The Meaningful Money Personal Finance Podcast

It's no exaggeration to say that having a decent protection programme in place is FOUNDATIONAL to everything else we do with our money. It truly is the thing that everything else is built upon. If it's a shaky foundation, then all our plans might come to nothing. That said, insurance is something that most people need, but no-one really wants to pay for, so we need to get the balance right, making sure that we have enough insurance, but don't overdo it.

Your savings rate isn't the interest rate you're getting on savings in your bank, despite how it sounds. Rather, it is the amount of your income that you're saving each month or each week, and it's one of the most powerful levers in your control, when it comes to building wealth.

I'm throwing in a little inbetweenisode here in the middle of Season 21 because a good friend of mine Catherine Morgan is releasing her new book this week. The book is called It's Not About The Money - Three Steps To Become A Wealthy Woman. While that might seem to alienate a reasonable proportion of this audience, it ought not to as there's meat in the book for anyone, regardless of sex.

Many of us have amassed investments over the years. They might be old workplace pensions, or funds we chose because we saw a nice advert in the Sunday papers. But are these disparate pots of money really serving us as we build wealth for our future? Is there anything we can do to optimise them?

It's fair to say that retiring is a big deal for lots of reasons, but not least because there can be a lot to sort out. Today we want to look at the practical elements of preparing for retirement and also the less tangible stuff, like working out what you're actually going to do with your time!

Good budget control is the cornerstone of building wealth. If you always spend every penny that comes in, you'll never have anything left to save and invest for the future. Say like that, and it sounds obvious - and it IS! But we all know that this is harder to do than it is to say. So let's get into some quick wins to make the process as painless as possible.

Today Pete and Roger are going to be talking about how you can make some quick wins with your workplace pension, which is a hugely neglected area of most people's financial planning, but also super-important.

There's a real lack of understanding about the roles of platforms, accounts and investments in your wealth-building. Our goal today is to make sure you know what all these moving parts do, and how best to optimise them for your future success.

Time to round off Season 20 of the Meaningful Money Podcast and this time, my guest is me! As I can't really interview myself, I've called in my best mate Roger Weeks to guide the episode. My One Big Thing - the title of this season - is that most of us don't need to instruct an adviser to make serious headway with our finances.

This week I'm chatting to another Personal Finance creator, Prerna Khemlani of ThisGirlInvests. Her One Big Thing is bridging the Gender Pension Gap, and she has some good things to say about an important subject.

Today's show is a little bit different, and might be a bit polarising, and it's certainly longer than usual! I'm chatting with my friend and fellow financial planner Shabbar Kassam of Lumos Financial about Money and Faith.

The longer I do my job, the more I understand that it is a people business and not really about money at all. Our behaviours, our responses to influences, our decision-making - all these are what really counts towards our financial success or otherwise, and my guest this week, Catherine Morgan, is here to talk about how trauma can impact our money beliefs and behaviours.

Anne Boden is an extraordinary lady. Not many of us wake up one morning and think to ourselves 'I'm going to start a bank'. She did that and founded Starling Bank whose results speak for themselves. She is now turning her considerable talents to the mission of making money equal between the sexes.

I get an email or a message at least once a week asking for clarity on the NHS pensions scheme. It is a complex beast with different tiers, different attributes and lots to get your head around. Fortunately, when it comes to the NHS scheme, my guest today is one of the country's leading experts…

Today I'm joined by Ramin Nakisa of Pensioncraft who is doing amazing things on YouTube and beyond. This season of the podcast is called One Big Thing, and Ramin's One Big Thing is what he calls the Alpha Cult - he'll explain that and why it's important as we get into the conversation.

Jen Kempson, AKA MamaFurFur is a deeply inspiring person to me - I'm really excited to have her on the show. She's making huge waves on YouTube and Instagram and her messaging about money is solid, but it's her messaging about what money can do for you that stands out for me. She calls it Time Freedom...

Will Rainey of Blue Tree Savings is an interesting guy with a fascinating story. He's gone from advising global insurance companies and governments on how to invest billions, to helping parents teach their kids about money. He now has a blog and company dedicating to reaching as many people on this vital subject as possible.

This season is called One Big Thing, and the idea is that I have a guest on each week and we discuss something that they're passionate about, annoyed about, or that is their specialism. I have some great guests lined up for you, starting this week with my good buddy Andy Hart from the Maven Money podcast. Andy and I are going to talk about risk. It's an important subject to say the least and it's fair to say that Andy has some strong views on the subject, as do I.

Today I want to look at where Meaningful Money has come, what's going on right now and where I want to take it. Call it a state of the nation speech for your favourite financial education channel.

Today's show is from February last year, 2020 - back when there were only rumours of something big about to go down. It was part of the Home Straight season, Season 16. The thinking is to get your ducks in a row as you approach retirement, but to be honest, it's ALWAYS good to have your ducks in a row, so even if you're in your 30s and retirement seems like miles away, there'll be something here for you.

Today's show is from May 2019 and was part of the New Accumulators season, Season 14. It's a plea to take planning seriously before diving into an investment regime which, without planning, would be just done in the abstract. Investing without purpose is crazy, aimless and will never succeed because there are no goals to measure its success against.

This week's encore episode is from September 2017 and comes from Season 7 - Life Stages. This episode focuses on the Empty Nest, a stage I'm heading towards in the next few years! This stage very often coincides with our peak earning years, so it's important both to enjoy the extra cash in the present and also to store up some serious wealth for the future.

This week's oldie-but-a-goodie is from way back in 2016 where I covered some tips on how folks who are coming to the party somewhat late can still make a big difference to their eventual retirement outcomes.

The podcast is currently on hiatus while I plan for Season 20 and also get things in place for the final launch of Meaningful Academy Retirement Planning. More on that in just a sec, but for the next few weeks I will be reviving some older episodes on various topics. This week's old show is about simplifying pensions. The episode should stand alone, but the shownotes have been updated to meaningfulmoney.tv/session425

The podcast is currently on hiatus so for the next few weeks I will be reviving some older episodes on various topics. This week's old show is about securing an income in retirement, something which has fallen out of favour a little bit since the pension freedoms of 2015. The episode should stand alone, but the shownotes have been updated to meaningfulmoney.tv/session424

Young families have lots of things to deal with. Even though my kids are 18 and 21, I still remember juggling childcare with work, making ends meet, wondering whether to move house and take on the extra mortgage. My guest today is an expert in this field, Joe Okaly of New Horizons Wealth Management in New Jersey. If you have a young family yourself or if you're a grandparent to a young family today's session will be both interesting and instructive.

In my 20-odd year career as a financial planner, I have worked with many bereaved clients who have lost spouses, partners, parents and other loved ones. Obviously, the emotional impact is profound, but this is often compounded by the additional pressure of having to go through someone's financial and other affairs to get things straight. This process is always made so much easier if the person who has died was organised beforehand. And essentially, that is what the company Once I've Gone are helping people to prepare, but I'll let Ian Dibb, Founder and CEO of the company explain more.

When I wrote the MeaningfulMoney Handbook in 2018, I wanted it to be the one book that most people would need to go from zero to hero with their personal finances. It was designed for anyone to be able to work through and to begin taking control. Today's checklist aims to condense the message of the book into less than 30 minutes - wish me luck!

Today I want to give you a framework for decision-making. Obviously the context will be financial decisions, but today's checklist will also serve in pretty much any area of life where you have big decisions to make.

As you know, I'm a big proponent of equipping people to make their own financial decisions, believing that anyone, with a bit of encouragement and know-how, can do most of their own financial planning. But there are occasions when seeking professional advice makes sense. Today, I'm going to give you a checklist for what to do BEFORE you seek advice, so that you're prepared.

We don't teach kids how money works, so when you're thinking of getting started with investing, how do you know where to start? Today I want to give you a beginner investment checklist to do just that.

Your investments, if left unchecked, can quickly get out of step with your original intentions for them, so they need to be reviewed regularly. But what does an investment review really entail? Let's find out!

Easily the number one question I get asked here at MeaningfulMoney is about finding balance in finances. It's a BIG question, but hopefully this week's checklist will help us to find that elusive financial balance.

Over the past couple of weeks we've looked at organising your paperwork and your financial life in general. That's all well and good, but now we're in good shape, we need to keep it that way and for that, we'll need an annual review checklist.

Staying on top of your personal finances can seem like a really hard work - there's just so much to do! There is always a new piece of paper or email coming in, insurance to renew, utilities to switch - it never ends! As ever though, it helps to work systematically and get things set up so that they are easy to stay on top of. Today we're going to talk about organising your financial life!

Paperwork is the bane of most of our lives, but for now it is a necessary evil. Today's checklist will help you work through your mountain of paper to make managing your finances infinitely easier.

Sometimes I just want someone to tell me exactly what steps to take to get a job done. You know - do these few steps and the outcome is a given; all the thinking taken away. The checklist is the perfect embodiment of this, and today we're talking about the pension checklist - everything you need to know and everything you need to do to get your pensions in order.

Lasting Powers of Attorney are misunderstood and most often ignored by too many of us. Often that's due to ignorance; sometimes concerns are about cost. Today I want to clear some of that up, and I've enlisted the help of just the right person…

Spending is one of the biggest levers in our control. When we're building wealth, well….we won't build wealth unless we control our spending. When we approach retirement, it's really important to understand what our likely spending patterns might be so we can plan accordingly. Today I bring back repeat guest, the ever-popular Abraham Okusanya of Timeline, who has literally written the book on retirement spending and investing called Beyond the 4% Rule (link below), and continues to do great work in this field.

There's a lot of crap online, and there seems to be an increasing number of financial charlatans offering stock tips and 'advice' with no regulatory oversight, of course. George Agan and I talk about that, and more, in our conversation today - hope you enjoy it.

It's a joy to welcome back long-time friend of the show Justin Urquhart Stewart to the podcast to talk about the outlook of the world economy coming off the back of COVID and also his latest venture, called Regionally.

Today I bring back repeat guest and protection industry legend Tom Baigrie of Lifesearch to discuss the impact of Coronavirus on insurers and whether things might return to normal. We cover whether it's arguably more important than ever for folks in their middle age to get life insurance given the disproportionate impact that Covid has had on older people.

This is the Ultimate Guide to Money & Life, which sounds very much up itself, let's face it, but is intended as a distillation of everything you need to know and do to win at money and life.

For most of us, the ideal end game is passing away peacefully in our sleep at the age of 100, having enjoyed excellent physical and mental health, never needing long-term care and with all our financial ducks in a row. Many of us would like to spend our last penny the day before we die, but many of us would also like to give some money to our family or to the causes we care about. Today I want to try and cover the vast area of estate planning, or at least the parts of it that most of us need to know and do, so that at least we're armed with some good information.

When you get to the point of retirement, there are a bewildering array of options available to you, particularly regarding pensions. In today's episode, I'll be giving you everything you need to KNOW and everything you need to DO to make good choices at retirement.

Investing in retirement is a subject of much scholarly research, strong opinions and a whole boatload of crap information. My job today is to cut through all of that and give you the stuff you really need to know and do to invest successfully in retirement.

Money is inextricably linked with our sense of wellbeing. That link is the reason for more and more research and initiatives into how to improve that relationship. Today I'm speaking with a real-life brain scientist to dig into this subject.

Risk is a constant presence in our lives and in our wealth-building efforts. But what is risk, really? How can we be aware of it? Should we avoid risk or harness it? Lots to talk about in today's Ultimate Guide to RISK.

Over the past couple of weeks, we've covered the ultimate guide to investing. We need to finish that off and talk about some of the important mechanisms of investing, the accounts we use: pensions, ISAs and all the rest!

We covered a LOT of ground last week in Part One of this Ultimate Guide. As we get practical today, I'm going to try and make this the Ultimate Guide to Investing for the masses, not the few.