much useful and practical information as I can, but it's still early days and there's plenty more ideas I want to put into practice over the coming
months. There's more information on my motives for starting Candid Money and how it's funded further down this page.
If you have any feedback and constructive comments, I'd love to hear them - just
click here. As well as helping me improve the site day to day, your feedback can help shape it in future so
that it's as useful as I can possibly make it.
Enjoy the site and I hope it helps you make more of your money. I look forward to answering your financial questions via the 'Ask
Justin' section and reading your reviews.
Best wishes,
Justin Modray
P.S. If you like the site, please recommend it to your friends and colleagues!
* While I try to answer as many questions as I can, I can't guarantee an answer as sometimes there's simply not enough hours in the day. Neither
I or this site are authorised or regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA), so I'm not allowed to provide specific financial advice. To do so would involve
a lot of onerous procedures and expense, for example, I'd have to gather details of and review your full financial situation - simply not practical.
Why did I set up this site?
Having worked in financial services for over 12 years, mostly as an Independent Financial Adviser (IFA), it never ceased to amaze me the extent that some providers
and advisers would try to hoodwink their customers in pursuit of a fat profit. Worse still, a lot of customers appeared to fall for it!
While working as an IFA I was fortunate to pick up a fair amount of press coverage commenting on such issues, as well as more general financial planning and
investment tips. Yes, this exposure probably had some commercial benefit for my employers, but I also like to think it might have actually helped some people look
after their money a little better, perhaps even avoiding a big financial mistake.
After the IFA I worked for was bought by someone else, I decided to leave and put together this site to share the financial knowledge and experience I've built up over
the years - just as I had done via the press but on a much wider and more interactive scale.
How is the site funded?
Well, so far it's been largely a labour of love. I built the site myself and have no staff, which has helped minimise costs. However, there are some overheads and I can't
afford to work on Candid Money full-time without an income indefinitely, so I need to generate some revenue to keep the site going.
I considered a number of revenue options before deciding on advertising, at least for now. It's not ideal, as it leaves me open to the criticism that advertisers
might influence my views and independence etc. However, trust me, they don't! The one thing I will never compromise is this site's or my integrity. I'd much rather lose
advertisers than your trust. I've also kept the advertising to a minimum, so it's not overly intrusive.
What's my background?
Well, as mentioned above, I've spent much of my time since the mid 1990's working as an Independent Financial Adviser, firstly for Chase de Vere Investments and
latterly for Bestinvest. As well as advising clients, I provided expert financial comment for the press, resulting in my comments being featured in thousands of
newspaper articles and a few hundred radio and TV appearances. I'm certainly not attracted to the limelight, but the thought of getting a message across to a wider audience,
helping people avoid being ripped off by some financial companies and advisers, spurred me on. I also hate not knowing the answer to something, which helped me build up a
decent knowledge bank - useful for journalists to tap into.
Prior to all that I worked in TV commercial production for a few years, after graduating from the London School of Economics with an Economics degree.