The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - How to think about and talk about money with Ian Dempsey

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi there, it's Marianne here. Before we dive into today's episode, I want to quickly let you know about something exciting that's happening right now. If you've ever wondered how to create income that works for you, rather than constantly trading your time for money, then you'll love the Race to Recurring Revenue Challenge with my business mentor, Lisa Johnson. This challenge is designed to help you build sustainable income streams. And whether you're an aspiring psychologist, a mental health professional, or in a completely different field,

Starting point is 00:00:32 the principles can work for you. There are also wonderful prizes to be won directly by Lisa herself. And if you join the challenge by my link, you can be in with a chance of winning a one-to-one hours coaching with me, Dr. Marianne Trent. Do you want to know more? Of course you do. Head to my link tree, Dr. Marianne Trent, or check out my social media channels, or send me a quick DM and I'll get you all the details.

Starting point is 00:00:58 Right, let's get on with today's episode. In today's episode, I am joined by a qualified independent financial advisor. It's never too early to start looking at your finances and financial planning. It doesn't need to be as scary as you think it might be. Stay tuned right to the end to get all of Ian's top tips and I hope you find it useful. you're looking to become a psychologist, then let this be your guide. With this podcast, you'll be on your way to being qualified. It's the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast with with Dr. Marianne Trent. Hi, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist podcast. I am Dr. Marianne Trent and I am a qualified clinical psychologist. When it comes to talking about money and finances, it can sometimes feel a bit like a dirty word or something that we shouldn't do. And especially when we look at how we've been raised, we can experience something

Starting point is 00:02:14 called money trauma. And this is the case that we often find when we're working with clients as well, who might have been raised in chaotic situations where there wasn't enough money or where it was their job to budget and make sure there was enough money to go around. Of course, in psychology and mental health, often the relevant experience roles might well be lower paid than might be ideal. And so it can feel like there's not enough money to go around and there's not enough money to even consider our financial planning and our options. Today, I'm joined by a qualified independent financial advisor and we're going to talk all things money specifically for this audience of aspiring psychologists and mental health. If you're watching on YouTube and you find it useful,

Starting point is 00:03:02 I'd love it if you'd drop us your feedback or questions in the comments. Please do also like and subscribe to the channel. And if you're listening on podcast and it's on Spotify or Apple podcast, please do rate and review because it helps us to bring this podcast to more people that might find it useful. It was an absolute pleasure speaking with Ian and I hope you find it a useful listen as well. I will catch up with you on the other side. Hi, I just want to welcome along our guest for today, Ian Dempsey. Ian is an independent financial advisor, the money man. Welcome, Ian. Hello. Thank you so much for being here. People who listen regularly to the podcast will not be surprised that I first stumbled over you on LinkedIn. That is your main hangout, isn't it? Yeah, it is. It's just something that's grown exponentially over the last few years and just been a really powerful tool for me to kind of grow a business, leave employment, get out on my own do it my way and it's

Starting point is 00:04:06 it's been great I love it I love it ditto in a couple of days time it will be two years since I became fully self-employed so um absolutely think that LinkedIn has been a really big part of that for me it's a great platform do you know spookily it's about the same kind of time frame for me as well so I think we must have kind of made that jump around about the same time so i've had i've just hit the one year anniversary for where i am now and previously to that it was a year so near enough to the day we're almost kind of took the jump at the same time amazing well it's been lovely having you as a diving buddy i hope the water's been warm for you it's been choppier times but we're getting there

Starting point is 00:04:45 okay so you know i wanted to have you on because it feels like actually something i've not spoken about on the podcast at all is money it can be a really tricky area to navigate especially when you don't have so much of it um you know, like many of my audience are likely to be working kind of band four NHS, possibly band five, possibly band six. And I had a quick look at what that is. So band four is yearly 25 grand starting salary with a monthly take home of 1600. Band five is a gross 28,000 a year with a take home monthly of 1700. And band six, if people are working at band six, it's 35,000 a year starting with take home of 2000. But of course, that's some of that will be student loan. But I think the student loan only kicks in at a

Starting point is 00:05:41 certain amount. So band fours won't pay loan um unless they do it as an additional payment but sometimes it's useful to think about what amount we're talking about and some of these people will be footloose and fancy free some of them might already have children and so in these difficult times that we navigate it's tricky to think about what what we do with our money and how how we do it isn't it it's a massive challenge it's a massive challenge for everybody and if you just kind of look at the squeeze that we've all gone through in the last two years where you've been through a pandemic you've been through like markets crashing a real squeeze on people's finances you've had furlough people losing jobs then we've kind of come out of that and to talk of a recession

Starting point is 00:06:25 inflation going rampant it's a real choppy time for people to kind of manage their finances whether you're managing a household just on your own when you're living with your folks whether you're trying to raise a family and kind of it costs a lot of money to do this stuff and life is getting more and more expensive um and as you know that a lot of industries the wages are going up at a at the same kind of level of pay so effectively if your wages aren't going up at that same pace as the rate of inflation you're almost well in real terms you're losing money year-on-year which is a real challenge for a lot of people but there's lots of things that you can do to kind of make the most of your money and that's that's kind of part of what we're going to talk about today and hopefully give you some

Starting point is 00:07:08 ideas some tips some ways to kind of make that money stretch out a little bit further and just give you a little bit of an insight as to what a financial advisor does really great because i know sometimes the temptation when we don't understand something or if it feels confusing is to run away and hide and bury our heads um i'm guessing you're gonna say that's probably not the wisest course of action ian not not at all i'm like money's a really emotive subject right and if we talk about money there are a lot of emotions that kind of sit behind that and and kind of do what you do marianne you'll know the kind of the thinking the thought process the mind how all that works behind

Starting point is 00:07:50 it but a lot of that is and how you manage your money is influenced by your parents so how your parents manage money how you were brought up to manage money was it scarce was it in abundance and that has a big impact on how you look after your finances moving forward. But one of the worst things you can do is the old ostrich of sticking your head in the sand whenever there's a challenge, whenever there's an issue or a problem. And that's really difficult to do because sometimes that stuff's really stressful. And I've been there, I've done it. This isn't me kind of saying preach preach preach it's like these are things that I've done in the past and I've been in debt and buried my head in the sand because there's a lot of shame attached to stuff like that and you think I shouldn't have a credit

Starting point is 00:08:35 card or I shouldn't have this or I shouldn't have a loan I shouldn't be behind on payments but sometimes you are and that's the reality of it and i think to improve your finances or to get a better handle on it one of the things that you have to be able to do is be completely honest with yourself it's been able to look in the mirror and just be honest with yourself if you've got a partner involved be really honest with your partner and that can feel really challenging it did for me like i hid my debts for the best part of three years from my partner had the conversation just said look this is where we're at she was like well why didn't you tell me sooner that was it why didn't you tell me sooner let's figure out how we get out of it

Starting point is 00:09:13 and that was it and I'd spent three years of stress and worry by not being in control of my finances granted a few years back but it was it tough. And I think, like, go back to what you said, burying your head in the sand and just ignoring this stuff, it doesn't go away. It's just compounding a problem of whether you're kind of got really expensive kind of outgoings, whether you kind of really need to earn more money, whatever it is, but running away from your problems very rarely solves them.

Starting point is 00:09:44 Yeah, and there's just so many parallels here with mental health isn't there you know that that we can think that it's going to get better um if we just kind of ignore it and it doesn't but of course mental health can be so impacted upon by finances can't it um you know the two are very much interwoven and the idea of financial trauma as well either from you know growing up not having enough money or from just the ideas like you said that our parents passed down to us you know money doesn't grow on trees you know you're being frivolous you don't need to spend that you know my mum is definitely um I think of her approach to money is um you know pounds look look after the pennies and the pounds look after themselves.

Starting point is 00:10:29 And if she was taking me out for lunch and going to a shop, I could have any sandwich I wanted. But if I didn't pick egg, which was the cheapest, I'd be in trouble. She'd be annoyed. Like, that's how I grew up with money. Yeah. I mean, it's quite similar. I kind of grew up on both sides of the fence so my dad ran his own business as an ifa and i've ended up doing it i don't know why um

Starting point is 00:10:52 my mum on the other side kind of didn't have a lot of money so i've kind of seen both sides of it um and it's like it's a blend of the two in the middle for me like there's times when i could over the years i've certainly done i've just been completely reckless and thought stuff it'll come back at some point but it it's it's hard managing that stuff and i think if you look generationally at where your parents or where your grandparents were there's a few factors that you need to think about when you look at that is actually they probably got a lot more bang for their buck in terms of their take home pay like how much could you buy a house for i've i've had clients that have bought three or four bedroom houses over the years like 18 000 pound and where would you get that now you just don't get it it's impossible um they get a lot

Starting point is 00:11:36 more bang for their buck their take-home pay the whole structure of work was very different and you've only got to just take a little bit of reflection time and look at yourself and think about how many adverts have you been emailed this morning how many have you seen on tv how many have you seen on social media on the radio or wherever it's thousands and thousands every day that are all designed to suck that money out of your pocket and pay somebody and it's very hard to kind of push back against that because the whole construct of society, marketing and social media is to suck that money out of your pocket and get you spending money. And it's so easy to do because you can get into debt now. Like you can get credit for a pair of jeans that cost 50 quid.

Starting point is 00:12:17 You can pay it over three months. And that stuff just didn't exist 20, 30 years ago. You just couldn't do it you had to have a great relationship with your bank manager and maybe go to church with them on a sunday and take them in and out of the pipe to be able to do it and that's the stuff that you used to be able to do now it's anybody and everybody can get credit and it's a it's a billion pound industry in the uk and that's i think that's massively part of the problem because it's just so freely available. And we don't have to leave the house to spend now, do we?

Starting point is 00:12:52 Whereas, you know, before the internet, you absolutely would have had to go out. And I think it's easier to spend money when you're not having to actually handle the paper money as well, isn't it? Oh, it's huge. And that was a big problem for me. And the one thing that I did to kind of break that cycle was it was the old, like back in the, back in old school days before bank accounts and credit cards, it was a brown envelope method and it was effectively, you'd get your pay and you'd get a lump of cash on your brown envelope. And then you'd probably go home, sit down with your partner and say, right,

Starting point is 00:13:18 this is what we've got to pay out this month. What goes where? And that would go for your bills. That would go for your shopping. That would go for your bills that would go for your shopping that would go for clothes that would go for wherever you'd have a series of brown envelopes to do that and even working in financial services in in banking up until about six years ago i still struggled to get a hold of my finances because it was of what i'd done previously in life and and spent a lot of money on nonsense and just ran up debts. The way that I broke that was exactly that, by having cash and physically taking cash out

Starting point is 00:13:49 because you're then acutely aware of how much money you're spending on crap, if I want a better phrase, because it's tap, tap, tap with the card. 10, 15, 20 quid a day can just disappear at a rate of knots. And if you're talking about a salary of two grand a month, you only need to do that four or five times throughout the month and you've easily spent a few hundred pounds that you probably didn't have. It's so easy to do, so easy to do. Such interesting food for thought.

Starting point is 00:14:18 And I think I'm aware there's a bank, a free bank account that allows you to do those pots within it, isn't it? I think does Starling do that, which can be really useful? You're my face lit up when you said that. I talk to every client about that account. I'm pretty good with money now, right? So as you'd expect, kind of doing what I do. But we moved all of our bank accounts to Starling about three years ago.

Starting point is 00:14:42 So we've got individual accounts each. We've got a joint account and I've got my business account. And it absolutely changed the way I manage money. And I tell clients exactly the same because part of what I do with the client is to go through a budget planner. And I've kind of rejigged that slightly. So rather than call it a budget planner, I call it a survive and thrive list. So split a sheet of A4 paper down the middle.

Starting point is 00:15:06 On the left-hand side, write down what you need to survive. So that's your fixed costs, your bills, your mortgage, your car insurance, house insurance, food, that kind of stuff. And on the right-hand side, you do your thrive list. So do that off your bank statements. Now, what you can then start to figure out is where your spending is. And the reason Starling is so great for that is exactly like you said you can set up these amazing little sub accounts called spaces so we did the exercise went through everything and we've got a space for kids

Starting point is 00:15:36 haircuts school uniform when the dog needs a groom car problems so if there's any problems with the car we've got a one called hit the Fan Fund because there's always some little expenses that just pop up. We've got kids' pocket money. I was trying to save up for a set of gold clubs, but that's gone out the window now, so that's disappeared. But what I love is that we worked our expenditure out over the year, so we knew that the MOTs were going to come for the car. So we knew that in, I think it was March, they're going to come through. As the cars get a bit older, there's probably going to be a little bit more. So every month, something goes into that space.

Starting point is 00:16:12 And you can name the space whatever you want. You can put a picture of whatever you want on there as well. So every time you open your app, you build an engagement. And I think one of the things when you talk about budget planning and managing your finances a lot of people think it's really restrictive and it can feel like if you've never done that before as in you just go out and tap your card away willy-nilly to do whatever you like with it but by having those spaces it's exactly the opposite the first the first or the second month that had happened we kind of got to the end of the month,

Starting point is 00:16:47 looked down at the accounts and panicked because we thought there must have been a direct debit that hasn't come out. There's something gone out that we're not aware about. Went back through, looked through the statements and it was the opposite because we knew everything was covered. So what it means moving forward now is when the kids need some school shoes, when the kids need their football fees,

Starting point is 00:17:03 it's all there ready to go. So you're not having those one-off expenses. And it's, like you just said there, Marion, it's so powerful having that functionality built into the accounts. That's why I love those accounts and talk to everyone about them. But it also kind of makes me wonder why that wasn't done much sooner with some of the traditional stuff. Potentially life-changing stuff.

Starting point is 00:17:23 But what we know about humans as well ian is we don't always love change do we and we can feel a sense of loyalty and kind of traditional and i have changed my bank account so i originally was with hsbc until it got to the stage where i thought they're not even giving me interest i'm not having i'm leaving and so i moved and i went to halifax and then originally they had a reward account and it was quite good and it got worse and worse and worse until it I think they disbanded it at all I'm not having it I'm cross I'm leaving and I moved and I went to Barclays and I've been with Barclays ever since and theirs is getting ever so slightly less good over time in terms of their rewards but I'm still as I'm listening to you thinking yes that

Starting point is 00:18:03 does sound good I already do all that in the background with an excel spreadsheet but actually it's better if it's done for me because then nothing's going to slip through the radar but also i'm thinking can i be bothered to change it you know because we can be quite lazy creatures of habit but that can cost us can't it oh like huge like not just on your bank account like if you think about your gas and electricity your car insurance the those fixed costs every single month companies make a massive amount of money from inertia by us just sitting there and not making changes and not being on top of this stuff and the bank account is one of the big big things so there's a there's a bank account switch guarantee in place where if you switch your bank account everything should be moved from one account to the other i think it's 14 days it used to be 28

Starting point is 00:18:49 certainly when i worked in banking and it was a little bit fraught at the start because there'd be a direct debit missed or something and you get a late payment charge but the bank would always compensate you for that now it's just ultra slick like within when we moved our bank account across the stone i think within within day, we got confirmation from them that all the direct debits were set up. They transferred all of the standing orders across. They transferred even your existing PEs, so people that you've made a payment to in the past, all there.

Starting point is 00:19:17 It was absolutely seamless, but it's one of those things where you think, ah, well, I get the insurance, or I get cover for my phone, or I get this. Great, that's good. It's some good benefits. But why are they offering you those benefits? Because you're paying for them. You pay for those benefits, like the money that you go into the bank and you put into your bank account and they lend out at a higher percentage or they do something else with it. It's a fractional banking system, it's called. Now, if you move that to an account that works for you, forget about the additional an account that works for you forget about the additional benefits that works for you and makes you aware of your spending you can see on screen

Starting point is 00:19:51 how much you've spent on amazon this month you could see that you've got money for the mot you've got money for the kids uniform all that stuff that is more worth a lot more than 10 pound a month for your phone cover or whatever it is and i can encourage anybody to have a look at that stuff and really get your head into it because it's like it's a game changer and i don't use that word very lightly but it is it's phenomenal once you get a handle on that i guess i was just thinking then you know what's the worst that could happen i could change and if i don't like it, I could move back, couldn't I? Yep.

Starting point is 00:20:28 100%. I mean, you don't necessarily even need to change lock, stock, and barrel. You could just open one of these accounts. I mean, what I'd encourage anybody that listens to this podcast is, certainly in the UK, there will be other equivalents outside of the UK. I think Chase over in the States do something similar. It's to just go into Google or YouTube, sorry, and type in Starling bank account demonstration, Monzo bank account demonstration. And there's a little video that just explains how it all works and what to do.

Starting point is 00:21:00 You could just go and set an account up and just get a little feel for it and see how it works first before you make the switch across and if you then decide to switch over awesome it's done you can do it you can dip your toe in with the stuff and if you don't like it like you've said close the account go back to where you were and be stuck in your old ways the good thing about my current account though is that I have got a bespoke card with a picture of me and my husband on our wedding day in it. Like, that's nice. That's difficult to take out my wallet, you know? Yeah, of course it is. Absolutely.

Starting point is 00:21:33 But I think over time, like, most places will do that now. Like, I loved that when the Barclays stuff came out because there was a guy that I work with at the same time that came in and had a picture of his son on it. And it was so cute. Like, he got his card out and he loved it. it like his whole face lit up whenever he got that card out of his wallet i think it was such a great idea by them lovely so i could talk about i could talk money all day i think this is a great topic to be talking about but many of our audience listening today might well be working in public um public sector i said they might well be working in public um public sector so they might well be working for the nhs um and often with that there's a there's a pension that comes as part of it is that going to be

Starting point is 00:22:13 enough should we be considering having a private pension in addition to that let's have a little chat about pensions yeah hot topic especially at the moment especially when you look at what's recently happened with the with the budget and the conservative government lifting the cap on um how much it can pay in a lifetime but i suppose that's more of the top end of the kind of nhs where you've got the the bigger consultants kind of stepping away but if you kind of look at the the lifeblood of the kind of health service and the people, like you say, sit in these bands that we talked about at the start, it's a real. There's no hard and fast answer is probably the simple way to look at it because it depends on a much bigger picture. And one of the things that I'll always talk to clients around is the first question I'll ask is, what do they want to get out of the process?

Starting point is 00:23:05 Like what, what makes the time that we're going to spend together valuable and ask yourself that same question. Like if you're about to go on the exercise of thinking, right, we need to look big picture stuff. Like what does our retirement look like? What are the next five, 10 or 15 years? There are a series of questions that you can just ask yourself to really uncover what's important to you. Now, does a pension play a big part in that? And I think certainly the financial services industry over the years, we've put a massive amount of pressure on people to have a pension. And I think they are very tax efficient. They're a great way to save for your future, but they aren't right for everybody. Because you might have a partner that is a significant level of income. So you might not need that level of income. You might have buy to let property. You

Starting point is 00:23:50 might be further down the line and decide you want to downsize the property to give you some equity to be able to fund that retirement. So rather than just think about a pension, what I'll encourage anybody to do is to think about ideal scenario, what does your retirement look like? And I think if you focus on the numbers, it becomes really transactional and it can feel really boring as well, because I don't like talking about the numbers and that can feel strange for a financial advisor, right? But my focus is on the important stuff. So it's going to be about what does that retirement look like? And we'll even go so far as to think, well, if you want to retire in Spain and go and live out there, why?

Starting point is 00:24:32 Where? Who with? When do you want to do it? Why, why, why, why, why? And paint that picture, like almost paint the villa, paint that scenario in your head, like what's it going to look like getting up every morning and going and having breakfast on your terrace, going down to the beach, all that stuff. And once you get that emotional engagement and you can really paint that picture, the numbers can almost become secondary to that

Starting point is 00:24:58 and just almost fall into place. Because rather than sitting down with your financial advisor once a year and saying, all right, Maria, you need to be putting 300 pound a month into your pension every month and you're like well where am i going to find that it's okay if you want this villa in spain to happen we need to make some changes and those changes are going to be this you will probably find a way to make that happen more than you need to put 300 pound a month into your pension ultimately the result's the same. And kind of going back to what you're saying, should people have private pensions as

Starting point is 00:25:29 well as the NHS one? I mean, I think for years, the NHS has been an exceptional pension scheme. I still think it's an exceptional pension scheme compared to whatever else is out there. And boys, start with a simple fact of can you afford to do it? Realistically, can you afford to put more money in your pension whilst balancing out what you need right now, what you're going to need in the next five to 10 years? Because ultimately your pension, you can't touch out of your 55 anyway. That will be 57 before you know it.

Starting point is 00:25:57 That will be 60 much quicker, certainly by the time we get there. That money's away for a long, long time. That's the million-dollar question. It's like a set of scales like almost three scales it's the short medium and the long term and the pensions the long term stuff the medium is five years the short term is like what do you need right now if your washing machine blows up it's a it's a real balance of that like i said there's no hard and fast answer to it yeah i feel like i wish I'd known you in 2000 and whenever it was. I was in 2006, I think it was. So I'd started in a private, private hospital. And at that point, they weren't inviting new members of staff to come into the pension scheme until after three months.

Starting point is 00:26:43 But I think initially I was on a six-month fixed term contract and so when it came up and they invited me to join I thought well there's probably no point because I'll be out before you know it you know if I can't get a new job but they did renew my contract and actually I ended up working there for almost two years and I never got around to joining the pension scheme and And still, I think that was probably quite a stupid decision on my part because I didn't have any fixed overheads. I was living with my parents. I was earning a reasonable wage. And I still think that was like wasted money for my future. Should we be talking these decisions through with people 100 if you look at it as

Starting point is 00:27:29 at a very simple level like people look at the word pension i think boring that's going to be years away before i'm going to especially if you're in your 20s right and you're at the point where you think well i'll i'll do that later in 17 years of experience in financial services, the people that retire at 55 are the ones that started it then. And you're not talking massive amounts. You're not talking huge commitments. But think about it this way. The minimum requirement for a pension now

Starting point is 00:27:56 as a workplace scheme is an 8% contribution. So you put in 5%, your employer will put in 3%. On top of that, you'll get your tax relief. So if you get, as a basic rate tax pay, say 20% tax relief, then you're almost doubling your money before anything else happens because you've got your employer contribution and your tax relief. So right off the bat, you put in 100 quid,

Starting point is 00:28:21 you're effectively getting nearly £200 into that pension. It's not quite that, but it's there or thereabouts. Where else are you going to get that? Where else are you going to get that? And if you did that in your 20s, or maybe even you've got kids and you started doing that for them, because you can do a pension for your kids from birth. If you did that for them, they're the ones that will continue paying 150 quid a month into the pension for the rest of their life and retire early or get to 65 with a whacking great pension rather than have to get which the vast majority of people do get to the 40s hit the panic button and i'm doing the same hit the panic button and think i need to start plowing some serious money into this pension or

Starting point is 00:29:01 i'm never going to be able to retire and i was was the same as you. I just didn't have one. I worked in banking where the pension schemes were really good. It wasn't even an interest to me at the time. And then I had kids young at 23. It was then, right, can I put money into a pension or can I afford to, I guess, kind of pay for stuff for the kids? But look back and reflect on it. there was always money for a coffee there's probably always money for a beer with me mates it's a tough one to balance because you've kind of you want to enjoy yourself right it's not all about money like your

Starting point is 00:29:38 life your life shouldn't all be about money and focusing on this stuff and and thinking that i need x amount to be able to have a great life when I retire. And if I don't have that, I'm a failure. The vast majority of people get to the forties and then start really putting that foot down and thinking, right, I need to put in 500, 600 pound a month. That's vast majority of clients that I deal with do that because they just haven't had that foresight. So you're not alone. It's not too late if you haven't started a pension in your thirties to start then even your 40s even your 50s but if you can start it in your 20s get your kids to start theirs in their 20s and make them more aware of it and i

Starting point is 00:30:17 think what's quite interesting now is we've got generations of people kind of coming through the system and the education system who are of the instagram generation they are of social media they're seeing all this amazing content from financial coaches financial advisors ways to make money and they're a lot more aware of this stuff and i think you've got a generation of kids certainly a lot of them coming up that are much more financially aware than we ever were because it's all there but the other side of that is that it's a lot easier for them to get money and buy things that they don't necessarily need it's a real kind of again balancing act i wish i'd done it sooner i wish i'd been less embarrassed i was embarrassed about not having enough money i wouldn't have thought i had enough

Starting point is 00:31:01 money to talk to a financial advisor when I was on band four, five, six. But actually, when I look back now, I didn't have a child until 2013. In my early 30s, I had so much disposable income before I committed to a mortgage and stuff that that was probably my most abundant time in my life. So I went from band four to band six. And I went from, you know, I was only paying about 300 pounds a month at that point. I remember looking in my bank account on the day that I've got my first full month's pay of band six. And I was like, oh, my God, that is so much money to me. But didn't have kids and so this would have been a really excellent time for me to think about starting some investments even though it felt embarrassing

Starting point is 00:31:54 and a bit dirty and a bit like shame filled i get it it's completely normal because there's a real perception in the financial services industry of the financial services industry that you need to have a lot of money to sit down and have these conversations with a financial advisor. Now, my view on it is I would have a conversation with anybody about financial advice and money. It doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to become a client and work together because I'm also running a business. There's a cost involved for doing that. But that doesn't mean that I can't help you make some of those decisions. And I think when you look at like the FinTech that's out there, some of the apps to kind of get you started.

Starting point is 00:32:35 Starling's a great one to kind of manage your money. You've then got things like Moneybox. You've then got Circa 5000. These are entry-level ways to get in. Whereas historically, you wouldn't be able to do that. That stuff didn't exist when you were probably having your kids. When you had all that money, they just weren't there. How would you have done it? And I think there's a perception of a financial advisor to be in a gray suit, driving a drag and not really interested in you

Starting point is 00:33:01 as a person, unless you've got 200 grand. Part of the challenge we've got is the average age of a financial advisor in the industry is 58. And those guys are going to be coming out of the industry in the next five, 10 years or so, which leaves a massive gap. There aren't enough people coming in at the bottom end. I think technology's got a big part to play and that's to service some of those people that need help but i think a lot of um that experience disappears a lot of the expertise goes and the financial advisors that are left will effectively be able

Starting point is 00:33:36 to cherry pick their clients and i think it becomes more challenging for people to get financial advice because as that market shrinks, which it is doing, then you can effectively pick who you're dealing with. And that price point might be nearly £200,000. So unless you've got £200,000, you might not be able to have a conversation with an F8. Now, that's just my opinion, but I know others in the industry share that as well. I think there's a big gap. There's still time to address it and how people can get that information

Starting point is 00:34:06 and have access to it. And a lot of the time, it can feel like information overload. Like if you're not necessarily financially literate, like you understand how a pension works, you understand how a bank account or an investment or a savings account works, then how are you then going to be able

Starting point is 00:34:23 to take that to the next level? You'll probably spend a bit of time looking on the internet, doing some research, looking at YouTube, account works then how are you then going to be able to take that to the next level you probably spend a bit of time looking on the internet doing some research looking at youtube but how do you separate the wheat from the chaff what's the good stuff and what is absolutely nonsense because let's be honest there's a lot of nonsense out there as well um like i think we've got a big responsibility as an industry to do more to to help people make better financial decisions. That's certainly what I want to do. And you're doing it well.

Starting point is 00:34:48 So I feel like I learn a lot from following you on LinkedIn, definitely. And that's definitely what people should do, isn't it? How could they find you on LinkedIn? Just stick my name into LinkedIn, Ian Dempsey. I don't have a website. That'll probably come at some point in the future. I just, well, I mean, when you first get going in business, you just need to get the wheels turning first.

Starting point is 00:35:10 And there's so many decisions to make. The thing for me was right. LinkedIn works. I know it works. I spent a lot of time on there. I'm going to carry on doing what I'm doing on there. It's educational stuff. It's helping people make better financial decisions.

Starting point is 00:35:24 That's where i am linkedin just put ian dempsey in and this face will come up and you'll be able to see me on there and see what i'm all about and honestly i do i'm not even just saying it i feel like i've learned a lot and you you pose really thought-provoking questions and ideas that do make me stop and think. And, you know, the idea and even the word wealth, you know, it's safe to say the word wealth and to think about how wealthy you might want to be one day. That's okay, isn't it? It's safe. Of course it is. Like, I mean, people kind of dismiss it and say, like, well well i could be dead in two years time you might be but you might live for another 60 years and do you really want to be worrying

Starting point is 00:36:10 about whether you can turn the heat in them because you can't afford it and i think wealth means it's a it's a word that's very powerful it's very emotive and it stirs up emotions in different people like even the people that are listening to this now will have that word wealth would have instantly painted an image it did for me as soon as you mentioned it paints an image in your head about what wealth looks like but everybody's wealthy in lots of different ways like it doesn't necessarily have to be financially it's it's about finding what's important to you and how you kind of kind of move to get there and building some financial wealth to help you get there so important and i think education system's got a point to play part to play in that which is which is starting to happen which is amazing um it's it's about education helping

Starting point is 00:36:56 people kind of make better decisions i think exactly like you said you've learned something from the stuff that i put out there it's a lot of of jargon out there. There's a lot of kind of smoke and mirrors for a lot of organisations. Not intentionally, I think, to a certain extent, the regulator's got a part to play in that in terms of simplifying the information that goes out there. But I also understand that advisors run businesses. They need to make money. They need to be able to feed their family.

Starting point is 00:37:23 So it's a tough one it's a tough one to balance out it is and many of the people listening to the podcast will be working directly with people supporting their mental health um and when it comes to benefits and you know there not being enough money to go around and things being fair or not fair um is citizens advice bureau still a thing is that still somewhere we can direct people to get, you know, reputable advice, Ian? Yeah, absolutely. I think they do a great job. I guess the challenge is they're a charity, so they're a voluntary organisation. They offer debt counselling services. Trying to get an appointment with them might be a challenge because there are a lot of

Starting point is 00:38:04 people struggling at the moment, but they are there to help. And what you'll find is that there's a really great structured programme that these volunteers go through with Citizens Advice to be able to sit down in front of you and to give you the help and support for money. And what happens in the vast majority of occasions is these guys are maybe at the tail end of their career or they've worked with in those particular sectors they've got an incredible

Starting point is 00:38:29 amount of knowledge that can give you help and support so reach out to these people there's another one which is um christians against poverty it's the same similar thing to citizens advice you don't necessarily have to have christian beliefs to be able to reach out for support but they can certainly um help guide you in the right direction um that there's loads and loads of information out there as well british gas and some of the banking organizations as well had i think started saying recently you don't need to be one of our customers to call us and talk about you know not having enough money or fuel poverty and stuff like that. Is that anything you know about?

Starting point is 00:39:08 Yeah, absolutely they do. Like I think they're starting to kind of take stock of where their responsibility lies and how to help support people through difficult times. Because let's be honest, in this country, we're all in it together. Like we've all felt the pinch and felt the squeeze over the last couple of years and things have got more expensive.

Starting point is 00:39:25 The shopping costs a lot more more the supermarket shelves are empty sometimes when you go in there that didn't happen 10 years ago i think about five years ago but those banks can help and and it's go back like one of the first things we talked about marianne which was burying your head in the sand go and have those conversations with people as difficult as those conversations might feel for you the people that you sit in front of will have heard that a hundred times before like there wasn't anything within banking when i certainly worked there that shocked me in terms of financials because i'll have heard it all before and if you've heard it all before there'll be a route to help like again don't bury your head in the sand if you need help and support there's help and support out there citizens advice are great your bank is great

Starting point is 00:40:09 christians against poverty are great there are other charities out there that can help as well and i think the conversation around money needs to be a lot more fluid than it needs to be talk to your family talk to your friends it's not rude having these conversations like you're not you're not having conversations about how much do you earn and what do you spend your money on? It's like, look, John, I'm in a little bit of debt. I don't know what to do. Is there anything that you would suggest?

Starting point is 00:40:34 Then have those conversations. Any of your friends that are your close friends would be happy to help you. That's not necessarily lending your money to dig you out of a hole. That is, well, do you know what, John? I've been there and done it. I've never talked to anybody else about it, hole that is well do you know what john i've been there and done it i've never talked to anybody else about it but this is what i've done in the past that conversation needs to be a lot more open than it currently is priceless information there ian thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us about this really important stuff and people as i said should definitely be

Starting point is 00:41:05 following you um on linkedin um because i think your advice is golden thank you very much i've enjoyed it i've loved going on good lovely well um it's been an absolute pleasure um and i'll look forward to yeah connecting with you more on linkedin in future awesome see you soon thank you wow what wonderful advice and i have to say that since recording this episode with ian i did try to move my um business banking account to starling but they've turned me down ian they've turned me down they said no um so yeah i will consider my options but i believe it is easier to get approved for starling personal bank so i might well try that it's never too early to start thinking about financial planning and it's you know there's no greater time than now so hope you found this really useful and thought-provoking i would love any thoughts you've got about this episode come

Starting point is 00:42:03 and join me on the aspiring psychologist community free facebook group any thoughts you've got about this episode. Come and join me on the Aspiring Psychologist Community free Facebook group. And if you've got any ideas for future episodes of the podcast, please do get in contact and let me know. If you'd like to leave me an audio testimonial for the podcast or the book or the membership, please check out www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk forward slash podcast. Thank you so much for being part of my world. I will look forward to delivering the next episode of this podcast to you from 6am on Monday. Take care. Psychologist, then let this be your guide. With this podcast at your side, you'll be on your way to being qualified. It's the Aspiring a trainee psychological wellbeing practitioner. I read the Clinical Psychologist Collective book.

Starting point is 00:43:18 I found it really interesting about all the different stories and how people got to become a clinical psychologist. It just amazed me how many different routes there are to get there and there's no perfect way to become one and this kind of filled me with confidence that no I'm not doing it wrong and put less pressure on myself. So if you're feeling a bit uneasy about becoming a clinical psychologist, I'd definitely recommend this just to put yourself at ease and everything will be okay. But trust me, you will not put the book down once you start.

The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - How to think about and talk about money with Ian Dempsey

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