Financial Adviser Explains How to Get Ahead in 2026

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0:34If you'd like to get a free ticket and go along, I've left a link in the description for you. Tom's dilemma is what most people in their 30s face. Do you know the average 30-year-old male has 15K in their pension at 30? 12 for a woman, so you're not alone. To kick off the year, we ask for your biggest money questions. Friend of the podcast and financial advisor, Lisa Conway-Hughes, has come back in again to answer them. The next question comes from Sian. She's 50. When should I de-risk by adding bonds to my allocation? This is the tax trick I was mentioning earlier. So you get free money for nothing.

1:08Ryan wrote in this question. Do you use any methods to help you stop worrying about money? Be decisive with your money. Don't just put it off because it's a hard decision. Happy New Year, everyone. Happy New Year. First episode of the year. This is the official Lisa slot, I reckon. Is this your third? Fourth. Your fourth episode, but is this your third New Year? year i don't know when the first one went out but definitely third new year yeah yeah that's that's the year started right we're not four years old no we've got to be three and a bit no but you have you you always come on in the new year so yeah it's like an annual tradition you own this slot basically how's happy to fill it yeah yeah how's the year been only a few days long well 2025 how did that go yeah it was a good year i think we helped lots of people the company grew we recruited four people last year so it was a good year for the business and had lots of holidays so that was a good year for me oh nice when did you when did you start April 24 okay okay so it was your first full kind of year yeah yeah amazing and it's going well yes thank you and you went cool on holiday I went to Mexico nice that was heaven to be repeated it was fun like a kind of all-inclusive resort or traveling around oh that's the way five destinations nice nice good food yes too much to eat i think um i was saying this to my partner the other day that i was like i think it's taken me 37 years to realize that mexican food is probably my favorite food mexican and kind of thai it was lovely because you could have like by the sea you'd have your seafood and then inland you'd have all the meats so it was really nice yeah and I think the thing about Mexican food is that their quick stuff is still healthy and good.

2:54You know what I mean? Whereas if you're eating quick in most of Europe, it's trash. Whereas they're like fresh, salad-y, zingy stuff. Anyway, we're not here to talk about that. Yeah, I'm getting hungry now. We've got lots of questions from the audience today to pose to you for this time of year. And we're going to go through them and then we can just have a bit of a backwards and forwards if that's okay. Yeah. A little bit different than the ones the last couple of years. Yeah. I hope you've seen these beforehand. Yes, I'm prepped. I was just going to say pressure on. First question is from Tom.

3:22Some of these are quite long, by the way, people. We're going to read them out so we've got the context. We've got the best reader starting us off here, so let's get it. Tom is 31 years old and lives in London. He recently got a salary bump, taking him to 40k, just over the UK average for full-time employees. Tom says, In the last few years, I've cleared a huge amount of debt and started paying into my pension for the first time. But despite the pay rise, I feel like it's impossible to save for everything that I need to do. Do I prioritise an emergency fund and buying a house? Or do I prioritise increasing my pension contributions?

3:58Which feels like building for a future, but ignoring my needs right now. I think Tom's dilemma is what most people in their 30s face, really. And I think it can be quite a stressful time. I just feel like you're always a bit behind. Well, at least I did in my 30s. I do. so I think the first is he should still be paying into his pension and getting the most he can from the employer but I think once he's committed to that I wouldn't necessarily worry about doing any more I'd want him to make sure he was in a really good fund and taking the most amount of risk he was comfortable with so whilst he's not contributing loads to the pot potentially only percent between him and the employer um that it was growing as much as as he could um so i think that would be the sort of box ticked and review that every six to 12 months just to check the fund isn't um performing badly and then i would build up then an emergency fund next as my next priority so three to six months worth of cash so as his sanity safety net so whatever he's spending say it's two grand a month he's going to need between um 12 and 24 000 as a cash buffer which is a lot but um cash buffer like emergency fund or yeah yes exactly um so it needs to be instant access um he's earning 40 000 which means he's got his um personal allowance not personal allowance personal savings allowance sorry so he can make a thousand pounds a year in interest before he pays any tax after that he's going to want to focus on things like premium bonds that are tax-free or using his cash ISO allowance, which under the new rules is going to drop down to 12 ,000 after last year's budget from next year.

5:42And then I would be going hard on this property deposit, which is no mean feat and contributing as much as he can into saving. And I think the big mistake a lot of people make is they either assume that their parents or family will help and then it doesn't end up happening or they get so stressed and actually family help was there so I think having that conversation like is there going to be any help either way is fine but it's just so that he can really plan and actually know what he's got to save and so then he can work out his time horizon is he going to get his deposit in the next three to five years if so it's going to be cash like things that he needs to save that deposit in if his time horizon is more like five to ten years then maybe he's going to invest some of that money to try and make up um keep up with house price inflation so those are the things that are going through my mind is i don't know the london housing market as well as you guys is it realistic for people are those kind of earning levels to aspire to own a house because it's not even be able to borrow the amount of money needed well the way to do the maths is um 40 000 if that's his earnings the maximum he's likely to be able to borrow is um five times that so that's going to be 200 000 pounds that he can borrow um so doing your research and understanding which areas of london he could buy in um is going to be important but also doing research in that don't just buy anything just because it's within your budget um because maybe that's something that's going to be difficult to sell on for example later on down the line or maybe it's moving out so starting doing that research early on um when i bought my first flat the numbers didn't add up either so i ended up buying with me my husband and my friend and her now husband and we had um a flat in a nice area between the four of us like a two-bed flat yeah a two-bed flat that we shared and we sold it well we we lived there for three years as two couples and then um when we both started to get married we moved out separately but just like an episode of friends sounds pretty cool we're still friends that well actually who it was with is marie who's now my operations director no way so we're still good friends hey let's move in together mate no thanks no chance i'd be dead mate a little foursome what are you throwing it now now i'm interested no um i i just uh i guess another question i just wanted like the house point if you're looking at like 200 grand deposit or whatever requirements you need for london again i don't know the market like i know the north is it a good use of your time to say i'm going to take 10 years to save up for a house deposit or could these people where it go I'm just going to invest now and then I know that later on down the line I might earn more or yeah I think you've got to decide what's going to be an acceptable part of your plan is say 250 ,000 pound purchase price going to get you what you want going to be in an area that's going to make you happy easy to get to work or do you need to think it differently and you're going to invest hard and screw away money so that when maybe you're 40 you're buying the the benefit of buying early is the term of your mortgage so if you're buying at 30 you're going to retire at 60 or 65 let's say you can have a mortgage that's 30 35 years long and so you're going to be able to make that monthly repayment more manageable if you don't buy till you're 40 that mortgage can only be 20 25 years long to fit in with your retirement plan so I think that's something to bear in mind but But I think most people are going to feel that that's a mountain to climb.

9:35So you're not alone. If you're single, though, it's a lot harder. So you might be going, I might just focus on getting a partner by renting a swanky flat in a nice part of town. Get a nice rich partner. When should people, I mean, if you kind of answer it, when should people not focus on getting a house? But how important is it to have an actual house in retirement? Because I'm one of these people that I want to buy, but it's tying up a lot of capital. I don't know if I live here, Manchester, Spain, Portugal, Brazil. So I want to leave my options open. But at the same time, I do think I should get on property ladder.

10:09So how important is it to have a home in retirement? Well, who knows what's in store for the UK property market in the future, firstly. But assuming it is a good investment, the benefit is you can use it to downsize when you're in retirement. So to top up your pot. a benefit is you're not paying rent in retirement if you've already got that mortgage paid off so there can be benefits and I think a lot of clients mentally assign the equity in their home to care home fees later down the line as well which are extremely expensive so it's got its benefits for retirement but I think if you're going to commit to not buying a property and renting and therefore making that property somebody else's problem um then you just know that you have to save harder for your retirement because you're going to need more yeah yeah what about owning a property somewhere else in the country that's more affordable you know do you see that at all like people buy buy to let basically or yeah and the government's doing exactly what they can to make sure that that doesn't pay that um ad hoc but they call it have-a-go landlords don't know that these have-a-go landlords just doesn't pay off because of the tax that you pay along the way so um it's got to be for the right reasons rather than just i need to buy a property any property and there's that box ticks i've seen lots of people over the years do that and get into things that they just not with their eyes open in the right area to be honest i kind of felt like that it's it's almost like you're not an adult or there's something you're not functioning in society properly.

11:47Yeah. You know, if you're in your 30s and you've not bought a house, kind of feel like a virgin or something. Do you know what I mean? Like, oh God, I just need to get this out of the way. So yeah. From my house, I'm having foursomes all the time. But I mean, but then I, yeah, I look at it and go, I don't know if, I just don't know if it's good advice for someone who lives in central London on like a median salary to be like, well, I need a house before I do anything. and how long that's going to take. That's how I'm feeling. Even on a slightly higher salary, it's a big commitment and it's so much.

12:21And the market moves away from you as well, potentially. So it takes you five years, you get there and you're like, oh, it's doubled in price. I mean, London at the time of recording seems to be a bit more stagnant or one area that is declining potentially. So maybe it is a good time to try and go for it. But yeah, I guess it's priorities, isn't it? If you say this is the most important thing to me. And if you research it properly, like what is life like with the property what's life like without the property and don't just make those numbers up speak to an independent mortgage broker they can run those numbers for you to help you see clearly which which way to go and buying with the mates a good shout if you don't have that partner and if you've got four of you even better right yeah what a weird market london is and in the northwest you're not i mean you are now in manchester manchester's got got like that but if you're living in wigan or bolton or these kind of areas which would be the equivalent of commutable into manchester very easily you're 150 grand for a three bed i mean i've got a lot of friends who are landlords like you like lots of friends and they're like it's not just buying the property and knowing what to do it's actually maintenance like the boiler's broken you need money for that it's like all these like fees and taxes so i think like being in london on a median salary or even on a fairly good salary it is a big investment so yeah that's a thing that's really been putting me off and i'm like maybe i should buy up north maybe i should wait i'll just contribute to my pension for now and figure it out a little bit i don't think one property that you buy say today up north is going to produce the level of income that you would need to subsidize your rent down here yeah if you bought a good deal after all costs of management you might get 400 pound a month after like and then you've got to pay tax on that and they're going to rinse you on the tax because it's going to be in your personal name probably not a limited company or you've got it in a limited company you're paying loads in fees for accountancy and stuff so this idea that oh i'll buy up north and that'll pay my rent down south and not the case might be to buy and live up north maybe in like 15 years when you bought today it's it's like the stock market it's like i've got 30 40 grand to buy the stock market and i want to retire off that it's not going to happen yeah you know maybe it'll happen in 30 years so i think you need like a measured kind of understanding of what you get plus property is you're responsible for someone's home so you can't just go oh i'm not looking at the stock market for two years you know you've got beyond that yeah we had all our windows replaced and i don't know how much it cost the landlord not my problem but like yeah it was a big job yeah and the landlord's probably lost a year's worth of like rent on that yeah like five windows yeah took everything out so yeah it's uh things that extra stress i don't need right now yeah yeah yeah and that's important properties are stressful the process is stressful takes six months to exchange on the thing and you've got all these solicitors and all these people just chipping away at you the whole time and liquid you can't just sell a portion of the property if you need a bit of cash.

15:04No, you cannot. Tom mentioned salary sacrifice in there, didn't he? And I just wanted the rules, there was an announcement of rule changes. So how much you'll read on that? Well, the most important thing is a lot of people contact me on Instagram freaking out about this salary sacrifice. I think people think that all tax relief on pensions is gone and that's just not true. So the first thing is how it works is, let's say I pay into a pension, pay into the pension and I get my tax back. but to get that money in my hand I've paid tax and NI so I don't I get the tax back but I don't get the NI through salary sacrifice the money goes into your pension before you pay tax and NI so you save both those savings and also the employer's saving 15 % employers NI as well so everyone's winning from pension salary sacrifice so from 2029 so we've still got a lot of time all that's going to happen is you can only put two thousand pounds a year in via salary sacrifice the rest can have to go in the normal way so you just don't make that ni saving um and when i did some math last week it if you're paying in um five percent the employer's paying in three percent it works out that if you earn up to 25 000 you're not affected if you earn over 25 000 then the rules do impact you from 2029 i didn't check the numbers but one of my subscribers messaged me and said i did i did I crunched the numbers and I pay 60 grand in a year by salary sacrifice.

16:31I think it will cost me a grand. So it's not massive. It's just the NI, isn't it? Yes, it's just the NI. So if you're a high earner, that's 2%. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, like I said, I didn't check his numbers, but I don't think it's not like you're losing 40 % relief or whatever. So the answer to him would be, well, just look at whatever other scheme they operate. And it's going to be 2029. A lot can change. It's January, mate. Do you want to know an interesting little factoid about this month? Go for it. So not only is it the most depressing month of the year, but this is where legal inquiries and divorce filings spike.

17:07Happy days. Get Christmas out of the way. Get him gone. Make sure to see what he brought you for Christmas before you sack him off. Sort out your finances January the 1st. See ya. Yeah, yeah. Talking about, speaking about sorting out finances, it's also tax filing deadlines this month. Yay. If you're one of the 12 million people like me, who needs to file a self-assessment by January 31st and you haven't got yours sorted yet, then check out TaxApp. They make it really quick and easy. That's their whole point. You just enter your info, connect some accounts and can file it in as little as 15 minutes.

17:39The beauty of TaxApp is you can do it almost as quickly as you need. You don't need to have lengthy back and forth with an accountant. Plus it's much simpler than trying to navigate HMRC on your own. So if you've left it to the last minute, these guys can help you out. If you want to file your tax return the easy way, then we've left the link to TaxApp in the description. Prices start from£49, and if you use the code MONEY10, you can get further 10 % off your first tax filing. That code is MONEY10. There's also a QR code on screen for you. Question two. Go on, read it out. You're so good at it.

18:11I am, thank you. The next question comes from Sian. She's 50 and has 100 % of her pension in equities. She asks, when should I de-risk by adding bonds to my allocation? i'm looking to retire at 65 my plan is 80 20 at 55 80 20 at 55 and 60 40 at 60 is this a sound plan to you um well i think sean sounds very sensible in that she's obviously done her research and she's building up her knowledge um i would go a step further really because it's about her attitude to risk and if she's got any shortfall does she actually if she's achieved her goal already and she's got enough in her pot her focus turns to um lifestyle preservation if she's got a long way to go then she has to focus on growth until she gets there so i'd want to understand that better um but also i don't think well with clients we often do i've mentioned it before on this podcast but this waterfall effect so the money let's say you're going to spend in your 80s 90s that can remain completely invested because it's got another 20 30 years to go in Sian's example but it's the money in the lead up so I always want to have the five year plan nailed down in really easy accessible safe stuff so that whatever happens to the market those first five years are sorted in retirement and I would usually start that five three years before retirement so I would say she's on the right lines but I think there's an extra layer the way she could help improve it by allocating it into time zones as well so are you saving up the cash buffer within that seven year period prior to the um it depends what the market's doing because if the market's really down you're not going to want to save to pull out money from the cash but also it's a great opportunity to be putting money in still so you you've got to play it year by year depending on what the market's doing but ideally um you're doing a bit of both I would say diverting some money into savings element of your pension and we just open sub wrappers in someone's pension so if say the pension is going to start paying out in three years we'll have a three-year fixed cash bond in the client's pot so not a government bond or a corporate bond fund or anything like that but actual cash bond because right now you can get over four percent on that um and it's guaranteed and it doesn't matter does it exactly so um And right now cash can be a good replacement.

20:49If you don't need to take any risk and cash is over 4%, then maybe that is a good place to be putting it. Do people struggle with that kind of shift? Have I got enough and then what I need to do to stop the accumulation train, basically? People who are natural accumulators find it so hard to retire. It's like a personality transplant. and I spend most of my time with the retired people that we look after reassuring them that it's okay so many clients retire down to the plan like we said and then five minutes later they're back at work so it's just a big big shift we did with a psychologist actually a whole session on how to retire well because it's it is about the numbers but most of our clients have enough anyway it's about the the psychological shift that you have to go through and that's something that you need to be preparing yourself not five minutes before a time you've got to get ready you've got to do the you've got to build that lifestyle that you want in retirement and the hobbies and yeah so you don't just wake up on day one and go what do i do yeah you've already planned it yeah planning to run a marathon and going traveling and all these kind of things i'm more worried about i I would have no problem transferring from accumulation to spending.

22:09But do your clients ever run out of money in retirement? That's my biggest concern because I'll be like, I might just have a very good month and just travel the world and then be like, oh, crap, I've done like two years of my pension. He's just got a job, mate. People don't run out of money. That's the best thing to do. I mean, I could help them. I could definitely help them. You could help them. I could definitely help them run out of money. I definitely have a – I mean, when I tell you this story, this client will know who they are. but there's a handful a small handful of clients who I think are nailing retiring well a bit too much and my job is to just show them the consequences of that so I had a client who had an extraordinary first five years got married seemed to live in Ibiza half the year spending amazing amounts of time on holiday and doing all those things that he wants to on his bucket list And the consequences of that, he's well-versed on it from me, that he's not going to have the lifestyle that he wants from 75 onwards.

23:11And for him, that's a completely perfect trade-off. He's perfectly prepared to live a very different lifestyle in his mid-70s, let's say. So it's all about planning, really. It is, and knowing the consequences. And the reverse of that is the saddest thing I see, because that's not sad. That's him really enjoying his life. And I enjoy watching him do that and receiving all the postcards along the way. But the saddest is when people actually don't take that leap and they leave it too late. Because I do see clients who they've worked later on in life because they've told me it's really important, for example, that they have business class flights, So they go to all these far-flung places and they're living a certain standard on these holidays.

24:02But then when they get there, they lack the motivation to do it. The world feels a bit scarier than maybe when they planned it. And then they don't do it and then they've got excess money. So it is about finding that balance and it has to be a bit brave. Yeah, I'm making a video that compares state pension generosity in the UK to other countries. So it just looks at, you know, how good is it versus some others? because I think a lot of the time we often just look at our own system. And there's a metric that I was looking at that's healthy life expectancy from point of state pension. So in the UK, on average, from the point of state pension, people get 11 years of healthy life expectancy.

24:40Then they get to a point, like you say, where they're either disabled or they just do not want to leave the house. In America, it's eight because they work longer and they have shorter healthy life expectancies. I don't know if the average American realizes at the time they retire it's like you've got eight years you know to go go live your life the longest are japan france are really long but because they retire so young it's like 63 i think it's this or 62 the state pension age there but that's crippling their country but yeah it's kind of like go crazy in those first few years not too crazy i mean planned crazy yeah yeah yeah yeah because you do kind of probably think you're going to live forever or that your view on life won't change it's mad to me that people go from i want to see the world to i don't want to leave the house but actually a lot of the old people i know that now unfortunately died in the final years were kind of is it agoraphobic you would call it where you don't want to leave the home but you're scared of leaving the house scared to go into the shop yeah you know and you have to go around and do it for them yeah i think it's solid advice they call it a smile don't they the retirement smile oh you spend more money at the start and it dips and then yeah it all goes on care at the end yes um and also i think a bit of a sidestep but a really important one in the rush up the run-up to last year's budget everyone was paranoid that um inheritance tax is going to change and there's going to be the big big changes so people felt like the government was forcing their hand to make these really big decisions about how much do they gift and what I loved seeing in the run-up to retirement was um to the budget sorry a lot of clients made these decisions that they'd been putting off for far too long to actually gift to the next generation and the money was transferred because we had this deadline or a mental deadline of the budget and then nothing happened but we need to act like that at all times like be decisive with your money don't just put it off the decision because it's a hard decision you've got to plan these things and it's so wonderful like it's the most emotional part of my job actually is seeing clients children and grandchildren receive that money whether it's a small amount or a large amount it's usually life-changing in the way that we plan it because we find out what's important to that child or that grandchild yeah that and like you know be a legend while you're alive yeah don't don't be the most popular person not at the dinner table you want to sit there as the goat don't you bask in your glory yeah yeah yeah yeah i can't wait to do that for my grandparents did that they were like taking so we're on so many holidays cruises with them like big dinners big holidays so yeah like that's how i want to go out some of my grandkids like he's a legend i love you granddad i'm like yeah thank you okay we've got another one now next listener's question is from matt matt is 25 years old and has around 30k in pension savings he's an engineer and expects to earn just over 60k this year he wants to retire by 55 he asks how do i foresee how much money i will need in retirement to live a comfortable lifestyle in the 2050s onwards especially as my retirement could be 30 years long and we don't know what changes would have happened by then yeah so is he matt matt yeah i love matt i wish i was that sensible at 25 so the key things that stick out for me are he's earning 60 000 so can we put him back in the basic rate tax threshold um by paying 10 000 into his pension so i really like that as an idea to get all his tax back especially if he's on this career trajectory where he's going to be earning a lot he might actually get to the point where he's a very high earner say over a quarter of a million pounds a year and he can't pay that much into pensions anymore so if you're on if you're young and on this really steep career trajectory paying into your pension now can really really help because you lose that opportunity later on because they take the allowance off you when you go above a level of income so some people can only pay ten thousand pounds a year into pension and for high earners that's usually just the employer's contribution takes up all that allowance anyway so you find yourself not paying in so that's a great thing for him to get ahead of that especially if he wants to retire very young one thing that's working against him is if he wants to retire at 55 currently you can only take a pension from 57 and I'm that might increase in the future who knows so I would be preparing for that by building up stocks and shares ISAs to fill that gap and the the way to know is to do a cash flow model if he wants to know the exact answer that he has to what does he have to invest every year you just do a cash flow model you can get those online we can do one for you but it's a good investment to know your number um and then um yeah i would just be making sure he's also taking a really decent amount of level of risk in his pension that he's happy with to try and make that pension grow as fast as possible.

29:32He's already ahead. Do you know the average 30-year-old male has 15K in their pension at 30? 1.5. 1.5. At 30 as well, which is five years. It was a long time at his age. 12 for a woman, so less for a woman. So he's already ahead of the game. He needs to give himself a pat on the back. What was the other part of his question? it was it was so it's like how much how do i know how much i'll need in 2050 which i guess it's kind of like a cost of living inflation kind of question isn't it but so i would do my numbers based on today and then just project forward a sensible rate say three or four percent because then you're adjusting for inflation exactly because you've taken off say three percent inflation now and you know that the number that it spits out is like protected from inflation almost exactly and and he can dream big what's brilliant is if he miss if he dreams really big and he misses his goal slightly not he retires at 56 and 55 it's not it's not life-changing um so i would they have they say to live a comfortable lifestyle as an individual you need 43 900 or 60 600 as a couple to live comfortably but i think he needs to work out what is his definition of comfortable um and what kind of things what kind of retirement does he want to be really doing because 55 his mates might not be retired by then don't forget so what's he going to do with his time and and does that come with a cost um so i'd be really thinking about what what does it what does it mean to live a luxurious lifestyle to him do you have the other average figures for the other ages so it's pretty on the spot but um what how much do you have in a pension yeah i want to just caveat this average means lots of people have more lots of people have less so don't feel like a failure if you're either side i felt like a failure to say like average 30 year old has what 15k yeah i was like i didn't have 15k right no no but you can and like the good thing is you can catch up quick yeah that's the good thing because you earn more as you get older the average person is not engaged with their pension 90 percent of people don't even log on so you can lap people in a couple of years if you just get switched into it you know and maximize it the way Lisa's saying but yeah well so 40s for a man is 34 ,028 for a woman um and 50s is 66 ,039 for a woman come on ladies let's make 2026 the year that we beat the men yeah or or the men maybe it's time to help remind the woman pay into their pension for them if they're taking time off because it's Yeah, it's usually the time off that makes a big difference.

32:09Yeah, and you said it before that it's not efficient to build a lopsided kind of asset base in retirement where the man's got a million quid and the woman has nothing. It's beneficial for the man to be like, let's spread it between the two of us and we can save lots of money that way. There's a question coming up with a great tax trick. So I'll cover that there when there's a discrepancy in savings. You pay into your partners. I was about to say for, I think it was her birthday. Was it her birthday? Happy birthday. No, no, no. Not my birthday. On her birthday or Valentine's Day. No, I was saying that is birthday present.

32:42Is that her birthday present? Pension payment. Thank you for cleaning up the house, looking after me, wiping my arse, raising my child. You need to have a grand in a lice. I'm going to take half an hour and buy the house. I gave you a lice and a pension contribution. So romantic. I think it was her birthday. I'm pretty sure it was her birthday. You don't even know what day it was. It's been a long year, man. Last year was a long year. I've got a selfish question. Yes. Is this different for us self-employed people? Like, is there a different strategy in saving for your retirement? Well, the first is to save.

33:12So only 20 % of self-employed save into a penny. Yes, I'm finally in the right side of the statistics. And that's got a lot worse in recent times. There's way more self-employed, but the rate of saving has collapsed. 20%. Only 20%. Put anything into this. Including people with big, like, good businesses. A lot of people who are self-employed don't have much money, but they look at people that are high earners and even they don't. I think it's a psychology thing. Well, there's always a reason to invest in your business and think. And so many business owners think, well, my business is my pension.

33:43And the answer to that question is your business is your pension if things go well, if someone buys it from you, if there is a market for your business by the time that you come to retire. If you're not the business. Yes, exactly. If it's like Frank's coffee shop, Dave might not be able to run it like you. Yes, exactly. So definitely start a pension. And I know that feeling, especially in my 20s, as someone who was self-employed at that time, I didn't put as much into my pension as I should have done. But I got over it by just starting a direct debit for any amount. And then you get used to it.

34:20And then each January, make it painful. Make it more. Can you double it? Maybe you can't. can you add another 10 % can you add 50 % because if you try and it's still a bit too expensive you can always change it down but also say to your accountant that I love building people's financial plans when they run their own business because I can say to them right you need 30 ,000 pounds a year for your future you and then they can go to that number to their accountant and say what do we need to change in the business so that we can afford to be doing 30 ,000 pounds for example into my um company pension employer pension um and i think yeah self-employed people can be a dream to write a financial plan for when they're genuinely getting their business to work for them yeah they're optimists as well aren't they because they set up a business so they often probably think oh if i take this and put it into the business i can make 10 times more but you know the business serves exists to serve you yeah so it should invest in you well you're an employer in the business but you're also an employee and i think you have to take a step back and think with me as an employee what do i deserve a pension you deserve a pension you deserve some income protection and you deserve a steady income so that you can be sane yeah yeah there's got to be the goals to tick those off gradually as you build the business i need to pay into my pension now you need to pay into my pension really i'll start a late bloomer before uh april because it's kind of like oh I'll uh I'll do it I'll do it near this like this thing and that thing and you know and I'm like switched on with my finances but now it's January and I'm like oh god there's three or four months and if I want to maximize that opportunity I've got to find a lot of money quickly to fill that up whereas if I had just set up a direct debit yeah it would have happened the way that works well is you put a direct debit on a monthly basis that's meaningful slightly painful and then you just do a quarterly check-in check on your zero or with your accountant say can i afford an extra one thousand five thousand ten thousand and just always be testing the the edges of your comfort zone and and i mean it's great it saves corporation tax if you're if you're a limited company if you're a sole trader you can use your pension to alter your tax bracket at the end of the year so it also gets gets the money into your name without paying the kind of income taxes the dividend stuff related today you know it's it's a magic it's kind of like a back door isn't it into your own personal and we know dividends taxes going up by two percent um in next tax year so going to make pensions even more appealing yeah yeah yeah but again you know finance guy and i even i put it off to the point of oh no there's this thing i want to buy or that thing i want to buy and now if i want to stick because i don't really prioritize my isa because because it doesn't make much sense for me to rip money out of my business to be taxed at 40 odd percent plus corporation tax to put it in an ISA.

37:17So I invest in through like a holding company kind of structure. But then the pension is the most sensible thing to do. But now I should have, I should just max the pension at 60K a year because I'm not doing any of the ISA stuff. But now it's like I've got three months left of the year and I've got to find 60K. I'd love to do the maths one day and this could be a whole episode for you. but let's say you're paying 50 % to get the money out of your company to pay into an ISA. Everyone says, oh, don't do that. Just keep it in the company. But what if you did have a 50 % reduction in the value of what you could invest?

37:50How many years does it take for you to get 100 % return on your investment? Because let's say it takes you 10 years, 15 years. After that, you're still then building up this really beautiful tax-free savings pot. We could do that. To be continued. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd love that. I'd love that. We will chat. So T, tell me the riskiest thing you've ever done. Mate, the cameras are rolling. I can't do that. You're trying to get me cancelled. I mean, most of my risky things were probably my teenage years. But one thing I could say about finance risks, definitely invested in stocks with zero research, just because my friend told me to, his research was, trust me, it didn't go well.

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39:07You can get started at vanta.com forward slash making money. There's a link in the description and a QR code on screen for you. Do you think 25-year-olds today should be expecting to have a state pension? I would say not. I worry. Say no. Yeah, I'm in my mid-40s and I reckon by the time I get there, it might not be how we see it today. But it'll still be there. I think it'll morph into a long-term care thing. I think they'll keep bumping up the age to a point where basically it kicks in at like 70 odd and it's just like a lower floor of earning for people. So it kind of covers the care. Maybe it'll be means-tested.

39:49Yeah, maybe means-tested. I mean if you look at Australia that they mean test theirs because they've got the superannuation um uh I think yeah there's not many state pension schemes in the world that pay everybody a flat amount like ours uh in a in a way that we do so what would 25 years get as compensation for paying national insurance for like their whole lives if they don't have a state pension like what could or tell me I need something I've given you loads of money like can I get something back I think you have to plan as if you don't getting it and then and then if you do it's an it's extra holidays it's extra fun or extra money to gift so I think yeah it's better to be cautious and assume not I don't I don't think that they'll get rid of it because I think politically yeah it's so damaging but I do think that it might shift to a point where it's like I can't you know if you wait until 75 to get it do you want to work until 75 no you want to you might go well it's just going to cover my care costs basically or it's going to help pay for me to sit at home i think it might like be dragged to a point where life is basically done in the sense of going and seeing the world and doing the things you want to do so you want to plan ahead of that but yeah i mean it's a bit depressing it's a little bit depressing yeah especially for 25 when when i do as someone's model and and they're my age or younger we we sort of make a compromise and assume it's 50 percent that's what we would put into someone's plan because it's such a lot of money you know it's worth about say 300 grand isn't it in terms of assets yeah so and if you're a couple you're basically saying we're just going to ignore 600 000 pounds worth of benefit um so it's a lot to just leave that off the table and if you if we were had certainty it would make financial planning a lot easier for us a lot cheaper as well yeah because it's sad in a way as well if i get to retirement age and i've planned like i'm not going to get a state pension i've saved essentially an extra 500 grand to accommodate for that and then it's there and i'm like well i could have gone on i could have gone on an extra holiday every year but you could then retire earlier because as you get closer to your date you're going to have more certainty about the rules aren't you so if you plan in your 30s 40s as if it's not going to be there or in its entirety and then as you get closer if it's there then you just pull your retirement earlier yeah yeah okay thanks andrea andrea i mean i'm too sure that's that's that's that's andrea that's andrea andrea andrea andrea andrea what do you think well i knew like andrea andrea oh now i don't know the difference between what i'm saying how andrea is a lovely name but andrea has already actually spoken to you oh maybe you should know because she might be one of your clients but she she found it so useful that she wanted to share this with us she wrote had an hours an hours worth of advice from lisa which was really helpful and she spotted that my husband's pension value was low and it'll be worthwhile paying into it even though he was not able to work at the time the process in practice meant that he could claim a tax rebate from hmrc and it helped to even up the difference in our pension values it also means being able to use his income tax-free allowance in the future if drawing on his pension.

43:07So Lisa, how do the rules around this work? So what was going on here is this lady's doing well with a pension, husband is a low earner or no earner, it can work for that as well. And it's really important for you to be paying into a pension for the lower earner in the household. So this is the tax trick I was mentioning earlier so let's say I'm earning less than£12 ,570 so I pay no tax on what I earn but the way there's a little quirk of the pension rules is that if I pay an£80 automatically without having to do anything the government's going to give me£20 back and the pension company's going to claim that for me so let's say I'm earning£10 ,000 a year I keep all that 10 000 um if i were to pay that 10 000 straight into my pension the government's going to increase that to 12 500 so you get free money for nothing so it's a really good quirk of for lower earners my partner's not working currently so if she can i do that if she's not working um so the pension rules are you can pay in 100 of your earnings up to a maximum of 60 000 pounds a year if you've got no earnings that rule makes it sound like you can't pay anything into a pension so there's an exception so if you earn nothing you can pay 3 600 a year gross 300 pounds a month the total going in between you and the employer um sorry you and the government 300 a month 80 you put in 20 the kids one isn't it it's the same exactly same rule so in this instance the husband could pay in if he's not earning or your partner um 240 pounds a month and the government's going to put in 60 for free wow so you could do that for your partner and for your son and get that tax back this see this is why i like financial advisors these days back in the day i didn't realize how much knowledge you guys had this is amazing thank you yeah so in this instance it's a way to boost his pension without paying any tax but getting tax relief but also let's say that say that they're the same age and they're going to retire at 60 she's got loads in a pension he hasn't got any he can then go hard spending that pension between now and age 67 when his state pension kicks in so he can then draw out that pension and keep him below in the nil rate up to $12 ,570 a year out and pay no tax on the way out as well.

45:39He has to do it before state pension age because then the state pension is going to eat his personal allowance. But it's a way to build up money very, very tax efficiently and then spend it tax efficiently, i.e. at zero, before state pension. Brilliant. And do the government put in the money every month? Whenever you put in. Whenever you put in. Whatever you put in. Like a Lysa. Yes. They claim it. Most platforms, yeah, like it's an auto-top-up or it'll show instantly. Like on Vanguard, it just shows instantly. Yeah, same with that. But you know, when you're a higher rate, they put the 20 % and you go claim the rest through like a self-assessment or whatever.

46:16But yeah, typically you'll get the 20%. Awesome. So yeah, that's how it works. Was there any other part to that question? I don't think so. No, I think it was more just praise to you and can you explain how that works so other people can benefit? Amazing. I can see that you answered everything else. We put follow-ups of, you know, who's it most suitable for? If it's a partner stay-at-home, kids, what if you earn less than 12K? You answered all that? Yes, I've smushed it. Ryan. Ryan wrote in this question. Do you use any methods to help you stop worrying about money? My financial future is looking very bright, but I still sit there most days worrying about it, looking over spreadsheets and checking my investments.

46:57Maybe Demo can relate. I literally thought it's this Demo writing in, like, with a different name. Demo can relate. demo is ryan yeah and it's got worse you know i no it hasn't got worse but i find peace in it like i find peace in the checking the numbers and the spreadsheets and updating them it's like a hobby it's like one of my favorite things to do i don't know i don't i don't know and like the numbers getting bigger doesn't make me feel like oh you know that's it's all it's all better it doesn't doesn't it's better than looking at it in the negative but yeah so funny because i don't even look at mine like demo drops in a bit for my son every month for his uh yeah i invested in yeah and i put it in as well but then like i get an email every like a couple of months from hargree's lands on like you need to put the cash into the actual isa just like stop leaving it in the account so like everything you need to you need to invest it you can't just have it sat in cash i know but like because i don't like unlike you i don't check it every day so i just set automatic buys i bet you yeah i don't check i don't i don't check it every my son's one all the time but i got a spreadsheet like a net worth tracker for me and i know that to the penny yes i don't have time for that i just send the money in there and i'm like look at it like once a year i kind of like it though as well that as you get older you can you can be like oh my god i earned what i earned in a year and my first job you know by growth yeah by growth oh god i just lost whole years in 25 you know and you kind of i don't know it doesn't reassure you I mean it reassures me in a point I tell you what does reassure me taking the number that I have today I'm like just applying a five percent growth and going oh I'm basically there I'm okay in that sense but then you the mind goes yeah but if I put a few more and then I can be doing like this and this and this I'm at the point now where if I didn't save anything I could retire at a normal age with a with a normal retirement then but then you suddenly start to look at Shady Oaks brochures and be like, whoa, I want this place.

48:55You know what I mean? I think it's like you say, the mind never stops. I don't think there's a level where you go, that's enough. Really? Do you hear this a lot? Because I'm literally the opposite. I'm just like, it'll be fine. I'll just make a little more money and put more money in next year. And like, I just put more money. Oh, I just got a raise. I can put more money next year. I just don't worry about it. I'm like, as I'm getting a raise every year and like as things are growing in life, I'm like, it'll be fine. But I'm definitely not in a position where I'm like, if I extrapolated from today I could retire but I don't worry about it because I'm like it will be fine yeah I mean I'm not talking about bawling out my brain but I've got enough now that it could compound away but I still I put more in now than I ever have so I think there's two things for Ryan that stick out to me it doesn't sound like it's making him happy and what's the point of it if it's not making you happy so he's got to put in some automatic habits that keep him sane so I think he's got to know his number so what is the number he's got to save every year to achieve his goals and as long as he does that he needs to just ease off himself and then he's got to say well what are the things I enjoy now and allocate money on purpose to those things those things that he enjoys and honestly the sad thing about being a financial advisor is you know people so well and then they bloody die um in 2025 we had two clients die too young um and so if he i would hate for him to have screwed away all this money and not have had any fun because that could be him i hope it's not ryan of course but you've got to get that balance because what's the point of having too much if you're if if life takes a different course he's got to find the balance and whichever way keeps him sane more often than not when i sit down with these extreme warriors um they have too much cash um way too much cash that i had um at the end of 2025 a lady come in for financial diagnosis session we sat down she's petrified about not retiring well um when we did the numbers so you're there you're in your 40s and you're there like chill out um there are lots of ways we can improve her plan and make her more streamlined but her job in her financial plan is to actually go and enjoy her 40s um because she spent too much of her 20s and 30s and early 40s not doing the things that she loves um and the benefit of that she's got a nice pot but you had too much in cash not focusing enough on pensions um and a really weird ice so that was taking far too much risk but not returning enough so there's things we could do but um it was such a sort of sigh of relief for her to know that the pressure's off um and they can get really emotional for that reason you're being so you're giving them their life back yeah it's permission to spend so ryan i don't know how old he is does he say don't tell me he's in his 20s no i hope not all these 20 years making me look bad uh yeah no he Yeah, he needs to know his number and then he needs to create a to-do list now of how he's going to enjoy his money and spend it.

52:15I remember you, like you've spoke about clients in the past. I remember you having one client that got like big bonuses, quite young. I think it was a lady who worked in IT and stuff like this. You know, you don't share details with the clients, but you've mentioned. And obviously being a financial advisor in London tends to mean you deal with people with a lot more money. Yeah. Do you find that people are genuinely happy about their finances or stressed about them with the people that you deal with? When you've got a plan and we're keeping it on track, I think that, what's the word, outsources the worry.

52:48Yeah. So that helps the average person that we look after because I think they would be natural worries or natural planners, let's put it that way. And so I think outsourcing the problem does help. And having permission to spend does really help or permission to gift does really help. But yeah, I think most people on very high salaries can feel a bit tense because like, well, what if this salary goes away? And I think that's what worries them on the whole. So having some different scenario planning. So what if it does go away? What if you did only earn an only? I know this is a high salary, but if you did only earn£50 ,000 now for the rest of your career, what happens?

53:31Or if you're earning the big bucks, maybe you're addicted to that money and you don't realise it and you actually don't need it. That often happens. that say well why don't we focus on you doing a different job that makes you happy from say 45 so they've got this timeline where it's like well i'm going to do this job that i'm starting to hate but i love the money for only another five years and then i think having that end date really helps to then go and do a passion project or work for charity or do whatever feels like your heart's desire rather than your head's desire and then because they've got that clarity they can kind to hammer the money away and not just get to the end of the five years and go i blew all the money trying to make myself happy because i worked a job that i was miserable in yeah yeah yeah i need some of this i just think we should do one uh because i'd be interested to see if you think i could spend more because i feel like i spend a lot you know that you can in the way that you even worrying about it you've answered your own question you said you've got enough to live a nice retirement if it just compound so the answer is yes the challenge for me there was like can i get it so that i can i could be financially independent now you know that's kind of what i strive for um but maybe is that important i don't know i think like the one the one worry i have is is what you said about your clients it's like what if all this goes away so i've kind of got to save as much as I can so that if it all goes away I'm alright because it just feels like you're a footballer you get a job yeah yeah yeah I don't know if in my head that would feel like a failure I don't know you might feel like you were going backwards because you quit your job to do YouTube so then if it went away then you went back to your job you're like oh I set up myself I did what I wanted and now I've got to go back yeah and it wouldn't feel like progress it would feel like a step backwards but maybe and there are jobs that I think I would probably really enjoying stuff but yeah there's that kind of but maybe having the freedom to make that choice is the liberating bit like what what is it that i need to save every single year and what is it that i need to spend every year add those two numbers together and that's what you need to earn yeah yeah i think um i sometimes i put this pressure on myself of if i don't if this doesn't be the thing that changes my life completely then it is a failure whereas actually i could just look at it and go that was a success if it ended today like dead it was a success you know helped a lot of people do a lot of cool things but yeah you kind of have this pressure of if i have to go back and get a job oh i've somehow messed up yeah which i don't know if that's even the case no and i do worry about being the richest person in the graveyard because i think there's a high chance that i will be that person you've got to learn to spend yeah i know do spend i look at all the money going out but and i'm like where's it all going but there are some habits that like i mean we'll be like out and then he'll be like oh yeah let's just go to to like here and i'm like he's like it's a 25 minute walk i'm like man let's just get an uber so no let's just walk it so i'm like there are times where you could just you know give yourself a bit more comfort and like i feel like you're still frugal not as frugal as you were but i think you're still like a little bit yeah yeah scared scared it's all going to go away it's the best way to yeah the thing that i the things that i won't spend on are like a house for myself because i would look at it and go well the stamp duty is going to be outrageous i could just buy assets with that and then that'll produce income you know what i mean like a house that i think most people in my position will be like i'm going to buy a dream house not dream i'm not talking like a forever house yeah not with swimming pools but i see people around me that earn less money than i do and they ratchet through the housing gears really quickly and they straddle themselves with lots of mortgage debt and i'd like my mates like oh the stamp duty was like 20 grand and i'm like bloody hell like no thanks you know what i mean where so that's so i would i probably and i drive a car that's like a 17 plate a class full of dents i know that other people around me would be like i'm gonna buy myself a nice car and I do look at nice cars and I think well I would I would like a nice car but then I look at the cost I'm like no I'll just buy assets and I never switch that switch the other way anything that could be considered kind of like basically like clothes meals friends holidays I'll buy that but anything that's like a house or a car I find it really hard to kind of upgrade my current situation even though I could afford it I think it's got to be well maybe it sounds like you need the plan to be well through like what's the reason why to do it yeah i think for me like maybe you're allowed a frivolous reason why yeah yeah i think that's really important happiness and like what you're satisfied with not impressing others like when i was got my new car i wanted to i told you i was like i'm gonna buy this one i'll get it on finance it was like 25 grand mercedes i'll just pay every month and i'm like why am i doing this i can buy a second-hand car for like eight grand and be happy and i don't need to buy like this new 20 whatever plate like it's not necessary So I think happiness is really important and like what you need and not trying to do it for other people.