Financial Advisor Reveals: I Was Secretly Broke (Here's How I Fixed It) - Ian Dempsey

0:00Ian Dempsey: It's so nice to see you again. I always love having you on and I think we connect like on a human level and a lot of like what the struggles that we go through as business owners. Yeah, we both go through and we resonate. We sort of hold each other up when the other one's not feeling as good about things, which is awesome. But by day, you've got financial advisor hat on. but back in the day you were secretly in credit card debt you were living paycheck to paycheck you've got the actual shame that you've sort of spoken about publicly that was attached to that how does someone whose day-to-day is basically fixing people's finances have that happen to them with their money it's it's gradual over a period of time and for me relating back to like the the episode that you had when Neil was on and you said this like similar things, it all started around that uni, moving away from home and just get all this money chucked at you and just going absolutely crackers with it and spending it on all kinds of stuff that I just didn't need, that I felt made me happy.

1:08And then it just kept going and going and going. And you get to a point, I didn't really have that tipping point until, I'm being really honest, mate, probably about five, six years ago. So I've been a financial advisor for a long time and it was roundabout lockdown and the social media side of things started to really take off. And I was talking about it and I'm like, I'm telling people to do stuff that I'm not doing myself. Yeah. Like get a grip on this. And it wasn't like, I'd got some degree of control by that point, but I just felt like a massive hypocrite. And initially it was like, oh, well I've said that and I'm not really doing it.

1:40And then it just got bigger and bigger and bigger. And I got up and I'm like, I need to walk the walk and talk the talk. And it was a real moment of, stop spending money on stupid stuff. Stop buying new golf clubs. Stop wasting your money on like two, three takeaways a month. All the little bits. And the big penny drop, I'm funny enough, was when I switched bank accounts. And I moved from a traditional bank account to Stalin, which I love. I think they're incredible. And there was all the spaces. And I'd watched a demo of it by, maybe on YouTube actually. and I just started splitting out and budgeting everything that we've got.

2:18And I said to the missus, I'm like, we need to change our bank account. This is what we should be doing. Let's budget everything out for the kids. This, this, this. Went through it, set it up. Got to the end of the month. Had a blind panic because there was money left in the account. I'm like, we've missed a direct debit. Went through everything. I'm like, that's how much money we're wasting every month on just existing and not being proactive and organised enough.

2:41Ian Dempsey: Yeah. there's a study uh by uh someone at harvard university and as a psychologist and a scientist did this to basically unpack how people handle money it's why i'm so big on monzo pots same concept it's they gave um people a certain amount and they had to stash the money half the group had to put it in one pot another group had four pots which they could attribute the money to now that by the end of the month how much had those two sets of individuals saved versus the ones that had it in one pot and it was 78 percent higher over the course of a year when it was split up and given jobs and just simply because of the simple awareness of this money is for x y and z this money is for x y and z and that's why i talk about the three bank system all the time it's worked wonders for me um it's kind of a a uk spin on prosperity consciousness by frederick a guy called frederick glerman really interesting book his is eight which is just ridiculous for most people um you don't need eight and americans a bit different because they've got all these mental like rough art rays and these different accounts right so you don't need all of that but like just by doing that and giving your money a job as you've just articulated so well one, it's really easy to do.

4:02Ian Dempsey: How long did it take you to set that starting up? Do you know, like 10 minutes? Yeah. Because you've got the banking guarantee in place now, haven't you? Where you switch your bank account, they'll change all your direct debits, all your payments, everything. And even I worked in banking for 15 years, and I was sceptical of how this guarantee would work. And within a week, everything was done. Cards, pin numbers, every payment, every past payment I paid someone was there. And I think the real thing for me was naming those pots, whatever he wanted to and putting a picture on him. Putting the picture, I like that.

4:32And I use this with clients, right, all the time. And I said, like, who do you manage your bank account with? One of the last bits of conversation I have with a meeting is who your bank accounts with? Have you thought of having them somewhere else? This is a pot system. And everybody's like, wow, I did not know that existed. Do it, change it, make a difference. But the one example I use is we, the dog needs a groom every six weeks. Picture of the dog on there, dog groomers. So whenever the dog groomer comes up, there's money in it to pay the dog groomer. And it was just a silly example that I used, but everybody remembers it.

5:00Because they never got a dog. Yeah. Yeah. And it makes a big difference. Huge. Like even kids' haircuts and stuff. Like we went minute detail on it. Oh, you went super grand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, interesting. Like every September, the football subs for the kids were due. They'd need a new pair of football boots. They'd need a new school uniform. So there'd be a school uniform pot. There'd be a football pot. There'd be a Christmas pot. There was a dog grooming pot. There was a takeaway pot. There was a holiday. If we booked a holiday, the name of the holiday. with a picture of the hotel was staying on there as well.

5:31Every single thing was just in there and it made such a difference. Yeah. Such a difference. Because automatically you don't think about it.

5:39Ian Dempsey: Yeah, it's the automation, right? That was going to be my second point. It's just like, it's automatic. Just set it up and you know how much is going to go in there and it just happens and you can see it tick up. And the good thing about Monzo, I don't know if starting off as this as well, but on certain amount of pots, so the bigger ones, so for example, Christmas and stuff like that, We turn on roundups on our spending. So that was huge because that's actually quite a lot for us over a joint account for across a year. And then the second part is it earns interest. So it's like a savings account.

6:10Ian Dempsey: There's earning interest as well, which is just class. We've got five and it changes sometimes throughout the year. And then I have two personally as well. So seven in total across all of our accounts. and it just makes my life 20 times easier because you know these things are happening. Whether or not you like it or not, you're going to pay for it somehow and you better not try and get that on credit cards out or like put yourself in a sticky situation or have to bring someone up to borrow money because you can't afford X, Y and Z. There's 11 million people predicted in 2026 to go into debt to pay for Christmas.

6:52Ian Dempsey: Wow. And I think that a large part of that can be solved by setting that up in January and paying 20 quid, 30 quid a month into your Christmas pot, right? Yeah. And there's no surprise. We did the MOT for the cards, everything. And what I love about them now, they've now evolved to have virtual cards. Yeah, yeah. So like I was saying to you outside, I went on holiday with my mates. There was two of us, three of us went to Ibiza and everyone was like, I'll get this one, I'll get that one. And then we clocked it all up at the end. and then I got back from holiday and I'm like we should have just had a virtual card everybody put a lump of money in and then it's all you don't have to to fanny around doing that and I think it's so clever to do that we set the kids up with them as well so we could have a a kite account so you could see where they were spending all their money and it just got them in the habit of doing a similar thing oh that's cool well I've got two out of four in the habit of doing that the other two are just like it comes in and it goes it's like it burns a hole in their pocket which is exactly like I was like at that age as well yeah yeah you know You can't, you can't.

7:48Ian Dempsey: Some people are just wired differently, aren't they? But I think that paycheck to paycheck mentality then starts to shift when you just set these things up, right? And would you say that since you've done that, that your relationship with money, do you feel a little bit more at ease? Yeah, like I've resigned myself to the fact that I'm never going to be perfect with money. And that's kind of rich coming from someone who does what I do. But I don't think anybody is. I'm fucking terrible, man. And you're never going to have a 10 out of 10. Do you know what I mean? No, I'm awful. I know I'm awful.

8:22Ian Dempsey: And there'll be times of the month where I'll be like, load of client fees lying under the count. I'm like, oh, great, we're loaded. Let's go to the pub. Let's do something to celebrate that we've done that. And then like the next day you wake up, I'm like, was that really worth it? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But I'm always going to have those battles. And it's just having those little things in place. Like Amazon now, over lockdown, terrible on Amazon. buy, buy, buy, buy, buy. And before you know, it's gone. Prime Day was just like Christmas in our house. Really? Okay. Oh, like I've never been that on it, but I don't know why.

8:55We got sucked in once and I just started a new job, got a pay rise. And it was like, I doubled my pay. I think I'd gone from like 60K a year to 125 grand a year, which was nuts for this effectively the same job. We had all this extra money coming in. Prime Day came around. We're going on holiday to Disney World. And I'm like, we need new suitcases. And I want to need this. We need that. And it just kept like the till register. in my head was just going ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And I can still do that. But like my other half now is getting a lot better challenging me. Like if she starts seeing like more than like the average number of Amazon posts, like little bits coming through, she's like, you all right?

9:32Are you okay? Because I'm an emotional spender. Like if I feel down about something, I'll spend a bit of money.

9:39Ian Dempsey: Yeah. Yeah. I'm the same. what's really helped me mate is i got um i now have a guilt-free spending pot yes and so the amazon it can be anything i just like last month i got myself arsenal shirt and i have a farm shop pot because i'm a nutcase for food like i'm really on my food i went down a whole rabbit hole about like quality of meat from supermarkets what goes in them and all of this stuff and i since then obviously a lot of supermarkets have improved and they're a bit more open and honest about this but even so i'm farm shops butchers growing green groceries because i just like buying local like it's my thing that's that's why you know i'm not going out waxing hundreds of pounds on tuesday night in the club anymore it's not my vibe like farm shops and organic food i don't know why it's my thing um so that is my part and i'm allowed to blow it like completely guilt-free uh no the It's just can't say anything about it.

10:37Ian Dempsey: It's like, it's a matter of it's an arsehole shirt or a bit of food or a new camera or something. I can emotionally buy myself a pair of trainers if I'm feeling down on a Sunday morning, as long as it's in the pot. And just by doing that has sort of given me like that level of like, I've got that. I can put the foot down and I can also, and when it's run out, I'm like, oh, it's run out. No, I have to wait. yeah and it just gives me that friction which i think is so hard in this day and age because of like digitized money right like you just don't feel anything do you when you like pay it's easy done and do you know like when you were saying that the one thing that really got me on track for this stuff was i remember when i worked at hsbc i'd moved from santander i got a decent pay rise worked and literally the the the brand shop was it i was single at the time had the two kids on a Wednesday and on a weekend.

11:28And I'm like, I'd get to the end of the month and there'd be literally that last week, there'd be now left. Bills would be paid, but everything would be fine. And I'm like, I've got a nice suit on, I've got a nice watch. I've been sucked into the lifestyle. I'm driving a brand new tripping Mercedes out the front. Everyone's like, oh, I love your car. And part of me is like, yeah, but I'm fucking skinned. Yeah. And I did the brown envelope thing. I was like, how am I going to do this? And I thought, right, this is what I'm going to do. because when we first had kids, I did it and it worked then.

11:58So I thought it might work again. Did the same thing and broke a lot of that habit straight away and just took my cash out on payday and made sure there's enough direct debits in there. Put it all into envelopes. I think it'll be a lot harder to do that now because not many places will, not as many places will be accepting as cash. But I was consciously aware of when I was spending a 10 at five or 20 quid. The first couple of weeks, I was still just like, oh yeah, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine. And then I got to the point where I'm like, every day this week, I've handed over seven, eight quid to go and get a meal deal or something else.

12:27I'm just going to make a sandwich at home. Every month at the end of the month when this money would come in, I'd go and buy a new shirt for a night out and I'd be like, I've got a wardrobe full of them. And it just became almost obsessive to the point. And I'm like, well, if I don't spend that, I'll have 250, 300 quid left at the end of the month. And then me and the kids can go to like Thorpe Park or do something. And that's made a massive difference. I think it'd be difficult to do that now though. You retrained yourself. And it was horrible. it was horrible i hated every single moment of it but after doing it for two months i was like

13:00Ian Dempsey: i'm aware of what i'm spending and where that money goes 100 man we just put um it will be out by the time this comes out so i'll drop a link to it below but we've just done like a full like deep dive into the kind of digitization of money and it in people might be like oh you're boring boring but it's actually really interesting like how um much we more we spend now because of contactless because of uh even with chip and pin even with the swipe when you used to have to sign um it's all these steps and they've spent billions and billions of pounds and we go into detail about like the where the changes happened and what how much has increased there obviously e-commerce and social media and play a massive part in this but they've spent like billions and billions of pounds and tons and tons of hours of researching your trigger points to stop you from feeling bad about spending money.

13:53Ian Dempsey: And so you get to today's point where today, I've done it already. I haven't even looked, but I know I was in Costa and I went in Sainsbury's, I picked up a few things. I couldn't tell you how much I spent because I haven't got£4.30 in my pocket to show you. Do you know what I mean? This is like back in the day, you would really feel that pain, that friction and we don't have that anymore and so that's why like a big part of what we're doing with gains is like giving you visibility and and you know pots and spaces really do help that it's kind of the amplification of it i think well funny enough i heard about mcdonald's and why they've got the machines have you heard this yeah it's because you're more likely to spend more on a machine than you would do with a person at the counter because you don't feel guilty yeah and and like i can see it like i've taken the kids to mcdonald's and i'm still like all school want to go up the front buy whatever i want and then come out but they're just like tap tap tap tap tap and before you know that order's gone through the roof and i'm like yeah very very clever but very subtle and i hadn't even twigged that's why they had them in and then and then someone told me i'm like wow that makes a lot of sense so the delivery apps is 34 percent more per order than if you phoned up or you went in store because you're not dealing with that human being you don't have that shame of like should i get the spring rolls and then put crackers on top basically so you buy them which is nuts, right?

15:13Ian Dempsey: So the brown envelope method helped you out of it. Yeah. Was there anything else that you did that really sort of brought that into play and made you a bit more aware around these things? The conversations daily with clients about what I was doing, about what they were doing, how they were, because I was surrounded by money, like dealing with people that were building wealth and investments and pensions and tax planning and all that stuff. And I became really blasé to money. Like it was almost like if I go to a builder's house, like there might be incredible builders, but there's always unfinished jobs around the house.

15:44And it felt kind of similar, but I would use that as the reason I'm like, ah, I deal with it every day. It's fine. Don't worry about it. You'll be okay. Just kept pushing it back, pushing it back, pushing it back. And then it got to a point where I'm like, I've got nothing in my pension. I've got nothing in savings. I've got nothing in investments. On the face of it, I'm living the successful life, but behind closed doors, anything but. And it was, and then I've had, then I had it the other way where when I set the business up, I had like three, like incredible months, my first three months at the level that I would only dream about.

16:21I was a 23K month, a 25K month and a 28K month. My first three months of giving financial advice to a separate business. I was like, this is it. This is all I've ever wanted. The first month, this is all I ever wanted. And I got to the end of the third month and I was broken. And it was such an odd feeling because I went for a game of golf, came back my phone had been pinging all morning because I'd had a social media post on LinkedIn going nuts nobody's in the house sat down and I burst into tears like literally broke down and I'm like I'm like

16:52Ian Dempsey: this isn't what it was cracked up to be no no it's weird isn't it you're on it but you don't when it comes you're like and like if someone had said to me like when I first started my first job in financial services first regulated role in financial services was a mortgage broker from Britannia building a site 25 grand a year and I'd done that in my first month of going self-employed. I was like, I've made it. And then the second month and the third month and what really hit me was I can do that and I can have that all again. But the kids were coming back from school and the tea wasn't ready. The missus was like, when are you going to come in?

17:26Like, are you going to finish? And I'm like, if I don't make money, when are I getting paid at the end of the month? I can't pay the mortgage. And there was a real kind of penny drop moment. I'm like, it was like, path A or path B. Do you want the 25, 28K months if you do, this is what you've got to get up. Or do you want something different? And I chose the other one and it was really, like I got a coach. I coached through it as well because I just felt like I can't figure this out on my own.

17:55Ian Dempsey: Quick one on GainsApp, which is the app I built. If you're anything like me, you've got your Monzo over here, your Halifax over there, a savings account there, a credit card there, a business account there. And it's very, very complicated and difficult to stay on top of your finances. You tap for a coffee over there, you've got your meal deal, You'll get your bits that you pick up on the way home. And if I actually asked you how much you spent today, it's very difficult to do that. But Gaines is pulling all of your accounts into one easy to manage dashboard. From there, you can see everything, all of your spending laid out visually for you.

18:22Ian Dempsey: You can move spending into different categories and you can set up budgets across multiple accounts. We also offer instant cashback by a gift card, saving you 3 to 20 percent at every single major retailer in this country right now, which can add up to over a thousand pounds a year for a 30 second step. So not money that you can sniff out as Christmas covered flights, holidays, whatever that might well be. The average household also overspends on bills by roughly£500 a year. And that is something that we built into GAINS to track your upcoming bills, tell you when you're overpaying and give you options to switch your bills onto a much cheaper tariff.

18:58Ian Dempsey: You can download GAINS for free and connect your first bank today. The link is in the show notes or you can scan a QR code on screen and let's make life less expensive together.

19:10Ian Dempsey: so why did you you know you're well known for calling the industry the gray supergate which actually cracked me up and anyone i actually say that to i always credit you back for for saying it because they laugh when they say that it's usually financial advisors because they're coming in their gray suits and i'm like hey i love it yeah but you were in the big restricted firms right you were doing like the kind of this is our way or the not the highway or the no way kind of vibe um what made you see it on the inside there and then go no i need to we need to be like open and everyone and there's not one way fits all i just felt like a cog in a massive machine started off in banking when i started getting regular advice it was at santander loved that job great team big firewood belly but i was seeing like 35 to 40 appointments a week on busy like end of tax year, your diary would be full with eight, nine, ten appointments a day.

20:08So it was high volume, high pressure, ultra compliant. But what it made me realise over time was there's little creativity in this. You're just following a process. Follow the process. This much input will give you that much output. Follow it our way and you'll be fine. And then I was made redundant from Santander, moved to HSBC, slightly more sophisticated proposition, inheritance tax plan and a few other bits. And then three to four year mark again, I'm like, is this what I'm going to be doing for the rest of my life? And I think in those networks and arenas, you can almost become institutionalized at the four, five year mark.

20:45Because you've got the company car, you've got the laptop, you've got the bonuses, you know your client portfolio. Golden handcuffs. It becomes easier. But then as it becomes easier, you get more responsibility and sucked into more and more stuff. And I thought, if I don't go out now, then I'm never going to do it. moved to another big network at the time, which was another big step up. And then I just got to the point where I'm like, I either need one more roll of the dice, which is going to be completely independent, or I need to get out completely. And I rolled the dice, went independent and haven't looked back.

21:17Obviously, I stood through a separate business, but how long ago was that? Probably four years ago. And it's made a monumental difference, but I still feel like a bit of a square peg in a round hole in the regulated space. and i think yeah and i don't think there's anything wrong with that either because i've

21:33Ian Dempsey: positioned myself to to be like that yeah but that's what makes you you yeah because you're like no well no like we're not fighting against what i think is actually probably not right for most people yeah actually being a square peg is what gives you just you know it's that red bird in a sea of green birds kind of approach but they're all still the same species so it's like i think it's really really important but be straight with me is the average person in the uk well served by financial advice has it got better has it got worse in your eyes do you think that's a that's a hard question to answer and the reason it's hard is because the fc have made some incredible changes over the years to um cut the bottom of the industry out if you like re-qualifying changes have come in consumer duty but fundamentally i still think there's a there's a level of wealth that is is underserved and let down by that regulators industry and that is where the whole fin fluency in space has come come through and filled that gap much better than financial advice has ever been able to do and i think in that space there's intense competition between the regulated space and oh look at these clowns on social media as you know like it gets very, very heated in a lot of conversations.

22:55Ian Dempsey: But then they all want to come on this show. Exactly. And the other part of that is, right, if that gap didn't exist in the first place and you were serving those clients properly, that would never have opened up. But the reality of it is, like a lot of the people in that wealth category, and then the numbers are probably like under 200K plus. So if you've got under£200 ,000 in wealth, then typically to get financial advice, you might be going to an IFA who's just kind of started in the process or you might be using a restricted proposition. And there's nothing wrong with either, by the way. But it will still be a sales process.

23:32Ian Dempsey: Yeah. And a process that you've got to go through. And I think... Well, most don't take you if you've got 100 grand. Correct. At HSBC, our cutoff was 250. Anything less than 250, you couldn't walk through. And that's in savings and investments as well, isn't it? Investable assets, yeah. or you had to be in a more than 100 grand and that was like 10 odd years ago. But that price point is only going higher and higher and higher and higher over a period of time. But I still think there's a solution in that space and I probably don't think it's transactional financial advice. Like hand on heart. And I think that's going to be incredibly damaging to a lot of people, a lot of that operate in this space.

24:12Ian Dempsey: I think it's changing a touch. AI is probably going to end up solving a large part of that for a lot of people giving them access to the advice that you know people are getting with 250k plus but for the everyday person on social media as you said like for influencers popping up and doing their thing I mean that's literally my business is helping people go from I've got fuck all now how do I go and get to my first 100k it's basically why I exist and that's the bit we've let down as an industry because we've been like, well, I'm not going to tell you how to get a mortgage. I'm not going to tell you how to sort your day out.

24:49I'm not going to tell you how to do all these other mental blocks that you've got that you can't start investing. I'm going to see when you've got 150, 200 grand in your bank account.

24:57Ian Dempsey: Yeah. Or mumsy, dad. Which I also understand, right? Because if you're running your own business, you want to make sure your business is going to be profitable. Well, yeah. An expensive calculator and a suit in a lot of ways. Yes, absolutely. what separates a genuinely good advisor if someone's out there looking for an advisor now what separates a generally good one from a bad one in your opinion i think a lot of the lot of the challenges that there's not enough financial advisors available within the uk so when individuals typically reach out with financial advisor i'd be very surprised to reach out to more than two three but actually like if you met 100 people in a pub not every single person in that pub is going to be your best mate.

25:41You need to find the person that you're comfortable working with and keep searching until you do because the right financial advisor will make a massive difference to what you're going to get out of your life financially. But actually, what I say to a lot of clients is if you get the part where you don't need me anymore and you do this stuff yourself, I'll be the happiest man alive because my job's worked. And I've got clients like that now and they'll turn around and say, well, we've worked with you for five, 10 years. We like what you do. We want our security of knowing that you're there and knowing that we're not going to make the mistakes.

26:18But I think good to bad is very, very different depending on the environment that you've brought up in, right? Like if I use the example of myself in those restricted spaces, the financial advice that I was given was at a high standard in the parameters of that space. if i compared that advice to what i would give now as an independent it's night and day night and day like there was there'd be so much more i could do now than i could have done then

26:45Ian Dempsey: yeah and obviously some people argue completely the opposite because they kind of have to um but you're seeing this from like i've been in this game 20 plus years and this is what i'm seeing yeah yeah like for me it's it's it's never about a sales pitch like if you sit down front of an advising you're getting or anybody and you're getting a sales pitch like red flag straight away what are they trying to sell me are they really interested in me um it's someone who's going to listen to you more than they're going to talk it's going to be have those human conversations it's the goals based stuff it's not about the how much have you got coming in and going out and from a regulatory perspective i get it right you've got a filiformant it's a fact find due diligence on the client to make sure they can afford everything i understand all that but having the deep conversations with a client and not being on the clock when you do it and what i mean by that is like if you're expected to complete an appointment in an hour and a half and you've got to have all of these things done and you get 25 minutes in you feel like you know you've got to you've got to get it done because you've got 35 appointments that week taking your time with clients and really understanding them makes a huge difference I've lost count of the amount of people I've sat in front of that said we were really put off with other FAs or we've had a bad experience and I've had two this week and if we've got time I'll go into what's happened with them we just felt like we were going to have to do this ourselves so we didn't know where to turn and we're glad we've come across what you do I want to talk to you about those because I think they're interesting for people because I'm sure there's some shocking nuts things you go on Reddit forums it's like what the hell but a good friend of ours um and the reason why i speak about this because you i think you hit the nail on the head there um good friend of ours neil neil invest he was on the show had a chat with you recently and he said to me that like you got to the end of the 90 minutes and you hadn't spoken about money once there wasn't one thing about money in there it's all about the human where do you want to go where do you want to be what the type of goals you want for your life like whereas in there you didn't ask him like how much he was making was how the business doing all of these things you were just asking him like i want to get to know you and i think like that is probably because every i imagine you see this like 35 people a week every single one is completely different like every single one there's no one going to be the same but the process wasn't in that environment and that's the difference it's process driven it was i mean here's a lovely brochure this tells you how great the company is that i work for here's a little bit about of investing let's get started sign this form before you start numbers numbers numbers numbers i'll see you next week and i'll give you a recommendation and it was 99 the same 99 at the time whereas and for me it was again there's a whole square peg round hole thing i talked about when it went out on my own i thought i've got to do this differently because if i don't do this differently now i'm going to get four or five years in and everything will be on the line in terms of like what we're doing as a family and i'll have fallen out of love with it again and it was just the reprogramming relearning of what to have those conversations properly with clients yeah how could you not love like finding out like people and like watching them what makes them tick and like turning that into like great habits and a really great plan and watching their life change because of it.

30:04Ian Dempsey: Like it just seems so logical when you take a step back and think about it. A good friend of a show, Andy Hart, like he talks about this all the time. He's like, I couldn't care less about what you'd been doing until this point. He's like, you are that person. That's what's happened. Great. Now let's sort of out, where do you want to bloody get to? Because I can help you with that. I can't help you with what you've done before. But I can help you with the next step. And I can't understand that unless I can understand you and where you want to be. And so he's like, most of the time, And then, you know, what am I really going to teach you?

30:36Ian Dempsey: Sort your pension out, do stocks and shares, a few tax little planning things here and there, and you've got some extra cash, maybe from an inheritance or a business sale. But other than that, I just need to understand you. And it was a real eye-opener for me when I started doing that. Because all of a sudden, those conversations with clients, even existing clients that I'd looked at for three or four years, all of a sudden were, ooh, actually, Ian, do you know what? I'm worried about this. I'm worried about that. or I've got a savings account that I didn't tell you about or there's so much comes out in it.

31:08And I think it should feel different and it should feel uncomfortable. In the 20 odd years of doing this, since I started doing that, I've had clients burst into tears, like five or six burst into tears and be like, I feel like I've had a weight just taken off in an hour. I wouldn't have taken that weight off in one of those other environments where I'm not having those conversations at all. It would have been a product pitch and there's the advice and set it up, which is still right for some people. Don't get me wrong.

31:36Ian Dempsey: You get like, do you get it? Do you think anyone needs advice then? Because I struggle with this. I'm like, you don't. Yeah, I don't think you do. I don't think you should be paying for one until a certain point. Do you agree with that sentiment? Or do you think that everyone should have some level of financial advisor? I think everybody should have some kind of goal setting experience. and a real dig into actually what do you want to get out of life, like why does it matter? Tell me. Silent. And just let the client talk. Because we're so ready, like in that environment, we're like three, four steps ahead already.

32:16Like you say something and I was like trying to be three, four steps ahead. Oh, well, if he says this, I'm going to go down this route and that route. Like, no. Have someone that can help you set some real goals about what you want to get out of life, even if it scares the crap out of you. And like you and I both know, like writing goals down and planning these goals makes a massive difference to the outcome that you're going to get at the back end.

32:33Ian Dempsey: Oh, mate, and they change all the time as well. Literally all the time. Absolutely everybody should have that. I think everybody should have some degree of financial planning. Yeah. And that might be, here you are now, based on the goals that you've said, this is what your goals are going to look like in 10 years' time. This is the path to get you there. This is what you do tomorrow. This is what you do in three months, five months, ten months. These are returns you need to get. This is how much you should have by five years' time. Map that all out. And that would be good enough for most people.

33:02um but sometimes people like i said pay for the confidence and security you've known that actually someone's looking after me and doing this properly to make sure that i'm going to be okay should everybody have financial advice no should some of the people that have got financial advice right now have financial advice on financial advisor no but they should have some degree of planning and goal setting and then make the decision on whether you want to take that on and do it yourself yeah because if you can understand those goals and what you've got to do step by step exactly like you said with andy there it's not massively complicated no there you go there's your plan you need to put 250 pound a month into your riser you need to make sure you get a return higher than six percent you do that for the next 15 years and you're going to be lying on a beach by the time you're 50 yeah yeah and even then clients are skeptical because it's like oh well things could change up and down and all the rest of it that's why we use modest returns that's why we're not saying 10 12 s &p 500 40 all world we're talking about like five or six or 7 % so that you've got a bit of fat in there in case things drop off.

33:59Ian Dempsey: Yeah. Yeah. And that's where you're like, and then they get, then it will be like, Ian, I want to buy a new house. And then you have to go great. Well, if you do that, it's going to raise your cost by this. You haven't got a pay rise and that's going to affect your plan by this. Then you can do it, but here's why. Right. Like, and then it's like, then they go, I love we're moving in three years, not next year. You know, so like that, That's where the financial advisor is like, for me, is like super powerful. It's like, I'm thinking about doing this, thinking about buying a Porsche, thinking about buying a new car, thinking about going on this big holiday or second home in France.

34:37Ian Dempsey: Well, yeah, you can, but here's the cost of it. And having that sounding board, right, for those big life decisions. And I think it's, I say the same thing to every client, like at the onboarding stage, I say, if you think of a question about money, I want you to pick the phone up. or if you've got any of that thing that you're concerned about financially, pick the phone up. If I don't know the answer, I know somebody who will. Like I want you to pick the phone up if you get made redundant, if you've got a pay rise coming up, a bonus, some RSUs, you get some kind of new pension scheme at work, pick the phone up, have a conversation.

35:08Set up a new business, buy a new car, pick the phone up, let's have a conversation.

35:12Ian Dempsey: Because it makes a difference. Yeah. Yeah, I do it now. I do it now. Yeah. I have sounding boards. You need it? Yeah. And as an advisor, I need it too. And that's one of the hard things about it and running a business as a business owner, like it can be very lonely. Yeah. And I mean, I say that, but Mrs. always keeps being in check, right? I'll have a great idea. I'll be sat in the office and I'll be thinking about procrastinating about all kinds of stuff, but I'm off on a rabbit hole thinking about this great idea. I'm going to do this, research it and all the rest of it. And then I get back in the house.

35:42She's like, that's a stupid idea. And I get really offended by it. And I'm like, that's a stupid idea. I've just spent hours looking at her. And then we'll go out for a dog walk later. And she'll be, she's having a chat. She's like, talk me through it. she knows exactly what she taught me through it. Like how's it all going to work and blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I'm like, two days later, I'm like, yeah, that's a stupid idea.

36:01Ian Dempsey: You know? But that sounding board saw you steaming in the house and I'm like, I thought of a new content idea. Do you want to hear it? She was like, no, but like, yeah, go on. Cause you know, I'm like, I'm going to, she has to say yes. I'm like, what do you think? And she's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, good. I'm like, fuck. I've just spent six hours on this like wasting my whole day I know it very well because she goes yeah yeah yeah but if she goes no that's actually genuinely good then I'm like okay yeah I'm hitting that out on the head but that happens few and far between because I get too many ideas mate look I've spent a whole day on it I've got drawers full of stuff in the office of like I'll have this for a content idea I'll do this for a content idea and try loads of different things a tech drawer of death you are mate like all blackboard whiteboard different lights different all kinds of stuff and I'm like I buy him at the time with all the best intentions and then three weeks later just sat there doing it doing nothing and like again better money management in the business could get on top of that as well but like

37:03Ian Dempsey: A little break in the episode here have you guys been meaning to write or update your will but just keep putting it off you might have done everything right to protect your financial future while you're here your savings are building your ices are ticking over maybe you own a home and you've been contributing towards your pension. But what about after you're gone? And that is where a will comes in to make sure the people you love are protected when you are not here, financially and emotionally too, saving them time and stress when they're going to need it most. Without a law, the laws of intestancy decide what happens.

37:33Ian Dempsey: And that does work for some people, but for others, they want to say in something this important. And yet it is the one part of the money plan that we all put off, me included. Right now, leading estate planner Octopus Legacy, part of the Octopus Group that you know and love are offering you the chance to update or write your will for free until the 31st of October. Charities cover the cost of wills up to£150, which means simple wills are free and wills with trusts are discounted. You can choose whether to write or update your will online, on the phone or in person. Many people who use this service choose to leave a gift to charity as part of their will as a thank you, but you don't have to in order to claim this offer.

38:12Ian Dempsey: To claim your free will today, head to will.octopuslegacy.com forward slash money gains, or you can follow the link in the show notes below. And if you are watching on video, you can also scan the QR on screen. Offer ends soon, so sign up now before appointments get booked up. And now back to the episode.

38:34Ian Dempsey: You're a human. You're a human. why do financial advisors like because like you're out there giving a lot away for free as well like a lot of really brilliant advice like your linkedin's awesome you've been active on social media you go on podcasts you talk about these things quite openly you're like kind of giving away a lot of the source for free that financial advisors gatekeep and put behind payrolls like why why are you doing that and what do you kind of get stick from financial advisors for doing that you know i certainly do but like what what where where does where how do you feel about because you're kind of playing both sides yeah i don't get so much stick anymore like now i'm a little bit more established and actually the other part of it is if i do like so what right that's a reflection of you you're giving me grief about talking to someone about something that you would charge a client five grand for and i'm telling them how to do it for free or at a cost reduced way like that's not my problem you're clearly in a space where you're fearful of what's coming next.

39:36And AI and technology is really going to have an impact on transactional financial advice, the boring, super simple stuff. I've lost my train of thought there. My apologies. That's all right.

39:49Ian Dempsey: Say it again. So you're giving it away for free. Yeah. But then you also have a business with it. How are you balancing the two? Given that information, somebody said to me a long time ago, and I can't remember where it was, give 99 % of what you know away for free and hold back 1%. Zig Ziglar. And find the person and work with the people that want that 1%. Because we've, like you said, kept it behind a firewall for such a long period of time. And a lot of it isn't mega complicated stuff. But we're like, yeah, we'll charge you two grand for that. We'll charge you two grand for that. We'll charge you two grand for that.

40:23Ian Dempsey: Do you know what they pay for? Is you and the accountability and steps. Like, I've given away anything you could possibly want to do with personal finance. If we've not, we've got an article on it or we've done a podcast or we've done a youtube video or a social media short form probably covered it in four or five different angles if you really want to go that deep yeah but what people pay for is people like okay here's what i do today and here's the next plan for the next 90 days and here's all the videos that you need to watch or follow and they will pay for that because it's laid out for them and they're like community and they're like speaking to people and having that like that's where it all comes in but it's all been it's all on the internet and some people like just want to hear that from a trusted voice ai in some ways takes that trust away because you could just put it into ai and figure most of it out but like but you don't know if it's right correct but if that trusted voice then says something similar and maybe adds another layer on top of that then all of a sudden you'll take some action and maybe improve your finances one way or other but for me at the time when i first started like back in lockdown there was nobody doing this stuff from it from a regulator's perspective and talking about how to set investments and what compound growth is.

41:29And it just feels like it goes back to the whole financial education piece, doesn't it? Like if I give everything away for free, if you use it, great. Happy days. If you want me to look after you and pay me a fee for doing it, happy days too.

41:40Ian Dempsey: Yeah, yeah, no, I get that. So for someone that's doing it all themselves, perhaps they're just getting started with a few of these things and they're getting into play. You know, there've been a couple of savings accounts and we looked at a lifetime ISA if they're saving for a house or just got pensions or consolidated. for someone that's doing it all themselves like genuinely in your opinion what's some things that you know they can generally keep doing uh what do they need to do to sort of keep themselves on the right path some little steps and tricks that they can do the regular check-ins so actually um the check-ins on your path to what your final goal is so say save for a house in five years time in simple terms if you want 35 40 grand for a deposit on a house like reverse engineer that back to how much you should have each year or six months.

42:32To milestones. Exactly that. And you can check in and give yourself that pat on the back. Because if, like, imagine somebody says, Sammy, you've got to save £100 a month for the next five years and I'm not going to tell you what for, but it's going to be something really important and I'm going to give you no praise or all the rest of it. Like, as humans, we want that pat on the back. We want to be told, yeah, do you know what? You're doing the right thing. And yes, it's going to get your house, but those check-ins make a massive difference. and verbalizing and writing stuff down makes a huge difference.

42:58That's why I do this stuff in calls and in meetings with clients. Verbalize it. And the amount of times like a married couple say, you never told me that.

43:07Ian Dempsey: Yeah. Or I didn't know that about you. And you're like, well, this is why we talk about it. Like verbalizing makes a massive difference. Having that accountability with somebody else is a big thing as well. Like if it's you and your partner, like talk to each other about this stuff. Like I want to make sure in five years time we are living by the beach. Right, great. Let's reverse engineer that back. How are we going to do that? When are we going to check in? How often are we going to talk about this stuff? Don't talk about money all the time. Concentrate it down into a really short window and have those conversations around finances.

43:37If you're not having conversations around finances with your partner, you should be. And I get in some situations that's stressful. Maybe there's addiction. Maybe there is gambling. Maybe there are other things that impact on that. And it becomes challenging at a particular point in time. but having those conversations on a consistent basis make a massive difference and know your benchmarks and your goals but the goals are the big one man like what are you going for yeah like if you just want to you wouldn't just get in a taxi say take me wherever you want and that's what you're doing with your life but if you got in a taxi and said I want a house in five years time and taxi would take you there depending on how drunk you are they might take you around the houses but they might take you the straight way as well you know You might go and rack these on the way.

44:22But at the same time, like, know where your destination is.

44:25Ian Dempsey: Yeah. And even if it feels, like, so scary and so far away that you're never going to get there, there's nothing wrong with that because plans change. I love that you said this. So, like, with the house, for example, I'm, like, writing up on a board or something along those lines. What's the visualisation aspect that you can give yourself? And it's, like, your first one is, like, your first month. like you put a hundred pounds towards it let's say that's the amount you need work out you need to save over that year to hit that year goal and it's like the first hundred pounds it's like yes get in big tick next to it just do that like first little thing but first 50 quid in your stocks and shares isa if you're working out your retirement fund or whatever and just like massively make a massive deal out of it cook your favorite meal that night or whatever that might well be just like give yourself something where it's just a little gratification like you you've you nailed it mate even though you know full well it's the first step because it just makes such a difference it helped me with debt like getting out of that day it was that snowball method people always talk about the avalanche being better because you save on your interest bollocks to that i needed a cuddle i needed a cuddle i need to self cuddle myself because i was self-sabotaging bad money habits up until that point.

45:42Ian Dempsey: I needed a, well done, Sammy, that one's gone. And that got me out of it because I just gamified the whole thing. But that self-sabotage thing, like that was a real big thing for me. And I see that a lot for other people as well when you're having those conversations. Like you've been there, I mean, you go out on a Friday night, you'd wake up in the morning with a raging hangover, you'd be 150 quid down and you'd be like, what a fucking idiot. And then you get a phone call like two hours later about you coming out again tonight. You'd be like, yep. and you're out again and it's just a cycle that repeats itself but like the conversations that I'd have with myself I wouldn't have them with anybody else because I wouldn't dare talk to anybody like that you know and like my partner's like an incredibly calming like the yin and the yang like she's so well-centered and calm and supportive and like if I'm going off on these mad kind of ideas and stuff she just kind of reins it all back in she's like come on back to reality sunshine shine yeah let you have a little bit of a dream um it's really weird we kind of do it through me and my partner kind of flip on each other right so like she's also quite can be quite like manic multiple ideas like self-conscious and then completely flips around when i'm like that right and is that thing and i do the same to her yeah so it kind of we're both nut jobs basically in a nutshell but um it's quite helpful but having that some someone you can soundboard those things with, life with, just man, car.

47:12Ian Dempsey: I was thinking about it over there. I was like, imagine if she wasn't here. I'd be nuts. I'd be absolutely nuts. I don't know. God knows where I'd be. And so I think it's really important. It's the biggest financial decision of your life. I don't think you should underestimate how important it is to be with the right partner. Yeah. And I've been with the wrong people before. And you're kind of like, you know, like it's the wrong person to be with, but you're so entrenched in your life. you're like oh we'll just keep pushing through and we'll just get a christmas and we'll just get it east then we'll just do this and then all of a sudden it's like yeah then it's your birthday next month so i can't dump her then yeah and then you come out of it you're like fuck man i'm just wasting like 18 months of my life or even longer for a lot of people yeah man yeah you know i i knew very quickly of this one and she's an absolute superstar and so i'm a very very lucky man but i And I wanted to ask you about your red golf thing, which I really like.

48:05Ian Dempsey: And the red car theory is basically the underlying factor of it. Once you tune into your money, you spot opportunities everywhere. Is that kind of the crux of it? Absolutely. And it's getting that first step. And it's the whole thing of like, if you went out tomorrow and bought a red golf, how many other red golf would you see driving around? And you'd see a lot of them. everywhere. And it's just because your awareness level has gone up a touch because you're now in that cot. And it's not that everyone's all of a sudden gone out, Sammy's bought a red golf, I want a red golf. You're just, your awareness level's gone up.

48:41And once you bring that awareness level to your finances, you'll see little things. And yes, you know, like cutting out your cost of coffee and all the rest of it in the grand scheme of things isn't going to make a massive difference long-term. But if you're starting at ground zero, they're big milestones. And having that awareness will just start to kind of, like when you're out for having something to eat or do we need to go to this restaurant or is that one just as good? Do I need to go for a night out two, three times a month? Whatever it might be, that little level of awareness makes a massive difference.

49:12The stuff that you guys do on gains, like the rewards and all that, they mount up. They're not small numbers over a 40, 50 year working life. Everybody's like, oh, fuck it, I'll start tomorrow. but like tomorrow's gonna be like I'm 46 now mate like and life just goes like that like I mean whenever this goes I was Christmas two minutes ago like me and a missus went off and walked last night it's like it's gonna be Christmas again soon and she's like shut up

49:39Ian Dempsey: it's nuts isn't it I was like I was literally yesterday going like I gotta start thinking about Christmas content soon Jesus Christ mate it do like I worry about when I get to like that in my 60s and 70s how much quicker it's gonna be then that's scary and like it's a real like sometimes wakes me up in the middle of that kind of thing i was like yesterday have i made the most of it this summer have i and i was like yeah you have so you take a step back yes you have and i'm i'm off to to france and a few other places before the end of the year like i haven't been away since like middle of last year and uh i was like yeah you have by the end of that as well you've like that's pretty good year so like chill out a second but it made me think like because the last summer i had the regret like i didn't i didn't know the summer because we were like building the app and we were just like head down 16 hours like go go go go go and i didn't make the most of last year and i regretted that so i was not going to happen this year so i had to sit back and ask myself like anything because it's fast it's rapid yeah um but i think you always take a step back and just think like am i making the most of this right now and if you're not what can you do this next month to make sure you feel like you are it's being fulfilled is massively important yeah so is saving for future but life is now as well especially like if you're a parent like i can remember my kids being born like it was yesterday like and the oldest one's 21 my youngest one's 19 he's in america oldest one's in america for three months youngest one's going to live in newcastle and work up there and it absolutely fucking broke me and it broke me not because they were moving out i'm just like i just want to have them like on my knee and play like silly little game or go play fifa with them or go and do some of the other stuff but like after those first few days of them being away i'm kind of like yeah you know i've done a good job i've done all right yeah kids have done they're gonna get be they're good people they're happy if they're if they're in difficulty they'll pick the phone up you know and i and it but it doesn't help slow time down if anything that's sped it up even more.

51:47And I'm like, and the other half said to me, the next time we hold a baby, it's going to be one of our grandkids who's going to mean something to us. And I'm like, fuck off. Grandkids? But it's true though, you know?

51:58Ian Dempsey: Like, if you know it again, we'll have those moments. And I'm like, wow. And it's going to, that's exactly what's going to happen. Yeah. Life. Crazy. Yeah. Mate, I've loved this. Where do you want to send people today? Just check me out on Instagram. I do the money man on LinkedIn. Ian Dempsey, come and find me. Like, don't have a website. Follow me content. I'll talk about all the stuff we talked about today. Yeah, I loved it, man. Appreciate you, as always. And yeah, we'll 100 % get you back on soon in the future. Thank you. Cheers, brother. So I've been working on something super exciting for the last 12 months, and I am very, very proud to finally bring it to you.

52:36Ian Dempsey: And it is called Gains App. My whole thing with this was we've been speaking to many of you guys about the rising costs of living and how hard it is to actually manage your money. So I thought, why not actually solve this and build something for you guys that you can use every single day? So Gainsab is literally that. You can connect all of your banks in one single place and see exactly what's going on with your spending. We even pre-categorize all of your spending super visually so you can see what's going on and make plans for your big goals ahead. Plus, we've layered in something called instant cashback And we've calculated that the average UK salary could save£1 ,091 a year just by using GainsApp for your spending.

53:19Ian Dempsey: And it's super simple to use, easy to connect. We are FCA agent status as well, so your money is super safe. And you can get started right now by following the link in the description or visiting gainsapp.com. And now back to the episode.