Your ultimate personal finance reset for 2026 with Abi Foster (Budgeting, Investing, Saving + Systems)

0:11What is up? I'm Grace Beverley and welcome back to Working Harder. the podcast-shaped guidebook on how to improve your own life and achieve what you actually dreamed of doing. Because life's too short for boring podcasts and bad advice.

0:25What is up and welcome back to Working Hard. Today's guest is someone that I am so excited to chat with because she is one of those people who really makes money feel a lot less scary. Abby Foster is a finance expert who's on a mission to help people actually understand their money and feel more confident with their finances. I always say I won't shy away from money conversations on this podcast because as much as we don't want to admit it it is so important to all of our lives and insanely we still so rarely see money talked about in women-led media and every time we do a finance episode I get so many dms so I wanted to make sure that we gave you absolutely everything in this episode today we talked about everything from how to start building real financial confidence to the biggest money mistakes people make in their 20s and 30s how to get into investing how to get out of debt and what you should be doing every single week to make sure you are on top of your money.

1:11But before we get going, do not forget to follow the podcast wherever you are listening. It makes such a big difference to us in the podcast and it means we can keep improving the podcast and every single Monday I release a new episode to help you improve your life in some way. Also, if you're not already, come and join us on Instagram at Working Hard Pod. We don't just share clips, we share articles related to episodes, we share tips that go beyond the episode and it's just designed to be a really nice addition to your scroll that will actually help you improve your life in lots of different ways.

1:40abigail foster you currently more working hard or hardly working working hard for sure i'm in an era of especially this year i've got to prove a lot of people wrong so i've got to work really hard to do that i like that i like that that's a motivation for you i feel like that's always a motivation for me i also feel like especially because you're in a very male dominated field in a i don't know it's it's i mean lots of stem we still just expect it to be kind of be middle-aged men in suits but I can imagine that that throws a lot on top of everything you're already doing it's like so I've got to do the thing and also prove to all the people who think I can't do the thing that I can yeah I had a I had a vision board and I've had one for years and I kind of used it in the past as this like nice screensaver and then this year I had a lot of life changes and thought no no that's going to be a to-do list so that's what we're doing now working all the hours but I love it good it's it's nice being able to do that in something where you feel like you're having a lot of breakthroughs and getting a lot of progress which I feel like with everything you're doing at the moment that I mean that feels from the outside perspective what's happening.

2:45Yeah it definitely it feels like that right now. Good love to see it and for anyone who doesn't already follow your content could you explain what you do? So I am by profession a chartered accountant so I qualified ACA chartered accountant in 2020 so that was a fun year and then I transitioned into being a founder I created a company that teaches finance in schools then transitioned into being a finance content creator or a finfluencer and then very recently I also became an author so a big mix of things but if you don't follow me it's basically the finance that you wish you were taught at school taught by me.

3:19And what's the main aim of all of your content? Is to educate everyone about the finance that will help empower their lives. I love that and I think it's so important and I was kind of saying in the intro how it's still crazy how first of all money especially as british people we don't talk about it anywhere near as much as we should um but also that particularly in women-led media it's still almost taboo and it's kind of still nowhere to be seen like there's this glamorized like i did this i made this there's not not a lot of the kind of nitty-gritty what you should be doing when start investing how to get out of debt like these various different things it still feels so taboo and how can we move on from where we've been in the past where women couldn't even have bank accounts if we're not talking about exactly what you need to do when what makes you better with money all of these different things yeah women not having bank accounts or having to ask a male family member to have a bank account wasn't that long ago it was in exactly like it was in my mom's generation and that's really sad and so when people get stressed that they think that the system wasn't built for them it's because it wasn't and that is the biggest one of the biggest issues i have with the system right now is that we see everyone's highlight reel on social media we compare ourselves to that and no one's giving us the behind the scenes of like how they actually got there and what they're meant to be doing and that's yeah that's my biggest frustration yeah I think that's so true and I think one of the biggest well the most kind of interesting breakthroughs I've had this year in terms of actually getting more visibility into that is Reddit weirdly like I am not like a Reddit person at all I feel like when you talk about Reddit it automatically makes you feel like a kind of like gaming subreddit like bro yeah but because everyone's anonymous on there so many of the like finance subreddits people speak so openly about how many how much savings they have what they how much they invest and how much how they built this over time like people with we generally only see that from people with particular jobs like this glamorize like how much i made in a month from being an influencer or whatever it might be seeing that from people with quote-unquote normal jobs and how much of that they're actually saving how much of it they're spending how frugally they're having to live to be at a space where they are actually being able to invest in all of this different thing that's actually changed a lot for me this year is actually just having visibility over other people's financial situations and I've purely got that from Reddit and I literally recommend it to everyone who I meet who talks about finances it's like it's not necessarily about getting advice from there it's like you see people who steadily over the past 15-20 years have been able to just build up a good amount of savings not necessarily spending it all on frivolous things that social media makes you think you need and it's so I find it so inspiring like to see how much people can build up over time from just making smart decisions yeah it's the boring stuff that's essential you know one of the core pieces of information I always talk about is payslips and they are quite possibly the most boring thing, but they are so essential to understand because so many people don't understand that your pay slip is your responsibility.

6:26And it doesn't matter what kind of income you're on. You need to understand everything from your gross income through to your tax code and then your take home pay. And none of that's ever explained to us at school. So something I will dive into now is understanding your tax code. Your tax code literally is made up of numbers and letters and so looks ridiculous. If you looked at it, you kind of forget about it, But it's the standard in the UK is one two five seven L and it refers to basically twelve thousand five hundred seventy pounds of personal allowance. So how much income you can earn before you start being taxed.

6:59If your tax code on your payship is not one two five seven L and you don't know why you absolutely have to check it because it's not HR's responsibility. It's not payrolls. It's yours. And if it isn't one two five seven L, you could be under or overpaying tax. neither are good and effectively the only person that's going to get that fixed is you by telling hmrc who then tell your employer it's a bit of a convoluted system but it's really important because so many people are on wrong tax codes for years don't realize under or overpay tax and then get hit with a bill or they're just their take-home pay is wrong and then it it throws everything off i know people on both different sides someone who was overpaying taxed because they thought they had a student loan that they didn't have and they had to they finally noticed after like five ten years and they were like oh my god all of this I was paying crazy amounts of student loan and they just thought that that's how much they were being taxed so I've had that side and I've also had the other side that they didn't realize they were being undercharged and basically got hit with thousands in a bill and that's just not something you want to be experiencing and it's so it feels so unfair because it kind of is unfair but at the same time as you say that's your responsibility Yeah, it's wild that no one explains this to us.

8:11We just kind of leave school and it's like, yes, we've taught you how to use a protractor. We taught you that Oxbow Lakes are really important, but don't worry about pay slips. You'll never meet them. I've not once come into contact with an Oxbow Lake or used a protractor. Or a mitochondria. Yeah, never. It's just not been in my world. But payslips every single month and everybody, every room I go into, payslips are a part of everyone's lives. Doesn't matter whether you're like whether you are, you know, running a business or you are employed, they do happen. And so therefore, it's really important to understand that that's kind of where it all stems from.

8:43It's the boring stuff that's really essential. Yeah, no, I think that's so true. And I think that's such good advice. I also think that everyone or almost everyone has this preconception that they're really bad with money. I think that particularly with women, it's been kind of taught into us again and again that women are a little bit frivolous and spenders and like, we just don't really know what we're doing, even if it might be that everyone else is the same or it might be that you're really great, whatever it might be. I do think we all have this assumption that we are quote unquote bad with money.

9:13Why do you think that is? I think it is statistically because women haven't been in this world as long. And so therefore the system was set up for men. And so it favors men when it comes to finance. Like there's a lot of masculine jargon. Even when it comes to investing, the jargon around whether a price of an investment goes up or down or price of stocks is referred to as bull and bear. And bull is when bulls fight and their horns go up, prices rising in the market. Bear where they're fighting and their paws go down and prices are dropping. like how masculine is that like I just feel like it's that sort of like bare minimum of like masculine behavior and then filters into the rest of the finance world and then the women just walk in and go oh this doesn't look like it's for me okay well if it's not for me it's probably because I'm bad at it when actually I spend so much my time being like no no it's them they need to change the finance system needs to change the institutions need to change they need to bring what you represent into the fold, not the other way around.

10:10And I think, yeah, for many women, we just don't talk about finances openly and therefore we feel like we're failing. We're really not. Yeah. And I think that what you said there is so true is that this preconception that you may be bad with money, I feel like is directly related to how much you do pay attention to your money. Like it's not, if you pay attention to your money a lot, then you probably know how bad or good you are. Whereas this preconception that like, oh, I must automatically bad feels like an avoidance thing like it feels like a I don't think about it as much as I should I don't plan with it as much as I should I don't plan ahead when I should what advice would you give to someone who knows that they kind of avoid money a little bit and like where where should they start when it comes to their finances if you are completely avoidant somewhere I would say to start would be your bank statements um because you can't review what you're not looking at like and with your bank statements for instance you can it's very simple you don't have to judge yourself you just need to take like the last month or the last three months and just look through it as a task give yourself like 10 minutes to do it don't overthink it go through it and just check that firstly you understand every line on that you should because it's your bank statement but so often people start looking through their bank statements and realize they've got a random subscription here they didn't realize they were paying for or they don't really know what that cost is was that how much that was meant to be things like that they don't realize and then it starts to bring them into the fold with their own money i think a lot of people think that to be good with money they have to be wearing a gilet and wearing a quarter zip and be talking about investments it's not really about that it's actually just look at your own finances for a start let's just look at your own bank statements look at if there's any leaks so if there's like i said subscriptions you don't need to be paying for anymore and just start to clean your way through that and just have a real understanding because it is it's insane the amount of people that don't realize one how much their group like their net income is how much they're getting in the month and then two how much they're actually spending because people just put their heads in the sand and that's the worrying part is then people don't realize that this is like this gap is closing and they're basically spending everything they earn and then there's no room for saving or building wealth and lifestyle creep is so real as well so every time you get that pay rise it you it feels like a lot of money sometimes and then you kind of realize oh you know your whole lifestyle seems to go up with it with just like little bits at a time yeah and for someone who then feels like maybe they're listening and they think you know I think I earn a pretty average salary but a you know something I can can live on but I feel like it disappears all of it every single month what advice would you give to them then?

12:51That would be about automation. So if you think it's disappearing each month and it's not going to the places you want to go, I would say right at the beginning of the month, automating out things like your savings or your investing, having things like your pension just kind of done automatically through your pay slip can be a really good idea. Just so that you know that you are paying yourself first and on day one you're starting with what you're willing to spend in the month, not what everything that's there. Because people get into this habit of saying I'll just save what's left and you never have anything left because it's life and you you know you want to spend for fun and you think oh I've got some left I'm just going to spend it but if you start with what you are willing to spend i.e.

13:30so your net income less all of the things you're putting away like your savings and whatever then it's just a much easier way to kind of keep control of your finances and would you then recommend that people should be making their savings for the month and investments for the month on payday? Yes, I would. I would say setting up an automation as well makes that 10 times easier. If you do that at the beginning of the month so that a percentage of your salary or a specific number you have in mind gets put into a savings pot and then an investment pot, it's done for you and it makes sense to do at the beginning of the month so that it's just happening so that you don't have to think about it.

14:07The less legwork we can put into finance, the better. Because again, the other thing I think is one of the things we don't talk about women are actually better with their money statistically than men because we're good at just letting things go like we don't constantly look and that's really great because we can just have something happen and then walk away from it because we're actually busy and I think we need to think like that with our money think busy move your money out and then leave it walk away don't don't feel like to be good with finance you have to be constantly checking in every single day constantly looking at your like your budgeting excel spreadsheet or your investment portfolio just let it go just leave it be and I think one of the really good pieces of advice that you just mentioned that I've always found and I learned pretty early on is that I always thought that saving was just something staying in a bank account and then I kind of realized if it stays in a bank account it still feels spendable like if it's still there and a card would still work if it went through with it doesn't matter that in my mind I think I'm saving 100 quid that month like that can be eaten into very quickly like I've always always always to budget effectively I have had to have a whole separate bank account for that budgeting so like whether it is obviously you can do pots in like lots of apps now and everything or genuinely like I have my salary go into um my like a more digital bank account basically and then I have a percentage of that go to my like home bank account which is like my savings which I like don't touch um and then a percentage of that go to like my trading 212 and then like what's left in that pot it's like no that's genuinely your spending and what I used to do is I used to all have it in this kind of like home bank account and it honestly just somehow would go every month because it was still there and it was still in a pile with the stuff that was still allowed to be spent that month and it's like the biggest thing for me has been like no you separate them that you separate it you get it out of your mind's eye and I never check that home bank account until I need to do something that involves my savings and if I have to transfer back from that savings into like my current one then I feel so bad and I feel like it's like putting up those and I think about it more as well so it's less impulsive I know I'm an impulsive person so it's about like putting up those barriers so that each time you need to jump over a hurdle and you think like do I really need this yeah impulse spending as well is a really good point you know as a neuro spicy person like I sometimes get like into that impulse spending where I think well I deserve it and actually you're right putting up barriers can be really good for you when it comes to if you have neurodiversities as well because it stops you from impulse spending really and if you have like rules like I have like a 24-hour rule if I want to buy something over a certain amount I have to stop and give myself 24 hours I like tell someone about it and then go if i still want this in 24 hours i'll buy it then i won't lie most of the things i put in that 24-hour pot or the jail i end up buying because i'm like i really want them but it does give you that kind of thought process and you think right now i'm really invested in it and yeah i think putting them effectively your money into like little jails is a really good idea that you can't get access too quickly there's banks like obviously you have different banks that you might not have a digital access to quickly or things like premium bonds.

17:21Premium bonds is quite a fun way to save because there's like tax-free winnings. So with premium bonds, for instance, you can have 50K in a premium bond per person per lifetime. Bonds are IOUs, so you are technically lending money to the government, but it's very, very low risk and the winnings are tax-free. So you can be one of those people, so you can win between£25 and a million every month. Obviously, the majority of people are winning. anyone who's won the million i've not went but my 75 pounds this month did go down very well in the family exactly yeah this is the thing i have like chats with so many people that i've told about premium bonds are like oh my god i won 100 pounds this month like oh well done but um you know there was someone apparently in north yorkshire that won a million with 100 pounds in premium bonds very recently as well then that's why i'm in the premium bonds because i'm like i don't want to be the one that like misses out i also it's absolutely fine and i absolutely love this person but But basically a year ago, I told a friend of mine to put her wedding fund into premium bonds because she was like, I need somewhere.

18:21It's easy access, but I can't touch it quickly. And she won like 10 grand. I was so happy for her. Is that coming across? And I have never won 10 grand on premium bonds. But apparently if I tell you to put some money in premium bonds, you do really well. So there you go. So everyone listening to this, you have officially been given like one of those referral codes where you're going to be really lucky. This is the other thing. the ns and i need to do some sort of referral code with me i know it's the governments they're not going to but i talk about them a lot but anyway the reason i mentioned premium bonds was because it is a little bit of a faff to get into you have to get your ns and i number you put your name in and password it's like a government site so it's not easy and that is really good because it means it's difficult um and means you're not going to just be constantly taking from it i think it's just one of those things that like the more you get to know yourself and your habits and your tendencies around certain things the more you can kind of mother yourself correctly to be able to do what you long term you want to do that maybe short term you isn't so good at doing and I think as you said it's like understanding that tendency so you know if you're like some people will be listening to this and be like I'd never need to put up a barrier for myself because I'm an adult I'm not one of those people like as in cannot relate like absolutely not it's just not it's not me I know that I will I could impulse spend I know that I will get excited about something and unfortunately the 24-hour rule makes it much less exciting when I do and in the end go to purchase but that's the price we have to pay of actually making better decisions sometimes it's really good because when you put something in a basket and then you wait 24 hours like Tala um you then get a code being like are you sure you don't want to purchase this we'll give you a free shipping I'm like oh okay nightmare um nightmare um and that is something that I always say as well to people is like Like don't just like impulse spend without doing like your due diligence.

20:12Like see if there's discount codes. Make sure you're waiting. Seeing if you can get like 10 % off for starting for the first time. Things like that I think are really like they're just nice kind of finance common sense. Yeah. No, I completely agree. And what other habits would you recommend to people who are maybe just starting to get more solid on their financial literacy that just little things every month that can help them be better with their money? to understand the time value of money so so many people forget about retirement and i know it's boring i really do um we live in a culture now of like instant gratification wanting everything now but so many people don't realize that our current system in the uk is not set up for a healthy retirement like a lot of people still think that like the state pension in the uk is going to support them at retirement.

21:02It's not. It's currently£12 ,535 a year. That's not enough to cover rent for most places, let alone give you a moderate to comfortable lifestyle in retirement. And so it's so important for any age to understand they need to be putting money away to their pension. So in the UK, we have something called the auto-enrolment, which means when you're over the age of 22 and earning more than 10K, you're automatically opted into a workplace pension. it's a five three rule so you'll be putting in five percent your employer puts in a minimum of three some employers will match higher so look into whether you can be contributing more to your pension because pensions are investment so the earlier you start the longer those investment pots have to build also think about maybe a stocks and shares iso for your future investing i would always say should be a five-year plus plan anyway and that can be a great place to be saving for your future and then it would be just about looking after investing in yourself as well i think a lot of people think that investing is only into equities or bonds or gold or assets of those kinds but actually investing back in to yourself you know leveling up your knowledge leveling up your skills can be a great way to like boost your income to help you into your future i think actually one of the then this is coming back to something a little bit i think one of the things that you've said that's really really stuck with me is this idea that to be good at money you don't need to constantly check it in fact you mostly need to leave it alone and i think that that does so much to abate this idea of scaremongering around money and about kind of being avoidant around money and all of that because it's like actually avoidance is good around money but it has to be over this certain like threshold of visibility so you have to have visibility you have to understand but above that point actually avoidance let's please do it because that's where things get sticky when it comes to investments, pulling things in and out the whole time, like doing that.

22:54Like when the things that get me the most are those reels that are like, if you invested a hundred pounds every month since you were 18, or if you invested a hundred pounds every month since you were born, your 18 year old would have this. I'm like, oh my God. Like, oh my God. Like it is really like time in market makes such a big difference and that compound interest and it's like why isn't that taught in schools like why isn't that like those are some of the most effective things that even if it was like 10 quid a month those are some of the most effective things that parents even could be doing for their children financial education and for the next generation is something that i will literally talk about until it becomes a reality i am so passionate that i don't understand why we aren't teaching it already i genuinely believe in like Gen A, which is like the one after Gen Z's, like retirement, they'll be laughing at us that it wasn't part of the curriculum because we need to be supporting this next generation through this financial climate that we're in.

23:58You know, we've created the situation that we're in through, you know, overspending, you know, tax changes, changes in government. We cannot expect the next generation to just get on board with this and not have any idea what to do. You know, it's so frustrating i personally believe we should be teaching finance education from year one and then just slowly building on it every single year so by the time they reach year 13 it's not this overwhelming intimidating thing it's just something that they've grown up with and they know about and it will give the institutions and the banks less power over them which i think is really important because right now they have a lot of power because of the lack of education and understanding that the next generation have and i don't think that that's fair at all yeah I completely agree.

24:42And I think that it's absolutely something that with the next generations, it just has to be changed. Like it has to be changed. We have been saying for so many years, why are we not taught this in school? Why are we not taught this in school? Like genuinely, why the fuck are we not taught this in school? Like let's make it happen. Yeah, you and I were on a roundtable with government about why we're not seeing more female entrepreneurs. And I genuinely sit and I stand by the statement still even a year on from that conversation, because we aren't teaching decent financial education in schools.

25:09I get the privilege of teaching that next gen. And I speak to 60. Well, I speak to every year, but 16, 17, 18 year old girls. And it's really sad to see that, unfortunately, junior schools, it's like an even playing field. And then into senior school, for some reason, we get this shift where like the boys come to the front of the classes when I'm teaching. finance and the girls go to the back and I ask them why and they say well it's just it's too much I'm not a boy I'm not into this right now and I'm like no no no no no please you need to understand you need to come to the front and I often then end up flipping the classroom around and standing at the back out principal because I think these women or these are the next generation of female entrepreneurs but they feel like they're not good enough they feel like they don't know enough to run businesses because I do think it's really difficult to run a business I'm a chartered accountant and I still find the finances difficult with my own limited company sometimes absolutely no idea how people are doing it without these qualifications and I think well that's frustrating in itself so we need to be setting the next generation up for complete success by giving them the tools not only to have their own personal finances in order but to feel like they could run finances of these incredible businesses that are in their brains but they just can't feel like they're confident enough to do yeah no absolutely I totally agree with that I think it's a very just cause and I think that we'll see so much success from implementing that early and I'd feel very happy if I were a parent and I had kids at school actually learning about finances as well for anyone who's listening to this who hasn't started saving and they think like they're embarrassed about it they think I can't believe I haven't started saving I know everyone else has and you know the biggest fear would be asking being asked how many how much savings they have what would you recommend for them to start saving without necessarily feeling like they have to go from living quote-unquote normally to feeling completely deprived?

26:57So firstly, do not compare yourself to others. As someone that does, I understand it's a very difficult thing for me to say and to actually take in, but don't compare your savings to anyone else's because often you'll find out if you really got into the crux of it, you'll find many people don't have savings. Statistically, more people don't have savings than do and they have under a thousand pounds they don't have enough for emergencies things like that so that would be my first step don't compare the second is just start as small as you can find a decent savings account with decent interest so maybe four percent plus at the moment or something like premium bonds if you're very risk averse and just set up a minimum amount like 10 pounds a month for the first few months and then say to yourself right by month three i'm going to make it 20 by month five i'm going to make it 30 pounds and just see how much you can keep pushing that but honestly the automation of that so making sure it does happen every single month it will build up over time it just will you know some people go for a percentage model you could say right i'm going to put five percent of my income away like we said right at the beginning of the month that could be a model if you wanted or just a small amount but it's it's the idea of doing something and making it difficult to get that money out is really really important um because it it is frustrating i get it like and also in this current climate it genuinely feels like we can't save because where are we going to get that money from but it's the habit of doing it that you will just find the money most of the time you will find that 10 pounds from like sacrificing from something else and that can be one of the most important things just for your own mindset and your own calm because having an emergency fun pot so a savings account to the side is not just about having that savings it's actually about the mental health impacts it gives you as well it's like protection it's calm it's knowing that there is money there can save you in an emergency that that's the important part it's not the actual monetary value of it it's the kind of support network it gives you and it's also the i think as with anything else when you say you're going to do something you actually do it you build self-trust and you build an understanding that you are a good person who sticks to things and all of this and if you keep telling yourself every month you're going to start saving and you don't save the biggest person you're letting down is yourself not financially but the fact that you're telling yourself a lie every month and I find that so so harmful like that leads to such bad self-worth because you're essentially like if someone else was lying to you all the time about what they're going to do or when they're going to see you you just wouldn't trust them and so doing that to yourself over and over like even if you can change that to just like five pounds ten pounds it becomes addictive like seeing yourself stick to something becomes addictive in a positive way like being able to just see that go up like when you hit certain milestones with savings and like a completely appreciate i come from a very privileged position when talking about finances so i don't necessarily talk about that this from my point of view i genuinely mean when you hit like your first 100 pounds saved when you hit your first 500 pounds a thousand pounds whatever it might be you suddenly get this feeling that you don't want to go anywhere near that because you've accumulated something that you didn't have before and you never thought you could have and I just think that as you say it's like shame is such a powerful force in keeping you back from doing the things that you know you ought to be doing because you haven't done it already and it's like that only stands for so long at some point you just need to be like what the fuck am I doing just do it like as you say automate it make it happen yeah and like we it's a very boring I actually don't really like emergency fun pox it's quite boring but a lot of people refer to it's like three to six months of essential spending in a savings account that you can get access to i actually prefer my version which is called the freedom pot or to be honest it's actually called the fu pot and you just swore so i know i can say that now um so it's called the fu pot because it is literally a pot and i very much recommend this to women is to have a savings pot that is there so that you can go f this situation i'm out and that means that means after anything if you are in a relationship that no longer serves you you can walk away you are in a job that you hate you can walk away you are in a like a horrible bar in the furthest part of london farther from your house you can go do you know what i'm getting a cab i'm going home because i have the money to protect myself and to get myself back and that's what those pots are for i think often we think about the monetary and the the kind of the negative to putting money away that you can't touch it but actually what you're doing is just saving future you you're saving future you from upset and hurt by being like don't worry I've got your back like I've saved for you I'm here for you and for so many women they end up in jobs they hate and relationships they don't love because they can't financially leave and that breaks me the heart the most and it's another reason I'm so passionate about teaching at next generation level to kids because I just wish someone had like said that to me so that I could have protected myself earlier for sure I'm totally with you there and I think one of the most important things you said there as well is the fact that when we talk about an emergency fund or a freedom fund or whatever it might be I think a lot of us think especially in our early 20s we're like well how many emergencies happen like in the end the NHS is in the UK so if some health emergency happened you'd be covered like I don't know early 20s a lot of people feel well at the end of the day I could just move home even if it's like out of the city you work in or whatever it might be but I think exactly what you said there is an emergency doesn't need to be a big life-changing emergency an emergency is what makes the difference between as you said you being in a slightly dangerous situation you getting yourself home rather than getting the night bus when you are in tears or like whatever it might be like that can be an emergency like it doesn't need to be your boiler broke when you're like I don't even own a boiler it doesn't even need to be any of these things and I think again it's another tactic that we sometimes use to like push it down the road because we go I don't have dependents I don't own a house I don't have emergencies and actually it's like there are little micro emergencies that you just like to as you say give yourself the freedom to be able to choose the more luxury option like when you've had a really really shit day and you feel absolutely terrible and you just want to get an uber home or you're like whatever like you've got the most terrible period pains and you're like me getting on the tube in rush hour right now would actually be the end like that is that can be an emergency too that's the freedom you're giving yourself yeah and it doesn't always have to be alarm bells or it's happening right now stress it can be like like I touched on like a relationship you might start to think am I in the right relationship am I happy and thinking I can't leave because we have a flat that we pay both pay rent on and if I leave it's going to cost me more or you know and you start to question your self-worth and that's an emergency in my opinion questioning who you are and what you value is a is really sad and I genuinely believe that money yes there is that phrase like money doesn't buy happiness but money does buy freedom and it gives you the ability to turn around to anyone and be like no I don't need to put up with this because actually financially I'll be fine and that's what I that is what I keep banging on this drum about is because I want women in general but everyone to feel like they are allowed to just make their own decisions and finance doesn't stop them doing that yeah I'm totally with you there and investing I feel is another area where jargon has made it so inaccessible and something that, again, feels like for a select few amount of people.

34:15I actually properly learned about investing for the first time on this podcast and felt really like afterwards I was just like, why have I let myself for so many years feel like it's too complicated for me? Like I do lots of complicated things. I do lots of hard things all the time. Why have I just looked at this and been like, well, I'm not a stock broker yeah so it's it's not I don't have a fucking monitor it's not for me and actually investing is so much more and less than that like it's I'm so glad I'm now into it because it's made such a big difference and I feel so much more empowered about my future but for anyone who's feeling again at the moment like they know they don't invest they know they probably should be investing something especially if they have a little bit to spare or especially if they're saving where would you recommend they start yeah to just elaborate i said to a friend she the other day she was like i can't invest i don't know enough and i was like you birthed a child like i just can't understand why women put themselves down so much and they're like i can't do this i was like i'm not being funny a human came out of you how can you then think that you don't have the capacity you have the capacity to do that but you don't have the capacity to do things that everyone else yeah literally transfer money to an account that many men are doing having not birth children themselves you know like they're all fine you can do this like if they can do it you can do it and like obviously not just mums every woman like there's so many things that we do as women that are so much harder than investing but because investing has been so male-centric so masculine for such a long time you know and I still see that and it still breaks my heart sometimes because I go to like the bank of England or I go to these institutions I go and talk about investing and I am usually the only woman there you know there are exceptions but 99 percent of the time I am the only woman there and that really upsets me and it frustrates me but in terms of actual actions that people can take when it comes to investing is start small because obviously if you are quite risk averse lots of women are you know and that they do that for their own benefit but it starts small find an investment platform that's got low fees that's easy to use it's providing decent education and explains themselves now most apps should have if there's some jargon on the screen you should be able to press like an i button next to it and it would explain it to you if your app is not doing that walk away because that's the bare minimum that we are accepting now from these apps um i kind of talk about like bare minimum behavior for men but it also is the same for investment apps like this is the bare minimum we're accepting now they need to be good at what they do they need to be decent low fees easy to use and then you can transfer your money it's just like transferring money into a bank account you're transferring money from your bank account into the investment portfolio and then once it's in there don't forget don't just leave it there you then need to choose where that money is invested so you could invest and obviously all of this is education and not advice i'm not specifically telling you to invest anywhere but you want to have a look at maybe there's a specific stock share that you want to buy so you might be so like myself I'm quite heavy into Formula One I love it and so I personally bought like a bunch of shares in different Formula One categories like I bought some Ferrari stocks I just thought it was really fun like I don't really like I don't really know yeah it was fun for instance when um when Carlos Sainz left the team and Lewis Hamilton came in I saw it rise in the stock that was quite fun but like I'm not gonna lie it doesn't always do that well because Ferrari isn't smashing any metrics right now.

37:42But so for instance, you could buy individual stocks if you wanted to. If there was something you were passionate about, you might want to. But that's quite, you're not diversifying your portfolio. And what that means is you're not spreading your risk. So you could then do something like invest in an ETF or an index. So the most famous one is the S &P 500. So you can basically buy an S &P 500 index and you're owning a small portion of the top 500 us companies statistically they're doing well because they hold what's known as the magnificent seven which are the top seven tech companies um and then yeah and then you're spreading your risk against those companies you can also buy bonds which are like ious assets they're all on these trading apps that you can buy you purchase them it's kind of like buying clothes you just find the one you want and then you press buy unfortunately unlike buying clothes nothing's turning up at your house you just kind of own it and it's just in the portfolio you and then you walk away you just leave it alone so many people think they then need to watch it unless you're day trading there's not a whole lot that's going to happen and the only way there's two ways you make money when it comes to investing it's one is dividends so if stocks and shares pays out a dividend to you and the other is capital gains so when you sell the share eventually and if you're not selling it tomorrow leave it be because yes it's going to go up and it's going to go down that is the market but it's just important to put your money into the account choose what you want to invest it in and then leave it sometimes look at it if it's interesting you know might feel great if it's doing well but if it's not doing well sometimes it can really stress people out so just let it be and then over time you can then decide what you want to do as you get more educated on these things you might choose like slightly riskier stocks or slightly harder thing or slightly different assets you want to invest in but at the kind of crux of it it can just be as simple as buying an investment like a stock or share that you're interested in or buying an index.

39:33Yeah. And I think just a few things that from my experience as someone who is not working in finance in any way and kind of introduced myself to it and then has like gradually increased my awareness of it over time. I think the few things I would say, number one, is don't accidentally start on the day trading option because that is what I did on Trading 212 and unfortunately lost my money in one day. But it was only a small little transfer. But I just think surely that's not meant to happen this can't be that recommended but I was actually on the you know day trader section so don't do that um go on the invest section yeah other platforms are available um and the other thing I wish I hadn't bought individual stocks at the beginning yeah because I think I was trying to like play stock broker a little bit trying to play trader a little bit and actually like obviously there are some that I'm glad I bought like Nvidia or whatever it might be.

40:27Great. But a lot of them were having a particularly good year, didn't have a great next year or whatever. Things move so fast. And had I only gone into index funds at that time, I would have been much safer. And since then, and obviously people can do whatever they want. I think that the best thing I found as someone who sets and forgets does not come back is I own like every month I invest into the same two index funds again and again and one of them is an S &P one and another one is a more kind of global one and something that like I'm more like caring about like being able to develop and all of that the S &P is more the safety one and then if there's anything interesting I see I can have like a little bit of fun money to play with it so like I remember seeing something on Reddit and everyone was talking about this one stock and I put some money in it one of them did incredibly well one of them absolutely plummeted and it was more like an education for myself to be able to understand things a bit better but again what I've learned again and again when it comes to individual stocks is unless you are paying attention to all of their news and what's coming up in their new contracts and all of this you're gonna have a tough time yeah who's got the time like and do you know what the best thing about it all is is that more and more nowadays there's some incredible educators on investing online you've got like you've had Simran Kaur here who's like friends that invest you've got incredible females online I talk about investing online you know if you are looking for education you can find it now like five years ago it was actually much harder because we go into this space and it would be all men just talking about it so it didn't really feel like us and sometimes I would say YouTube which is something I really want to start soon is still a bit like that you know if you search investing or like investing in the UK you still get a lot of guys so I think if you're looking for it and please keep trying please search out educators that speak like you speak or look like you look because you will find them and they will be able to help you navigate it but yeah starting small indexes that kind of stuff just don't don't overthink it don't think that it's not for you and please don't let someone else do it for you the amount of people I speak to where they're like oh my boyfriend will do it or my dad does it that's not going to help you long term like women statistically go through the inheritance tax process twice they go through it with their partner and then or they were their parents and then their partner because we live longer and that is another reason I stress that women really get a hold of their finances because there's nothing worse than going through that inheritance tax process as an accountant I've talked to lots of people about it and then what's even worse is then when you finish the inheritance tax process you have all this money that you have absolutely no idea what you're doing with and And that's a really horrible place to be.

43:11Good that you have the money now. Well, you do. But then it's like understanding the inheritance tax process is like it's absolutely wild that this hasn't been reformed. But you actually go from the death of the person to having having done the inheritance tax probate within nine months. And that's really scary for people if they've got no financial knowledge. Yes, you can get accountants involved. But suddenly you're then having to find accounts, understanding what this investment means, what this property is. Do I need to sell things? What do I do? And that's really scary. And if you're not in control of your own money, suddenly having an influx or a windfall of someone else's can make things worse, not better.

43:45So I think it's definitely something that I would stress is educate yourself and look for education as well. So I want to come on to talking about debt. Obviously, this is such a taboo subject and a lot of people, I actually get a lot of DMs from people who are in debt asking to get out of debt. And that's not even something I specifically talk about. So I can't imagine how many DMs you get. Where do you start? if you're listening to this and you know you have a debt problem might be credit card debt might be something else might be planner might be whatever how do you even start and how do you start managing yourself on a effective plan without feeling like you're going to sink yourself somewhere in between and it also being an incredibly depressing process yeah basing it early is really important i know that might sound really obvious but so many people especially people filled with like when because we've been told for such a long time that like debt is shameful or we should be guilty about it but yet banks institutions for years have been making billions off of us being in debt and so it's not shameful because actually it's so easy to get into debt so easy 80 i remember when i was at got to uni i got letters through about opening credit cards i personally didn't at the time because i was studying to be an accountant i sort of knew all that was and I was like I'm not ready yet but so many of my friends were getting credit cards and spending like it was free money it's so easy because banks will lend you money because that's how they make money yeah that's their job to do it exactly and so we just need to understand that there is no shame in it you just need to face it you need to kind of you almost need to firstly be honest with yourself about how much you've got I genuinely think it's really important to almost just have a note or an excel where you write all your debts out and how much you owe it's like a bare minimum because often someone will say to me oh god i've got got a lot of debt and i say well how much what's a lot and then they go i don't know i think i've got some on a credit card and i've got some here but it's just a lot and i think no no no if you're going to battle something like this you need to know exactly what you're battling you need to know the exact number if it's if it is a lot and it's unmanageable then seek support please seek out help you know seek out speak to someone as well because there is i hate the kind of correlation between money worries and mental health it really upsets me the amount of people that end up in really dire mental health issues because of money and that can easily be not necessarily eroded but calmed if you speak to people about it you know i have lots of people that come to me in my very close friends and my family that will say i've got this debt and i'm like right let's talk about it i'm not judging you let's just fix it and that's and no one i can't imagine anyone if someone came to them and said this is a problem i've got would ever judge them they would go no i just want to help you and that's what it is so firstly is facing it speaking to someone if you can that's close to you and then if you can't speak to someone close to you speaking to companies like step change citizens advice other charities like that that are there and are skilled to literally help you through this process they will show you things like you may be in a position where you could transfer your credit card debt onto a 0 % balance transfer for instance that might completely solve the problem smooth things out you have a little bit more time to fix the problem and then you're out of the debt in the next few months it might be much bigger than that again these companies are skilled to be able to help you through that process they will be able to teach you or educate you on what you can do because sometimes it can be as simple as debt collectors like just pausing them for a minute you know or saying to one of the companies that you owe money to look i just can't pay for it at the moment the absolute extreme case is obviously filing for bankruptcy which is something that many people like that is their only option but these businesses or these charities will help you through that so please seek that out if you are if yeah there's a kind of there is a spectrum of it if it's very small sometimes it can just be managed sometimes it can be supported all the way through to if it is bankruptcy again seek out so much support because there was a stigma a few years ago that bankruptcy or not even a stigma like a kind of thing that was flying around that bankruptcy was just an easy way to fix your problem it's not it does stay on your credit file for seven plus years it does stop you from being able to do things so don't see it as easy way out and what would you say to someone who listened to this and they go oh that's a lot to do um and it feels like quite stressful and the path of least resistance would be me just staying on the current path maybe not spending more but you know just not necessarily dealing with it because it does feel like the easier option to put your head in the sand yeah the only thing I would say and this isn't even a money thing this is just a kind of a personal thing is you will sleep better when you know what you've got and you'll know and you'll and you know what you're doing with it you know they you know we all know when things are kind of on the back of our mind it affects our sleep which then infects everything it affects like our skin and our health and our lives everything and money if you are avoiding something as big as money that can have a huge knock on impact on your life it's going to impact those things so please just just take one step often it's that kind of like the two minute rule like if you can do it for two minutes you often end up doing it for a bit longer um and i think that's the same with debt just give it two minutes of your time just to acknowledge it and then if you can't do any more than two minutes fine try another try again in a few more days and think right what can i do for another two minutes when it comes to this debt just give it something don't suffocate it because unfortunately it will it's it's not gonna it's not gonna go away and as you said there are so many more solutions than you think there are i was reading a post the other day that was um where someone was talking about how they just got in touch with the i think it was the financial ombudsman or you know and essentially made an affordability claim and managed to get loads of their debt wiped all of this there are things that you could do that you are not doing because you're doing nothing and it makes sense and i completely understand why someone would do nothing but at the same time there are more solutions than you think and you're finding no solutions because you're not making movements in the right direction and i think that's one of the big things it's like set aside sometime one thing every other day or whatever it might be or one thing a weekend where you are making progress towards how am I getting rid of this even if it's not a financial contribution even even if it is putting in a claim with the ombudsman or like whatever it might be as you say moving to a zero percent interest like that's the difference between this building forever yeah and it not building at all yeah and again it's because we don't get taught at school necessarily about interest and how it impacts things like credit and debt and so then we don't realize and I have friends that will say to me god you're gonna kill me Abby like the interest on my credit card is like 25 % I'm like why on earth are you paying that what are you doing why didn't why did you just pay off the minimum what like and I I spiral to be honest on my own journey and I'm like why you know me why it's why are you doing this yeah but it's because it's just it's just not something we all grow up with you know I never talked about finance at home with my parents you know and there's lots of people that didn't and so don't feel guilty just just please try and acknowledge the problem and move forward i do um i sometimes do a radio show um i was doing covering the consumer on lbc a few weeks ago it's wow the amount of questions that come in they're so rogue but yeah it always reverts back to things like contact your financial ombudsman or speak to your credit card provider or just seek help because these institutions these banks do have full customer service teams there that are meant to help you so please please look out for it and if someone's financially had a bad month what would you recommend to them to be able to get back on track without spiraling and maybe things going a bit more out of control because they've already had a bad month so they think i'll spend on this i'll spend on this i think if you've had a bad month it would be just again to acknowledge that it's happened and to check in on things like your bank statements just kind of to do a refurb just be honest with yourself what you've spent see if those automations have stopped or whether they can continue to carry on because if you've already put those automations in a bad month doesn't always necessarily mean a bad month because that kind of financial like habits have already been placed in and so i would say yeah just have a recheck on your bank statements have a recheck on your pay set just get those like finance things in order again give yourself like you know 10 minutes and then maybe an hour if you're feeling kind to yourself maybe when it comes to finances but yeah it would just be a try and revert back before you keep pushing forward like a blank slate yeah and I also I always think about budgeting as dieting like I think they're quite similar and I think that it's the same as like if you quote unquote had a bad day with your diet it's like it's so easy to think oh well I'm gonna and I'm not just condoning this but like as in I'm gonna throw it all in the bin I'm gonna basically just you know kind of completely go off track for the whole rest of the week because I've already done this and it's like it's sunk cost fallacy like it doesn't make any sense when you restrict yourself in one way you restrict yourself more so just like it happened moving on fantastic on to the next like it doesn't need to be a fixation and in fact sometimes when you make something a fixation you end up getting into this like failure spiral where you did something wrong you tell something off for it you feel shit about it so you do it again um and I feel like that's always been helpful for me where I'm like definitely a all or nothing type person yeah and how often do you think we should be checking our finances like daily weekly monthly as an accountant I would love to say weekly that seems a bit over kill and for most people they don't want to do that obviously it's my job so I'm very comfortable looking at my finances but I would say as a minimum monthly so monthly check-in would be check your payslip check your bank statements the once you've done it once the the longest this will ever take you will be the first time you ever do it because you're going to have to go through every line you're going to have to go through everything on your payslip go through every line on your bank statement to figure out but then by the second month all you're going to need to do is just like quickly browse and you're going to be able to pick out the flags like on your bank statement of things that you don't recognize because there'll be things you do same with your pay slip as long as it's the same as last month there's probably not much you need to do if that was that month was fine so on a monthly basis it will be pay slips checking your bank statements on a quarterly basis it might be setting goals for yourself so understanding like how much do you need to set up that emergency fund or that freedom port or what goal do you have for your retirement and then kind of yearly would be bigger vision goals and then setting up pots for things like that like making sure that if you really want to buy a house that you are putting in measures to help you get there for instance when you buy a house buy your first house there are opportunities like lifetime ices that will help you put you put in 4k a year or up to and the government will put in up to a thousand pounds 25 every year as well making sure you understand that's an option for you or something similar but yeah so kind of a year would be those like vision gold item vision board items kind of budgeted out quarterly would be understanding that your pots are all in the right place so your savings pots are like sorted in your retirement pots and then monthly would be your here in the right now so your tax code your tax code on your pay zip and your bank statements and this is kind of off topic but also kind of not off topic because you are a woman in finance, but also a woman in the world.

55:07I want to get your take on, and we've spoken about this a few times on the podcast, the gender pay gap and what you would say to someone who would tell you that the gender pay gap doesn't exist anymore. Oh dear. I take a deep breath and I say that the gender pay gap is definitely misunderstood. Many people think the gender pay gap is when men are paid more than women for the exact same role. that is not the case the gender wage gap which is what that is is illegal in the uk so if you're doing the exact same role as a man and he is being paid more than you that is illegal what the gender pay gap is is when we see more women in junior roles and then once we go up to like the c-suite so ceo cfo directors we're seeing more men in those roles that is the gender pay gap why are we not seeing women go from 18 all that like you know those young junior roles admin roles all the way through to the c-suite why are we not seeing that and it's because somewhere along the way we end up with this gap and so it means that on average women are earning less because we're in these lower income roles which is really frustrating and it is a problem we see things like the motherhood penalty so in you know 30s and 40s women just dropping out of the workforce because it doesn't make financial sense for them to be there because they have unpaid care duties also known as looking after your child or looking after family members you see then the knock-on effects of the gender pension gap where women have less in their pots to begin with and so therefore when they get to retirement they have like 30 to sometimes 50 percent less in their retirement pots than their male counterparts so yes the gender pay gap very much does exist it is a real problem and i genuinely believe that if we were teaching financial education to young women that wouldn't exist because we would be able to help them navigate through it and get them into these incredible roles because I see so many comments where men will be like but they just don't apply for them or you know they don't want to do the hard jobs and I'm like that's just not true it's just not a thing anymore like it angers me so much I won't even carry on talking about it but the gender pay gap definitely does exist but it isn't a wage problem it's a career problem Yes, and I totally stand by that.

57:17And I also think that the thing you said about the pension was something I only, as someone who's talked about funding gaps and pay gaps for a very long time, the pension gap was something that I did not even think about. I don't think most people think about. I think I worked on a campaign for it and I just was completely blown away by the statistics based on the fact that, you know, you might make a decision to not work because for a year because you're, you know, at home with a child or whatever it might be. The gap in a pension because you go part time or you take a year off or a few years off or whatever, that never gets plugged by the man.

57:54Like there should be no reason, in my opinion, if someone's listening to this and they're taking time off for children. In my opinion, the man in the situation should be plugging that pension gap. Yeah. Like as in like that should be plugging that pension gap because you're not getting that from anywhere else. And you are taking that like, yes, you're A, not being paid for your labor. yeah fine if motherhood fine if you want to like they're absolutely that pension thing should not be the same like as in that gap should be plugged and that should be a conversation if you have a conversation about one of you taking time off work to be able to be a primary caregiver the other person should contribute to the pension to mean that that doesn't result in a pension gap like i'm like how did i get to last year without knowing this yeah there was a reddit article of this woman that basically said to her husband, if I'm going to have your child, you need to pay me 50 grand.

58:47And everyone was in uproar as if this was like the worst thing. And I'm like, that is the bare minimum of what she is having to sacrifice. Not only the impact on her body, which, you know, but the impact on her finances will be huge. You know, it is so statistic that women are taking off, like take on the unpaid care role more than their male counterparts. And therefore they are the ones sacrificing. And that is frustrating because we shouldn't be seeing that in this day and age you know it creates like the gender investment gap as well where women just aren't investing i so many mums in my life i'm i've just said they well not just but i'm 31 a lot of my girlfriends are having babies and they come to me and they go i want to invest for my child and i go hold on have you invested yourself yet and they go no no no don't worry about me and i'm like no we're putting on our own masks before we put on others and that goes with everything planes all the way through to our finances please don't come to me and invest for your child before you've invested for yourself because that is why we end up with a gender investment gap yeah and again something i haven't thought about when you're not being paid because your partner probably doesn't pay you to stay at home they are able to invest their money you are not able to invest your money because you are yeah you're being maybe taken care of in other ways but you are not able to physically invest that money yeah and that therefore will never be your money yeah and a promotion to the men just calling out to them there are tax efficient ways to pay your like oh yeah you should pay your wife you know there are ways like if she's earning less you can be tax efficient by giving her money to obviously use up her tax-free allowance you know as an accountant there is lots of opportunities here but from a from an educator point of view just do it because they deserve it yeah no that's it's crazy and i think that it's just so i think a lot of these conversations on social media have become like very they've become i don't know they're clickbaity in a way of like why would I pay this person to have a kid or like whatever but it's like no when you think about like I'm not necessarily condoning that but I'm definitely condoning before you have a child having a conversation about how am I going to build my investments in this time when I'm not earning how am I going to build my pension in this time when I'm not earning how are we going to cover the fact that I'm probably going to have a loss of earnings not just for the years that I kind of take off if I take any years off but if you're taking more than a year off in the UK then probably finding a new job and maybe starting from a little bit lower as well so it's like it's so layered and there are so many conversations we need to be having that we do not have um all the way through to like not just that like I have friends who have partners that have moved into where they are and somewhere they own and onto on a tenancy agreement again get him on a tenancy agreement like i don't get i'm now married to the man that was originally on a tenancy agreement in my home but like was that there yes because what if something happens and he has an entitlement to my house because he was paying the equivalent of half the mortgage like no no no like if they did not get approved on the mortgage then they are not getting that and actually it's like the these things that you can like a deed of trust that you could put in place to protect yourself.

1:01:56I think so many of us are missing out on by not having the difficult conversations, partly because we don't know what difficult conversations to have, but partly because it is a difficult conversation and we just can't do that. Like you can't do a disservice to yourself in that way. Totally agree. And before we end, I'd like to ask what the best piece of advice is that you've ever been given. The best piece of advice I ever got given was investing in yourself. so for me that isn't actually necessarily financial for me it's the way I dress so I definitely find being in rooms with all men very very difficult and there was a time right in the beginning where I used to go the other way and I would just wear like white shirts and black trousers and look and sound more masculine someone actually told me that I spoke in like a lower register at the time and they've sounded I sounded more masculine and then I realized actually I could lean into having big hair and nails and be okay with having a full face of makeup on and that changed the game for me I started to feel more confident I started to just stand a bit taller and realize that it wasn't necessarily all about me it was just so that if a young girl was looking at me when I was going and teaching in her school she saw representation she didn't just see a mass you know a masculine person again in the finance field she saw someone that looked like her and that's why I did it so yeah investing in myself and yeah and feeling good about myself was really really important and especially this year I've had lots of changes this year that have meant that I felt very unnerved and very like stressed out all the time but you know making sure I felt good and invested in going to like the gym and invested in my clothes just made me feel better and it doesn't always have to be about investing in the stock market it can just be investing in you I love that and what I think really stands out about that is you often feel like all finance advice is about saving and not spending and I think that the right spending can make all the difference to your success like I'm not saying you need to go and do fast fashion hauls every week like please don't do that um but sometimes the difference between you feeling not confident you feeling confident is just a small thing like it might be your nails it might be your hair it might be your clothes I've talked about before how every time we talk about these things on this podcast I automatically feel like we're dumbing ourselves down but that's just because of the associations and it's like that leads to you feeling xyz yeah it's not about like finance is and talking about your finances and budgeting and all of this isn't just about saving every single penny it's about being able to do what counts and being able to as you say like invest in yourself yeah it's a sort of fake it till you make it like I actually generated like an alter ego for myself this year oh I love that yeah and it kind of led from being like you know what my alter ego wouldn't put up with bad hair uh she wouldn't put up with bad makeup I need to think that fucking hell um I do you know what I have it's a rod my own back like my hair has become a thing now and now I have to have it I have to do it all the time and I'm trying to reinvent it as well because I did just have a bouncy blow dry anyway I won't go down that road um yeah and I I just think I'm like what would my alter ego do because there are times when like you know I have to do some really scary things like I go to Downey Street or I go to the Bank of England and talk to the governor and I'm as a as Abby I'm absolutely terrified because it's really scary and it's really nerve-wracking but I think no no my alter ego wouldn't part with that like just feel empowered and stand and she always she always looks great she always sounds great so crack on and I think yeah that came from investing in myself for sure and just not feeling guilty about it because there is a lot of stigma especially in this day and age for women investing themselves and then being made to feel guilty about it yeah don't take it I love that well thank you so much for joining me you've been fantastic thank you so much