Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Get bare-chested and have a cage fight like the rest of us!

Episode Date: June 16, 2026

It's Tuesday, and there's some confusion over sausages... Jane and Fi chat AI therapy, the dangers of chest freezers, the consequences of a lie-in, A$AP Rocky's full name, and why Jane reckons she's unsuited to management. Plus, they speak to Megan Harwood-Baynes, senior money reporter at The Times and The Sunday Times, about investing and pensions. You can report problems on your street here: https://www.fixmystreet.com/ You can buy tickets for Fringe by the Sea: https://www.fringebythesea.com/off-air-with-jane-fi-and-special-guest-jan-ravens/ Our next book club pick will be a collection of short stories! 'Interpreter of Maladies' is by Jhumpa Lahiri.  You can check out our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@OffAirWithJaneAndFOur new playlist 'Coiled Spring' is up and running: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4tmoCpbp42ae7R1UY8ofzaOur most asked about book is called 'The Later Years' by Peter Thornton.If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] us on Instagram! @janeandfiPodcast Producer: Eve SalusburyExecutive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Right, bitterness is not an attractive quality and I can occasionally sink into it. We mustn't let ourselves do it. Hello, everybody. We'd love to earn three-quarters of a million quid. I'm just warm, warm all the way through. Never have a harsh word to say about everybody. Well, it's a thing though, isn't it? It's a different skill set that's being displayed.

And I could no more sit on a early morning or mid-morning sofa and you know I couldn't F of S I couldn't well no I couldn't either the only thing Cheer up and cheap like that So it's fine I think they've got a skill that

You know They're being paid handsomery for What we both could do is get up We could get up in time We just couldn't do the work To be fair to us We could get up in time We could

Although yesterday I slept through my alarm James I woke up at 818 So I slept through about seven alarms Because it just goes off Doesn't it every time Yeah And the whole of yesterday was just a write-off.

You were trying to catch up with yourself. It is weird, isn't it? Because you do just become such a creature of habit. And of course it meant that Nancy hadn't been walked and I'd miss them a swim and all kinds of things. With the consequences. There are always consequences. She doesn't get her early morning walk.

Yes. On that note, can I just say a massive thank you to the people behind Penne. Now, that's, as in the pasta. Yeah. But they don't make pasta. Oh. Penet and Coe are people who make

delightful, very, very high-calibre accoutrements for the dogs. So the lovely people from Penne had sent me a harness for Nancy and a new lead. And honestly, I can't thank you enough. They're incredibly well made, really, really super strong and they've done an awful lot of research

as to what actually helps older frame dogs and stuff. And Nancy's got this huge problem now. She can't get up steps because she's got arthritic backlegs and trying to yank her with a lead just feels really, really wrong and horrible. I can't have truck. She's too heavy, put the harness on this morning. And of course I can pull her up with the harness

because it pulls her whole body. And it doesn't hurt her. No, she was absolutely fine. She was aided by a small sausage. But, yeah, we got out of the house. No, small sausage. Oh, I see. Little chippal Lara.

I thought there was, I thought, she got a sausage dog. That would look so daft, wouldn't it? One up high and one on the floor. Quite funny. I don't know why you don't do it. But to be fair, they also very kindly sent you a baseball cap. Which I gave to you because I, yeah.

I can find someone who will very much welcome that. It just says, I love my dog. And also someone whose face-shaped little suit, because I did put it on, you just laughed. Well, you said yourself you don't see you to baseball cap. Some people don't. I mean, so many world leaders look wonderful in a baseball. Don't they just?

I can think of one in particular who really rocks that look. And also just wears it to such appropriate occasions. Pretty dignified old amount. Oh, let's leave them out. No, let's. Stupid polka. Can we talk, because we did so we would, about AI therapy. Yes, we've had so many emails.

Well, it's interesting, isn't it? This is obviously a world that so many people are immersed in. Our original correspondent said that they felt a degree of shame about consulting chat GPT. We read that email out last week, and I think we both said, there's absolutely whatever gets you through, and you certainly shouldn't feel shame about, because they were finding it helpful, and they pointed out. pointed out that chat GPT was available all through the night, 10 in the morning. And in between therapy sessions.

And in between sessions. So there was constant help, hello. Because I reprinted them. So now you both probably have duplicates from the same people. Oh, Eve. Just feel aware of that. Oh, Eve. Oh, Eve. Who has really sorted herself out this week and is right back on board.

A little bit of an accident in the coffee bar this morning with some cinnamon. But we've gathered ourselves or gathered ourselves. Gosh, you're going to smell like Christmas all day. I start celebrating around mid-June anyway, so it suits me. Right, so we've both got repetitive emails. I did think it was quite a big stack. Yeah, not that many things. Okay.

All right. Okay, let's just rewire. We've had three emails on this important subject. But it feels like 12. It feels much more like 12. Right, press on, sister. So lots of you have got in touch. Everyone on need therapy after that, whatever that was.

To say that they are doing a similar thing. Yeah. So we're going to keep many of them anonymous. Your correspondent who found help with AI is normal for now. I've turned to it whilst my daughter, who I rely on far too much is away for three weeks on work. I talk to AI regularly. Now, I know it's not real, but it is a big help.

This one comes in from Millie. Greetings from Nottingham, although right now I'm sat in a Peak District Cafe, having just run 24 miles. What an opening sentence, Millie. Not one I could ever write. Very much, congratulations. Wow.

I usually have to refrain from writing to you every other day and remind myself that I'm not in fact, in a private conversation with you at all times. He kind of are. However, the listeners' recent email regarding using AI as a therapeutic tool has prompted me to get in touch as I do feel I have some expertise here as a therapist myself. Brilliant.

The thing I would say is that it's completely understandable to find chatbots comforting. They are designed that way to agree with you, pay attention to details, ask you to elaborate, and always validate your experience and feelings. In this way, they behave exactly as a therapist does a lot of the time. It's normal, natural and almost universal to want this kind of attention, and there is no shame in it. However, as you both pointed out, this tendency does also pose a risk because unlike a human therapist, it won't step in and be a voice of reason or safeguarding when needed.

And so what right now is comforting... could become a problem, particularly if you begin to distance yourself from more real people in favour of AI. But I think the listener is aware of this. Secondly, I'm glad to hear the listener does have a therapist. I would encourage her to bring this up in therapy and explore it. That's such a good point, isn't it? To actually tell the therapist that you're talking to AI as well. I would have thought that would be immensely helpful to both the therapist and to the patient.

Well, presumably now in therapeutic training, they must be taught. how to deal with exactly that issue cropping up in sessions, I would imagine. I would hope so too. Accepting your own need for comfort is important understanding the ways in which AI provide something you're not getting elsewhere may help. Ultimately, I don't think AI can do the job of a therapist at all, but if it does provide a sense of comfort and validation, then I'm all for it within reason.

Millie, thank you for taking the time to write that. I think that is very helpful and it's very sound advice, and it's based on experience too, which we always love. And another anonymous correspondent says, I've had a lot of therapy over the last decade. First for the therapist, too, in the very first session, took a risk in telling me that she thought my relationship had an abusive dynamic. It was the most enormous relief to hear this said out loud

and with such clarity. She supported me hugely through the process of leaving my partner and the consequences and beginning to understand and trust myself more. therapist client relationships are so personal and human. I can see that AI might be really comforting day-to-day and in-between sessions, but does chat GPT ever say, I'm not able to help with this? I suggest seeking professional help, going to your GP, calling this helpline.

I suspect not. Doesn't it always kind of tell you what you want to hear? I've recently attempted to use it to come up with names for a new local artist's collective I'm part of, and it always thinks my suggestions and prompts are wonderful, and they aren't. Right, Kate, do you know the answer to the question? Does chat GPT ever say that I'm afraid this is beyond my expertise? I think you need to speak to a human expert. Well, I don't know, but I think until we do find out the answer to that question,

and do you know what, I'll try and watch the Hannah Frye thing tomorrow morning. We should probably pause on perusing that. Yeah, because we're not at... I'm going to say we're not experts. We're so not experts. One of the reasons we have any listeners is that we're in expert in absolutely every area. But we've always got a view of sorts until we realise it's irresponsible to give you our views.

But I do think just with the whole AI thing, Jane, and I think we mentioned this, didn't we, last week, I just don't want to go into this brave new world of AI in the same way that I went into the brave new world of the internet, where I kind of didn't realize quite how fast everything else was moving and then I had to really, really run to catch up and I don't like that feeling. Nobody likes that feeling at all. And I think we are in danger because we're born into the analogue world

of being a little bit too resistant to all of these developments. But you do have to be in it in order to change it. You have to use it in order to be informed about it. So actually having initially thought, AI, that's going to be awful. Of course some aspects of it will be, but we've all got to join in because then it will belong to us.

It's scraping us. It can already make a podcast of you and me. It's done all of the scraping. We'd be absolutely mad to just stand back and just kind of shriek at it. We've got to be inside it. I wish they called it something other than scraping. I know.

Well, I know, well, yeah, because it just always reminds me of a smear test. It's a gynecological thing, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, you are, I know you haven't forgotten, but you are talking to the woman who had to go on a special course for people who were slow learners in using a mouse. So, you know, how could I forget this unique detail of your life?

It was a really turgid morning. That was, I guess, the poor woman in charge, I did feel sorry for it, that was a curious cross-section of then BBC employees, all of whom I was more than analogue when I was, you know, I was struggling with the printing press. Well, obviously I would struggle with the printing press. into press. I couldn't use that either. Anyway, it was a long morning. I think the instruction benefited me. I think we've just got to make some massive leaps now with AI to not be those people

who go, you know, it's all dreadful. I hate it. No, because we've got some, we've had a load of compelling emails from people saying, you know, it's really helping me and it's helped me. What I wouldn't do, and I'd feel uneasy about, is we'd, let's say either of us are doing an interview, and it's about a book, and we've read the book, you know, because we do. we do try to read the book. But for whatever reason, we can't be asked thinking of our own questions, so we just ask CHAPGBT for them.

That feels to me like, why am I here? I would rather try and think of something on my own. Definitely. I mean, I just... No, no, completely... For any attempt at authenticity. I completely agree. Which doesn't mean I won't read other interviews

with the said author. Well, I was going to say that in the research that we always do ahead of interviews, we are always using information that has been gleaned by somebody else. Eve does the most amazing briefs ahead of all of our interviews where she's read lots of in-depth interviews with people and she'll lift from it the most important things and we rely on her to give us that kind of backup.

So AI is Eve and we should be worried for Eve in that. No, but it's true, it's true, isn't it? because actually what we do for a living is probably more protected than what Eve's doing for a living. Oh, that's a bit of a dismal bit of news for her. But I know what you mean. No, but it's true, isn't it? Because I think what the listener then wants from our interviews is the sense that we're really paying attention. We are across what happens in a book.

We've got something new to contribute to the conversation. But it's all backed up by injected information. Just got from a different place. I wonder when the last interview occurred with an individual who'd never been interviewed by anybody. And I don't mean, you know, you get these terrible stories of eyewitnesses to tragedy and that sort of thing. They are very different. They are caught in the news moment, if you like, and are they in? And sometimes they're ready to talk and sometimes they're not.

Sometimes they're very ready to talk. That's a different sort of interview. But the so-called celebrity or author interview, you need like a virgin interviewee, don't you? Someone who's literally never ever been troubled by an interview. before those people don't exist anymore, do they? They must be out there somewhere, I suppose. When you get people who aren't particularly interested in playing the kind of interviewee game, they are magical.

And actually, Henry Harris, who's the co-owner of Bouchon Racine, which is the restaurant that was named number one restaurant in the country, he came on the programme and he did not perform how people usually perform in an interview. He was so charming and lovely, but he said what he wanted to say, and then he just stopped, and it did slightly catch me unawares, because most people know what an interview sounds like, so when they come to be interviewed, they've got the kind of language for it.

Well, I mean, I've always said that when we have our annual interview with Michael Ball, it is such a pleasure to interview someone, I'm slightly in danger of contradicting myself here, who simply doesn't just play the game, but conduct the orchestra while he's doing it. It's just pure pleasure for that. the interview, uh-uh, I mean, he gives something away, but he doesn't need to invite you to the darkest crevices of his mind. He can just be charming and entertaining for 20 minutes.

I mean, those people are very valuable too. They're very valuable, yeah. I like both of those things, though. I really like people who don't come to the table with everything absolutely kind of, you know, polished and showbiz anecdote ready and stuff. Because it makes you, if you're listening to that interview at home, you will definitely prick up your ears and stay with it with somebody who's not quite the usual type of person

Richard Whiteley did a show off at Edinburgh where because he was so out of touch with showbiz culture the schick was that somebody would be wheeled in and he would genuinely

have no idea who they were they'd be quite well known to the audience and he would just do a half an hour's interview with them just trying to kind of work out

who they were and I did go and it was fantastic he did Sue Perkins And Sue Perkins was... How could anyone not know who Sue Perkins is? Exactly. It was that kind of thing. And it was genius.

Oh, I was thinking of Sue Pollard. But they're different people, but I like them both. Poor Sue Perkins. And Sue Perkins. It was Sue Perkins. Was it? But it was a genius concept. Because that's very rare as well.

Yeah. And right. What I was going to say was in the heyday of Smash Hits magazine, they used to ask everybody the same question, does your mother play golf? and that would elicit some astonishing responses from the pop stars of the day you know the bass player from Depeche Mode somebody from Blamonge all wrestling with the same

I'd love to have been in the office when they came up with that because you just think what were the other alternatives the universal question I think that was Neil Tennant a pet shop boy of course who was then working for the magazine anyway that was God I love that magazine oh really did can we just have some positivity because it's a world of pain

as many of you know, unfortunately. And Margaret has just emailed to say, I mean, this is just pure positivity. I live in Fairham in Hampshire. Do you know Fairham? Yeah. I do know Fairham. I'm now looking at Therham for my retirement.

Are you? Well, because of this email. Well, incoming Margaret, you could have a new neighbour, but she does have a large petting zoo, just to bear in mind. I would like to tell you, she says, of the wonderful people who live here, I'm in my 70s, I live on my own,

I work one morning a week, in the happy and hard-working charity shop in Fairham with a caring and supportive management. The traffic is horrendous, but local residents give way to all sorts of predicaments. We wave pedestrians over crossings and give way in all sorts of other places. Everyone raises their hands to say thank you.

My neighbours are kind and thoughtful and always ready to assist. They're of all ages, from young to middle age. They are wonderful people. I think we should express our gratitude to those people who are great neighbours. We spend so much time criticising young and old, but we don't elevate wonderful people and communities enough.

Well, Margaret, you just have done. Brilliant. Thank you. It does sound lovely. What else has Fairham got? I don't know. Fairham, I never spent very much time in Fairham. I know where it is. Market Town? I think so. It's quite close to the Guildford, isn't it? Isn't that Farnham? The Gelford. Well, Farnham is very close to Guilford. It's almost a suburb. I'm really annoying people by saying that. Farum, I think, is a bit further near the coast. Further near the coast. Oh, my see.

Okay. Okay, there we are. Market Town at the north-west tip of Portsmouth Harbour. There you go. It's further near the coast. Further near the coast. It's lovely. It's lovely.

It's not near Guilford at all. You were right. Farnham's near Guilford. But Margaret, thank you for that because you're right. So many of us spend so much time muttering and moaning and generally doing people down. It is wonderful to know that there are just working community out there full of people just doing their best for each other.

It's good. And even in, you know, she's working in the charity shop, there's good management there. So, and again, I have literally spent a lifetime in the workplace complaining about management. I've never been in management. I've never will be in management. I'm completely unsuited to managing. But Margaret is well managed in the charity shop as well. So let's hear it for Fairham. I think charity shops are very undervalued part of our world. actually, because they're quite frequently derided as fillers on the high street now, aren't they?

Well, I'm glad they are filling in some ways. They get a cheaper, they don't have to pay business rates, do they? Which is why lots of shops are closing down. You'll get charity shops in amongst all the vape shops and all of that kind of stuff. But I know that you've had some bad experiences. No, darling. Just a tiny bit of indifference. Indifference in your charity shop.

But I've never entered a charity shop in my neck of the woods without. being welcomed and having a bit of a chat and just leaving feeling enormously elevated by the experience and and also you know five pounds 50 lighter but old bag of lovely stuff yeah yeah it's only the bookshop where I've had the the the indifference the charity shops are all fine it's just the charity bookshop I need to be specific I think anyone who lives in the east-west kensington area will know probably what I'm referring to one shop only takes donations on certain days at certain times, between 1015 and 1030 on every other Wednesday in February. You know, it's always just, it's just, it's just exhausted.

I know, but I'm kind of with them on that, Jane. Imagine if you're in a charity shop, and especially a book shop, and people are just coming in all the time, and there's load these great, big, hefty bags full of some of them. Well, not me. I'm harming off my good ones. Everybody wants their shopper back. Oh yeah, that's true. You don't have enough staff to be front of house

and sorting out in the back. I'm standing with the charity shop worker here. Are you? I am. Jazz incoming from Naomi. Just eating my supper listening to you both. A rare moment with both children and husband out of the house at the same time, just me and the cat.

Oh, lovely. Savour it. And heard you talking about Jane's wonderful trip to Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club. I've wanted to go there for so long and for one reason or another haven't made it yet. You've given me the enthusiasm to go so we'll book in some time in the autumn, so thank you.

I'm also no jazz aficionado either, but I also rather like it. I used to live in Greenwich, and there was this tiny jazz club where Jules Holland used to play regularly. I think it's called Oliver's Jazz Bar. It was the first jazz bar I've gone to and was everything I hoped for,

winding down a narrow staircase to the basement. It was a little bar and then a dark red velvet curtain that you went through to little round tables. That's it, isn't it? It's going through the velvet curtain, isn't it? That was about 25 years ago or more and since then I've been to a few others

including Greenwich Village in New York, New York, which was fun and in the cigarette smoke-filled days, poor musicians, but never Ronnie Scots. This summer I'm heading to Love Supreme Jazz Festival in Sussex, near Gleinbourne. I've been a few times now writing this, perhaps I realise I like and have listened to jazz more than I thought. And near me, that's what I thought when I read your email.

You sort of formed a bit of a habit around jazz. But I really, really love this because this is kind of how our brains work too. Well, we'll start out saying, no, I don't like this. And I've never had any. And then literally by the end of three minutes, we're just completely and utterly signed up to it. And we've drenched you in anecdotes from the last 30 years. It's been a truly wonderful weekend of live jazz and other music.

Do have a look. Perhaps you might pop along together this year. it or next. Enjoy the jazz. Play what you like and don't be afraid to have to know anything about it. Just enjoy and feel the vibes. Thank you for reminding me how much I like it. Well, Nirmie, we hope you enjoy the rest of your evening

and next time, next time you get a little bit of peace and quiet in the house. Don't feel you have to fill it with writing to us. Well, I don't know. Actually, you could just listen to some jazz. Yeah. Stick a bit of Billy Cobham on. Actually, his high-octane drumming may not be the most

relaxing accompaniment to some. It is lovely and obviously we very much love children but it is lovely sometimes when everybody goes out and you just got the place to yourself. Oh it's heady. Yes. I remember, yeah, I remember it used to make me feel a bit giddy. Well, anything was possible. Nothing happened but anything was possible. Thank you to our, she describes herself as your faithful listener, Brenda in Crumlin. Brenda has just been reflecting on the events in Northern Ireland last week. She says, I can't tell you how heartbroken I and the vast majority of people here feel watching those scenes of families with babes in arms, fleeing burning homes under police escort.

As someone who was a child in 1969, I remember the same scenes on our streets and friends and classmates who are in that exact position. To say it's triggering is no understatement. The horrific attack actually took place in the north of the city and the pogroms took place in the east. The riots had nothing to do with the incident. They're just an excuse for racist to do their worst. The shadowy figures of the loyalist paramilitary groups are lurking.

Their permission, so-called, would be needed for such violence to go ahead. Please don't buy the narrative that the horrific attack has united both communities against our migrant neighbours. The truth is, most of us are disgusted and ashamed. The same loyalists trying to suck in nationalist youngsters will next month burn the nationalist flags. we have the 12th bonfires, yes. I mean, it doesn't, it sort of vanishes from the headlines, but the truth is that on the streets of Northern Ireland, the same old resentments and rivalries just trundle on, it seems, without any pause, really. Brenda, thank you very much. And I did say yesterday, and I'll repeat it here, that sometimes those of us who don't live in

Northern Ireland need to think before we say anything about it. So I absolutely hear what you say and thank you for taking the time to email. Let's get back on board the cruise ships. This one comes in from Anne who joins us from County Durham, but she's a well-traveled lady, Jane. It was great to hear my email read out about reaching 80 degrees north on my expedition cruise. We're now back in Oslo, fly home tonight,

a beautiful and compact city, if you ever fancy it. You asked about a cold cruise experience. It's very relaxed with just smart, casual dress in the evening, definitely no ball gowns. Actually, most cruise lines are moving away from that now and you can dress up and down as much as you wish. I know you both say that you wouldn't enjoy a cruise, but this one was particularly great.

Only a maximum of 220 passengers' absolute luxury service on board. It was with Silver Sea. It was expensive, but absolutely everything was included, and the expedition team provides education and escorts you on all excursions into the wilderness. I'm very glad they do. Yeah, I think a keen amateur out in the wilderness. I think that's good. I think that's good. Not to be five.

Off you go. Should I wear a parker? Be back by five. This is our first... Just take a torch. This is our first cruise with them. But I don't think it'll be our last. They also have normal cruises with up to 750 people with the same level of luxury, but not as pricey. And also not an upside-down pineapple in sight on cabin doors. So why not give it some thought? It's adventure without jeopardy. I'd better stop now as I'm starting to sound like I'm on the publicity team. I'm a working class woman and former nurse and I certainly don't take any of this travel for granted. We also travel independently and choose cruises for their itinerary. My husband has, as Fee said, been very careful with our ices. Thank you to you both and your wonderful team. Your podcast is a great addition to my life and selfishly, although I'm your age and retired. Very angry. I was at a, well, I told you I was at this barbecue and so there. Quite a lot of people there were

drinking heavily for because they have no commitments. On the Sunday. On the Monday. Yeah. I was sitting there thinking, alarm clock Britain. That's me. Well, it was you, but you sleep through your alarm now. Yes, and I didn't drink on the Sunday at all. I hope you won't be doing the same any time soon with every good wish.

And now back in County Durham, but possibly in Oslo at the same time. Right. Well, look, you're having a lovely time, Anne. Good for you. Yeah, and I'm glad that you are enjoying us wittering on. Well, her mention of ISIS gives us the chance to talk about our guest in today's podcast. What a wonderful link. What a wonderful link. I do want to do one more email though because Nikki alerts us to fears. Fears that were part of her childhood, she says,

recent discussion about chess freezers brought to the surface something I don't know if I've ever properly articulated before. My mother, a kind and generous woman, if a little prone to see catastrophe or potential catastrophe, in every aspect of everyday life, instilled in my sister and I a lifelong fear of the chest freezer. As children, we were reportedly warned not to go near them if we were ever playing at a friend's house.

This was the 1970s, and nipping out to get a few ice poles from the chest freezer was commonplace, but I would hold back, standing well away from the device. The main concern my mother had warned us about was that we might fall in and become trapped. Right.

I kid you not, this fear has never left me. I'm certain I've repeated the advice to my own children when they were younger, along with other random warnings about household dangers I inherited from my mother. Has anyone else had a similar chest freezer warning? Or was it just our mildly anxious family? Nikki, thank you very much for that. Well, did you? Well, mum did you used to warn us that the chest freezer was completely,

out of bounds for hide-and-seek. Right. Okay, yeah. But, I mean, if you were playing with a sibling or a close friend, surely they wouldn't let you freeze to death. Well, I think siblings can be a little dangerous sometimes, Jane, actually. I think they can tell me to do things that you really shouldn't be doing at all, so I wouldn't exclude them from the danger zone.

But I suppose it is just tempting. There's always the, you know, I mean, it's probably not an urban myth of, you know, the kid who went off to play hide and. and see you can got locked in a trunk or a chest freezer or whatever. You know, anything that's big enough for kids to try and crawl into, then they probably will. It was part of a weird part of a plot in a film that we watched last night. We had Family Movie Night and we watched the drama,

which stars Robert Patterson and Zendaya. Have you seen it, Eve? What did you think? Is it a romance? No. I thought it was really good. We thought it was amazing. I thought the pace was really funny.

When we were watching it, we were like, when is this going to end? Yeah, it's really stressful. I went with my housemate and it wasn't what I was expecting and it was, I was so stressed. I was just tense at the edge of my seat. But it was really entertaining and it wasn't too long. No, it's not too long. God, you sound like us. But there is plenty to talk about afterwards as well, isn't there?

Because the bit of the plot that's about a kid who gets trapped is really important. with regard to everything else that unfolds. The kid is fine in the end. But, yes, we couldn't stop thinking about it afterwards, actually. It does create a lot of discussion. Yes. You should watch it. You should watch it.

Sounds like an addition of front row. Thank you for both very much. Well, it was a toss-up between that, or the Denzel Washington one, which is all-action, all thriller, or whatever, which we'll probably get to in the next family movie night. But it's that one stars ASAP Rocky, and I like to call him in front of the kids as soon as possible, Rocky.

Yes, to give him his full name. I mean, I think that's absolutely fine. They just look so horrible. That's all right. My sister and I always used to call the great singer Billy Ocean William Motion. I mean, I don't know why he loved his music.

Red light spells danger, though. But also all of these new names are just H.S. Tiki-tocky. What a Pratt. What an absolute prat. But if you're trying to rule the man as with your sheer macho aggression and energy

don't call yourself H's tiki-toky No, get bare chested and have a cage fight like the rest of us would Yeah We're going to do something very sensible now, aren't we? Well, we are, yes You mentioned, let's pretend You mentioned Arsus food

Well, if you want to do your, If you want to do the very, the Now, money box line It's welcome to Moneybox line Do you have 70,000 and a nice side? No, I don't. immediately excluded from the entire episode. Okay, let's do this properly.

If you want to learn more about investing, and especially if you're a woman listening to this, we are not the best investors. And there's no reason why that should be the case. We're going to explore why companies might have slightly excluded us in the past from marketing, et cetera, et cetera, and the huge importance of saving throughout our... our lives and we're about to do that with the wonderful. It's Megan Harwood-Bains, who is a

money reporter for The Times. And I think probably, hopefully, as I speak, we're in the past land and the conversation with Megan is in the future land. But we also just want to ascertain the point at which women, I've definitely done this, we sort of excuse ourselves from conversations about our own finances if we're in a heteronormative relationship, if you like. I was very conscious that I just gave that away. And boy, did I then have to discover the world at a later date. And I'm sure that experience is not uncommon. So let's talk to Megan. Thanks for being back, Megan. Hi, thanks for having me. We do appreciate it because we think there's a thirst out there. There is a need for, well, quite basic information about savings and pensions. And particularly,

and I'm not being patronising here, for women and girls, because some of the stats on the gender pension gap. And as soon as I use that phrase, people nod off and I can, actually, I can't see anybody in this room doing it, but there'll be people all over the country think, I don't need to hear this. The gender pension gap is what? So the current UK gender pension gap is 32.9%. Now, it has fallen from last year. It's fallen by 3.6%, but that is still massive. It means men hold an average of £155,000 in private pension wealth. Women have 88,000. So that's a huge, Huge gap. But this is only private pension wealth. Yeah. Right. But it does indicate if that is going to attempt to sustain you through your dotage, women are going to have a tougher time than men.

And there's a lot of reasons for this happening. It's not just that women are saving less, but women are more likely to take on part-time work to care for children and families, more likely to take on zero hours contracts, which often mean they don't end up auto-enrolled into workplace pension schemes. Right. We'll get on to all those details in a minute, because I wanted to talk about pensions perhaps a little bit later in the conversation and perhaps focus on younger people to start with. If you're in your 20s, we've had a question from a listener who says, oh, it's Molly, who just says, I don't know how to start investing. I just don't know. And she doesn't know how much money she needs. So what is the answer to that? I mean, how long is a piece of string?

And to clarify, I'm not a financial advisor. So none of this is financial advice for your situation. But I think the first thing I would look at is are you auto-enrolled into your workplace pension? Because they're really great because you get free money. So you are saving? Yes. And I think people forget pensions are essentially an investment fund. They're the very first investment fund for many of us. So are you saving into a pension fund?

And then have a look at how your pension fund is saving. So log into the app. Look at you can usually set different tiers of risk. So high risk, medium risk, low risk. If you're in your 20s, it's generally recommended that you go for high risk. It's a bit more volatile. Because you can afford to lose a few. Yeah, you've got potentially 40 years of saving. So you can afford for things to go up and down a little bit because by the time you are towards the end of your career, you will have had significant growth on that. So if you're worried about investing, I would say the first place to look is your pension and then start looking at other kind of private investment platforms.

At what level do you go on auto enrollment in a job? That is a very good question. And one that I'm not in time. highly sure the answer of. I thought, according to we did look this up earlier, after 2018, every employer, medium, small, large, has to auto-enroll anybody earning over 10 grand, anyone at all. Yeah. So most people should be auto-enrollment is great because you just get put on it and most of us are probably too lazy to actually think, well, do I want to opt in or opt out of this? So most young people will be auto-enrolled. And the key is to also then not lose. track of those pensions. So we know young people are working more jobs. They're more likely to job hop.

I think the days of, you know, working one career for 40 years and then retiring with sort of a very nice pension. That's not quite realistic. So keeping track of your pension pots and as you move jobs, consolidating them all into one. So by the time you reach retirement, you've got sort of one pot ready and waiting for you rather than having to then track down different savings. Okay. It is worth just saying right at the beginning of this conversation, the value of compound interest, something which is not sexy when you're in your 20s and boy is it sex itself when you're in your 50s. And in fact, we were having this conversation in the office today where one of our wonderful young colleagues were saying, do you know what? You know, life is so difficult.

The financial horizon is actually so bleak for the young generation. The money that they're putting away into their pension at the moment, it's very tempting to think, yeah, I just want to do some travelling. I just want to decorate my house. I just need to pay my rent or whatever. But the value in that small amount of money going in now, can you explain just how massive that is? Sure. So a 20% taxpayer, so let's say you put £100 into your pension, that's actually going to cost you £80 because you get tax relief on it. That's then going to be topped up by your employer, giving you a total of £160 that goes into your pension pot. And that's £160 when you are in your 20s. By the time you're in your 50s, 60s, that could be worth 500, 600 pounds because

you've allowed it to grow. So I think it is really hard and I do get it because I've been there. But if you've never had access to that money, if you auto-enroll as soon as you start a job, if you get a pay rise and you just immediately put that money away, then you don't know what you're, what you haven't got. And I think that's just a smart way to do it. Okay. Let's assume Molly has auto-enrolled in a pension. but she's inherited, let's say, 500 quid from Great Uncle Ron, and she wants to do something with that. She wants to have a little bit of fun with it.

It's okay, isn't it, to, well, put it in an ICER, but what is an ISA? So an ISA is a savings account, and I think if you're thinking that you want to start investing, what I would generally say to people is make sure you've got an emergency fund that you hold in a cash ISA that you can access very quickly. So it's generally recommended like a couple months wages. So if something happens or if you want to leave a job or leave a relationship, you've got...

And something goes wrong with the car or the ball, you know, I always think they're my two big worried. Yeah, you've then got access to money to sort of help you. And then once you've got that that you can access easily, then is the time to start looking at investing. And there's loads of great platforms out there that you can sort of try your hand out. So you could open up a stocks and shares, ICER, where you basically invest in a whole different range of shares. And it sort of diversifies your risk. so you're not kind of buying one individual share. I mean, I know buying individual shares

that's been a lot of talk this week, like with SpaceX going public, people are talking about whether they should buy SpaceX shares. You know, I think if you're new to investing, I probably wouldn't suggest that as your first go. But equally, you can invest in these shares from as little as £5. So I have one investing platform

where I just sort of, I've played around a little bit and I've bought £5 worth of this stock and £5 worth of this stock just to kind of test the waters, see how I think it's going and then I can put a little bit more money in if I feel more confident but I'm never investing more than I'm willing to lose

and I think that's really important. Right, because it is a sort of gambling, isn't it? It is if you are thinking, well, I need this money in five years' time, if you're thinking, well, this is the money I need to retire, I'm just going to keep putting it away, keep putting it away. Vanguard did a great piece of research for us a little while back where they basically said, even if you had invested in the markets

It's before every big crash of the last 30 years. So, you know, before the financial crash in 2008, before the COVID, all of that, you still would have come out on top with your investments because you're looking at it long term. So in the short term, you might lose money, but over the long term, generally investing is better than cash. But some of us come from a very sort of cautious background where, frankly, risk averse doesn't begin to sum up the attitude of my family. I can't tell you. So the idea of losing money is something that a lot of people just can't, they feel they can't, afford to contemplate it. So you've got to be in for the ride. And if it's going to be a long ride,

chances are you'll emerge relatively victorious at the end of it all. And I think that's why it's key to not check every single day because you'll see those fluctuations and you will panic. But, you know, check maybe once a month that most if you absolutely have to. But I think most financial experts would say just if you're investing for the long term, you put it away, you try not to think about it and it will grow. Okay. Do you acknowledge that a lot of women check out of these sorts of conversations when they, if they're in a heterosexual relationship, I mean, tends to be the roles are you share them out and someone will do one aspect of domestic life and the other one will take on a different aspect.

And often, though not always, it's the man who handles the finances. I think that does happen and I think part of that is how we frame finance. So if you look at female finance, we talk about women. should budget, they should penny pinch, they shouldn't splurge. When we talk about men, it's, well, this is how they grow their wealth, this is how they invest. And we talk about the two genders very differently. But actually, the research shows that women are considered better investors than men, because they are more cautious. They don't panic. They don't, you know, quickly sell off when things start going wrong. So the very thing that people say, you know, puts women off investing

is what makes us great investors? Well, what does? Well, I suppose it's an approach that is both realistic but moderately hopeful. I mean, would that just about sum it up? Yeah, I think women take a slightly more level-headed approach. You know, when it comes to investing, the research shows they're not prone to hysteria. The irony being that women are, you know, can be seen as hysterical. That's actually, that actually doesn't, that's not true.

No. But I suppose what I'm really anxious to, I mean, because I count myself as being guilty of this, women and men cannot afford to know nothing about the state of their own finances. Unfortunately, you do have to know, don't you? And you have to know what savings you've got, if any. Yeah, you really do. I mean, I had a very similar situation when my dad died. And even though my mum was the breadwinner, he was the one who handled the family finances. And I remember when he went, we were like, oh, God, what's a mortgage? where, you know, she didn't know where any of her money was. And that was a really big learning curve. And I remember looking at that and that situation and thinking, you know, women need to be careful not to end up in that situation.

Because, yeah. Yeah, well, no, they can't. What have we got here? Will, can you please point out you can start a pension at birth? I mean, compound interest obviously comes into play there. So can anyone set up a pension for a baby? Yes. And you can pay, I believe it's up to,

£6,000 a year into it. They are becoming increasingly popular amongst grandparents. We are noticing people paying into pensions for their grandchildren. And when you think about it, 50 years of compound interest, I mean, what magic can that do with your money, really? Well, I suppose on the flip side, Steffi asks, I'm going to be 40 soon. Is it too late to make any kind of difference in building my pension and wealth?

It's never too late. It's absolutely never too late. I mean, 40 years is young. It's really young. If you consider the life expectancy these days is, what, 80? 83 for women, I think. Yeah. So that's 40 years. You know, you've got another life. You're only 50% of the way through your life. You've got another lifetime to allow this to compound. So I think it's absolutely never too late. Right. So actually, doing nothing is the worst thing you can do, isn't it? Okay. Martin, would the ordinary person be better off investing in global index funds on an app like Vanguard with low. fees than wasting money on financial advisors. And I've got another question about financial advisors. I'm going to have to stretch over here. Just excuse me, my colleague will fill the gap. I will fill the gap because it's a very interesting time we're living in with AI because you can now

ask your chatbot a lot of questions that before you would have had to go to a financial advisor to an accountant to a specific tax advisor. Should we be trusting, the advice that is sent back to us. I mean, AI is great in that it has democratised financial advice. You know, before you would have had to pay someone to tell you this, and now you can put in all your financial information, and it can spit out a recommendation. What I would say, though, is AI generally tells you what you want to hear.

It can be quite sycophantic and, you know, tell you that you're doing. It will tell you that what you're doing is great, and it might not necessarily lay out the best options for you, so I would always treat it with caution. But I tell you what it doesn't do. It's not on commission, is it? And actually, I think sometimes it has been a little bit difficult to see with clarity the structure that lies behind advice that you're getting. Or, you know, is it even advice or is it just plain selling?

I mean, equally with AI, you don't know where it's reading that information off the internet. And unless you're the kind of person who goes through and checks every source for what it's telling you, it could be pulling information from a news article that's completely wrong. So on one hand it is great and I know a lot of my friends will say, oh, you know, AI told me to do this, this and this. And I think that's great because you might not have had that information otherwise. But critical thinking, I think, is always important with financial decisions. Always keep your critical faculties about you.

Sophie, asking a similar question, really. Can you ask Megan, why is it that people have to pay a proportion of their pension fund in order to get advice? I'm 59, owner of a small business, and my pension fund is looking pretty healthy after 35 years of me paying into it. So any potential payment to a financial advisor would run into thousands of pounds a year, and I'm not sure that anyone is worth that. What is the answer? I mean, that's fair enough, I would say if you don't feel it's, and again, a lot of it will depend on the size of your pension fund, which I don't know if she says, but there is a lot of places you can go for free advice and, like, regulated places.

so like money helper is a government-backed service that can offer you not necessarily advice but guidance on what your options are and I think looking at free options to see if any of them are right for you before then paying for advice I mean financial advisors would say the reason we charge so much is we'll make your money grow by more than that

right well I should hope so so you've kind of got to weigh up the sort of risks and of that yeah Neil says the sure fire way to lose money is to just keep it in cash a lot of people and I know this is I'm sounding very pompous here, but it took me a while to get that. But it is true, isn't it? It is true.

And when I think about the fact in my 20s, I saved all my savings in a current account, I think, what were you doing? Why did no one tell you that actually this was... But no one does tell you. Or at least you're not going to the places where you might be told that. I mean, no one talks about it in school. I don't remember compound interest or even cash versus investing ever coming up. It has changed, though.

It has changed recently. And in the, I always get the acronym wrong, PHS, lessons. Actually, my kids have had advice that was just not available 10, 20, 30 years ago. So I'm quite impressed. I think there could be more. But I think that recognition of money and understanding money is a vital part of education. It has definitely seeped in. I mean, that's really good to hear because I think the cash thing, you think when you're looking at your cash, I say, oh, you know, I'm getting a return of, I think, the average is around 3.75% at the moment. But then look at inflation. I mean, look at how high inflation has been in the previous years. If you were saving

in cash during that time, even though the rates were higher, actually you're losing money because it's being wiped out by the value of inflation. Okay, but as you said earlier, it's not a bad idea to have a cashiser with, I don't know, two, two and a half, three grand in it. At least you know you've got that money there to turn to. And it can be in your current account in a couple of days, can't it? Yeah, exactly. From your cash is. So quite easy to access.

What's this from Kev? He says, I'm from Liverpool. I'm 68. To be honest, we never looked at investing in my generation, apart from the mortgage. This is a generational shift, a step change for the younger generation. I mean, I think that is true.

I think Kev probably speaks for a lot of people of his age. And I guess you would probably say their investment was housing. And houses grew significantly, probably during his lifetime. So that was how they invested. a slight shift with younger people investing in stocks and shares now rather than the housing market. Well, of course, that's what the government wants younger people, wants us all to do,

move away from a cash isa and have a stocks and shares iceer instead. It is quite frightening. We started off talking about women and particularly older women. And one in ten women over the age of 65 are working. And some of them will have to carry on working for quite some time. And that is not always, but can be because they've been divorced and they've loved. lost out. In a divorce, you do get a share of somebody else's pension pot, don't you always? I mean, I don't want to say always, but yeah, you do. And I think this is something women don't realize, and it has been shown that during a divorce, women will often go for the asset

like the house because they want to keep the family together. They're thinking of the kids. And no one, I think, is necessarily saying to them, actually, you deserve part of that pension pot. If you have stayed at home and enabled your husband to go out to work, to build that pension pot, that is shared money. He would not have been able to put money into that pension without you being at home to run the household. Therefore, you can have part of it. Right. You should pursue that. Sharon says, I'm 68 and I'm still working. I've claimed my state pension, but I've got no other retirement provision. I've got a mortgage on my home that I believe will have to be paid in full by the time I reach 70. I'm on an interest only product that I can afford whilst I still work.

That said, it is much less than it would cost to rent, which I'm sure is true. I still have 40 grand left to pay but won't be able to clear the mortgage within the next less than two years. I'd be very grateful for advice on whether it's possible to extend a mortgage term or take out another loan if I carry on working or will I have to sell my house? Oh, that's a really tricky one. That sounds like a really tricky situation. It's quite a specific question. And if you don't feel comfortable answering it, Megan. But as she points out, she says, I'm sure I'm not the only unplanned single woman with a dilemma like this. Yeah, and I mean there are mortgages that.

allow you to extend into retirement, but you generally have to show that you've got retirement provisions, so like a private pension pot, to enable you to pay them. I mean, that's the kind of situation where I would recommend reaching out somewhere like Money Helper who would be able to go through her situation and give her, like, really tailored advice for what she can do. Okay. Here's another, there was a message.

Oh, Janet, I'm in my 60s. I've mainly been a stay-at-home mom. My husband did have the forethought to pay into a pension for me, and we have paid into a pension for our children. I thought he was being over-cautious. I now realise it was very sensible and we also had a good financial advisor. Well, you sound like you're winning.

That's fantastic. And briefly, one more question. I'm a stay-at-home mom says Sarah. What can or should I do to make up for any kind of work pension shortfall? So a big thing is making sure that if you're on maternity leave, you should still be being paid your pension contributions by your employer. So they should very often, depending on which scheme you used to pay into, and I don't want to over complicated,

but generally speaking, they should match your pension contributions to what you were getting before you went on maternity. So making sure they're still paying the right amount into your pension pot is really important. But then having a conversation with your partner about the household finances and seeing what they can contribute to your pension, because if you're staying home to look after the children, you know, they should still be paying into your future retirement fund. Yeah, because obviously, I mean, we don't want to say anything about Sarah's personal,

situation. I'm sure she's very happy. But nothing, I mean, marriages don't always last and sometimes women who've made a lot of sacrifices end up frankly, slightly struggling in later life. Yeah, I mean, staying at home and looking after children is a job. You just don't get paid for it and you don't get pension

contributions. So you should still be, you know, if someone in the household is still working, they should be looking at contributing to your assets as well. Right, so you don't lose out. Megan, we could go on for ages. Thank you so much. Megan Harwood-Baines, who is money reporter for the Times and the Sunday Times.

Thanks to you for taking part and probably we should do it again quite soon because there are a lot of questions. Megan Harwood Baines, who is a senior money reporter for the Times and the Sunday Times. She was on our radio show yesterday wasn't she, Times Radio, get the app, we're on Monday to Thursday between two and four and she had a real triumph with our local

council about a pothole. She did. And she passed on a very, very valuable recommendation for the website, Fixed My Street, where you can report potholes and litter and dumping, fly tipping, all that type of stuff, and it will send it on to the council for you. I just thought, I didn't realize that existed, grateful to her for being so illuminating on it.

And it's always good to talk about money. We just need to talk about it in a more honest way. And I think we need to talk to our daughters about it as well, so they don't get caught in that trap where they might feel that the world of investment isn't talking to them because, I mean, it is. We've got to be listening. You're going to be knocking on the investment door if you get to 60.

We don't know when women are going to retire in the future, do we? I mean, the truth is we're not quite sure what's going to happen to work full stop. But it's very possible that the state pension either disappears from our lives or is not given to everybody. And so the truth is, we are all going to have to take much more responsibility than perhaps we have done in the past.

Yeah. I still do think it's shocking, and perhaps people would like to engage in this part of the conversation, that women who leave the workplace to do work at home, and it is work if you're at home, caring, whether it's your parents, a partner, or kids. If you've stopped paying national insurance, the idea that the state will therefore not pay you back, I don't, I think that's an almost criminal act against the carer. because you are taking the job of somebody but you're doing it for no money

that you are still working, I just find that absolutely mind-boggling. Well, particularly as birth rates are falling, we know we're going to need more people to care for the older population who won't be able to work anymore. People, women, who give birth to future taxpayers, I've never understood why we just take a hit.

Why? Yeah, no, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, it's just, it's absolutely losing. Is that what you were saying? It's literally what I'm saying. Right. Well, tune in tomorrow. Do tune in tomorrow.

Please tune in tomorrow. Tune in and enjoy your evening. And if you're listening to this early evening and you're coming along to Times Towers to see an evening with Joanna Cannon, do come say hello because it'll be lovely to meet you in person. Congratulations. You've staggered somehow to the end of another off-air with Jane and Fee.

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