We think women need to talk more openly about money. Embarrassing or confusing. Join the conversation. We'll be discussing a whole range of topics. Hello and welcome back to the AJ Bell Money Matters Podcast. I'm Laura and with me as ever is Danny. Hey Danny. Hi Laura. Hi everybody. This episode's going to be great because it's addressing something that lots of you asked about.
And that is what do you need to think about once you get to the point that you are wanting to spend all the money that you've hopefully saved up in your pensions over the years? Yep, the fun bit of spending money, but obviously it comes with some tricky decisions. So it has a very dodgy, jargony, awful name that I've banned called Decumulation. That will be the last time you hear that because we won't.
It's the fun part of spending your money um once you come to retirement. And we have a fantastic guest who explain everything you need to know about. when to start thinking about that bit of your investing journey, what choices you need to make and how to make your retirement pot work for you and your family.
You know, it is funny because we did a webinar with the brilliant Jacinth from Ageism Is Never in Style and Helena Morrissey, of course, our founding ambassador. And there were lots of questions about how to juggle investing for yourself and helping out loved ones. So Georgina Taylor from Invesco goes through everything in easy steps and talks about
spending during your retirement to enjoy life with your loved ones and help them with things like getting on the housing ladder. And I know you've banned the word Laura, but I'm sorry, in the interview. There are a couple of uses of it, but Georgina does explain it beautifully. Okay, well stick around for that because it is a great listen with some great
But before we hear from Georgina, it's time for our one big thing this week. And if you're a regular listener to the podcast or a longtime subscriber to our newsletter, you'll know that our charity partner is Smart. Which is a really great organization that helps women get jobs by giving them clothes for their interviews, giving them tips on interviewing and really giving them a confidence boost when they're out there on their job search.
And for the past three years, they've done a report which assesses what the jobs market is like for women looking for work and what the barriers are to getting a job. And I'm afraid,'cause we do like to bring you positive news on this podcast, but far from being an improving picture, things do appear to be getting more difficult.
Thousands of smart work clients responded to this survey and said that on average They were applying for thirty eight jobs before getting work, and that is up from thirty three in twenty twenty three and twenty eight in twenty twenty two. Twenty-seven percent said that they'd applied for more than fifty jobs. Now, that takes a huge amount of time every week to keep on top of that. And in fact, thirty-four percent said they were spending more than twenty-five hours a week. apply it.
And we know from Labour Force surveys from the Office for National Statistics... But the jobs market is cooling off. There are fewer numbers of vacancies every month. Unemployment has risen a bit. Lots of recruiters say that businesses that they talk to are planning to hire fewer people this year. Now, some of that does have to do with the changes to national insurance that will come in in April. And make it more expensive to have a some part time workers on the book.
Because the threshold at which national insurance is paid by employers has been lowered. It used to be national insurance only kicked in if an employee earned nine thousand one hundred pounds a year or above. But that is coming down to just five thousand pounds a year. And we've seen lots of businesses especially in the care, retail and hospitality sectors, warning that the changes will be well catastrophic was a word used by the care sector over the weekend.
But just thinking about all of those rejections, Laura, I mean, it has such a massive impact on your confidence. Particularly if you're in a position where you're not in work at the moment and you are really needing to secure that employment for your financial future. And lots of smart work clients talked about the lack of confidence.
sixty percent said they felt less confident going through the process of finding a job than they did the year before. And what's really interesting and plays into a lot of the research that we've done about women and confidence is that it then impacts the kind of jobs that they're going to So only fifty eight percent of people were applying for jobs that they felt exactly qualified, and more than ever those jobs were in routine or manual jobs.
came in at about seventy-two percent, up from sixty-two percent in twenty twenty-two. Obviously that has a knock-on impact onto the kind of pay that women can expect to get, which then keeps those gender investment and saving gaps wide. Rydyn ni'n cael ei wneud ymwneud â'r pethau o'r pethau o'r pethau o'r pethau o'r pethau o'r pethau o'r pethau o'r pethau o'r pethau o'r pethau o'r pethau o'r pethau o'r pethau o'r pethau o'r pethau o'r pethau.
Which we know lots of women take time out of the workplace to look after children, um and childcare is still a huge barrier to work for many people because of the cost of childcare, but also the lack of flexibility in lots of jobs. Yeah, trying to go back to work when you've got to juggle school pickups and nursery pickups and drop offs and when you've got to deal with the fact that a child is maybe sick and you can't go into work.
I know a lot of women really struggle with that and you know, wanting to get a job. um in order, as you say, to help with the finances. There was some good news in this report that I am absolutely delighted about. Sixty four percent of SmartWorks clients said that they got a job within a month of their SmartWorks appointment.
Look, we've been working s with SmartWorks for a good couple of years now and we've been and taken a look at the work that they do. We've spoken to a lot of the clients. In fact, one of our podcasts Featured a previous client of SmartWorks who went on to get a job. It is just fantastic, and we're really proud to be partnered with them.
Because we know that the work that they do on helping women get back into work and boosting their income levels has a real impact on so many areas of women's financial lives. We know that a lack of income or the gender pay gap are huge barriers to investing and saving, both over the short term and long term.
And I know on the webinar that we recently did with Ageism Is Never in Style, there were lots of older women who were really worried that they'd left it too late to start saving into a pension and wishing that they could turn back the clock and had done so soon.
But often finding employment opens the door to investing in a pension because If you uh start a job and you're over the age of twenty-two and earn over ten thousand pounds a year, you will be automatically enrolled into a workplace pension where you'll pay money in, but also your employer will pay money in and you'll get taxed. On that money. So really securing employment over that£10,000 level can be a real key to starting that pension.
And if you earn less than that, and lots of women who work part time or multiple jobs maybe in that boat, you can still ask to opt in.
Mae'n ei wneud ei wneud ei wneud ei wneud ei wneud ei wneud ei wneud ei wneud ei wneud ei wneud ei wneud ei wneud ei wneud ei wneud ei wneud ei wneud ei wneud ei wneud ei wneud ei wneud ei wneud ei wneud And talking about saving into a pension, creating a pot, leads incredibly nicely into our interview for this week, because we do talk a lot about the need to invest, how to invest, the gender investment gap, which
as Laura was just saying, is exacerbated by, you know, working part time, the gender pay gap, or going for jobs which pay less than perhaps other jobs. do and women are not feeling confident to go for those higher paying jobs. And the gender investment gap is also exacerbated by the fact that women on average live longer than men. But what about the good bit of the pandemic? Spending it.
Yeah, we often get lots of questions about what to do with a pot that people have worked so hard to create. They've obviously spent hard hours putting in the work to build up that pension pot. They've maybe tracked down lost pensions and consolidated them. But then they wonder when should they start taking their pension? Should they take a tax relump sum from it?
Should they buy an annuity which pays you a guaranteed income for life? Or should they use drawdown, which is where you just gradually take chunks of money from your pension? There is unfortunately some jargon in this and some tricky questions, but we put those to the brilliant Georgina Taylor from Invesco to break down.
And as we often talk about the need for more women to work in the financial sector, particularly in roles like fund managers, we also spoke to Heramit about making that leap at forty and why she needed a push from a colleague to get started. Thank you so much for talking to us. Look, sometimes when we talk finance you get a lot of really scary terms, a lot of jargon. So can you explain really simply to people who've never heard the term before? What is decumulation?
Such a good question, because we're so bad at this in terms of the the jargon that we use and make it feel like it's something that people can't access. So Decumulation, a horribly long word, but basically what it means is if you think about how people save over time, they accumulate money. So that's the accumulation phase. All that means is you are adding money to your savings pop.
Um, growing those savings over time. So then that gives you a bit of choice in the future. Decumulation means you get to a point in your life where. you have hopefully built up some kind of savings pot and you start taking money out So instead of adding, as you do in the savings phase, you take money out.
And that can in part replace your income from when you've been um working, you enter retirement, and that replaces that source of income through time. So again, you decumulate, you reduce the pot over time as opposed to growing it through your savings gen. So is it only when you decide that you're ready to start taking that cash that you should be thinking about it? When do you need to start thinking about decumulation?
I mean it's so hard'cause life is so busy and I think, you know, these things happen in the background in terms of pensions and savings and then we get to a point where we think, ah, my life is changing. I suddenly need to access some more money because the mix has has shifted in terms of my income. And what would be fantastic and it is hard is just to think of it ahead of time because
The issue is if you get to the point where you're retiring, you have what you have. You have your level of savings, and then you have to work with what you have. So you think, well, okay, I've got that amount of money. How can I make that last as long as possible? If you can just think about it ahead of when you actually want to retire, then you can plan for that and say, Well, actually, I want my retirement to look like that.
So let's work backwards. How much money maybe do I need? And I could put in just a little bit of extra from the age of forty or forty-five or whatever it is. And you can boost that level of savings. And all you want is choice and flexibility. And that just might help you get there if you've just done a little bit more planning. And I've heard the term lifestyling used very often. I'm now in my fifties and I've had that applied to my investments.
Just explain what that is and what part of the decumulation cycle that plays. So lifestyle is a funny word really, because we think of lifestyle, it's more how we want to live, it's what we want to do. Um and suddenly it's a term that we're now using in in finance. But but all it means is that as you invest through time,
There are different levels of risks you can take to try and get a higher level of return, to be honest. Um and while you're saving and you've got a long time frame, that's absolutely fine because time is on your side. You can let those savings grow and you can let those investments do what they do.
When you know you're going to retire, maybe it might be in 10 years or five years or two years or one year, you need to start thinking, well, look, I want to preserve the level of my savings. I don't want to take too much risk. So what you can do through lifestyle, or someone can do this for you, is say, well look, when I'm in that time frame, I kind of know it's approaching when I want to be able to take that income for my savings, you take more, you take less.
So you go from maybe um higher returning investments that have given you that savings journey, get you to your retirement pot, and then you start to move those savings into things that are just a little bit safer. So you have a higher degree of certainty that when you reach a retirement age, you kind of roughly know how much money you've got and what you can start to think about in terms of in terms of income.
No, decumulation's supposed to be the good part, right? This is when you sort of reap the dividends from all the hard work that you've put in ahead of time. But are there any do's and don'ts? I think the the one thing I would say is don't just assume you're on the right I think, you know, even if you're doing something, just have a little health At some point.
To say, okay, I have worked so hard and I am aiming for this point in life where I can really start to do the things and have the time to maybe do those things I've always wanted to do. So look, give yourself the best chance to do that. So don't just leave it to chance. Don't just assume someone else has got this for you. Just have a little check-in to make sure all your hard work will absolutely pay off. But also don't panic.
You know, at any point you can slightly change your journey, you can slightly change the direction of travel, adding a little bit more, maybe thinking about getting some advice or looking at guidance to just get some guidance on okay, what paths are available to me.
Um, and so yeah, don't panic because I think there often is a sense of panic and that's a real shame because look, they're your savings, you deserve to have, you know, the best retirement you can have with those savings and there are lots of things out there that can help you do. Now for women in particular, because we live tend to live longer than men, um there's a big concern that whatever we've got won't last as long as we need it to. How do we make sure that that isn't the case?
So you're right. I mean there's a there's a really positive story there in terms of we're living longer, um, women in particular. So that that's all good. Um so that's the positive side, but of course if you're living longer, you need your money to last longer. So how long are you going to last for? And is your money going to last as long as you? Um and so I think how we need to think about that is once you've got your your level of savings, you do something called cash flow planning.
I always liken this to just planning for your household finance. So you sit there, you have your budget and you say, well, okay, I need to do my shopping, I need a certain level of income, I've got this amount of money over the month. Okay, how do I kind of divide this up and and do what I need to do? Retirement in some ways is is the same thing, just the time frames are so much longer. And so really with cash flow planning, what you can do is put in the amount of money you've got.
say I would like that level of income to just help me sleep well at night. I know I've got my bills covered, everything I need. And then these calculators help you and say, well, look, given that size of savings, given that income, this is how long your pot will last for.
And it makes some assumptions, but I think it's a really good guide for for how long um your savings will will be able to support that level of income. So those types of things are really important. So you match the excitement of living longer. with making sure you get the lifestyle that you want during retalient. And when people are thinking about retirement, they often hear terms like annuity, drawdown.
What are they? How are they different? And can you mix the two? Yeah, so absolutely you can mix them. And the reason you can mix them is, you know, so what's what do they really do? What's the benefit of each? So if we start with an annuity. So what an annuity does if you have a pot of savings. it works out and says if you want an income for life Felly rydych chi'n gweithio, rydych chi'n gweithio, rydych chi'n gweithio.
Mae'n gweithio'r pot o'n gweithio'r honno, ac mae'n gweithio'r honno, mae'n gweithio'r honno, mae'n gweithio'r honno. Mae'n gweithio'r honno, mae'n gweithio'r honno, mae'n gweithio'r honno, mae'n gweithio'r honno. That is brilliant.
If you know that you definitely need an income from day one, you know exactly how your retirement is going to pan out, and also that you don't want a bit of flexibility to say, I don't want to put all my eggs in one basket. I kind of would like a bit of money held back just in case and things change. So the other way of doing it is called drawdown. And what that does is say, okay, you've got your pot of savings ready for retirement.
You put them into an investment and then you choose how much you want to take out of that or get some help and guidance to say, okay, how much can I take out of that pot of money, those investments each month, each quarter, each year? Rydyn ni'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd. Rydyn ni'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd.
So to say, look, then annuity, how about maybe you cover off a minimum level of incoming what just help you sleep well at night, help your planning, great. So a small annuity, but then on top of that have drawdown. To say, okay, I want a bit of flexibility here. I want to be able to say, well, actually for my first few years I don't need
Or when the state pension picks up, actually I can reduce what I'm taking from my investment pot. And so again, I think a blend is a great idea for some people because it gives you that that kind of mix that often is needed in. Because retirement I mean, everybody's retirement looks different and some people might have an idea of what retirement looked like for their parents, but
People now work part time, maybe they want to travel for the first couple of years that they retire. Maybe they're thinking, actually, you know, when I get a bit older, I won't want to do so much, spend so much. So that flexibility is massively important. Oh it is. And I think it's it's underrated and actually I think the the issue is that a lot of people feel if they need to commit, they're not quite sure so they don't commit and then they do the absolute other extreme of doing
And that's not the right answer either. And so what we've got to s you know, start talking to people about is we can build flexibility and you you tell us, you know, what what do you need this to look like? Who are you as a person? Um and the the flexibility point as well. I mean we all know people. People say I'm retired.
And then about two and a half weeks into retirement they're bored, they wanna do something else, they wanna top up their income. Um, and so if they turn that full income on on day one. you know, a month, a year into retirement, they suddenly don't need it so they could actually allow those investments to grow. Put them away, save for a bit longer, and that lies buys flexibility further out. Get that holiday, whatever you want to do. Um, and you've got that kind of built into your plan.
So there are people who are looking at their pensions and thinking, actually I want it to also be something that I can leave to my children, to my loved ones. I I would imagine that that often, particularly for a lot of women I've spoken to, say that they just would like to be able to to use it for that as well. Yeah. Yeah. And it's so important. And I think that is why retirement planning is so perfect.
And I think there is kind of a moral side to this. I think there is a making sure, you know, after you have gone, you have paved the way for your family. You know, sometimes you do the maths and it's not always the the best thing or the optimal thing to do, but actually it's the most important thing to do.
So I think th the one way that you can start maybe thinking about that in a slightly more creative way is that just be careful. I am not a tax specialist, so I will not kind of delve into that world, but there are tax implications. of leaving money. So just make sure you're kind of thinking, Well, okay, if I do want to do that, how much will they ultimately get when you kinda think about that? And for some people that won't won't be an issue at all. And that could be the right thing to do.
Okay. But the second part, and I've talked to a few people about this, is maybe you share some of that legacy planning, which is what we call it, kind of post um, you know, the money that you want to leave. Maybe each year you want to have a little bit of money that's allocated to that to spend time with your family or help out, but that doesn't have to be right at the end. That could be on the way. And then your partner
as well and sometimes you could build that into your plan. And that could be, you know, a nicer as well as more efficient way of thinking about how you you help your family members. And you can enjoy it as well if you're around. So that that there's something quite nice about that too. It's about that holistic approach, isn't it? For people who Don't have a financial advisor, have never spoken to a financial advisor, are really nervous about this whole thing. Maybe they can't afford that.
Are there places that they can go just to get some basic help? Actually, go online, Google Cash Flow Planner or Help with My Pension. And there are some brilliant tools out there where you can just get a sense of where you are at. put in your levels of savings, have a little play around and say, oh, well, if I wanted to um have a bit of cash for my holiday and then I think I would like this amount of income each year.
Can I do that? If I did a little bit more on the saving side, it would give you an indication of where you're falling a bit short. And actually, if you start that early enough, to say, well I'm gonna put a little bit more away and the effect of that being saved over a longer period means y you could get to those goals and start planning that trip and start planning that lifestyle. anchored around how much your your pension savings and other savings um will help you do
So not to think of the whole thing in scary terms, not to let it sort of overwhelm you, but to start breaking it down and just thinking about the fun bits. Yes. Absolutely, absolutely. Look, on money matters we we don't just try to educate women about how to become more resilient with their financial lives. We also like to champion women in general.
And the one thing that we know and um our uh founding ambassador, Baroness Helena Morris, who talks about this all the time, is that there are still too few female fundmen. You became a fund manager at at forty. Tell me about that journey. I know. And um and it's brilliant that there are some initiatives underway to really and Helen Orse is part of that to to to move this forward. But yeah, I was very late to the party.
And I had always done research. I had been in finance for for for my career, but I was very much anchored in um I'm a research person. I have not got it in my DNA. I am not built that way to actually, in effect, put my money where my mouth is and support and be an investor and be a fund manager. So what was very interesting is that I got the opportunity and my initial reaction was no. No, thank you very much. Thank you for asking me if I'd like the role.
Then thank goodness I spoke to a couple of colleagues who said You are absolutely crazy. You know, you you you you're doing two thirds of the job anyway, because I was writing research, I was giving kind of suggestions for what we could do in the portfolios. The B don't underestimate what what it means to be a farm manager.
I think, you know, the the part that I'd really underestimated was the behavioural part and kind of people and ultimately all we're doing as investors is guessing what people might do next. you know, are people going to be spending in the economy? Are they going to are they feeling good or bad about the current economic situation? So that's about people. That's not just about all the maths and even though I like doing that bit, it's not just about that.
Um and so I got the opportunity to take that on and I've I've absolutely loved it. Um but as I say, there are m far more aspects um To being a fund manager. And I think now we're talking to more women about pursuing that career. It's really nice to see people suddenly realising that goodness, having a diverse range of views, range of skill sets when you are investing on behalf of people is absolutely critical to getting a better outcome. And so that's what I really enjoy being part
Um but I was lucky to have a few good people around me, to be honest, to give me a nudge in in in the right direction. So I'm very grateful to that. It's really interesting that you say that you'd initially thought absolutely not, because so many women think, okay, there's a job spec. I can do seven out of ten of the things on that job spec. So I absolutely won't apply. And yet we do know that men will look at that and think, oh, there's only three I can't do, and would apply.
So how great that you got people saying to you, Come on. Yeah, yeah, completely. And I think it is I never thought I would be that woman who turned down an opportunity or you know, I always felt I'd been quite good at pushing on and and doing things. And I found myself in that situation where I said, I'm that person. I'm saying I can only D seven out of ten and I'm not raising my hand.
And then you put your hand up and you find you actually really can. And it's as I say, it's modelling yourself on yourself. not trying to model yourself on other people. Always learn, always bring things in, always kind of learn more and more about how you can do your job better. But don't underestimate that you have your own unique skill set.
that you can really add something by just being that person in the room. And I think maybe that's where I'd gone wrong. I've seen a lot of men, if I'm honest, around me, being fund managers and I thought I can't be that. That is not me. Um and when I realised I could be me doing that job, that was the big hurdle that I got over and and then embraced it and it's been it's been great.
And so important for women thinking about their finances to say to see women actually working in the financial sector, but also young women thinking about, you know, the start of their careers where they might be able to go. Seeing you doing this, that can change the way they look at the job. I mean it does and I think, you know, I didn't have many women that I could see. Um luckily I did here and two in particular
Actually they're doing it. I think maybe I could, maybe I could, you know, put my put my put my hand up. But I think because we have a slightly different take on things sometimes or we approach things differently, um, I think for a long time it was deemed to be that it just wasn't a career path for so many women. And that's for a lot of reasons. So either the
the um skill set part, the confidence part, the I may want to have a family part. You know, is this even a job I can do if I if I want to have a family? And I think a lot of um measures that have come in in parental leave. Men take parental leave now as much as women. I mean that is a massive step forward to say, right, we've just levelled the playing field. So that that's fantastic. Um and I think you just need people to uh to aspire to, but also people to talk to.
People you can talk to for advice who kinda get it and get you and get maybe your perspective. Otherwise it's advice that's kinda you ne you're never matching up. It's never something you can embrace because they don't understand your starting point. And finding people like that is so valuable. So we can make sure we're getting women in, we don't always keep them. And that's the bit we've got to work really, really hard.
Listen, it's been brilliant to talk to you. Thank you for sharing your story and for all those tips about decumulation as well. It doesn't seem quite so scary. Yeah. Absolute pleasure. Absolute pleasure. No, it's great to talk to you. So thank you for having me.
Some great tips and tricks there from Georgina. And I was really struck that she struggled with her confidence when it came to applying for that new role, which really resonates with the stuff that we were talking at the start about the smartworks report. And it's noticeable that the average age of smart works clients part in the report um was 37. So almost 60% of them were aged 25 to 49. There were lots of younger clients, but many of them were also graduates who were struggling
I do remember that time, Laura, leaving university and thinking, Right, I'm set now. I've got my degree, career, here we come. And then I just didn't know what I wanted to do and I spent a year in the wilderness. I had two part time jobs, morning and evening, and thankfully then got some work experience at a radio station in the afternoons. pushed me on then to a career that I had. But even once I'd done a postgrad, I think I applied for, oh gosh, at least fifteen jobs.
Um I thinking back then, I mean this is a lot of years ago, if you think about the difference between applying for fifteen jobs and applying for fifty jobs. Wowzers, I've just felt so knocked back, completely flat. Um and trying to just keep going when you don't have that confidence is really hard.
Yeah, really hard. And I think also the lack of feedback that you get in the job market is very tricky. I had a similar experience when I graduated, you know, starting out in journalism, which is a very competitive industry. Trying to find work and you'd fire off these C Vs and cover letters that you'd beautifully crafted, and then you'd hear absolutely nothing back.
And I think it's really tricky. That's what really dents your confidence because it's not a case of, oh, there was just someone with more experience or we hired someone in house, which we always knew we were going to do, which is sometimes the case.
you start to doubt, okay, what is wrong with my C B? What is wrong with my experience? What is wrong with me? And so I think that is really tricky. And I think some employers are getting better at that now, particularly if you've gone through to interview stage. yw'n rhoi'n rhoi'n rhoi'n rhoi'n rhoi'n rhoi'n rhoi'n rhoi'n rhoi'n rhoi'n rhoi'n rhoi'n rhoi'n rhoi'n rhoi'n rhoi'n rhoi'n rhoi'n rhoi'n rhoi'n rhoi'n rhoi. Yeah, I just
really feel for people that are going through that at the moment. And I know also something that SmartWorks Report was talking a lot about was when people were being interviewed for a job and then actually the business because of changes to the business or changes to the political landscape or whatever
then decide that they're actually not going to hire anyone so the job doesn't actually exist. So if you're, you know, beating your head against that door and the door's actually already closed, it's it's really hard. Yeah, it is, it is. Um, but hold out. If you are in that position, you will get there, it will get better and also seek out help from whether it's organizations like Smartworks or other organizations that can help you.
interview tips, um reviewing CBs, things like that. But now to the favourite bit of my podcast. Did Georginia share a financial confession with She did, and she actually shared two and one is something that many women who work in finance often tell us. And before we let you go, our last question is always we ask people this, just to share either your financial confession or a dilemma. So
It's always a hard one thinking through what to admit to, actually. Um I must admit and I think when people see you as a fund manager or an investor, they assume you've got all your finances set in the most effective and efficient way and I have kept for a long time quite a bit of money in cash and um I have got investments. Um but cash now seems fine. You're getting a bit on that. Um cash when interest rates were zero, not so great. So I must admit my kind of
Um, given my wrong, I feel that's quite a confession because everyone assumes you're doing um the right thing. My other little one is that I'm terrible for sitting in bed at night with my iPad and doing online purchases at that point in the day. And my husband hears me tapping away and says, you know, what is it? What is it? So I think maybe, you know, it's not the best time to make those purchases.
I must admit when you're uh when you're there, but that is my one time where I do a bit of that and probably some not so great purchases have been done at that time of time. But that's when things look so appealing. Exactly. Exactly. I agree. Thank you so much. That was great. I really appreciate your time. Absolute pleasure. Thank you. So keeping money in cash is such a, dare I say it, female trait. It's something that we see so much more in women than men.
um, getting into that savings habit, but then sticking to cash and not taking that first step into investing and building up your confidence in in investing. So I think a lot of people will resonate that, but is also one that I just think I want to scream, just just give it a go. If if investing you think it might be right for you, just take that first little step with a small amount of money. So is one I will be constantly bleating. And the online shopping, the fact that at night
when she's had a really busy day and she's laying in bed and she's got her tablet. It is so easy, particularly, you know, if you've got your bank details already on some of these shopping sites, you just need to hit the cart button and and off you go. And um yeah, I I've certainly found myself falling victim to that two times. Easily done, isn't it? We've all been there. Yeah, it yeah, and it's funny how a lot of women working in finance had the same conse uh confession.
They work with other people's investments, but they don't get round to their own. And our very own Helena Morrissey said the same in one of her confessions. Speaking about Helena, we were talking a bit earlier about the struggle to find a job after university. about moving out of home. Well Helena's written a great article on our website about the hotel of mum and dad. So do take a look at that.
And we've also got the latest in our series of articles looking at what you need to consider when it comes to your finances at different stages of your life. And our next podcast comes out a few days after Valentine's Day. Love will be in the air. So we thought it would be great to talk to a couple about their financial lives. And who better than Claire and Matt Tao from Meet Margo, which is a mortgage broker.
bounded to help empower women on their journey and it'd been a real labour of love for the parents. So we are looking forward to hearing how they achieve work life balance by working and living together and whether the financial decisions are different depending on whether they're talking work or home. And Claire has promised me a real doozy of a financial confession, so I'm really looking forward to that.
If you couldn't make our Don't Fear Your Future webinar with Ageism is never in style, don't worry. Um if you signed up to our newsletter, we're going to send you the link so that you can watch it back at your leisure. It's featuring our founding ambassador, Helena Morrissey, and the CEO of Ageism Is Never in Style, Jacinth Bastet, and it's a great
Don't forget that you can sign up to our monthly newsletter on our website, which is ajbel money matters dot co.uk. And of course, like and subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen. Follow us on all of the usual social media channels, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. I think that's all your homework. But for now, that's all for Danny and I. Thanks for listening. Before you go, please remember this podcast is for education.
And the views expressed don't necessarily reflect those of AJ Bell. The podcast isn't telling you if a certain investment is suitable. Don't forget that the value of investments can be And you can lose money as well as the It's also important to remember that how you're taxed will depend on your individual circumstances. and rules can change. Formed in the past may not be the same as how it behaves in the future. If you want help, go see a qualified financial advisor.