Navigating Pensions for Psychologists and Mental Health Professionals

Episode 109: Understanding pensions for psychologists

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:00:00

Coming up in today's episode, are you ready to unravel the secrets of pensions as a mental health professional and aspiring psychologist? Join us in this very special episode where I'm joined by a qualified independent financial advisor where we go through all things pension, loads of great advice in there and answering all of your questions. Tune in and equip yourself with all of the skills, advice and strategy you need to be liberated in your financial freedom in future. Hope you find it so useful.

(: 00:00:39

Hi, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. I am Dr. Marianne Trent and I'm a qualified clinical psychologist. Something I really struggled with when I was earlier in my career was feeling like a proper enough grownup to take myself seriously and look at pensions. It was something that was always on my to-do list, but never really seemed like the right time. I'm telling you now is the right time, but I know that can still feel tricky. Previously, for episode 76, I was joined by Ian Dempsey, an independent financial advisor, and we were talking generally about money and trying to make ends meet and having it to stretch to cover our bases, but also to think about financial planning. I've invited him back by special request where we are going to be looking specifically at pensions. This is ideal if you are any kind of mental health professional and if you are a qualified or an unqualified member of staff. Let's dive in and meet Ian again, and yeah, I'll catch you on the other side. Today we have Ian Dempsey with us who you might remember a few months back we were talking about all things money, and we have a special request for Ian to come back and talk about pensions today. Hi, Ian. Thank you for joining us.

Ian Dempsey (: 00:02:02

Hello. You're very welcome. I mean, yes, coming back again. We should make it a regular start, really,

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:02:10

I think. Yeah, I think so many of us don't really understand money that that's probably not a bad idea.

Ian Dempsey (: 00:02:18

And I think part of the challenge we've got at the minute, as we've just said off here, it's really challenging to look after your money at the moment, cost of living investment markets on perform particularly well. Interest rates are doing great guns at the moment, but that could be a double-edged sword with your mortgage going up, but potentially you're getting a bigger return on your savings account. It's like, I think I said to you, I've been doing this for 17 years now and these economic conditions we're in right now are the worst I've seen in 17 years, and it's just a real mix of emotion, challenging circumstances. It's tough. It's really, really hard to manage your money at the moment. I think right across the board, no matter what level of wealth of where you are in your career journey, it's hard. It's really, really tough.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:03:03

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more and I guess we just have to hope it will. What we know about is it bull and bear years that we will get back up there again and things will improve.

Ian Dempsey (: 00:03:16

I mean it will a hundred percent. If you look at history and as much as the FCA past performance isn't an indication of the future, every single time we go through this it gets better. It's just holding your nerve and staying consistent with your approach. That's what makes a big difference. But that's easier said than done if maybe this is the time that you've just started. And I think part of the challenge we've got is we've had good markets for 10 years, had good returns, solid returns for a long period of time while interest rates have been low, having conversations about investments and pensions has been a very, very easy conversation because you can just pull those figures out and just compare the two. Now it's very, very different. And I've got clients in investments, as I kind of mentioned off air that are just unsure whether it's the right thing for them. Long term, a hundred percent it is. But right now, is it the right thing? So there's some real challenges and some difficult conversations happening behind the scenes at the moment.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:04:12

Yeah, there are, and it really does make me think about when I was in a position there was probably quite fortunate, I won't lie. When I was working full-time as an assistant psychologist and I was living with my parents, I think I only paid about a hundred pounds a month rent. It was very, very low key and I really probably at that point was thinking, should I start a pension? I start a pension. And I guess other people listening to this might well be having. That's similar feeling. So I think I'm right in saying that if you're employed, you kind of have to be offered a workplace pension. Is that right Ian?

Ian Dempsey (: 00:04:56

It is, absolutely. So auto enrollment came in a few years back, which effectively made it became a legal requirement for employers initially over a certain size. And then it's just been phased out with smaller and smaller employers to offer a pension. And the minimum contribution of that pension in total is 8%. So that would be 5% from you, 3% from your employer, but it's very easy for you to opt out of it. You could say, I don't want to be part of that pension, I don't want to do it. It's when you're young, free and you've got the world at your feet. Do you really think about a pension? No, you don't. I didn't, and I'm just kind of start a little bit later, but I think in the 17 years I've been doing this, when I look at the experience of clients that have got to a really strong retirement position or have got significant wealth built up for later on in life, they started early and it didn't start with massive amounts because that compound effect over a period of time just spirals and spirals and gets bigger and bigger.

(: 00:05:58

And those margins of contribution levels to growth get wider and wider every single time. So start as soon as you possibly can, even if it's only just a relatively small amount, it makes a big difference. And ultimately the way you've got to think about it in simple terms is if you put a hundred pound in, your employer's going to top that up, then you're going to get your tax relief on top of that straight away. Off the bat you've got well over a 30 to 40% uplift. If I could get clients 30, 40% uplift on investments, I'd be retired by now because I'd be doing the same. That's an incredible free uplift to your savings or investments that you don't get on an isa, you don't get in a savings account, you don't get deductions against your mortgage for that tax really for 20% as a basic rate taxpayer, 40% at higher rates plus an employer contribution is huge. Make the most of it because if you don't in simple terms, that money just stays it with your employer,

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:06:56

That just becomes their profit, does it? They just put that back into their own coffers.

Ian Dempsey (: 00:07:02

Absolutely. And there's no obligation for them to do that. If you've opted out of that scheme because you've made the decision, you've decided I don't want to be part of this scheme, therefore I'm going to step back. Some of the bigger companies will say, well, we'll give you an extra hundred 50 pound a month on your salary or whatever it might be. They'll compensate you for that, but a lot of them won. They'll just say, well, okay, that's fine, no problem. But sooner you start the bigger, those numbers are much further down the line. And it also fundamentally means that when you get to your forties and fifties, you're not having to play catch up to make up for the zero years.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:07:36

Yeah. There's two things I want to talk to you about which aren't linked to pensions, but I'm going to ask you anyway because you made me think about a month ago. About a month ago, we were talking about compound interest because I'd shared a post on socials that said, if I was to give you one penny a day that will double every day for the next 31 days, or I was to give you a million pounds today, which would you take? And most of us, (I think you wouldn't, I know what you'd take.) The answer was like, of course I'd take a million pounds because one pence a day doubled for 31 days. What's going to give me about four pounds or something? That'd be rubbish, but actually you're much better off with the one pence aday. And that in essence is how compound interest works, isn't it? Can you guide us through that better than I just have, Ian?

Ian Dempsey (: 00:08:33

Yeah, absolutely. So it's a great way to just illustrate a simple compact, and the phrase that I always use is, Einstein said it was the eighth wonder of the world. So compound growth is just growth on your growth. So day one, you put a hundred pound in, so let's assume day two you've got 102 pound on day three, you would get growth on that a hundred plus the two. So it's growth on growth on growth. And I think the interesting bit is the longer you have that money in there, the bigger that growth's going to be, which is where certainly when you look at pensions and investments for clients, it's case of thinking, well, you might not be there now, but stick with it because those last few years before you need that, that compound growth can be phenomenal. But going back to your example, it's just sit down, sit down, write it on a sheet of paper, so a penny, then it goes to two, then it goes to, then it'll go to four, then it'll go to eight, then it'll go to and it just grows and grows and grows up for a period of time.

(: 00:09:33

And even I was amazed when I looked at that one, I thought, wow, that's a big number at the end of it. But that's the kind of stuff that can either work with you or can work against you. And when I say work against you, that is if you have things like debt, credit card loans, compound growth is working against you. But if you put it working for you in savings accounts, even at the moment because the interest rates are really good or investments, you're getting growth on your growth. So your money is working hard for you. And a phrase that I always use is when you save your money, you put it to rest. When you invest your money, you put it out to work. So you're sending it out with the pack lunch ready to go, and you're building money on your money and over a period of time it makes such a difference.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:10:17

I absolutely love that. Go on money. Off you go, go and work hard and bring me some more back. The other thing I wanted to talk to you about is probably something that's already on your radar. It was something I heard on radio two recently. I'm a radio two girl and they were talking about when you're in a supermarket and it says, or even for that matter, and they say, oh, do you want to round it up to give to charity, give an extra 25 p? And I've always thought, oh, that's a nice thing for them to do, isn't it? And sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. What I didn't realise, and I might have grasped the conversation wrong, is that that becomes a tax break for the company that's not necessarily as altruistic as that might look. And that's something that I wasn't aware of and I would probably assume most people are not. Is that right?

Ian Dempsey (: 00:11:08

A hundred percent It is. Yeah, absolutely. So they get a deduction for any charitable contributions against their corporation tax bill. They don't get above and beyond that. So if you said, I'm going to give you 25 p in my pound to go towards the McDonald's charities, then they just get a tax break on that part that goes in. They don't get extra relief on top of it for doing it. But yeah, that's what it's there for. But I can remember, I used to work at McDonald's a long, long time ago, and at the time they're one of the biggest charities in the world because of the amount of money that they donate to kids' charities. I think they do a phenomenal job, but at the same time, that's something that you could benefit from. If there are charities that are close to your heart rather than contributing to them personally, you could contribute to them through your business and you could legitimately write some of that offers as a taxable expense, make the most of it. It's contribute out of your business.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:12:05

So people are already limited companies then they can look to do that in their own business and then benefit the charities that they want to benefit.

Ian Dempsey (: 00:12:12

Yeah, absolutely.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:12:14

Okay. How many stars did you get on your badge, Ian?

Ian Dempsey (: 00:12:17

Ah, great question. The old school I had the full house, I had five, so I did a bit of everything. Honestly. I talked to people at McDonald's, it was a great, I love McDonald's on, I worked there. It was a really busy branch and just they got their monies worth out of you. Absolutely. But I loved it. I thought it was such a great grounding for so many things that I look at now. You were just in it, the deep end, and you worked really, really hard for eight hour shifts, stunk of burgers at the end of it, which your parents never liked. But there you go.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:12:49

One of my besties when I was at uni used to work at McDonald's during the school holidays as well, and we used to play a game, how bored we were sometimes. What do McDonald's ever run out of? Do they ever run out of kins? No. Do they ever run out of buns? No. Literally the answer was no for everything. But I think things have changed these days. They often don't have things these days, but yeah, that's a little insight into my life. When I was at uni also, they were really good employer, they do private healthcare for their staff, which you just wouldn't know probably

Ian Dempsey (: 00:13:28

And degree, right? You can get a degree now through McDonald's. I've read a great book. It was called Simple, logical, repeatable, which is one of the former directors of McDonald's in the us and she wrote a book around how processes will have define your business. And it's so true because McDonald's are really, really good at what they do because you get the same cheeseburger no matter where in the world you get it because it's a simple, logical, repeatable process. And they've just refined and refined and refined that down to something that distilled it to something really pure. And every single branch follows the same process, every employee goes through the same process. The training is exceptional because they want everybody to do it in a specific way. They've done phenomenally well out of it. I dunno whether you saw, you've seen the film with Michael Keaton in it when he's Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald's and gets, I have seen that involved for these two brilliant film, love that film. But yeah, there's so much to be learned from it. They've done phenomenally well. They're a worldwide chain and continue to grow.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:14:35

So one of the questions I've received was given the kind of uncertainty of what a career in mental health might look like these days, so it might involve NHS or employed work, it might involve a bit of private work, it might fully being private. Should people or could people consider, should they not have any NHS pension? Should they start a private pension right away or, I know it's kind of hard to give generic advice, but people are confused. Ian, what's the way forward?

Ian Dempsey (: 00:15:11

And I think that's in the whole of the market about pensions. Pensions have this illusion that they're really complicated, but if you look at the NHS pension, it's still a very, very good pension scheme. So I would encourage anybody that has access to that pension scheme to have one because it's such a, well-rounded great growth on the scheme itself, dependent on which variation of the scheme that you were involved in. But even the most recent one, which I think was the 2015 edition, I can't remember off the top of my head, but there's three different evolutions of the NHS pension. And no matter which evolution you were involved in, you're not going to get that kind of growth. You're not going to get that kind of return over a consistent basis as you would do with a private pension. But that doesn't mean to say that a private pension hasn't got its place.

(: 00:16:00

So ultimately, if you are thinking that you want move out from the NHS two private practise, there are pros and cons for both of them. What I encourage psychologists and people that work in this space that I have conversations with is to think about the bigger picture. First of all, it's not just about the pension, it's about the big piece. What do you want to get out of life? What are your financial goals? What do you want to achieve? Why is that so important to you? And plan that all out and get a real structure that works that you're emotionally engaged with first. And then the numbers can just drop in because it might be that you've got enough pension provision where you are after being in the NHS for 10 or 15 years that you don't necessarily want to have a private pension. There might be other things you want to do.

(: 00:16:43

It might be that you've got a shortfall. So you want to make that up by making those contributions and keeping your corporation tax below a certain level. Everybody's different. But what I'd encourage anybody to do is have some conversations with a financial advisor, have some conversations with an accountant, talk these things through, talk to colleagues, talk to other people in this position to understand what they do. I think the NHS have got a great help plan that you can get in contact with a pension. The information might be limited, but it's a good starting point. Most financial advisors will have a conversation with you around what's the right thing to do. And I'd like to think the majority of them would indeed come back with that Right advice for you.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:17:23

Yeah, thank you. And you can absolutely have both. You can have an NHS and a private and also a child can have a pension. You can start saving a pension for a child, can't you? Literally, it's never too soon. Yeah,

Ian Dempsey (: 00:17:39

Absolutely. And I think if you can start contributing to a pension for your kids at an early age, you are setting themself up for such a great retirement further down the line. And as I said earlier, starting earlier makes such a difference. If you could get them started from what, they wouldn't start from birth like parents or grandparents contributed from birth, you could do 2,880 a year with tax relief that goes up to 3,600 if you contributed to that. And they then contribute a hundred pound a month for the rest of their life. They're the kind of people that retire at the age of 55 and the rest of us are working. It makes such a difference. But having that discipline of a hundred pound a month rather than getting to 40 and 50 and realising you've got some serious shortfall to makes such a difference.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:18:28

And if people are listening thinking, oh, I'd love to be able to find an extra hundred pounds a month to put in my kids' pension, but I haven't got that, but I could probably muster up a tenner a month. Is that worth doing or not?

Ian Dempsey (: 00:18:39

Yeah, whatever you can do. I think investments and pensions are a lot more accessible than they ever have been. I think the information that's available, especially with social media and webinars, YouTube, places like that, there is a vast amount of information available on the basics. And I think you almost need to distil it down to what the basic elements are. And it's do you want to save for your kids' future? Do you want to save for your future, yes or no? Simple as that. And then you can kind of plan out. You don't necessarily have to start with a massive amount. It could be that you start, like you said with a tenor that maybe you build up in a savings account and then once a year you make a contribution into the pension. I'm not sure many investment platforms operated at only a tenner a month. I think the minimum tends to be about 25, but two and a half months in, you can make that contribution. You could do that 3, 4, 5 times a year if you wanted to, but just get started and start chipping away makes a big difference.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:19:37

Brilliant. Such good advice. And when I left the NHS, it is that quandary of what do I do with it? Do I leave it there? Do I kind of take it out and put it in my new shiny private pension? And I think the general consensus is leave it there. Leave it there. You're not going to do much better than an NHS pension. Is that kind of your general advice?

Ian Dempsey (: 00:20:02

Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean you can't move it out anyway, so it has to stay within the NHS. I think one of the dangers that you can overlook is you could almost disregard that and start really going aggressively after your private pension and contributing consistently on a consistent basis over a period of time. Take a step back, big picture stuff that has to be included in that conversation. If you're having a conversation with a financial advisor and all they're talking about is the private pension, but they're not including this NHS pension that you've got, which could be worth quite a tidy sum of money, then maybe you need to be having conversations with a different financial advisor. And that's not me saying that it has to be me or anybody else, but big picture stuff, you need to plan the whole thing out. It's not just looking at one particular area.

(: 00:20:52

And yes, those private contributions are worth it, but how do you know you haven't got enough already? If you have got enough already, could you do something else? Could you be spending it? Could you be going on holiday two or three times a year instead of paying that pension? That's why the big picture conversation makes such a difference. Retirement plan is really important a hundred percent, but it's that million dollar question of getting the balance between now and what you want further down the line and somewhere in the middle is the right answer and that balance will tip and kind of sway throughout your life. And sometimes I tell clients, just spend the money and it kind of puts 'em on a bit of the back foot. But if you've got enough, then why do you need more? Spend it, enjoy life. Not guaranteed is it?

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:21:40

No, it isn't. And I've not read the book, but I know there's a book called, is it Die Broke or something like that, that you basically plan so much that you haven't really got anything left to pass on when you are gone?

Ian Dempsey (: 00:21:54

Yeah, I've heard it. I can't remember the exact name of it, but I don't think it's something along those lines. Yes, it's definitely on the list, but yeah, absolutely. But you can't take it with you. I mean great that you want to leave stuff for the kids. I understand that as well because actually it's given them a bit of a leg up further down the line. But I'm sure your kids, and I'd say this exactly for my parents, I'd prefer that it would be round for another 10 or 15 years. I've had a great old life rather than screw and saving and live me 50, 60 grand in a will spend it. I don't need it.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:22:24

Absolutely. I wish I could have kept my dad for longer. He worked hard and he worked as a boiler man and he did enjoy his life. He liked tinkering with his bikes and stuff, but he died at 71 and that's no age.

Ian Dempsey (: 00:22:36

No, not at all.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:22:38

And they just saved, they didn't really have new cars and didn't have fancy holidays. And it always feels like a distant thing, doesn't it? All this financial planning and when we're going to retire. But I was recently staying with somebody in Ireland when I was over there doing a keynote talk and the lady I was staying with was 84 and I'm 42. And I literally had this moment of just thinking, gosh, that's nothing. You exactly double my age and it feels like that's no time at all. Before I know it, I will be 84.

Ian Dempsey (: 00:23:17

Yeah, disappears so quick. And I see that so often and as much as you try and I talk with clients about this, having a north star in the sky of where you want to get to and where you want to plan and move towards, that doesn't have to be rigid. That can move, that can change. And it will because I've seen it and not at most people have seen it over a period of time. You make all these best laid plans and then something just throws a spanner in the works and it has to change. Maybe your partner gets ill, maybe you split up, maybe you get divorced. There's lots of different moving parts in this, but that doesn't mean you disregard it completely and live completely for the now. It's a hard act and a hard balance to get right because society at the moment and how we live is expensive.

(: 00:23:58

We've got in the middle of a cost of living crisis, we've got high interest rates. So if you mortgages changing, you're probably coming from 2% interest rates to five or 6% interest rates. That has a big impact on your monthly bills. We all know how much more expensive supermarket shopping is, how much more expensive petrol is, how much more expensive your car insurance is. Everything is getting more and more expensive. That's the impact of inflation. And when inflation is running at the rate that it is at the moment, which feels a little bit out of control, that has have a real impact on the amount that you take home every month. And sometimes you have to just pull it all in. Anything. I can't think about the long term right now. I've planned for that four or five years ago, but I can't think about that right now.

(: 00:24:42

I just need to go into survival mode. And I think there's nothing wrong with that because we feel this emotional guilt that we're not going to have the life that we want further down the line or maybe we're not going to have the round the world trip, but that that's no good if you're miserable right now, if you can't afford to live right now and it has an impact on you, your mental health, your wellbeing, your family and all the rest of it, what's the cost? And you can't put pounds and pence cost on that stuff. Yes, plan for the future, but it's getting that balance right. And that's hard. And it's hard to do it yourself when you've got emotion involved in it because sometimes somebody else as an extra pair of eyes and ears can see things and have the same conversation you've been having yourself, but it sounds differently and it just resonates on a different level to having that conversation with yourself.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:25:32

Thank you. That's really, really useful food for thought. Am I right in thinking that if the worst happens and we don't get to that ripe old age that we'd planned for our retirement, that certainly a private pension can be passed on as an asset, so that then becomes something that you leave for your children. Am I right in that? It

Ian Dempsey (: 00:25:50

Is absolutely. So I mean NHS pension can do the same thing, but the benefits are slightly less. So the NHS pension, we'll start with that one. So that's a defined benefit scheme. So with a degree of predictability, you've got an idea of how much income you're going to have from that pension scheme when you retire 15, 20 grand a year or whatever it might be. So on your statement you get every year it's indexing to go to above for a period of time. Now the challenge with those types of scheme is as much as they're great for you and the income that you are going to have with your spouse or your partner, whoever else it might be, if something happens to you, those benefits reduce significantly. So typically it would reduce down to say 50%. So if you've got a income of say 30,000 from your pension, then it would reduce that to 15, so your spouse would get 15.

(: 00:26:36

If your spouse then passes away, nothing then gets left to the kids unless they're under the age of 21 in full-time education where they would get, I think it's a 25% pension, but that would only be while they're considered to be financially dependent upon you flip that over to the other side and then you've got a private pension in simple terms, just think of it like a savings account. So it's the hundred thousand pound pension pot that could be passed down to your kids, your partner, whoever it is that you decide. And that's done really simply when you set the pension up with your financial advisor or even if you haven't used a financial advisor, you've complete an expression of wish form and that's you saying, I want my pension to go to little Johnny, little Jane and me partner Mary. I dunno where those names came from, but they were the first ones that popped into my head.

(: 00:27:23

But they're the ones that you pass that pension down to, they can do whatever you want with it. Now the tax benefits would be that if you die before the age of 75, they get that lump sum as a, they can do whatever they want with, they can keep it in a pension or they could take it out after 75. There's some tax implications. So most of the time people will just keep that as part of a pension. But I like to talk to clients about it and think of your pension as almost like an extra bit of life insurance. So if something does happen to you and you've got a private scheme that could be passed down through the generations, doesn't necessarily have to go to your kids cause got your grandkids or whoever it is, think of that as part of the bigger picture.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:28:03

Thank you. And you mentioned there that it's obviously possible to do investing by yourself without a financial advisor and for some people perhaps on a lower income that might feel preferable. But I guess the theory is is that when you go with an IFA that they try and make you more money than you would do otherwise if you were to do it by yourself. Because I guess the thing with financial advisors is that you do pay them a premium and that can feel quite ouchie and when you do have a lower income, it can feel like giving away money. That just feels really hard one, how can you balance up the morals and the ethics of that?

Ian Dempsey (: 00:28:46

Well, that's a question in a half. You can do it yourself. Absolutely. What I'd encourage you to think about is have you got the knowledge to be able to do it yourself? If you've got the knowledge, have you then got the time and have you then got the capability? And there are three different things to look at there Now if you have then yes, do it. If you haven't, then maybe that's the point that you engage a financial advisor. And there is a perception that having financial advice can be expensive. And I'd probably encourage you to think about it the other way around. What are the costs of you not using a financial advisor? Because that can be significant. There are lots and lots of different studies and you can just put them into Google of financial advice versus not having financial advice. And I think the average difference that makes is a tension of somewhere between an extra two to 3000 pound a year when you retire.

(: 00:29:35

Now if you can use a financial advisor to set that up for you and have that extra two to 3000 pound a year when you retire, when you can't earn anymore, that's a big difference. But that doesn't mean that you can't do that yourself. There are so many investment platforms, there are lots of self investment platforms, there are a lot of them that will have tutorials and really simple pathways that you can go down to start this thing yourself. But my view is that you should be able to have a conversation with a financial advisor. And certainly I do this with clients, you don't need to have me as a financial advisor for the rest of your life. We can have a one-off conversation and we can do that on a basis that works for you. I think the whole world of financial advice is changing.

(: 00:30:18

It's changing massively and it will do over the next 10 or 15 years. The vast majority of the industry right now feels quite transactional. So you sit down, you go through a process, listen to a guy probably in a pinstripe suit with a flashcard, tell you about how great their business is, how much money they look after and why you should use them in. It feels a bit like a sales pitch. And I was part of that world for a long time until I started thinking there was a better way of doing it. Now I don't operate like that anymore. My view is actually let's figure out what's really, really important to you, why that's really important to you, and then we'll fit the numbers around that. And that's not me trying to convince you for me to be your financial advisor. It's about me planning out what's important to you.

(: 00:31:01

And if you want to go and do that yourself now got the plan from a professional, why not go and do that yourself? Because if you can and you're comfortable doing it, then absolutely crack on. And I think the old transaction where was we'll keep ahold of these relationships for as long as possible and that world is changing. I think over the next 10 or 15 years it's going to be incredibly exciting because more and more people are starting to do this and there's younger advisors coming in. I think the next evolution's going to be quite interesting for clients

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:31:29

Because it is risky. It is risky and it's that your funds may be at risk that it feels really scary, doesn't it? And I definitely don't understand enough to be doing it myself. I did have a little bit of a dabble in an online share trading thing, but I dunno what I'm doing and it's a small amount, enough amount, it doesn't really matter. It doesn't really matter. But I definitely am not good enough to do this by myself for anything more than I have already.

Ian Dempsey (: 00:32:01

I mean the thing is you could have a dabble with this stuff, right? You could start off with a relatively small amount and say, well, if I put a hundred pound into one of these accounts, forget about how much it is, but look at the percentage figures on it. So look at the percentage returns. So if you're managing a hundred pound, because you need to be able to manage a hundred pound and manage a thousand to manage a hundred grand to manage the million, right? You've got to understand the fundamentals of that a hundred pound. But you could put that into an account and look at the percentages. And if that fund drops 20%, how would you feel if that was a hundred grand, how would you feel if that was half a million? If that was your life savings? And if that is kind of thing that worries you, then you need to get a professional involved.

(: 00:32:43

If you're okay with those fluctuations, then potentially you could do it yourself. Now playing around with a hundred pound and actually being at the level where you're managing that yourself and you can have an impact on that return positively and negatively. You've almost got that extra layer of security with a financial advisor in there. If you make the wrong decision and that drops yourself, how do you recover that? And that tends to be the thing that happens, and I see it a lot over the years. People that manage the funds themselves and there's some people out there do great job. There's a tendency to over panic. So when markets go down, there's an over panic of, crikey, it's dropped 20%, what do I do? Whereas if you take a step back, fund managers don't do anything, they'll just sit tight because the note will come back. You can overtrade. So you'll buy and sell more frequently I guess, than I would if I was looking after it for you because we're thinking three five year time horizon, reset the clock, start again and just kind of repeat over a period of time. If you are buying and selling the stocks in chairs to try and make returns on a almost daily or weekly basis, that's incredibly risky.

(: 00:33:51

There was another one that's just gone. So it was the overtrade side of things. It was the panic buy-in the tendency to buy funds that you're really comfortable with or name brand names that, which is a good starting point, but actually if you think about it, all those big companies going to continue that level of growth or do you want the next Amazon, the next Apple? Obviously you want the next Amazon, the next Apple, but whereas if you're using a fund manager, they can potentially spot that because they've got teams of analysts and all that that sit behind that. It's a hard balancing act, but if you can start off relatively small and you're comfortable with it and you could almost multiply that out to the bigger numbers and you still feel comfortable with the 20% drop, give it a go. You might just need someone to give you a bit of a help along the way and reach out to a financial advisor and say, what are you thinking of this? Can I have a sense check on where I am? Is this going to be able to deliver me A, B, C and D? A hundred percent. And the advisors out there that'll do that for you, there are other advisors out there that will say, that's your bag. You crack on. You've got to find the right person to work with.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:34:57

Yeah, great advice. And some advisors are independent and some are not. Is there a right or wrong approach there? How would we even begin to understand why that's a good or bad thing?

Ian Dempsey (: 00:35:10

The thing for me is you need to find an advisor that you trust. And whether that advisor is on a restricted basis or completely independent, you need to find someone that you're comfortable with. If you want find another one. And that could mean that there are people out there that I've had conversations with that didn't feel comfortable with me. That's fine. I'm not everybody's cup of tea and every financial advisor isn't going to be everybody's cup of tea. It's like get a second opinion. Find someone that you feel confident having those conversations with them when you do stick with them, whether they are restricted, which means they'll work from a certain panel of providers or they might only work with one internal set of funds or whether they're independent, which is the whole of market. And I've done both of them. I'm now completely independent and I just felt like I was at the stage of my career where I wanted more I guess options and alternatives to what was available out there and to be able to fully utilise my 17 years of experience to deliver the best possible outcomes for clients.

(: 00:36:12

But that doesn't mean that if you're with a restricted advisor, they're not going to give you the best possible outcome because if they're looking after you properly and they are managing everything properly for you, then why rock the boat? I think a lot of the time it can get all caught up, caught up in returns, but if with somebody who makes you feel safe, secure, and you're having the right kind of conversations with them, whether they're restricted or independent, doesn't really matter If you're just looking from a, I want as many possible options as possible, independent has to be the way to go because you've got the whole of the market available, but that doesn't mean it's right for everybody. It's about finding the advisor first and then understanding what they can offer.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:36:53

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's like getting any job done in your house, you should get at least three quotes. You should have three meetings or three different advisors and then maybe also try and do a bit of your research yourself to try and get your own kind of sense of what is available and how it compares.

Ian Dempsey (: 00:37:11

And if it doesn't feel right, don't do it. Even if you have those three meetings, I had someone a couple of years back who I was the seventh advisor that I'd spoken to in a row. He just wasn't sure who's going to pick what kind of style you wanted. We all operate in slightly different ways depending on what experiences, what our qualifications are. You'll get a different experience from each advisor but ultimately ended up picking me because it was very different approach, but that doesn't mean my approach would work for you. You might want the transactional stuff. You might want to go through the process and just be really hands off, tell me what I need to do and everybody's different. Have those conversations and if it doesn't feel right after three then have four, maybe have five, have six. If it doesn't feel right, then actually is financial advice right for you?

(: 00:37:58

Do you need to just take a step back for a moment and think, well, just because everybody's getting financial advice doesn't mean it's right thing for you right now. I'm a firm believer that everybody should have access to a financial advisor at some point. It might not be the right point in time for you to have access to them. Then you might just need a bit of a nudge in the right direction from a friend or a relative. Have those conversations and it's your stiff British upper lip, isn't it? That we don't talk about money because it's rude and crass. For me, that's nonsense. Have the conversations with people that you know because they'll have made some of the mistakes that you are. You're not going to be asking 'em exactly what they invest in. Just be like, do you mind just telling me a little bit about what you do with your money? I don't want to know figures or anything. What do you do? How do you do it? Because you'll get different ideas and everyone's going to have a different opinion. And I guess the other caveat I've got to add to that is that's not Bob the piss head down the pub. He's never got any money because you're always buying him a beer. I mean if you look at that logically, he's probably not great with money, but people that you know are okay with money are okay financially, have those conversations.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:39:05

Bob the piss head down the pub might be richer than anybody because he doesn't spend his own money. You never know.

Ian Dempsey (: 00:39:12

This is it. You never know. I mean it's unlikely, but it's possible.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:39:18

I love that. And someone who's in their early twenties perhaps listening to this, how can they even begin to fathom what they might need and what the cost of living situation is going to be by the time they get to be in their late sixties, early seventies, probably by the time they get to retire, it might even be eighties. How can they begin to imagine and work that out, what they might need?

Ian Dempsey (: 00:39:43

It's tough. It's really, really tough. And if you look at generationally where we are and how difficult it is for us to get onto the property like my kids and certainly your kids will find it even harder than we did to get onto that property ladder and are they're going to be able to do that without parental support, without parental help? I don't know. And that's the hard part. That's the moving part that we just can't predict. But what I'd encourage you to do is if you're in that position, is to just try and also map out ultimately dream blue sky scenario. What do you want your retirement and your end goal to look like? And this is what I talked to clients about and it's that north star in the sky of if everything fell into place and everything happened exactly the way I wanted, which it won't, by the way, what do you want your retirement to look like?

(: 00:40:30

Is that going to be like your grandparents? Is it going to be like your parents? Is it going to be like your Uncle Bob, whoever it is, try and paint a picture a little bit. And if you can paint that picture, then you could almost reverse engineer that right the way back to where you are now. And it might be that you can't do that and it might be that all you can think about is the next five years and that next five years might be I want to get on the property ladder, I want to make sure I've got some savings behind me in case the shit hits the fan washing machine breaks down or whatever it might be. I want to be able to afford to put the kids into nursery. I plan to go back to school. Just figure that out and talk that through.

(: 00:41:06

If you've got a partner to do that with, amazing. If you've got friends you can have that conversation with, great. Because certainly what I found is having those things in your head is very different to writing 'em down on a sheet of paper are very different to verbalising them because they sound very differently and resonate on a different level. And if it is just a five-year plan of I want to get on the property ladder or I want to move out of the family home or whatever it might be then and figure out what that looks like. You don't have to do it all at once. If we all did it all at once and we all kind of in our twenties knew exactly what we were going to do for the rest of our lives, we'd all be retired at 55, you'd all be retired at 50 and you'd all have a great old life and the poverty wouldn't exist in all these other kind of horrible things that are out there because we'd all have our nearly swore, again, we'd all have everything together and know exactly the direction we're going and that's impossible.

(: 00:42:00

But sometimes it's just figure out maybe the five year plan and then the next step, then the one after that, then the one after that and the one after that. And that's what I tell clients, we'll figure out what the long-term really important stuff is and why that's important to you. We'll try and reverse engineer that and if we can't, we'll just figure out what we're going to do tomorrow and then what we're going to do next week and we're going to do next month, next six months, next year. And then all of a sudden you're two, three years in and you've got that plan that starts to fall into place.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:42:33

Yeah, it's tricky, isn't it? This is I guess where dream boards and vision boards and Pinterest to come in that you can dare to imagine what you might want your life to look like and that's not suggesting don't need to be disloyal to the life we're living now. I think speaking as a psychologist, we can be quite good at making the best of the situation we are in and change can be tricky as well, but it's knowing that you do deserve to have a life that's enjoyable, that feels comfortable, that has got good stuff in it, and you are allowed, I think we spoke briefly last time about money trauma as well, didn't we? The messages we get given from others around us as we grow up about how it is. If you spend money you're really decadent or too carefree or I think I said that my Mum always would be an egg sandwich girl because they're the cheapest in the shop and anything more than that is just decadent. But it's allowing yourself to free yourself from the shackles of what you've been told and actually doing what makes you happy, which can be liberating

Ian Dempsey (: 00:43:40

A hundred percent. And it's that balance piece. Again, it's a word that I use all of the time. It's that balance of here and now in the future. But one of the things that I kind of hear a lot from clients in their fifties and clients in their forties, I wish I'd started sooner. I wish I'd taken the stuff a little bit more seriously. In my twenties, I'm exactly the same. Been there, done it, struggled with young kids, couldn't make ends meet at the end of the month kind of stuff on credit cards or been there and done it. I've kind of made every possible financial mistake you could have possibly made, but over all, I wish I'd been more financially literate when I was in my twenties and knew about this stuff. And I think we've got a generation of people growing up through the workplace and certainly our kids where all of this information's available and that's a good and a positive thing because it could be information and you just feel like you can't move because there's so much information out there.

(: 00:44:35

And let's be honest, a lot of the stuff that you see on social media can be rubbish at times. I think it's about being selective about the information that you think would be relevant and work towards and help you along those goals to be successful. You don't need to have five Lamborghinis part in your drive and live in a 25 million house in la. Define what your definition of success is right now, and that might just be getting to the end of the month and having 10 pound a month to be able to put aside and think, I've started my financial journey. I've started me savings. That to me is massive. That's much more valuable than the guy who can put 20 grand a month away. You've got started. You've started that journey and that should be applauded and should be loaded because it's incredibly important because that's first step and after that comes a second step after that comes a third one, and then it just becomes routine over a peewee design.

(: 00:45:29

And it's the phrase of whenever you get a new car, if you buy a new VW golf, you'll see them everywhere. Everybody's got a VW Golf, they haven't got a new VW golf. You're just more aware of it. When you start being more aware with your finances, then all of a sudden when you could just afford to do 10 pound a month, then next month all of a sudden you can probably do 20 because you're a little bit more aware of what the goal is in the five years and what impact a 10 or a 20 pound a month can make. And then all of a sudden it's 30, 40, 50, get a pay rise, maybe you get some extra money coming in, maybe you reduce your costs and it just starts to gather some traction. If you can grasp that, it sets you up for life rather than getting to forties and fifties and saying, I wish I'd started sooner

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:46:16

And I do wish I'd started sooner. I do. I probably hear that all the time. So yeah, the people listening now that are in their early twenties, start now. Start now. I think it's, yeah, absolutely. I felt silly, Ian. I felt silly because I didn't even have a boyfriend long-term partner at that time. I felt like, oh, just little old me like, oh, it's a bit embarrassing. Bit cringe, isn't it? All this pension and investing. It's not silly though, is it? It's not

Ian Dempsey (: 00:46:47

At all. That's the stuff that over the years, like I said earlier, the people that have got that financial security in the forties and fifties are the ones that start now. It's the ones that started in the twenties and start taking this stuff a little bit seriously, and they've got to start somewhere with the 10 or the 25 quid or whatever it is. It's not cringe, it's not silly. You might think it's boring, but I tell you what's not boring, retiring at 55 when everyone else is out working, when all those people that are kind of taking the mick out of you because you put your money at your pension when you're in your twenties and they're still slogging away in the fifties and sixties and your kind of sat on a beach for six months of the year, that's not boring. And that's the reality of it.

(: 00:47:25

I've had clients over the years and who've taken to the other extreme, and I'll use one example. There was a guy that I gave mortgage advice to a long time ago, and I think he's 25, full-time plumber, ran his own business, lived at home with his dad, never spent any money, had 250 grand in the bank at 25. And I'm like, wow, that's incredible. What are you going to do with that? He said, well, I want to get it to 400, then I want to buy a house. Great. What do you want to buy a house for? Because I've got security for me family. Amazing. How many days a week do you work? Seven days a week. Do you have any time off? No, never go on holiday. And I work 12 hour days. Great. So you're going to have this big 400 grand house, four bedrooms and all the rest of it just for you.

(: 00:48:03

And he's like, well, what do you mean? I said, well, how are you going to meet somebody if you do that? And the penny just dropped all of a sudden he was like, yeah, you're right. Because he's been so focused on earning that money, he's just forgotten about everything else in his life. So that's the far extreme of it. And somewhere in the middle is the right balance. Doesn't mean you kind of follow that route if you want to, fine, but it's that here and now. But just getting started with one eye just in the future of where you want to get to.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:48:31

Yeah. And I know that when you are saving for a pension, when it gets taken out of your account or taken out of your wages, it gets taken off it, but when it comes back to you again, it does then get taxed if you are earning over the taxable threshold. Is that right?

Ian Dempsey (: 00:48:54

It does, yeah. You're learning well done. So you do. Absolutely. So I suppose the difference is you've got control over how you take that income. So yes, the money that you go in, you're going to save tax, but you're paid on the backend. But that money that you're saving tax now is a basic rate taxpayer. You put your pension contribution in, it will get rounded up by an additional 20%. So you get tax relief, higher rate tax, that's 40%. If you do that out your business and your corporation tax rate, depending on what your turnover is, your business can contribute to your pension. Now, fast forward to 30, 40 years down the line, you've got this great big pension pot that you want to start taking some money from. If you've got other assets, maybe property savings investments or whatever it is, you could control to a certain extent how you take that income.

(: 00:49:43

You might decide that you're taking income out of your investments and they might be tax free if you've got them as isis. So you can take up to higher rate tax out of that pot. You've got a lot more flexibility on that. Yes, you've got to pay some tax on it at some point potentially. But as I said at the start, that if you don't spend it, that could go to your kids, that could go to your partner, that could be various other ways. If you want to get really technical, sometimes you can borrow against the pension to do things. If you've got your own business, tax is one of those things that you can't really avoid. It's that old thing. Our Churchill said, the one thing that you can't avoid is debt and taxes. It happens to all of us, but you can have control over the level of tax you pay in your retirement much more than you can when you're employed or when you're necessarily building a business. Plus you also get 25% tax free. You can take out your pension as a lump sum anyway. That might be enough to keep you taken over for four or five years or to pay the mortgage off or have the route round. The world trip Pensions are very tax efficient when you go in. They can be just as tax efficient on the way out if you manage them properly.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:50:52

So that's when you hear people retiring and they say, oh, I've got a lump sum and my pension. That's what you mean?

Ian Dempsey (: 00:51:02

Yeah, absolutely. That's it. And it can make a big difference and a lot of people just kind of almost sleepwalk into retirement without really reviewing this stuff until you get to the backend of it like, oh my God, what am I going to do? Well, if you're wait until three weeks before you retire to look at this stuff, it's too late. You need to be looking at this consistently on the run up there to know whether you're on track, off track, what you can do. Do you need to kick off the backside to put more money in? Have you got enough? Are there other things that you could be doing? I think I'm a big believer in having as many different things pushing in that direction as possible. It's not just your pension. That could be your business, that could be your property, that could be your savings, your investments, that could be other things that you're involved in. The more you've got pushing that way, the more security you've got that you're going to hit that end goal at the back end.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:51:49

And I guess I'm part of the spread your risk kind of philosophy. So because I only pay my tax twice a year and I don't trust myself not to spend it, and so I save that by putting that up into premium bonds, which is kind of guaranteed, isn't it? You can do up to 50 grand a year and that money's safe as housings with the government, but actually you can earn money on that. You win money, but then you can earn money on the money that's invested against. So that becomes compound in itself, I think. Is that right?

Ian Dempsey (: 00:52:30

Of course. Yeah, absolutely. And it makes a big difference, plus the tax relief and everything else that comes with it. It's huge.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:52:37

Yeah. My dad, when he passed away, he left my boys a small amount of money and I decided to put that into premium bonds for them. And the other day my youngest came home and on the sofa was a letter from them saying he'd won 150 pounds. And it's amazing, isn't it? Actually, there's not a huge amount in there, but that's what he'd won. And he's like, oh, amazing. What can I buy with that? And then I'm like, well, nothing. We're going to leave it in there and see what that happens for your future. But already the boys are like, oh, that means I've got more than you now because won. And yeah, it's safe to have conversations with our children about money, isn't it as well?

Ian Dempsey (: 00:53:19

It's so important. I mean better than anybody else at what age kid's cognitive behaviour set by and what an influence we have on our kids' behaviours and how they manage their behaviour, but importantly, how they manage their money because they learn from us all of the time. And us modelling certain kinds of behaviour has such a positive impact on the kids. And it's exactly the same the other way around. If we are spending money and quite freely on all kinds of stuff, then your kids are going to grow up in that environment of thinking that that's acceptable. If you're in mountains of debt, then they're probably going to follow the same route. It's very difficult for them to break out of it. So as much as managing your own money's important, just remember you're setting examples for your kids and how they manage theirs as well.

(: 00:54:03

Getting them involved in those conversations as early as possible makes such a difference. And it doesn't necessarily have to start with things like pocket money. It could be you just talk to 'em about managing the money and managing a savings accountant or how you pay your bills every month or what are mortgages, what rent is, what cancel tax, having those conversations and keeping them open. I think the education system's got a long way to go to have those conversations as well. There are some incredible things happening in the background. There are lots of startup foundations that I'm involved with, one of them that will go into schools and talk to them about financial education and what a mortgage is, what a savings account is, what a BCD is, and just really distil down the simple forms because again, as parents, not everybody knows this stuff.

(: 00:54:51

Not everybody knows what a mortgage is, how that works and what an investment is and what a stock or a share is. But by having those conversations, we are just equipping our children a lot better. And they're also going to be able to cut through the noise and see through the bss. There's a lot of it out there in social media, and they're grown up in a generation of where, as I said earlier, unless you're Jake Paul and driving a Lamborghini, then that's not classed as success. That's not success. That's just, I'm sure the guys worked incredibly hard to get there, but that doesn't mean if you don't hit that level that you failed at all.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:55:27

Yeah, I hear you. My kids both want to be either premiership footballers or YouTubers and have seven cars in the garage and it's like, oh, baby boys. Mommy's got a 10-year-old Persia and she's actually a really nice person and works really hard, and that's still really incredibly important, but it's almost like go big or go home. They can't, can't see anything else as being viable.

Ian Dempsey (: 00:55:56

I had the same with my two. They both wanted to be professional footballers, both played football to a high enough standard, but once it started getting to a certain standard and they realised the level of commitment involved, neither of them wanted to do that anymore. They just kind of felt like it was going to overtake the life to get there. And ultimately, that's a great point because if you want to get to that YouTube level of stardom, you want to get to that professional sports level of stardom or CEO of a worldwide company. It's got to take over your life. It's got to be a big life commitment. And I kind of had that realisation a while back that I could have all that stuff. I really wanted it, but do I really want it? And it's that old adage of do you want to be a millionaire? Do you want to spend a million pounds? And I think the vast majority of people would like to spend a million pounds, but they don't necessarily want to be a millionaire because to get to a millionaire is a lot of graft work, blood, sweat and tears to get there. And I think that's missing. But I think as kids kind of grow all at the start to realise that level of commitment it takes to get to that point.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:56:56

And I think the people listening to this podcast will absolutely resonate with what you've said about the hard graph because what you may not realise is that it's really, really, really hard to become a professionally qualified psychologist as well. It's so competitive that lots of people do, like you say, just give up or decide that they're going to do something different instead, because there's so much rejection, there's so much uncertainty that the people that you then do see as qualified psychologists have absolutely put in that graft and the perseverance and taken the knock backs and the setbacks and the kind of not knowing whether the prize will ever come. So yeah, I think people will absolutely resonate with what you've said, but it also hopefully means they're going to go the hard graph to really make their savings become their wealth and make that work for themselves too.

Ian Dempsey (: 00:57:49

And it takes some of the pressure off by doing that. I get the hard graph. You've got to put this hard odds in earlier on in your career, but if you can get the finances and get on top of those, it means that further down the line, you don't have to put that graft in anymore. Got that security blanket of knowing I'm financially secure, I'm okay. And that's an incredible place to be in. And the difference you can see in people when they get to that point is what's life changing? Not everyone will get there though. And I also understand that I doesn't mean that everybody has to get there. Everybody's got their own different version of freedom and what their life wants to look like. It's not for me to dictate which way is right and which way is wrong, but certainly in the world that I operate in, that financial security piece is really important. It makes such a difference.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:58:34

It really is. And before we hit record, you and I were talking about strategy in business, but the same is true in employed life as well. You are allowed to have a strategy for your life, and that can change over time. It can change as regularly as you need, but it just makes us a bit less aimless is the hope, isn't

Ian Dempsey (: 00:58:51

It? Absolutely. And over the years, I'm sure we've both worked with people that have had one job for one company for all of their lives, and that wasn't for me, but that was perfect for them. That was perfect for them. And they've got to the end, their end of their kind of work life and thought, great, I've spent 30 years with one company that's been enough for me and happy days. I'm happy. That's why life's so great because there are so many different options about what you can do and what that means for you in terms of your happiness, your wellbeing, your financial status, your financial security, all of those things. There's so many moving parts and so many different avenues you can take and you can always reinvent the wheel and kind of go down a different route and try something else.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:59:34

Yeah. Honestly, Ian, I think we will have to invite you back for another money clinic because there's just so many questions and so many, it's just you make everything so accessible and so easy to understand. So thank you for your time. How can people learn more about you and your work? They will want to, I know.

Ian Dempsey (: 00:59:55

Okay, really simple. I am on LinkedIn, so if you just search for Ian Dempsey on LinkedIn, I haven't got a website yet. As we talked about strategy and business, that's job number 345 on the list. That's going to come eventually. But I'm on LinkedIn. I share lots of information about budget and finances, money. I'm a big believer in education, all the stuff I've talked about today. Most of that was probably in post from LinkedIn. Anyway, follow me along. Ask me any questions that you've got. I'll share as much information as I demystify the smoke and mirrors of finances.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 01:00:29

Lovely. And I think what I might do, Ian, is I might schedule this for January. That feels like kind of an optimistic time. What's your top tip for making 2024, your wealthiest most productive year yet for your money?

Ian Dempsey (: 01:00:49

We could do a whole episode on that. I think it's been really try and be really clear about what you want. And there's some questions that I always ask my clients like, what do you want out of this process? So I'm sat down with a client and they're talking about financial advice or money. What do you want out the process? So if you are going to get on top of your finances, why is that important to you? What do you want to achieve by doing it? Why is that important to you and how are you're going to feel when you get there? And I think if you can answer those questions honestly and openly, and that doesn't necessarily mean the first answer is going to be the right one because it might not be. But if you can write it down on a sheet of paper and think about it, maybe when you're walking the dog out on a run and all of a sudden hits you between the eyes, that's the right answer and that's what I talk to clients about.

(: 01:01:34

If you can get really clear on those four, five things, the next step after that is fairly logical. You can just kind of drop things into place. But in terms of fixing your finances for 2024, complete a budget planner. Know what you've got coming in, going out, put your money to work, make your money work in terms of getting money on your money in terms of compound growth that we've talked about. By understanding what you've got coming in and going out, you can give everything a job. You can understand what that's going to do for you. Link that to those five bits that we've just talked about there. And don't be afraid to make mistakes. You don't have to have a rigid plan. You have to stick to a hundred percent every single day of the week, every single month because you'll be miserable. Give yourself a little treat every now and again. Have a little bit of a blowout. Come back to it, reset the clock, start again. If it fails once, come back and nail it again. If it fails two times, come back and do it again. You can start again tomorrow. Doesn't make a difference if you don't quite get it this month, but just constantly keep that wheel moving forward, even just a little bit. Celebrate the little wins, like 10 or a month. Great. You've started. Amazing.

(: 01:02:43

I could just keep going. There's loads of tips I could give. Yeah, absolutely. Maybe we need to do that for another one then.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 01:02:49

It's such good advice. Thank you so much for giving your time so freely. So there we have it. Do go over and follow the lovely Ian on LinkedIn. He has great social posts over there and I often get myself in some very interesting conversations, but he really gets me thinking. Obviously do get in contact with Ian if you wanted to look at engaging his services for your financial planning, but you can learn a lot simply by following him and being in his world. So have you got any future special request episodes that you'd like to see me cover because that is how this episode came about. Do come and let me know. Follow me over on any social channel. I'm Dr. Marianne Trent everywhere. If you're watching on YouTube, please do like and subscribe. Maybe tell your friends about us as well. And there will be a QR code on screen that will take you to all of my social channels.

(: 01:03:53

If you're listening to this as an audio, please do just type in Dr. Marianne Trent, any of your social channels and I shall appear. You can also come and connect with me over in the Aspiring Psychologist community with Dr. Marianne Trent. And yeah, if you do value this content, please do consider making a donation. And there are details for that in the show notes. You might also find the books, the Clinical Psychologist Collective and the Aspiring Psychologist Collective helpful. And of course there is the Aspiring Psychologist membership too. Thank you so much for being part of my world and I'll look forward to bringing the next episode to you from 6:00 AM on Monday. Take care.