The Meaningful Money Personal Finance Podcast

The conversations we have with ourselves around money are vital to our successful wealth-building. Today I'm bringing back repeat guest Neil Bage to go into this vital area of our financial journey.

How we behave around our money has far greater impact on our wealth-building than our investment decisions, or level of diversification and whether or not we use leverage. Today I welcome back my good friend Neil Bage, founder of Be-IQ (a behavioural insights company), to talk us through how we cope with the various influences over our behaviour.

We all know that diversification is a good thing when it comes to investing and wealth-building, but is there a limit to how useful it can be? Can you be TOO diversified? Today I'm talking about next-level diversification.

Experienced investors need to understand leverage in all its forms, and today we're going to be talking about what it means to apply leverage to your own wealth-building.

We've covered a ton of ground in the season so far, and we're only now approaching the half-way point. We've spent time looking at goals and actions and reviews, but the journey to financial independence is a long one, and just like on a long drive when you come to an open road, it feels good to put your foot down, it feels good to accelerate your financial plans too.

Listener Chris called me out on a comment I made in a recent episode of the podcast, talking about long term returns of stock markets. Turns out that income reinvestment REALLY matters, and that it's important to take a long term view.

Over the past few weeks we've looked at setting goals and building plans to achieve those goals. But working towards financial independence can take a while, and you need to know whether or not you're on track as you go along. And you do that by having a robust review process in place.

The Maven Adviser calls J L Collins' 'The Simple Path To Wealth' the greatest personal finance book ever, and I'm inclined to agree. Here's my review of the book.

Over the past few weeks, we've looked how to set some goals and how to move from goals to actions. Today I'd like to help you distil all that down so that you end up with a one-page financial plan.

Last week we considered our goals and our actions from a 40,000 foot perspective and talked about things you can do from that vantage point. Today we need to drop down to the runway level, and get a little bit more granular…

The recent scandal over the Woodford funds included concern over why, when the fund was struggling, it was still on various platform buy lists. Here's why those lists have no relevance to your investing needs.

In the past couple of weeks we have looked at financial planning and introduced the timeline paradigm. Last week we looked at how to arrive at and work back from some goals to get a sense of what you need to do now to move towards those goals. Today, we need to move from goals to actions.

Last week we covered the basic premise of financial planning, introducing the concept of the timeline of your life. Today I want to build on that, and use that model to help us think about some goals.

Listener John asks what I would do with a major windfall - I mean REALLY major. That's an opportunity for some thinking...

This season of the MeaningfulMoney podcast is called Planning with Purpose and is designed for those well-established on their journey towards financial independence. But if we're talking about planning, then we'd better define what we mean by that…

I've had several guests on the show recently who all have different views on how you should invest your money. So am I sending mixed messages, or what? Let me explain...

Woohoo! It's another new season here on MeaningfulMoney after a summer of Inbetweenisodes. I hope you have enjoyed the conversations I've had over the past few weeks. I've had loads of great feedback, so it seems like you have. It's been a great few weeks, but I'm excited to get cracking on what is easily going to be the best season ever of MeaningfulMoney, called Planning with Purpose.

A point of clarification after some feedback received about this point. I believe that anyone can build wealth effectively on their own. But you'll make fewer mistakes, save money and build wealth faster if you do work with a professional financial planner...

This week I'm pleased to welcome back Tom Baigrie of Lifesearch for a bit of a study into Income Protection which, while misunderstood and underused, is inarguably the most important personal insurance you can have.

So here's a little bonus episode that came out of a conversation between my good friend Andy Hart and myself. We're noticing a pattern in the people who are getting in touch and wanting to work with us, and we're concerned…

Today's guests are giants in the FI/RE community. Their podcast and blog is massive and deservedly so as they communicate a clear passion for their subject and inspire others to follow them on their journey. Today I'm speaking with Brad Barrett and Jonathan Mendonsa from ChooseFI

Continuing in this series of interviewing other luminaries in the world of wealth-building and FI, today I chat with Andrew Craig, Author of How To Own The World and founder of Plain English Finance.

Today I'm chatting with Dave Sawyer, author of a book called RESET. A few of you have mentioned the book to me, and asked me to get Dave on. His book has received high praise indeed from none other than Monevator and also Brad and Jonathan from ChooseFI.

My guest today, Catherine Morgan, is really going places and is doing great work as a financial coach, financial planner, podcaster - I'm telling you, she's tireless! I wanted to get Catherine on to the show to help her spread her message about financial wellbeing.

I get a load of request for people wanting to come on the show, but today's guest asked the opposite - could she use my resources at her live events? I emailed back to find out what those events were, and I was impressed by her passion and mission so I invited her on to the show. Today I'm chatting with Tara Gillespie of Best Intentions

Finishing the little series here about investment behaviours that can derail our investing success, I cover Overconfidence bias, Loss-aversion bias and Endowment bias.

I think you're going to enjoy this. Lots of you have suggested that I get today's guest onto the show, and though it took a while (down to me, not him) I'm delighted that we've made it happen, and I don't think it'll be the last time, either. Stay tuned for a blinding conversation with Barney Whiter, AKA The Escape Artist.

Confirmation bias is an insidious threat to our future wealth by keeping us closed against alternative views of investing and wealth-building approaches. In this week's Five Minute Friday, I offer three tips to keep it at bay.

My good friend Justin King is a fellow financial planner, and one of the good guys. More than most advisers he really has a passion for spreading the word about the power of financial planning, in his case specifically to retirees, more widely than just to his local clients. Remind you of anyone?!

Right, time to tie things off at the end of Season 14. It's the now traditional Season-ending Q&A! You've been sending in your questions throughout the season and I've done my best to curate the key questions that have arisen and this week I'll be attempting to answer them.

I'm rounding off this season (except for the Q&A next week) by summarising what I think New Accumulators need to DO to crack on with their wealth-building. I think it's also important to know what you DON'T need to do…

We're on the home straight on this New Accumulators season now, and we dealt last week with the massive subject of our behaviour around our money. Today I have something pretty special for you, or rather, someone pretty special…

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Except when you're investing, when it tries to trick you. Constant Vigilance!

Of all the influencing factors that will determine the success or otherwise of your wealth-building, your own behaviour is the biggest deal of all. As New Accumulators, we have some lessons to learn…

We're spending some time looking at some of the major biases that we bring to bear when we're investing, and how they often hold us back from being really successful investors. Today, we're talking about ANCHORING.

As New Accumulators, we need to understand that when we invest, we are converting our cash into assets which we hope will increase in value over time, so we can beat inflation and meet our financial goals. So we need to spend some time today discussing the main assets that we can buy as investors so that we know what we're getting into…

Long-time listeners and viewers will know that I have a fascination with the subject of behavioural finance. This is simply biggest there is no bigger determinant of your future financial success than your won behaviour towards money. If it's that big a deal, I figured I should dedicate a few videos to the subject, starting today.

Risk is an essential part of investing, and I want to say right off the bat that it is a GOOD THING! We're conditioned to understand the word risk as a negative, but in today's show, I want to reinforce the exact opposite. Plus, I chat with my friend Nick Lincoln of Values to Vision about his strong views on the idea of capacity for loss.

We've looked at what trusts are and a little bit about how they work, so let's cover some practicalities now, when it comes to YOUR financial planning

I know that you're itching to get going with your investing and wealth-building, and I keep putting the brakes on. But it will serve you well to put a little bit of forethought into the whole exercise, and in my world, we call that financial planning…

Last week we talked about what a trust actually is, but this week we need to go deeper and look at the benefits, and the downsides and how they can be used in your financial planning.

Investing is most definitely the interesting part of personal finance. Budgeting can be a grind, and insurance is a necessity, but hardly full of fun and japes. But investing is where you get to see your money grow and move and change, and eventually you'll build something which will enable you to live how you want to live. Getting started on that process is exciting, and today, that's what we're going to be talking about.

I get asked about trusts a great deal, but they're something of an abstract concept. My goals today is to try and explain them to you!

Building wealth is the sexy part of personal finance. It's where you get to invest and take risks and watch your money grow. But there is a vital step to take first to make sure that your wealth can't be swept away in a heartbeat thanks to an unforeseen event. We need to talk about life protection.

It can be dangerous to invest too much money in the same company that pays your wages. This week I tell a story of a client who lost a LOT of money this way, and why you should be careful not to fall into the same trap

Woohoo - it's another new season! I've had a few weeks to get this one together while you've been listening to some great inbetweenisodes. This season is going to be a belter, but then I would say that...!

Plenty of you a spreading the word about MeaningfulMoney to your friends and family, but we can all do more! So I thought I'd take five-ish minutes to highlight some great ways to share the MeaningfulMoney goodness to everyone that needs to hear it.

Let me introduce you to Kaloyan Tsilev, my right-hand man here at MeaningfulMoney. In this last Inbetweenisode before we get going with Season 14, Kal and I chew the fat about what's coming in 2019 with the podcast, the socialz, and Meaningful Academy.

Pound cost averaging - is it about maths and investment success, or is it about human emotion and behaviour?

Long-time listener Matt P was at the November meet up in London which I held with Damien Fahy of Money to The Masses. At the meet up, Matt presented me with a gift of a book called Investing Demystified by Lars Kroijer. This latter book is an outstanding work dealing with the fundamentals of investing, and today, thanks to Matt putting us in touch, I get to chat with Lars himself. I'm telling you, it's a great conversation!