Nobody Panic - How to Save Money with Bola Sol

Episode Date: October 19, 2021

Does money just seem to vanish? Keep getting to rent day and thinking WHAT THE £%$? You’re not alone. Bola Sol, financial wellness coach and author of ‘How To Save It: Fix Your Finances’ teaches Stevie and Tessa how to budget properly. Follow Bola on Instagram and Twitter: @bola_solBuy Bola’s book How To Save It: Fix Your Finances here.Tickets for the Nobody Panic Book Tour are on sale now - get your tickets here.Want to support Nobody Panic? You can make a one-off donation at https://supporter.acast.com/nobodypanicRecorded and edited by Naomi Parnell for Plosive.Photos by Marco Vittur, jingle by David Dobson.Follow Nobody Panic on Twitter @NobodyPanicPodSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/nobodypanic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Carriad. I'm Sarah. And we are the Weirdo's Book Club podcast. We are doing a very special live show as part of the London Podcast Festival. The date is Thursday, 11th of September. The time is 7pm and our special guest is the brilliant Alan Davies. Tickets from kingsplace.com. Single ladies, it's coming to London.

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if that floats your boat. If you like seeing tickets. If you like to see the tickets. You can also pre-order our book or you'll be available to buy on the day and we would love to see you. Please come along. Genuinely, please come along.

Oh, we'd love to see you. We'd love to see you. And welcome to Nobody Panic. I'm Stevie. Tessa is also here, but we have a special guest who's going to save our lives and our bank balances. It's Bola Sol. How you doing, Bola? I'm fine, thank you. Happy to be here. How are you? You know what? Fine. Fine.

Absolutely fine. Financially ruined. Absolutely ruined. Right. Let's fix that. Let's fix that. Right off the top of this episode. Bala's got a book out out earlier this year called How to Save It, Fix Your Finances. First off, the Forward is by Moneybox, which is an app I downloaded last year, and it's been incredibly helpful. So already, off to a flying start, if you have any, if you listen to this episode and you're like, yes, I want more of this.

Or if you're like, this is nowhere near enough help. Or if it was enough help, buy the book. Either way. Also follow, follow on Twitter. Should we kick off with the adult things? Yeah, this episode, I'm just saying this episode is going to be called is how to save money or how to fit, how to get it all, get it all in shape. Get those, because I think everybody listening is thinking, yes, yes, hello.

I'm not good at maths. I'm not good at numbers. I'm not, I, the money just disappears like monopoly money. Yes, please, I would like to know. And also, every time anybody brings up any sort of big words, like, Issa, your nose starts to bleed. So that is just, that's where we're coming at and where I suspect a lot of people listening are coming from.

Anything over the word bank? I'm like, okay, it's not a bank is, but I don't understand anything that is in it. I've recently started watching Ozark, and I, while I'm listening, I'm loving it and no spoilers, but I'm only three episodes in. I cannot comprehend what it is he is trying to do there. Like he is the concept of the, and I know he keeps explaining it to the child in the hope of the audience understanding, but I'm like, right, but what are we doing? how is it working?

So just that's where my maths and my finance is at. I'm sure, Bola, you'll have a lot of advice on money laundering. That's what I'd like to know about, please. If I did, I think this would be a completely different podcast. Yeah, so sorry, I derailed you on your adult thing. I'd love to know what your adult thing of the week is. Oh, it's organising life insurance and health insurance. That's so massive.

That's so incredible. Medibly adult. I don't even... You organised life insurance. Life insurance is something that you pay a monthly insurance. I think you can pay monthly or annually, but you have to do like a health and lifestyle questionnaire first. Right. So they just basically know about any pre-existing medical conditions that you have. So in the event certain things happen, not necessarily just death, but in the event something

like, this is so adulty. Like someone was to get cancer for a lot. example and stuff like that, then they would make out a particular claim for you. So if you couldn't work, anyone who has kids, for example, I know some people like my sister, she's a doctor, she's got critical illness cover. So in the event she can't work, she can make sure that, you know, her house is still taking care of, her family's still taking care of. Oh my God. Because I think up until this conversation, I just thought if you became critically ill, that was it, you could that there's no there's no way you if you just have to just I don't know your life would have to crumble and so the idea that there is actually something out that that would stop that make sense

and it's terrifying that I didn't know about it a last thing actually to say about life insurance which is why it's good for people to have it if you have a mortgage and you get a particular type of life insurance that's tied into your mortgage in the event that someone is to pass I don't like to put it on people that someone is to pass you can get it that your mortgage is paid off What? Yeah, important to know these things. Do you think that people, I mean, obviously, I mean, the answer is yes,

that people don't do this sort of thing because even thinking about the idea of it is just too overwhelming. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You can tell yourself, like, you know, I'm young. I'm a spring chicken. I go to Pilates three times a week. You're thinking, me? Never.

Yeah. But it just life happens. And one day you're just blowing out more candles than you expected, so. Oh, my God. But it's so important to speak positivity and like I talk about that in my book as well, like mindset, like money mindset and the things you tell yourself about money.

Yes, because I suppose it sends cues to your brain and then makes you, helps you to act more confidently and responsibly and all of that. Yeah, we did an episode a few months ago called like How to Manifest and we're like, oh, lame. And then by the end of it, like, yeah, it's absolutely psychologically incredibly helpful. Once you know what you want to attract, you can start attracting it and it's not some sort magical airy-fairy, you know, nothing. I've got questions about the positivity, as somebody who has a deeply negativity mindset about this sort of thing. Tell me what you recommend about this

sort of positivity thinking. If there was one sentence I could leave you with, I know we're just starting the podcast. I might drop. No, but if there's one thing you could remember, it's to say, I'm getting better with my finances. Because so often we can make a mistake, we and make an error and then it just feels like oh my gosh back to square one but it's not it just feels like that in the moment but don't let those moments encapsulate you like maybe if you have an emergency fund or savings and you have to dip back into it don't sometimes you have to take a deep breath and say I'm getting better with my finances you know setbacks aren't the end of the world oh my god I grew about four inches just listening to her I am getting better with my finances

finances. Yes. Because Tessa, you, is very much like when someone says to her, like, oh, so what's your, I think we did an advert or something a while back, and it was like we had to talk about how we approach money. And it was like, you know, so I answered the question. And then Tess was like, oh, I keep all my money in the box, on to my bed. It's like, well, you don't.

I do, actually. There's a bit of it. But like, you also, you are better than you present to yourself. Let's start, though, by, so I know you, I read a few things that you've written. Bola and you talked a lot about how important it is to talk about money. And I thought that was a good place to start because it's some, like, then we can move to like practical and tips and stuff later. Because that's so personal.

Like, for example, I'm absolutely fine talking about certain aspects of money. Tessa, you're, you feel stressed when I ask you how much things were that you've bought. Whereas I'm like, oh, it's fine. But then there are other things that I can't talk. Like I don't like talking about if I've done a job and I've earned a lot of money or a good amount of money. I feel, you know, you kind of feel, and I know that it's very different for everybody. Why is it important that we should talk about money? And what are the best ways to kind of ease yourself in if you're really not nervous about it?

It's important to talk about money because without sounding crude, you have no idea how much you could potentially be making. until you discuss it. And it's something I do on purpose with friends who are also within the financial influencer space. I do it in terms of my day job and salary. And it's also important for things like, so for example, to know about maybe how much someone is paying for energy, which has been a big topic lately. It's everything down to your mobile phone bill. The whole point that it's important to talk about money is so that we can learn to be more efficient in that area and know what works for us. And if we're not having those conversations, then we aren't really helping each other as a human race to get better. All we're doing is

buying into Jeff Bezos, who's flying to space with all our COVID-Av Amazon money. So it's like, we should grow together and that's why it's important to talk about money. And I think anyone who's nervous to talk about it should start where they feel comfortable. So it could be like, but the little things like, oh, where do you shop? I shop in Tesco. oh, I shop in Aldi and you should do a price comparison week on week and just start really small in those areas and then build up and then start to ask more questions. One thing I now say to my friends is, is it okay if I have a conversation with you about finances and just go from there? Where do you think it comes from? The how we don't want to discuss it. The idea that we don't know,

it would be unlikely that you knew what all your friends' salary was, for example. I think it's a British culture thing naturally to not talk about money and it also it always protects the employer for us not to discuss it. You know, it's only HR who usually know, know about that. So it's, it's all very hush-hush. Some people don't like to talk about it maybe because they have more than others and it can it can build envy and resentment. But it's, I think it's up to the individual what they do with that information as long as it doesn't brew into, oh, they're making more money than me and I don't like them. I say never look at the person, look at the situation and ask, how can I get more out of it? So like I do a job right now that my friend does and I think he earns

five times more than me. I kid you not. Five times more than me in a month. You said he as well, which is a time. I know. And instead of me making that situation about him, I make it about how I can get to that place financially. And that's the great, that's the great thing about talking about money. Yes, I can see that. You can use it, you can use it for good for yourself. It's very hard. I think I've spoken about it before on the podcast, but like when I first got a salary job, it was a journalist and I didn't know you weren't supposed to talk about that stuff. But I just, I sort of didn't because no one else was. But then we were all at this like Christmas party and then someone just was like how much do you and then they all found out

how much I earned and they were all like what I think I was on like 15,000. It was like what? And then we all started talking about it and it ended up with one of them's crying in the loo because the girl is five years younger. They're earning like five times more and it was the company was the problem but they didn't have enough money to kind of keep going and then people started to leave and find better jobs where they'd be paid for their worth, there was this whole thing about how it was illegal

to talk to your colleagues about how much they earned, but it's not. The company just makes you feel like it is. And it's illegal to talk about that. And I was like, I felt like, oh God, I'm really sorry that I've started this conversation, but actually turned out to be very helpful

for all of the individuals involved, just not the company who are screwing us all over. And also the other side of talking about money is when you're struggling for money. And I think that is, again, different um all like i mean again british not too but also within britain there are lots different cultures who talk about money in different ways but so obviously i'm only coming at it from the sort of like working class white perspective but like absolutely fine to say that you've

you've got no no money because that's essentially my base level like like up until maybe a year ago i was like but the but i know that that's also really difficult for lots of people to admit when they've got money problems and also to admit to themselves it's that thing where you don't want to go to the cash point and look because then you just sort of stick your head in the sand and then that's an obvious there's an obvious reason why you need to be talking almost to yourself about money because you can you can kind of like push it away um so yeah starting starting to talk about it in a way in easy in easy simple comfortable ways and then if you are struggling with money what what's like the your first thing that you should do bolus i would say

have a talk with someone who you know cares about you, a family member or a friend, and then maybe they can give suggestions of where you can go from there. As well, if that's not your first port of call and you don't want to do that, just have a cheeky Google, even if it's on an incognito setting of your situation and see, but it's always better to have a conversation

because you don't know the options that are available out there. Two people actually message me this morning, about a situation they're going through. And one of them I said, call the companies and tell them your situation because some people don't even know that it's an option to say, I'm struggling right now.

This is what I can afford to pay. And some companies will say, okay, we understand. Maybe you can pay the rest at a later date. But until we have those conversations, even with someone we trust, then we're always going to feel like we're struggling. But once you open up that conversation,

you know, it can, be such a release and you know where to go in terms of next steps. Yes. And what in your experience are the biggest mistakes people make with money? Very broad thing to say. Oh yeah. Yeah. Getting into debt and convincing themselves that that debt is worth it. So in all honesty, it's lifestyle creep. And it happens to so, it happens to so many people. It's like you want to go out with your friends, you want to go out with your family, whoever it is and before you know what you tell yourself, yeah, I don't know, I'm building up my credit and I'm using my credit card, but then it comes to a point where maybe it's too expensive or, yeah,

I'm going to get out and learn to do that, but you don't have an idea of how you're paying it back. So I think debt as a result of lifestyle creep is something that comes up time and time again. And there's just times where we just have to kind of sit at home and rain in our spending to get back to, should I say, zero. It's an instinct, isn't it, of being like, well, everyone else is doing it. And I deserve to have nice things and go out with people and I'll, you know, and I've got this overdraft or whatever, I've got this thing. I'll, I'll do it. And it's fine. And I, this is, this is fine. And it's a real sort of head in the sand thing. What I hate about it as well is that, because I

know that recently, well, maybe you can tell me that I'm wrong, actually, because I don't know if this is right. But I've read and heard that it's really important to have a credit card for your credit score. whereas when I was growing up, my parents were like, you never get a credit card. And they're really like, because obviously, you know, that happens. And you've then opened yourself up almost needlessly to the lifestyle creep as you put it, which is also great phrase, because I'm literally how it feels. But then, yeah, so terrible that then if that is the case, if that is true, that it's helpful to have a credit card, if you can pay off for your credit score,

then what a horrible bind they've got people in. because they're literally trying to get people into debt. It just goes to show the importance of self-discipline. That's the thing that no one teaches you like financial discipline. It's the same with, I don't know, going to the gym. It's less like, can I commit to X amount of times a week or a month? You have to do the same with your finances. But the wording, the way, the pros, everything, feel it's like it's completely closed thing

that I can't access and I don't understand any of the words. And it makes me all hot and shaky. And you're like, what's the, literally what, does that mean? And I think the language, yeah, it keeps people out from understanding it on purpose so that you do make a mistake and then you are fined and then they get some extra money. That's really how I feel about it. Probably too cynical. On that sort of note of like not feeling like you understand stuff, like what would your top line starter tips for people that really want to start saving, but just have absolutely

like no idea. Terrified a spreadsheets, don't understand it. How to save it. How to save it. I would say look into the best interest rate available. I could quote some now, but it's important to just Google what the latest one is. And if you're interested in property and you don't own a property yet, then of course you can look into getting the lifetime I saw. I've got one of those. If you're between 18 to 40, you can get one. First question, no, I've got two. One is the best interest rate. It does feel like the banks at the moment are offering interest date of like 0.3% and it's capped at. It's that. Yeah. So it feels like, it feels like you're like, okay, I'm ready, here I go. I've got my little pot of, I've got my little nest egg. Where should I put it?

Then you look around and you're like, oh, wait, at best, I can make 20 pence in interest in this bank for over a year. So that does feel like, is there a better place than the banks to put your money if you'd like to start saving? There are a few apps. So some of these like new school fintech apps can offer certain percentages. So for example, I know like chip work. offering 1.25% at one point. I know Marcus, run by Goldman Sachs, is currently offering 0.5%. There's all these various ones. So I think, you know, don't be afraid to move your money around just so that you're getting that little bit more. So like, I had chip and I also have a

savings account and it was like, cool. And I was like, I don't know what to do. I don't know how much to put in. I don't know. Like, because also as well, when you're self-employed as I am, I'll have, there are people of course who have salaries so then you can look and you can calculate your outgoings and then kind of detract that and go okay well I can manage this amount a month so I'll do that but if you also

you're somebody like for example me who will get like a big lump sum and then nothing for seven years and then like two pounds and I never know when anything is coming in ever it's quite hard to figure out how much to put in

and I'm not very I'm not going to make this question can you please tell me how much I should put in my account? But what I mean is, like, is there are there apps or are there any ways that you can kind of, that can help you to work out just how much to save? There's a rule of thumb. It's a 50, 30, 20, 20, 20% on your needs, 30% on your wants and 20% on your savings. So that could be savings could be a split of like savings and investments. So you could just put away money.

And I think what's important is that you label what that money is, for so is it an emergency fund that you're trying to build which is um should be a minimum of three to six months of expenses or is it for your long term goals like a house um for example or i don't know a car or a big holiday wow three to six months of expenses we're talking like maybe three to six months of rent as an emergency fund in the sense of if something terrible happens and that you can't and rent and bills right and so then you know that you are going to be safe for a certain amount of time that gives you breathing room to, you know, work things out. I see. That's a really great idea. Emergency fund is... Oh God, I've got about 0.2 of my rents.

You've got three days worth. Yeah. And then I'm running. So that is a thing, isn't it, about like being financially free about like how long can you last from this point if you just down tools and didn't work and there was no more money coming in from today? How long would it be before you hit zero? And it's like, so building up that emergency fund to be like, I could last six months from this point. this is how much money is in this account and that's not just an ambiguous number that's like this is six times my rent this is six times the bills this is six times this is food this is everything I know exactly how much that number is for me personally rather than just like I don't know a million or something like and then and then you're like of course you're never going to hit it if you're like a thousand pounds like you've got to be clear about like how much is your rent how much needs

to be in there and and then to be like you need six times that in there oh okay it feels feels feels hot but good. So needs wants savings. Okay. NWS 50 30, 20. And it can be stressful if you're listening to this and are at a stage where, which I have been for most of my life, where it's like I was for a long time earning the exact amount of money that was my expenses and maybe like 10 pounds. And then it'd be like eating rice. And then you listen being like, cool, would love to say, but literally can't. It's, I suppose, it's about like, it's an aim, you know, and like it's always good to have an aim. And that's another thing to look at how you can work smarter. Yeah, one of my clients, it took like 12 to 18 months to save three to six months of expenses.

Yeah. So you just... It's not an overnight thing. The feeling, yeah, the feeling feels the same when you do it, regardless of how quickly or how slowly it takes. Forget the pace. Just make sure you get there so that you have that cushion. Please, could you tell people what a lifetime ICER is? A lifetime ICA is. A lifetime I saw is for anyone between the ages of 18 to 40 who wants to either use it as a pension in the future or who wants to use it to buy a property.

Now, if you want to use it to buy a property, you can put in a maximum of £4,000 a year for up to three years and the government will add 25%, which is £1,000. So let's say for three years in a row, you save $4,000, the government will add $1,000. after three years, that's a total of £12,000, and the government have added $3,000 on top fee. Really great. Moneybox do that, right? Because I've got one, I think, through Moneybox. And so I would highly recommend that as an app as well, because what's so great about those apps is I get very upset when I'm downloading them and scared.

And then when you go in, it's literally designed for people like me who don't understand anything. So it's so clear and helpful and, like, you know what's going on. moneybox aside, are there any other sort of apps that you've found very helpful? I use Yolt. Yolt is a budgeting app. So you can add all your current accounts. I think I'm pretty sure you can add your savings accounts as well. Some people, you can add your credit cards and a few people add their investment accounts. So you can add a range of accounts and you basically put your budgets and it shows you a snapshot of what you're spending in a week. It tells you if you're bang on budget or if you have gone over. So,

what I tend to do is I do start with a spreadsheet, but then I make sure it reflects what I'm budgeting in the YOL app. And then I look and I'm like, oh, I'm spending too much here or I'm not spending enough here. One of the areas that I get conscious that I'm not spending enough in is like self-care, for example. I always think that that's really important. I always say like your financial,

your wellbeing is so important. It can't just be, I'm making money, I'm doing this. You have to look after yourself. Yeah. Yeah, because these spreadsheets, especially it's terrify me. So the idea that you have a spreadsheet for all your things.

And when if you, if someone's listening and wants to kind of like lay out a very simple basic budget sheet for example. Yeah. Just say income. So all the income that comes into you and then fixed expenses and variable expenses and then you just, you know, deduct from there. And it just helps you think. And variable. What's, what's great is like variable, it usually is the one that's like, oh I've got this, I've got that, I've got this, I've got that. But it can teach you, like, how much do I really need from there? Like, back to good old Jeff, but like, I'm sorry, I don't need Amazon Prime all the time. Yeah.

It's a, I don't want to say it's a small cost, but it's like, I think it's like $7.99 if you pay a month or it might have gone up now. The point is I'm just like, no, like, I don't need it right now. I'll get it another month, but just not now. So, like, that's where you get to see your variable expenses really add up. And also it, Amazon Prime is such a good example of some. think that it's like a chicken and egg thing. Once you have it, then you then end up by, you use it way more than you would have done if you didn't have it and you just plan a little bit better because you know that you can't

get something in four hours time. Basically, you don't need it, but you feel like you really do and it makes you need it when you have it. So I think it's, yeah, there's so many in those sort of variable categories where you go, well, that has, I have to have that. If you sit down and like force yourself, look through your bank account for the last couple of months, that's the point where you discover, you're like, what's that like one, 99.

what's that? And it's sort of thing that you're like, oh, well, it's $1.99. But then you're like, oh, it comes out every month and it's for like an app I want sport to learn Welsh. Like, it's like, what's that doing in there? And you don't look if you just keep putting your head in the hand in the sand and being like, oh, oh, ha ha, I don't know, money. You know, until you sit down and you're like, okay, where's it actually going? And also then it means it just, it means you have to do a lot of self-reflection of like, why am I spending so much money on burritos? Let's look at the underlying burrito problem. Let's look at the underlying burrito problem. And you're like, I don't want to look what's underneath the burrito.

Thank you. I don't want to know. We've mentioned a little bit about, well, the word investment has come up a few times. So I, like, decided to get a pension when I turned 30 and invest, invest. And that's how I talk about it. In fact, because I just don't. Yeah. And when I told my sister about it, she was just like, I'm sorry, what?

You're playing the stock market. What? Who are you? And I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. But I've got a nice woman. friend who kind of a woman friend who who does it for me is it a sip a self-infested person pension yes yes and so very very new having a lovely sip of my water and my money um and that eat i've got one and i'm stressed about it because i don't really understand it in a way

but what advice would you have for somebody who what who wants who would maybe want to firstly why should somebody somebody invest somebody in something in the stock market? Well, people should invest in general because savings can only take you so far. Right. I mean, you know, we spoke earlier about how low the interest rates are right now. And with, I say the reason, that's a huge reason as well. And your money can go further over a longer period of time.

So with investing, you know, you have something called compound interest, which is interest on interest. if you invest and your portfolio makes a return of 10% a year and you start with £100, that then becomes £110 and then £110 and 10% of that and it keeps going up. And saving just isn't going to do that for you. So you want to look at the long time, especially if you're self-employed, I must say it's so important to create future wealth for yourself through a self-invested personal pension. Yes, and it's frightening because with the investment stuff, you kind of go, oh, well, I won't be able to touch it for 70 years. Well, that's not necessarily all in the, like, that's just certain types of investment. And like, there are so many different types. What would your advice be

for somebody who goes like, okay, well, that sounds good and then literally has no idea. Obviously, Googling. But would you go to your bank and talk? Is that, is that a place where you would talk to? I would suggest people speaking to a financial advisor. Right. They can do free consultations about where to start with that, I would definitely say go to them. Because legally, I can't give advice on that. But understood. Would they take an upfront fee or do they take a cut of the amount that they make you? Or like, what is the thing with the financial advice? It varies. So sometimes it can be a mix. It can be they take a fee. Usually it's a monthly fee and then maybe like a percentage of what they make you. But that's not always the case.

I was very surprised because I did, I was like, was on a role and was like, I'm going to, Got in touch with a financial advisor and did it like a Facebook site just being like, oh, financial advisors? And then got a friend who used to work somewhere put me in touch with this lovely woman. What I'm saying is very important to lean in and not feel like it's too frightening because when I spoke to her, she just takes a percentage. But I bait like all of her clients are like millionaires. And so she wants to get people on who aren't at all.

Sometimes people will, you know, you kind of be like, well, why? I don't have enough money to kind of justify how. having a financial advisor and them taking a percentage because it's about two p for them. But because she has huge clients, she likes to help people that don't. And so what I'm saying is that don't automatically think you have to be some sort of banker on like 500 grand a year in order to necessitate you investing. Like you can invest as much or as little as you want. And also it's so nice because she's this lovely woman and just explains everything to me like really clearly. And she has to explain to me every time I speak to her, like again, what is we're doing? Like every single

time. It's something that feels like it's very too grown up and, well, you've got to be at least 50 to do that. It's like, no, actually, the whole point in is that you do it as early as possible so that then you can accrue as much as possible. Yeah, because the earliest you can access that money is actually 55. Right. So then you wouldn't have saved enough, really, would you do in five years? Exactly. And again, it's because you're like, I can't think about being 55. I'm going to the pub. I always say when it comes to investing in general, everyone needs to realize what their risk appetite is. So, for example, all three of us could say, right, we have different risk levels. So I could say, yeah, I'm going to put £1,000 in a crypto that's unregulated.

And you both could say, yeah, I'm going to do the same because I'm going to follow you. However, you don't know that. Maybe I've got $100,000 in safe stocks and maybe you've only got $10,000. So you have to kind of look at what you're willing to put in and also what you're willing to lose. What you're willing to lose. And that's it, isn't it? like you can only really play like for example they when um when they bought the when the people on reddit bought that game stock thing i was like fun i want to play and then they were like we're bringing

down we're bringing everyone down from the inside and and then they said you've got to buy bb they were saying everywhere on all the stock platforms but nobody knew what that meant so therefore people were buying a blockbuster blackberry and bed bath and beyond so nobody knew what they were doing but i I remember. They have to make a movie about this. Yeah, it was, surely they will. Well, because it felt very like, here were just some kids on Reddit, just literally unregulatedly playing the stopmark in a way that that is what Wall Street does professionally.

But because now the Reddit kids were doing it, they were like, shut it down, shut it down. And I was like, I'd come in to help. And then I was like, I put 50 pounds into Gamestock, which is, which my risk. It's GameStop, just, you know. Oh, shit. So you invested in the wrong thing. I didn't know what. I was doing. I invested in Game Stop, got my little E Toro app. Off I went. And that, what you're saying

about risk appetite, like, that was my risk appetite. Like, 50 pounds was how much I was prepared to be like, if this doesn't work, I had a 50 pounds of fun learning about this. And I understand that it didn't work. And I hope I don't lose all of it. But 50 pounds is my level of risk. And you won't believe this. It doubled. I doubled my money. I mean, I didn't really understand how to get it out. And I paid a bit You know what's. That's where it gets a bit sticky. That's where it got sticky. Turn out, E. Toro took most of it.

It's all a bit tricky. However, I was like, holy shit, I've made 50 pounds on this. But then I was like, but the only way you can truly make like millions on the stock market is to be gambling millions. Like your risk appetite has to be so massive. Otherwise, it just should be like play a low risk game, put it into low risk. It's just like trucks along, nice and gently. It's a little bit. A little bit every year, making you a bit of money.

But we ain't ever going to be hitting those like. we're making millions of space. You hope over a long period of time, that's where I suppose it's like over a lot, over your whole life's sake, when you're saving, then that actually does accumulate in a meaningful way

rather than being like, get rich quick, me investing aged 50. Yeah. Quick, quick. Not got a lot of time. I can't crunch against time. I retire next year.

What is it? If I get a lifetime life for now. I shall never retire. You've mentioned having clients a few times. And so is that something, are you a financial advisor? Is that something that people can come to you? you as no I'm not do you know so just to explain a financial advisor is someone who can legally legally

give you advice on your like investments for example so I don't do that I'm just a finance coach a finance coach it's literally personal finances whereas um yeah financial advising is more on a different scale they can help you with your personal finances as well but a lot of them tend to start with okay for example your self-invested personal pension as we spoke about or um other types of investments amazing um go and buy the book for more stuff. And more confident and more like, yeah. And you cannot, you can't be just like,

you've got to be like, okay, here we go. Come on, I'm going in, I'm being brave. Literally life. This is your life, yeah. Literally. This is your life. And you don't, you can't, you got, there's a better one waiting for you.

You can't cower away. Yeah. And, you know, all you have to do is tell yourself about all the things that you've overcome in the past. And I've started to do that. I'm like, remember when you were like 18 and super, organized and you lived away from home to university. And, you know, you lived out of campus and you had your bills sorted and like, remember, you can do that. And I tell myself, you know, when you get

a mortgage, you're going to do the same. And it's just like those many pep talks, you have to tell yourself about a time when you were, you know, you were hitting up your finances in the best way and it was working for you and go back to that time and remind yourself how capable you are. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Really, I feel like you've really changed Tess's life. I can see that in her eyes. I feel richer. And I feel incredibly I've got some of those things, but

I haven't really been leaning into them because I'm still too frightened to fully commit to any of it, but I'm going to commit. And yeah, thank you so much. And we'll see you all listening next week. I hope we're all one week richer and one week more better with our

finances. We're getting better with our finances. See you in 50 years. when everyone's better with their finances. No, see you next week, guys. We're going to do this. Take yourself on a bank, a date and look at those, look through your thing. Get that Excel spreadsheet going.

50, 30, 20. Needs want savings. Thank you so much. Bye-bye.