What is active and passive investing?

We think women need to talk about the same. Because money really means that it's not a good thing. It shouldn't be embarrassing or confusing. Join the conversation. We'll be discussing a whole range of topics which will help you get. Money matters.

brought to you by AJ Bell Hello everyone, welcome back to the AJ Bell Money Matters podcast, the pod that's all about helping all of you incredible women get more comfortable with your finances so you can make them work harder for you. If this is your first pod, welcome. I'm Danny and I'm normally joined by Laura, but we've both been hit by the cold bug, so it's just me and my croaky voice and the lovely Charlene, who is blessedly without a croaky voice. Hi Charlene.

Hi Danny. Yes, I'm currently croak free, but I think I fell victim quite early. Maybe I am patient zero, as they say. Um in fact, yeah, it was pretty much as soon as the kids went back to school for me. Um But yeah, sort of making the most of croak free days at the moment. I can imagine, yes, um my kids are older and one came back from university with fresh as flu and let me just say it is no joke, but Hopefully we will just crack on and hopefully all of you are feeling okay um as we count down.

to Christmas, I've said the word. I know we're gonna talk maybe a little bit more about that later on. I know, I know.

Um look this episode's a special one'cause it's been requested by one of our Money Matters listeners. Now Alison got in touch by email. The email is hello at AJBLmoneymatters.co.uk. Um That's the address if this emboldens you to follow suit. Uh but this was Alison's email. She said I'll be very interested in hearing more about ETFs and the passive versives active approach, rather than fund managers sharing their strategies with our listeners. That's a great question, Charlie.

It is really, really a great question. I think first off though, you know, we're a jargon-free zone here. Um and thank you so much, Alison, for the question. But for those who aren't familiar with

What on earth an ECF is? Um that is an exchange traded fund, which in a nutshell is It's another type of investment fund, or a shopping basket of investments, a shopping trolley, I know one of our colleagues Dan likes to refer to them, or even a chocolate box packed full of different investment goodies. But the main difference between an ETF, an exchange traded fund, and a regular fund is just how you can buy and sell them. So when we see the words exchange traded,

It means that you can buy and sell it for uh on something like the London Stock Exchange in the same way as individual company shares. So To put that in context, that means you could buy and sell an ETF throughout the day when the stock market is open, whereas the traditional fund has one point each day, each trading day where you can buy and sell.

Now don't worry if that is still making you scratch your head because we've drafted in Alex Farrell from the AJ Bell investment team to take us right back to basics. Talking through the difference between a passive and an active investment, what a fund and an exchange traded fund is, how they differ, and also some really simple tips to help you get started. particularly to deal with the huge number of options that are out there when it comes to funds and exchange traded funds.

Because if you look at the list sometimes, it can be really overwhelming. Now, if you follow us on socials, you might have seen her on our Money Minute series busting some of the jargon that we all hate. If you have missed that, then do take a look. I love episodes like this where we go back to the fundamentals, back to basics if you like. I've worked in finance a long time. I'm probably not going to share exactly how long because that might give a clue to my age. But you know we're always all

learning, new things are happening all the time. Like you say, there is a potential for quite a bit of choice paralysis out there as well. So I think it's always really good if you do hear a bit of jargon and as much as we like to make this a jargon freezer and we can all be guilty of slipping into bad habits. Um I feel sometimes we're not always great at asking, so even if, you know, you'd rather go away and Google it.

It might be easier for you to do that and then ask or speak up and like you say, do l like Alison has done and send in a question because we are always happy to kind of bust some of those myths and definitely bust some of that jargon.

Um, I don't know about you, Danny, we've talked a lot about imposter syndrome, both in and out of the office and yeah, feeling sometimes that I think as women we like to be fully equipped, don't we, with like full knowledge on something before sometimes we'll take a leap. Um which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's just, you know, a different way of approaching things. I don't know how you feel about that.

Well, I have only been working in the finance industry for well, coming upon five years now. Um, but that doesn't say anything about my age. And I'm considerably older than you, Charlene, but there we go. Um and and yeah, I must admit when I first came into it Um some of the jargon I found to be a real roadblock. And I did feel like I should know a lot of the answers and therefore I I didn't want to ask the questions and you can Google it.

Um, and you can try and make sense out of it that way. But sometimes just asking someone to explain something really simply can, you know, turn on a bit of a light bulb and also it can open a conversation to other bits of jargon that maybe you've not understood before. So I think that that is is definitely something that's worth doing. So as Charlene said, you know, if you have a question, please get in touch because it also makes us think about

Yes. How we talk, doesn't it? Absolutely. A bit of accountability and also, you know, it actually tests whether we we know about it because if you can explain something, then that's normally a good sign that you actually know what you're talking about. So yeah, please feel free to keep hit.

Now this episode is a particularly timely one because if you're listening as it's released then you'll be aware that Chancellor Rachel Reeves has a hugely significant budget to deliver in a few weeks' time. We're recording this on the 20th of October 2025. The budget date is set as the 26th of November, which

I said I was gonna mention Christmas again, didn't I? Well it's bang in the middle of that hugely significant shopping week, Cyber Monday through to Black Friday. But if you have read any of the news coverage about the budget, speculation about what might be in it, then you could be forgiven for thinking that you're gonna be a bit cautious about your pre-Christmas spending until you know what's coming down the track.

I certainly am being more cautious than usual, I have to say. Yeah, absolutely. Budget speculation. I feel like every year it starts earlier and earlier and it it can actually be quite damaging'cause after all, none of us actually know what's in Rachel Reeves' red box just yet. But I know Danny, you and Laura are gonna sum up some of the key things to look out for in the next episode. But we wanted to pick out two of the potential measures that have been discussed.

because they have the potential to have a big impact on ISES and pensions and have actually already started to. So We've spoken many, many times about the gender ICE gap and obviously released our big report earlier this year. We've also talked about the gender pension gap, but I wanted to start off with ICEs because One of the rumors, it actually started earlier this year as well, is that how much you can put into an ISR

in cash might be paired back. So quick run through at the moment everyone has a ICER allowance each tax year of twenty thousand pounds. And at the moment you can split that how you wish. So you could put all of it into cash, or you could put all of it into stocks and shares ISA, so like an investment flavor of ISA, or a mixture of the two. But there are reports that the Chancellor is looking at r restricting the amount that can be put in and held in cash. to try and get more people

to invest. Now, in this podcast we like to talk about the benefits of investing, particularly when it comes to trying to beat the returns that you can get on cash over the long term and trying to tackle that big, big impact that can have on our finances in terms of inflation. So what your money can buy in the future with versus what it can buy now. Um but you know, there's two whilst it might sound like It could work in theory.

Uh I'm not entirely sure things will play out in that way. And the reason we've called it out in this programme is because it would actually have a oversized impact on women. And that showed that women have far more in cash ices than men who tend to hold more in investment.

Um, no, that fact in itself helps create the gender ICE gap because long term investing, as I mentioned, tends to give better returns over the long term. Um, we know Rachel Reeves wants to get more people investing, but really, is this the best way to go about it, Dunning? I worry that it really isn't, um, because people who don't feel comfortable and confident investing, who want to keep their cash savings in cash.

Will probably just look for another way to keep their cash savings in cash. So they might do£10,000 in cash and then put the rest. In a savings account. Obviously, there's a lot to think about there in terms of tax, if that is you, because ISES are a brilliant way to protect. um the the interest that you make on your cash from the tax man. So you know it is worth giving some serious thought to that. But just Trying to get people to think about

investing. There are so many blocks to it. There are so many issues to deal with. And that's one of the reasons that at AJ Bell we've been calling for ISIS simplification. So carrot rather than a stick. So, you know, rather than saying to people, hang on a second. you can only do ten thousand pounds in cash, so you can put your other ten thousand pounds in stocks and shares, which is unlikely to make them go, Oh yeah, yeah, that sounds like a great idea.

it would be much better to combine the cash ISA and the stocks and shares ISA in a single tax wrapper and and that means that it's much easier to transition from Short-term saving to long-term investing. And you know, if you've got to open another account, another step to take. then it is possibly one step that you're never going to make. And all evidence suggests that it's just gonna add

More complexity. It's not going to foster that retailing investing revolution that has been desired very much by this Chancellor's, and I must say, other Chancellors before. And I think the sort of siloed structure of ISIS really it it just Prevents people from having that holistic journey through. So creating one product.

Simplifying the product that we all know and understand would really, I think, be the best way to boost investing. And if you add to that, education, then I think that coupled with an easier route into it i is far more likely to yield the dividends. There we go. Give it a bit of a a financial

push there, um, that we we'd all like. Um and look, we know women say, um, i in our um report that we did into the gender isega uh they would say when they're talking about investing, they would use terms like nervous, whereas men would use terms like optimistic, secure, confident, and I think that's why episodes like the one we're doing today with Alex

um, who's going to give a really clear introduction to some of the investing terms that you might have heard but possibly have never understood are just really crucial if we're going to have more of a a joined up approach to things. Absolutely. And I think we mentioned earlier, you know just. having the the security of knowledge to just take that next step um is really, really important. And actually like I my personal view is that, you know, some of those words we heard from uh our our male ISO

potentially being exciting. It perhaps shouldn't be exciting. It should be something you know, you you're putting your money away. It shouldn't have to be this kind of roller coaster ride. Obviously investing can go up as well as down. But yeah, just helping people kind of bridge that gap or the knowledge gap they think they have. Um also I think we we mentioned pensions, I'll come on to that in a second. But

Most of us are actually already invested, perhaps without even realizing it. So if you are employed and you've been automatically You'll probably find that that pension is also invested in things like the stock market, different types of funds. So you might have already got started before you even realised. But as I mentioned, the other issue we wanted to highlight is speculation about pensions. I spent quite a lot of time talking about this and writing about it. And the kind of the two main

um rumours that have been started and are started every year are firstly changes to tax relief on what you pay into a pension. So that bonus that you get that makes your payments into a pension. free of income tax and one of the big, big drivers and key benefits of using a pension for saving for retirement. And the other one is speculation about whether or not the amount you can take out of your pension tax free lumps on when you come to access it.

whether that's going to be restricted. At the moment, um you can take up to a quarter of your pension, usually tax-free, subject to kind of an overall ceiling, an overall allowance. It's known, Jargon Claxon, as the lump sum allowance. Um but again, it's a really actually really well understood and fundamental part and benefit of pension savings. So anytime we see rumors about things perhaps being taken away or people feel like they're gonna lose something.

even if it never comes to fruition, as it hasn't for most years, um, you know, it really impacts customer behaviour. And again, um You might have seen if you are a customer of AJ Bell, another one of our calls, a more recent call, is for something called a pension tax look. And we've actually also set up a petition, haven't we, Danny? We have, yes. And um I was just taking a look at how many people had signed that petition.

um before we came on and did this podcast. And it's reached almost eighteen thousand signatures in less than three weeks. So uh the government should now take the opportunity to respond To that. Um, because there is a huge amount of uncertainty. I mean, you were saying uh about it impacting consumer behaviour and there was some data out from the Financial Conduct Authority showing that pension withdrawals were up by thirty six percent. in the year twenty four, twenty five, the financial year.

Um and that came off the back of all that speculation last year. And of course People are making decisions, financial choices. that maybe they shouldn't be making that they later wish that they hadn't made, but, you know, they they can't go back on those changes. So, you know, do think long and hard before you make decisions about taking um a a tax free lump sum.

If you don't really need that money now, and do of course, if you have the opportunity, speak to a financial advisor because they will just talk about your individual circumstances. Um and I know Charlene, you've certainly written a whole lot on this and so has um Rachel Vay, um who's another member of the Money Matters team. So do go and have a look. uh on the AJ Bell website, on the Money Matters website,'cause there's plenty of tips on there. But Look, you know, people make a huge sacrifice.

to decide that they're going to lock away money that maybe they need right now. You know, we we've all experienced a cost of living crisis. I I think most of us still feel that our standard of living isn't where it had been before we had that huge energy crisis and You know, I I'm gonna mention the Christmas word again'cause I'm thinking about Christmas. I had m I had my first mince pie earlier today. It's making me happy. It was it's battling the cold. Absolutely.

I am having to really seriously think this year about how much I'm going to spend on Christmas presents, on going out, on the Christmas meal for the family, because I am still looking at my finances in a very different way. And all the speculation about the budget, certainly a lot of retailers have been reporting that footfall is down. People are not

uh going to bars and restaurants in the same way. They're not spending on stuff in the same way. And that's why I think the date of this budget is going to be really important. Um but yeah, I mean what we're saying is that we want the government to address

All of this speculation, which seems to happen all the time, to remove this. huge amount of uncertainty and instability and you know, give people who are making the decision to do what is really important to do, which is prepare for their future, to put money aside now, so that when they retire, they can have a standard of living that they want to have. And if we're asking people to do that, If we're constantly even talking about changing the goalposts.

then that is really, really dangerous. So um if you haven't had a chance to take a look at that petition, you can find it on our website. I'll make sure that um we also put something out on our money matters social as well, just so that um, you know, you can sign it and hopefully um that will

maybe in the future stop this speculation which as you say happens every year. Oh, it really does. And I don't think it's too much to ask really, like you say, you're asking people to make sacrifices and time on your for a long time. So if we can preserve those tax benefits to give people that little bit of certainty in a very uncertain world, let's face it, um, it's really not that much to ask. And the government ha does lots of other kind of

projects and measures to try and improve um outcomes for people when they do come to retirement when it comes to pension savings. So this really does feel like it goes hand in hand with that. And like you say, it might also help to narrow the gender pension gap. Um, I'm gonna get off my pension high horse for a minute. Um, I could talk all day about it, but that was our kind of like one big thing this week.

Um although actually two big things wrapped up in one big bow to continue your Christmas theme, Danny. I know you've had your your uh your Christmas food catalogue. I won't name the retailer but I think the one we're talking about.

Um because it's caused a bit of a stir, hasn't it, with some of its prices. But as Danny mentioned earlier, our guest interview this week is perfectly time to try and help boost your confidence when it comes to investing or just refresh that knowledge that you might already have.

So if you're a cash ISA holder, maybe it will help you give some real consideration to stocks and shares ISA, so the investment flavor of ISA. We've got our very own Alex Farrell from the AJ Bell investment team on She was given the task of answering the question we got from our listener Allison, who, as a reminder, emailed in to say, I'd be very interested in hearing more about ETFs and the passive versus active approach, rather than fund managers sharing their own strategies with listeners.

So thank you again, Alison, for the question and hopefully this interview will answer that and a few more.

Alex, thanks so much for joining us. Let's start by breaking down the difference between passive and active investing. So let's start with what is called passive investing. What do we mean when we say passive investing? What is it? Absolutely. Yeah. And and happy to be here, Danny. Thanks for having me. Um so pass passive investing is an approach that really looks to replicate an index or a benchmark. So what a fund manager will do is they will take a specific index.

Companies come in and out of that index, and they get a higher weighting or a lesser weighting in that index. And a passive fund is simply gonna track these movements. They're gonna buy and sell those companies uh in accordance with whatever's happening in the market. So there's no human judgment here. It's simply moving with what the market does.

So passive investors really follow the philosophy that markets are broadly efficient over the long term and therefore instead of trying to beat the index, um, you should join them. So you're effectively investing in the long term growth of a particular country or a sector that you think is gonna do well. Okay. So then let's flip it and talk about active investing.

Sure, so active investing seeks to outperform a benchmark rather than simply tracking it. So this is where a fund manager will do something differently to that benchmark. For example, it might buy more of a certain company it thinks it's gonna do uh that's gonna do well, or it might not buy a company at all that it that it doesn't believe in doesn't think it will do well.

And it hopes that that will therefore outperform um that index. So active investors really believe that markets are inefficient. uh people are irrational and and therefore there's an opportunity for pi for them to beat the market and take advantage of of mispricing opportunities. So

Here you want to be choosing a sector that you think will do well, but also you want to be choosing a manager that you believe can outperform. Okay. So there are there any sort of key pros and cons to both types of investing? Yeah, absolutely. So because passive investing is simply tracking an index, as you can imagine it can be uh really highly automated, um, which also means it can be done at a very low cost.

So some passive funds have ongoing charges as little as naught point naught three percent. Um on the other hand, active funds are generally more expenses expensive. Um that's obviously'cause you're paying for the expertise of that fund manager um who's meeting the boards of these companies, they're using their own analysis and they're making judgment decisions. So that's got a higher cost associated with it. Um but on the other hand, some people really like this approach.

Um they like knowing that there's someone who's looking after their money. Um and there are some active fund managers that that have got amazing track records for consistently beating a benchmark. Now does that work over the long run or not? I was just looking at the Speaver um data today, which is S P indices versus active. Um and that shows that eighty six percent of US active large cap funds underperformed the SP five hundred on a ten year basis.

Um and this has really been because the US has been quite tricky for for active managers to try and outperform. I think we've many of us have heard of the Magnificent Seven um doing incredibly well um in recent years. But there are other markets, generally sort of less efficient markets, where active managers are perhaps more able to outperform, such as Chyna, yn ymwneud â phobl ac ymwneud â phobl ac ymwneud â phobl ac ymwneud â phobl ac ymwneud â phobl ac ymwneud â phobl.

Uh, thirty five percent of of assets under management are in passive funds, but this has been really increasing in recent years, and if you look towards the US. The Investment Association's Investment Management Report came out 15 minutes before this recording, and I can confirm it confirms the same trend. Um move that movement towards passive. But at Age ABLET we offer both. So you're able to choose whatever is right for you.

We like to keep you on your toes. Fifteen minutes before that is good going. Um look, you you just said that um AJ Bell obviously offers a mix of both. There are lots of different options out there. Can you mix the two? Yeah, absolutely. Um, and we do actually offer blended approaches as well at AJ Bell or um looking at certain um parts of the investment process more actively and and leaving the passive work to to other elements of the process as well.

Um, it can be really good to sort of blend depending on the market that you're in, depending whether there's that opportunity. And it also gives you a bit of a balance between keeping that low cost of of passive um investing, but also still getting some access access to the expertise of highly qualified fund managers. Okay, so you've decided to take action. What's out there?

So there are two main vehicles really that you that you're gonna want to choose between. So that's either a a fund, a traditional fund, or an ETF, which is an exchange traded fund. Both of these vehicles work by cooling together lots and lots of people's money into one big pot. And then you have a fund manager that runs that large pot on your behalf. And this can be great.

um for beginner investors as it's giving you access to that expertise of a fund manager, someone's making those investment decisions for you. But there are some slight nuances, slight differences between funds and DTF. So funds are seen as the more traditional vehicle for investments and and they're not traded on exchange. So instead the price of the fund is published once a day at the valuation point. And anyone who has bought or sold the fund in that particular day will receive that price.

And the price is calculated by basically adding up the value of all the underlying investments and then dividing it by the number of units in that fund. Um this is sometimes referred to as the NAVO or the NESA net asset value. So If I'm an investor and and it's ten o'clock in the morning um and I'm buying a fund and the valuation point of that fund is at is at midday.

I wouldn't necessarily know the price that I'm going to get, but at midday they will make that calculation and and everybody who's who's traded in the last twenty four hours will receive that same type of price. And I'll see that on my contract note when I receive it. So fund funds are the traditional way of working.

ETFs have been around for thirty, thirty years, but have really taken a lot of prevalence in sort of the last ten, fifteen. Um and the clues in the name within the ETF, Exchange Trader Fund, they are traded on exchange. Um so they trade in a in a similar way to a stock, um, in the way that people might be familiar with seeing intraday pricing, you know, those movements up and down throughout the day.

And this means that you know the price that you're going to pay for an ETF, which is why people often say ETFs are slightly more transparent than funds in terms of pricing, but it's the same mechanism whereby all your money gets pulled together and managed at that top level. ETFs can have some tax advantages depending on um where they're domiciled, but they also sometimes have

higher trading costs on investment platforms. And so there's pros and cons to both vehicles. As I say, both are ultimately achieving the same outcome, just slightly different structures in in terms of how they work. And ETFs have historically been seen as passive, but there are more options now.

Yeah, you're absolutely right, Danny. Um ETFs, as I say, have been around for a while and they've mainly been used as a vehicle for for passive investing. They've been incredibly popular, particularly in Germany um and in the US as as we've sort of discussed.

Um, but in the last three or four years, active ETFs have come onto the scene a little bit more. Um so active managers have seen this flow into the ETF market and they've kind of wanted a slice of that pie and seen a bit of investor demand in that area. So

Active ETFs are relatively new um in compar comparison to passive ETFs, so you might have slightly less choice in the number of products that are on offer. But we're seeing new launches of of products in the active ETF space really regularly in the market. Felly, mae'r ETF yn yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r. fund and ETF structures of the same investment strategy to give people that choice.

um and whatever their preferences. So you kind of end up with a bit of a of a quadrant is how I would describe it, where you need to choose whether you want to invest sort of passively or actively. Um and then choose whether you want to invest in a fund or an ETF. And then once you've uh sort of identifies that quadrant that you want to be in, there should be some products available for you.

So how does someone then practically identify what an investment is? Are there sort of any general rules to follow when you're doing your research? Yeah, absolutely. So investment platforms often have some really useful tools um that can make it easier for customers to find.

their preferred type of investment. So, I mean, if you're listening now, um, and you can go to the AJ Bell website, AJ Bell.co.uk, I can talk you through how to find those. So If you hover over the investing option at the top of the screen and then choose your investments, you can select either a fund or an ETF from there. If you choose on the fund option, you can then filter by management style, and that will allow you to choose active or passive.

Other top tips for spotting active and passive products is if you look on the fact sheet and you see a picture um or some names of people. Um, it's likely that that's an active product and those names of the people who are the fund managers, you know, those experts that are picking the stocks for you, looking after the money.

We'll often talk about how long those those fund managers have been in the fund and gives you an idea of their track record, really, whether they've been successful uh in achieving that outperformance. Then on the other hand, if you see the name of an index um in a in a product, so S P five hundred. FTSE one hundred or the word index itself.

then it's likely to be a passive fund and whatever is named in that benchmark um is the index that it's trying to track. And that's not it's not a golden law, but that gives you a quite a good rule of thumb when you're looking at investment options. It can be overwhelming. Um, you know, if you go onto the H Well website, it's over four and a half thousand funds available to you. Um so if you want to restrict that even further and see a short list of funds.

expertly selected by our investments team. You can also use the investment ideas tab to navigate to the AJ Bell favourite funds. And that's a short list of about 80 funds from across the world. um that our team have created to give you a bit of a helping hand. And you can do the same filtering there um from the fun type drop down that can allow you to select active

or tracker, which is another word for passive investing. So that g should give you a really good start once you've identified the type of investment philosophy and the type of investment structure that is right for you.

It is incredibly daunting sometimes when you go on um something like the AJ Belve platform and you see thousands of different funds and you're just trying to figure out what to look for. So Having the opportunity to go to that curated list can be really helpful. But even then, it's still quite a daunting decision to make.

Yeah, absolutely. And that's where our Doddle product can also be a really great option for beginner investors who just want to cut out the noise, um, who don't want to see a hundred different funds. And what that will what Doddle is able to do is to present you with an option, you know, one option for the UK, one option for the US.

of of a rubber stamped product that our investments team are are monitoring um on a monthly basis to make sure that it's a product that will be able to deliver a good outcome for you. So if you want to cut out all the noise, you don't want to see all these all these options Um all you want to choose choose is a country or a sector, then it might be that Doddle's the right place for you.

Alex, thank you so much for talking us through all of that and for doing that last minute bit of research with those details landing fifteen minutes before. Perfect. Thanks, Danny. And that was Alex Farrell there from the AJ Bell investment team. Thanks again to Alex for coming on the show and Alison for the question. Don't forget if you have something you'd like us to cover. Please email in at hello at ajbelmoneymatters.co.uk or you can connect with us on social media.

We're on Facebook and Instagram as Money Matters and also LinkedIn. And I know a few of us are on there individually. So if you haven't already caught Alex's Money Minutes on the socials, do hunt those.

Now, Charlene, this is the part of the pod where we usually asked our guests for a financial confession or dilemma. But I confess when I spoke to Alex I was still suffering from this cold and I forgot to ask her for a confession. So I thought I'd put you on the spot instead. Oh thanks. Thanks, Doug. You're so welcome. Okay. I always feel very seen when I get asked this question. Um so

Something that's kind of on my mind, I guess. Um, it is it's a big birthday for me next year. I said I wasn't gonna talk about my age, but next year's a big birthday. It's also um my tenth wedding anniversary. So

um as parents of two young kids we we don't often get time um to do something. Just the two of us. Um we spend loads of time doing lovely stuff with our kids and we love that. But Um we've decided we're gonna sort of have a little bit of a little bit of a Go away, perhaps for a long weekend. I don't know. We talked about choice paralysis earlier. I don't know about you, but I just find myself going down a rabbit hole when it comes to trips.

travel holidays. So, you know, we're all trying to kind of make our money go a little bit further and get like the best value for what we want to do. But oh my goodness, it's a I think it's just eating into my time. I think if I added up how much time I've spent kind of

on various like booking websites, hotel websites, looking at different flights to different destinations. I think by the time I've got to the end of it, any m any money I've saved with my penny pinching, I've probably just wasted a load of time. So I think it's I think it's that. I think it's just like the

I'm really, really bad at sort of letting go of that money or fear of missing out that I'm not getting the best deal. I wouldn't necessarily say I'm like particularly tight with money. I do have quite a nice handbag collection that I've probably spent a bit too much on. Um but yeah, when it comes to travel and how holidays specifically

Really I f I really struggle with it. So I th I guess that's kind of my dilemma, my confession. We've still not booked it. I think I'm trying to nudge my husband to to get this over the line. Um and that's the other thing also I could hand it over to him and he has said that he'd be happy to book it. But of course, being a control freak, I think that's playing playing on my mind as well.

It's funny, you know, my husband's got a significant birthday uh next year as well and um I'm already planning and he's actually made it quite simple'cause there is one place that he wants to go. Um, so I I've I've done the Airbnb thing already. I just need to sort out the flight. But I know exactly what you mean. Had I not been given very specific parameters, I would probably still be in the same place as you.

Yeah, I mean, catch up with me next year and make sure I actually have gone away. It should be easy. We got married in Italy. We were very lucky to do that almost ten years ago. So w have a country but and have a vague date, but the rest of it, yeah. A nightmare. Well, thank you for coming on the pod this week, Charlene. It's brilliant. Even though we've put you under the microscope.

Yes, thanks Danny. I mean, yeah, like you say, you invite me on and then put me on the spot there. I'll let you off for this time because yeah, I do know how how uh awful this current bug going around is. So next up.

Danny, I know you and Laura are going to pick through some of those budget issues that we mentioned and things that might be useful for people to be aware of, key points that are sometimes spoken about. Um and again, if you have questions about the budget or any other areas of finance, please do get in touch. But Danny, I think next week you've got a very special guest as well.

Yeah, if you're a regular listener, um, or even if this is just your first time, then you're likely to be aware that AJ Bell Money Matters is a campaign. created by women for women. And as we mentioned earlier, do check out. We've got loads of great articles on our website, ajblmoneymatters.co.uk. Um now despite the fact that we do count on our male allies, colleagues who sometimes help us out with some content, and guests who can shine a light on some issues like shared parental leave.

But predominantly we do have female guest speakers on the podcast. But next week. Next time, even, in the run up to International Men's Day, we thought that we would pick the brains of Lee Chambers. He is the founder of Male Allies UK and someone who has been the only man in the room. We've spoken many times before about being the only woman in the room.

But he has been the only man in quite a lot of rooms, and on occasion it's been quite uncomfortable and quite amusing as well. It will be a great listen, so do join us for that. But for now, thanks so much for listening. Before you go, please remember this podcast is for educational purposes. And the views expressed don't necessarily reflect those of AJ Bell. The podcast isn't telling you if a certain investment is. Don't forget that the value of investments can be

And you can lose money as well as make it. It's also important to remember that how you're taxed will depend on your individual circumstances. and rules can change. behaves in the future. If you want help, go see a qualified financial advisor.