¶ Intro / Opening
Hi folks and welcome back to the Mean for Money Podcast. This is session number six hundred and twenty-four with me, Pete Matthew.
And me, Roger Weeks.
We had like a bit of a marathon. And it I kinda thought it might be long, but I didn't think it'd be quite as long as it was. We we basically got halfway through a script in fifty minutes. But we wanted to go deep because the week before on one of the QA episodes, uh a listener called Andrew asked question and
In it there was i it was like almost you could hear the kind of visceral response coming out of the the message about why anybody would consolidate pensions. You know, why would you add all the risk of having everything on one platform? Why would you do this and that?
Um
And it sort of thought, well, it made us think, well, perhaps we'll do a proper episode on it. And we spent, yeah, fifty minutes looking at everything you need to know. And so rather than it being the mother of all episodes, we have split it into two. So we're gonna cover what we need to do. Um today. So show notes for this episode of Meaningful Money.tv slash session six two four. Meaningfulmoney.tv slash Session. Six two four. Um there is gonna be like um
a companion guide to these two episodes. Um, so you'll be able to download that there. But what I want to do first, if it's okay with you, Roger, I'll very quickly sort of summarise
¶ Summary of KNOW
What you need to know. So what we covered last week, right? And we talked about essentially there were seven points on what you need to know. Um and the first one it was that there's a real emotional pull towards consolidation. We accumulate financial clutter, tidying it up is good for the soul. There's real a appeal of having things in one place. Simplicity, I think, lends itself to well being.
The second thing was really what consolidation actually means. And we talked about, you know, you don't have to consolidate uh all your pensions and all your investments into one place. Um, you don't have to y you can sort of combine pots, so like all your pensions into one. You don't have to. You can just you can think about platforms. You can think about investment strategy and you can combine and consolidate all of these to a greater or lesser extent.
Um we then covered some arguments for consolidation. Clarity, easier to know what you've got, easier to track performance, reduced cognitive load, fewer passwords statements, less paperwork. Easier and better retirement planning. So planning for tax strategies, withdrawals, risk exposure, a lot easier with fewer pots.
cost savings, potentially at least, because you know, some platforms have tiered rates. So Uh, you know, if you've got more than say quarter of a million, you might come up against a tier uh fee cap or, you know, a lower rate above that or whatever, which you might not get if you've got more pots with less money in each one. Um so that's cost savings, better investment discipline, easier to manage asset allocation and rebalancing across fewer pots or one pot, certainly.
And then I think simplicity, leaving things behind after you've gone, th these that's a real reason for consolidation and tidying. But then in balance we looked uh number four against the uh f uh the arguments against consolidating. So obviously all my eggs in one basket. What happens if the platform fails? Um, you know, am I covered by the FSCS? All that sort of stuff we talked about.
You may lose valuable benefits. Um, so if you've got old plans with guaranteed annuity rates, protected tax free cash, protected pension age, hot topic at the minute, you know, you might lose that by consolidation. There is operational risk. You might get admin errors, transfer delays, you might lose historical paperwork, which might end up being important if you consolidate. Um obviously uh you are you diversify platform and provide a risk if you have more than one uh of each.
And we s we thought that there might be some behavioural arguments against consolidation, like complexities complexity puts some friction between you and making a snap decision. It's like, oh, you know, I'm panicking about the markets, I want to sell my investments and then you've got three logins instead of one, it's more difficult to do that and it might actually be help you behaviourally, having that extra friction and complexity.
We talked about when consolidation might be a good idea, like if you've got lots of old workplace pots or you've got high charges where you are right now and nobody really knows where everything is. We talked about approaching retirement as being a really uh
you know, good point and a good idea to look at consolidation at that point. But then we talked about when caution might be essential, like basically excluding D B schemes from any con thought about consolidation. Maybe old pensions from the eighties and nineties with these good benefits on. Um, you know, obviously if you're in an employer scheme, you would leave that where it is, particularly if it's a current employer scheme. If it's an old one, then you might look to consolidate.
And sort of some got to the point where, you know, good enough is okay. Good enough is good enough. So it doesn't have to be one platform. It could be one platform for your pensions and one for your ISIS. It could be one platform for your pensions and ISIS and one platform for your spouses or partners, pensions and ISIS or whatever.
You can have multiple investment approaches, even if everything is on one pot um one platform. So there's loads of ways you can do this and good enough is okay. It's a very sort of subjective personal thing. And we summarise really by saying that complexity can masquerade as sophistication, but that's not the case at all. All right. Very often, uh
simple affairs are more sophisticated. I'm reminded of I can't remember who it was that said, you know, I I sorry for the long letter. I didn't have right I didn't have time to write a short one. And the point is that you know, careful consolidation actually requires thought, requires you to be intentional. And so, you know, that is itself a form of sophistication. Complexity is not a badge of honor. And by tidying
Uh I think money uh is raised to its singular purpose, which is to support life, make life easy, not to become a hobby and a job in its own right. Okay. So that's everything we covered last week. Why didn't we do it in five minutes last week?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well perhaps we perhaps we'll just rewrite it and put it back put that one back in it.
Yeah, yeah. Make one episode. So I think now we need to with all that stuff in mind, that kind of context, we need to um look at what you need to do. So what should we do first, Rog?
¶ DO - Take stock
As we've said m m multiple times in the past, is take stock of what you've got. So so gather every bit of pension paperwork you've got and investment paperwork to know exactly what you've got, where it is, what it does. Uh you may even have to ask a few questions of the pension companies.
Oh, we got some questions. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um there is a pension tracing service. It's a funny thing. I don't know, sure. It'd be gr better if it was Like a team of people. Yeah. Who, you know, you gave'em your name and your national insurance number and stuff and they just did a lot of detective work for you. But it asks you a bunch of questions and gives you some possible contact details to trace old pensions.
Put a link to that in the show notes, the pension uh tracing service. But yeah, gather everything together. It might you might need to answer ask some questions as you say. I think at the very least you need to know what provider value?
Yeah. Uh what fees you're being paid, uh you're paying on it?
Yeah, broken down. Platform. Fund. Yeah. Yeah. Uh what sort of investments you got underneath?
Yep. Uh any special benefits especially when it comes to pensions? Have you got any special benefits attaching to these particular pensions that you you you m you might need to retain? Yeah.
Um and then particularly with pensions, nomination of beneficiaries, really important. Um there's more to it than that, but rather than get bogged down in the minutiae of the questions, there is a downloadable
Checklist.
of questions and what you really need to know, particularly from pension providers, because that's really where the complexity is. And ICE is you know, one ICE is much the same as another, really. You don't tend not to get guarantees and stuff like that. So particularly when it comes to consolidating pensions, there's a bunch of stuff you need to know before you even think about it. So there is a downloadable checklist and the sort of guide to this.
Uh at the show notes, meaningful money.tv slash session six two four. Okay. So take stock. All right.
Next, Roger. Then then I think what they yeah, then you need to do is identify
¶ DO - Identify what should NEVER be moved casually
What should never be moved casually? Just uh w which ones do I need to be specifically careful about? Yeah. The most obvious one being a D B pension. Yeah, I I'm not gonna consider moving that unless I really, really have to.
Yeah, exactly. I have it on the list, but there's you almost kinda want to say, rather than dig deep into each one, is there any here that I can m that I know I'm not gonna shi shift? Yes. Um so D B pension's dead right. And then any D C or old pension with safeguarded benefits. Yeah. Guaranteed annuity rates. So where it is written into the contract what rate of income you would get per thousand pound of fund. That's what a guaranteed annuity rate is, as opposed to
Uh uh guaranteed growth rate. Or go actual guarantee to do it itself.
because sometimes they'll give you an action.
Exactly.
Which may or may not represent good value.
Which is which is really weird'cause you think a guaranteed annuity rate is the rate at which you get but that's the rate per per ten thousand pounds of pension fund you will get back. But a guaranteed annuity is oh we'll give you this income. So it's not related to the amount, it's just an in uh a a level of income that you will get for the rest of your life. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah really.
And almost like the fund value doesn't matter, but of course it could do if you transfer it away. Yeah. So it adds a bit of complexity. Yeah. Um guaranteed growth rate, as you say. S some of these old schemes, it's like, okay, the the pot will grow by four percent minimum. No matter what goes on in the markets. That's actually you compound that over time. That's properly valuable. No sequencing risk, no volatility at all.
No, and and a a a as a as a proportion of your total retirement planning, that could be one yeah, I I know that that's set there. That's giving you a guarantee of return. Don't need to worry about that. I'll be a bit more risky with this one. Definitely. Yeah, so that's what they're in. A big one at the moment, protected pension age.
Yeah.'Cause pension agents are moving. I always go ca cast my mind back to the fact there was like your footballers could take their pensions at age thirty five or something like that because you know, they wouldn't play for very long and but
That's the sort of thing they taught us, wasn't it, when uh in financial advisor school. Um certain occupations have protected pension ages, but certain plans do as well. And obviously with the uh pension age national minimum pension age not national, I always say that it's normal, isn't it? Normal minimum pension age and MPA.
Going up to fifty seven from April twenty twenty eight, you might be affected by that. So if you've got a pension with a protective pension age, it might be worth leaving it where it is.
And even if you if it's not specifically set out as protected pension age, speak to your pension provider because some pension companies have written in in in in their terms and conditions, you will keep keep that the age that the s it was set for. They've not accepted the uplift.
Yeah, exactly. So it's worth checking, even if it's not sort of explicitly said uh worth just double checking. Is there a protected pension age on this plan? Um Protected tax free cash, some old plans can be a pain to prove because they they usually link to earnings back in like the eighties and nineties, and most of us don't keep baselines and P sixties that long. Do you?
No, that's 40 years ago now. I know. That's, yeah, that Back about ten, fifteen, twenty years ago when we're doing protected tax re cash calculations, yeah, we could get that. But you know, another fifteen, twenty years has gone by the way. So I haven't got payslips going back that far. No.
I've got I've got some of my first ever um annual reviews for my uh Barclays employment. So yeah they should do an annual review and it's a it's a it's a form where it says how you how you get on for this and this and this. I've kept those'cause they're
Scorpion.
Yeah, it is really, really strange. But but one thing I would say when you when you're looking at your safeguard benefits, even if you're contacting the the pro pension provider for this. You want it in writing.
Oh my gosh.
'Cause some of the people we have on and we've come across it uh loads of times, they they say, Well, I think this is what what no uh I want to know. So you want it in writing that what those safeguarded benefits actually are. Just don't accept what they say on the telephone.
Definitely not,'cause very often you'll get to somebody in a you know, in a call center and they don't fully understand their following and script. Or as is so often the case with old pension companies, they've been consolidated and they've moved you know, what was once like, I don't know. Sun Life or something became Axa, became a Viva, became Phoenix or whatever.
Mm-hmm. And you think, well, actually those records are buried somewhere. And hopefully, you know, very often these call center people are saying hang on a minute, I'll need to log into a different system. Yes. And they're looking at three, four, five different databases from all the seeding, you know, companies. So, um and then finally, um, stuff you should never move casually.
Employer linked benefits. Certainly not your current employee, you know, your um workplace pension. If your employer's paying into it, then don't shift it. No. That makes no sense at all. Um So yeah, just be aware of that. So identify what should what what should never be moved casually.
It's not to say you would never move them, but the stuff you really need to think about, right?'Cause then you're gonna need to go deep. You may n even need to get advice on that, all right,'cause this is uh kind of um difficult ground for lay people for sure.
¶ DO - Compare charges properly
Next, step three.
Uh this is where you need to compare your charges properly.
Yeah.
'Ca th there's so so many different steps involved in this sort of thing. You know y you have your platform V And then underneath that then you have your fund fee and then you may have some trading fees.
Yeah, you might have. Yeah. Not with all platforms, but some with others. Yeah. It's like, okay, there's a really, really low you know, percentage annual fee, but there's a trading fee every time I, you know, buy in or whatever. If you're talking about uh retirement as well, you might have, you know, drawdown fees.
Ευχαριστώ.
Uh, all that sort of stuff. You might have a a fee every time you take an off plus payment. Um, if you've got pots which are still being looked after, even if you haven't seen your advisor in years, see it all the time. You might still be paying an advisor that you used years ago. to look after your pension. You shouldn't be, but it does still happen. Um so check for advisor fees. Um yeah. Uh The impact of flat fees on smaller pots. Yes. So I mean you're with I I, aren't you?
Yes. And actually the nice thing about I, I'm not this isn't this isn't a a a a selling point for for me saying you ought to do it because I'm not getting paid for it. Um, is the fact that if you do trades so you you pay money to your pension and you do a trade, I'm gonna buy this fund this month, I'm gonna buy that fund next month, there are trading fees for doing those individual trades. But if it's set up to auto trade
Like on a monthly date.
On a monthly direct debit that goes in I want to buy that fund every month, there's no fear at all.
But it's and but then the account is a flat monthly fee, isn't it? Yeah it is. Which is fine if you've got a m enormous pension fund like I'm sure you have. But it obviously a flat fee on a
Or a small pot is
is disproportionately high. So we need to sort of understand that as well. And so you know, cheaper, sometimes that's too simplistic. So it's a simpler thing. It's like, why is it?'Cause there might be other stuff buried in it. So you need a full breakdown of charges. All right. Really, really important. So so far what you need to do, take stock. You really need to know what you've got. You need to identify what should never be moved casually. And then you need to compare charges properly.
Okay, so number four is a little bit more, I guess, subjective, I think, but you need to The word I want to come to is quality, but it's really your experience with your existing providers and platforms.
¶ DO - Assess the quality of each existing provider or platform
You know, we all kind of work and think slightly differently and maybe the platform you're already on is, you know, really just kinda works well for how you think. You can find everything on the website easily. The app works really well. Um, so I think user experience is really important to to measure. You know, there's no point you consolidating for its own sake and you end up with a platform that drives you nuts. Yeah. Uh where you you did hold money on a platform that you really clicked with.
And then you m you might then say, Well, I I've I I don't know the work to transfer that, I want to transfer it back out again then. It's just that that's ludicrous really. It is ludicrous. That the investment range that the pr the the platform provides for you. Does that does it give you the range of funds that you'll be looking for? Now we're not looking for massive ranges of funds, but if if it doesn't have the funds that you want to particularly buy, then you're not gonna go on it.
Reason enough to move it away, isn't it? Uh drawdown, flexibility, honestly, with pension freedoms and you know all the options, monthly off plus. ad hoc lump sums, tax free, all that s you know, tax free cash, all that sort of stuff. Um not all providers offer all those. So check whether they do or not.
And not all pension providers offer drawdown at all.
No.
They've not accepted the plans. Did despite the fact the government say you can access them flexibly. They don't even provide it.
Often the old providers.
They just open.
The system's needed'cause obviously they've they've got to talk to HMRC and all that sort of stuff.
But yeah, that's on what Pete said about um you know using the platform, but it's actually the customer service behind the scenes as well. If you're if you're a problem with whether it's online your uh uh web chat or whether it's picking up the phone to someone, you need to be able to Do what you need to do with the platform to begin with.
Yeah, e exactly. And if there's any issue you you know, you might want to talk to a human. I know on some of these apps there's no people, you know, you're talking to an AI bot and you're I just want to talk to a human and then you you know trying to
get through to somebody is very difficult. Um, you know, maybe some tools around retirement, uh, modelling perhaps or whatever. Um death benefits, I think also. Yeah, most these days that'd be fairly straightforward, but you mentioned about The um return that I think you mentioned last week. R you know, return of uh contributions for
Uh yeah, it's it's it's it's it it really shocks you when you when you come across these things'cause they're it's a really uh I think it's probably from the eighties. Yeah. This plan. Um and lit literally the the client was talking about retiring, uh selling the business he had, and one of these things was a pension worth I think it's eighty, eighty five thousand pounds. So it's only a small part of his retirement planning.
But when we looked into it it's a case of saying, Well actually if you die before we're taking your benefits your wife,'cause he was married at the time, will receive return of premiums plus some interest. And he paid in something like two and a half thousand pounds over the term and it's worth eight or ninety thousand pounds. We need to move this if you're worried about dying. Yeah.
Because it's you know, it is still a substantial amount of money that you you instead of getting eighty thousand pounds, your your wife will get you know four four thousand pounds.
Yeah, this well that's the reason enough to move it. Um so assess the quality and your experience with each provider or platform. Does it offer what you want it to do? Really, really important. And then number five is
¶ DO - Decide what level of simplicity you actually want
Decide on what level of simplicity you are happy with. What do you actually want out of this? Are you comfortable? with a single platform. Are you comfortable with a single platform for everything? Or would you want two platforms? If so, how would you want to split it? Just think about this stuff.
Mm. And and is it do do you want to just consolidate your pensions or do you want actually all my finances consolidated? Um as as Pete said at the end of last week's episode Okay is okay. Yeah. If it's if good good enough is good enough, you know. It's um there's there's no need to go to the nth degree in this and and make yourself uncomfortable.
No, definitely not. This is all about. Finding a level that's that that you're happy with. Um
¶ DO - Understand transfer mechanics
Then number six, understand the mechanics of transfer. Let's say you've you've you've determined that you're gonna shift some or all of your money onto one or two or more platforms. You need to understand the mechanics of tidying up. And the main one that we come across all the time is the option to transfer in specie or in cash. Do you want to explain the difference?
Right. So this this comes where you've got a a a number of investments, one, two, three, ten investments on an existing platform and you want to change'cause you're you've consolidated everything onto one other platform. you can tell your existing prov you can request that you're a new provider
asks for the existing funds to be transferred as they are in specie. So literally they get re registered from one platform to the second platform. So you're not you're not out of the market at all. So the actual fund gets transferred across no out of market worries. The alternative to that is say, okay, I want to liquidate all those, I'll have an center crossing cash, and I'll rebuy when they get to the far side, either the same funds or different ones.
You're out of the market if you do that, which obviously is a toss of a coin. You might be out of the market when it goes down, in which case you'll be able to buy back in more cheaply, which is great. Or the reverse might be true. You might be out of the market and you know it's gone up and you've missed out on some growth. R really in the grand scheme of a multi decade retirement.
that probably won't matter that much. All right. So uh in species transfers l generally take a lot longer. They can take months sometimes, whereas cash transfers generally happen much more quickly. I mean you're you were telling me before we hit record actually that you uh because you're in the middle of transferring pensions at the minute. I see. And you had a Oh. Had a brilliant experience with I.
Yeah, w with I again. No, it's not a plug fry, it's not a plug for I it just happens to be the one I've got experience of at the minute. Um and I thought I would just transfer my ISO across to where my pension is. So I'm consolidating in a in a way. Um only because they give me some cash back as well. Oh okay. Bring your ISO cross to give you some cash back. Uh
I'm I'm a I'm human. I want some more cash. Yeah, yeah. Um easily bought. Uh I said, well let's do it in in in in specie. Let's just transfer them all across in species. There's not there's not loads of them and there's not a massive value. Um bring them across a species.
I believe that listeners.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, and amazingly, twenty four hours later I had an email from I I saying we've looked at the funds you've got by contacting your resisting provider and got the information that quickly. Um, and these following funds I g I guess got something like a a dozen funds in the in the in the in the platform. Uh these ten we haven't got on our platform.
Mm-hmm.
Okay. So oh darn. But actually here are our recommendations to alternatives. And there may just be different classes of the same fund at the end of the day. But that was great. But even Um, then they could say, Well, there's two weekend transfers, so you'd need to contact the existing provider and get that as a cash transfer. Or you can do the whole cash transfer if you want to.
Isn't it good though that they You know, took the sort of initiative to contact your existing provider and suggest alternatives.
Yeah, really.
Above and beyond that. That's really good. It's just like no, we can't do that. Computer says no. Yeah. And you've got to work out what to do. So
And amazingly what they did say is you can either contact your existing provider and get them to liquidate the cash if you want to, or you could authorize us to contact them to tell them to do it. so it's like wow that is
Oh yes, really, really, really good. Again, other platforms are available, but they're having good experience with I currently. So, you know, cash versus in species transfer. I mean at Jackson's we would always choose to move in species if we can.
so that a client's not out of the market. It does take longer, but it in a sense it doesn't really matter because they're out of the market. Um they're they're in the market. So, you know, don't they're not gonna miss out. They're not gonna be out of the market for months. Um
So be aware of that and time out of the market and how important that is to you and sort of timelines and how it all works. And understand what sort of paperwork is needed. Of course a lot of it's not paper these days, it's all done online. Transfers are easier than they've ever been.
There's sort of messaging and uh protocols and standards between all providers now so that they can send money in the same way. We had we had one done recently where I kid you not, the money moved in forty eight hours.
Wow.
And you know, it's like both providers, both the seeding provider and the new provider, were on the same kind of system. And it's just like to talk to each other and the money was not only had it moved, it settled. Properly on the new provider in 48 hours. It was amazing. So understand the mechanics of transfer. We've got three more things and what you need to do. And the next one is number seven.
¶ DO - Be deliberate about investment strategy AFTER consolidation
Be deliberate about the investment strategy after consolidation.
Yep.
'Cause it's the the actual consolidation itself isn't necessarily optimally uh automatically optimizing what you've got. Yeah, ha having done that, you're doing it for a reason, make sure you still do it afterwards.
What you don't want to do is end up with like twelve versions of the same global fund. I feel like the investment tidy up is like it's a separate thing to the platform and the provider tidy up. You know, so y what you don't want to end up is With a lot of different risk levels, just like a mishmash of investments. You've got to think, right, okay, I've got all my money in one place now.
How do I now invest it? And of course we talk a lot about the cash flow ladder and withdrawal strategies and stuff like that. And so be aware of that. It's a separate step. Don't It's not like once you've consolidated, it's not our job done.
halfway through the process really, it's never okay, I'm gonna use this as a reset opportunity. Let's look at what we've got now and f no, having decided about do doing the consolidation, right, let's get down to brass tacks, exactly what I wanted this to do for me and let make sure I put it in place.
Yep, good shout. Don't leave the investment a bit you know I've done all my consolidation. I've had enough now. Yeah, there is another step which is to make sure your investment strategy is right. Um number eight.
¶ DO - Update beneficiaries and records
Make sure, particularly with pensions, you update your beneficiaries and expressions of wishes. So you know with pensions, uh what happens to it after you die is subject to the the whims of the trustees of the pensions. It's your instructions to them are not binding. But there will be uh an expression of wish or nomination of beneficiaries form. Make sure that that's done,'cause you might have done that in your old provider, but not in your new provider. So e easily gets left.
So make sure that you do that. It's another thing to make sure you check off.
And one thing which I thought would come naturally is is to make sure you c keep your spouse or your partner aware of what you're doing. Yeah. Because you may have spoken for ages about oh, this is where my ISA is. Rydyn ni'n ei wneud. Rydyn ni'n ei wneud. Rydyn ni'n ei wneud. He or she told me it was over there and it's no longer there.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Update your when I die file because you know it's easy it's again it's another thing it's easy to forget. Like I've been through the rigmarole of consolidating and yeah, your spouse or partner doesn't know that you've moved it. Make sure your documentation is updated. If you have logins or whatever, make sure that your spouse or your executors are you know know how to get to that. Plan the legacy part of all this. Consolidate platforms.
Get your investments straight. And then it's the sort of basic paperwork and admin, expression of wishes, knowing where everything is, making sure your executors know where it is. And it's all written down properly. Yeah, don't worry. Um I feel like this is might sort of
¶ DO - Decide YOUR threshold for "tidy enough"
This is a sort of threshold thing. I I I kind of wanted to sort of end on this. Um because even if we tidy It complexity can sneak in, right? Um, it's easy to see an advert for like, Oh, it's a really good rate for an ICER over here. I'll I'll some new money in that, right? And the complexity starts to screw to creep back in. Um I think it's important to understand that perfection doesn't exist. And we need to kind of understand what our threshold is for sort of tidying off.
d don't sort of relentlessly pursue perfection. You can be continually meddling It just takes up too much mental energy and uh applies too much cognitive load. Remember what we're after here. Clarity. confidence and ease of management. That's what the purpose of consolidation is. The whole point of this is really to reduce anxiety. Not not become a project in itself.
Or a recurring project that you have to redo every now and again because you keep it's it's like you know, it's like paying off a credit card and then not closing it.
Yeah.
Yeah, you've got a balance on that credit card again then.
Yeah. It's like like everything it's you know, if you've got a financial advisor, they're there to do the job for you. But the the the reason that financial advisors don't uh balance every day re or re rebalance your portfolio every day is just'cause it's it's
is an anxiety for the for them, but there's it's so much work involved that doesn't get you anywhere ultimately. Yeah. It needs to be a specific day in the future. So don't look at this as going, All right, I've done that now. I need to fiddle with this. Yeah. You know, you've done it. Take your hands off, let it do its job. Yep.
Got an interesting conversation with a very long standing member of uh of the community, uh a friend called Matt. um, who's done a lot of work'cause he's a real zealot and really gets his stuff. He's done a lot of work on rebalancing and uh sort of when to do it and also uh withdrawal rates and all that. So I've got a conversation with him which I'm gonna record. for the podcast this uh in a few weeks. I think it'll come out in June or July. But yeah, it's r really interesting stuff. So look um
¶ Summary of DO
We've like cut where we were thirty minutes in um today nearly. Wow. Um fifty minutes last week. So, you know, it would have been a very long uh episode. But I think what we're c sort of coming down to is that this is a v a uniquely personal and subjective thing. You've gotta be comfortable. uh a a you gotta find a level of simplicity which is um comfortable for you.
So we would say I'm gonna sort of summarise this with like a conflicting sort of couplet here. You should simplify aggressively where complexity adds no value. But you should preserve complexity where it gives you meaningful benefits. Right? So sometimes complexity has benefits. And where that's the case, you should look to preserve it. Don't oversimplify to the degree that it uh is detrimental to your financial uh situation. For most of us though, the right answer is usually
Yeah, yeah. Fewer accounts, a clearer structure so you can keep it easily in your mind, uh and better oversight of everything you've got. So you can have a quick a quick quick view of it, say, Okay, is it doing what it needs to do? But the as as Pete said, it needs to be
individual to you. You know, what what you find is complex, somebody else will find easy. Yeah. So as long as you get to the point when you are happy with it and you can you protect those meaningful benefits that you can't do without, it does the job.
It does. Yeah. Fewer accounts, clearer structure, better oversight. That's what we're after. Not just blindly merging anything. One of Andrew's points in his original question that triggered all this was conventional wisdom seems to be to consolidate everything as much as possible.
No, blind merging consolidation oversimplification. That's not intentional. That's not how we do things that mean for money. Um that's not how you need to do things. You need to go in with your eyes open and follow the steps. Remember there is a downloadable sort of guide to all this.
at the show notes, meaningfulmoney.tv slash session six two four. Um it'll cost you your email address, but I promise never to spam you. Okay. But it's a really useful guide that will help you think through and walk through this stuff. So that's two episodes on simplification. Rog, what are we going to be talking about next time?
I th I think we'll drop back to a QA next time, I think.
Yeah, they're easier.
Well actually I'd I'd I'd just like to thank Andrew for raising that initial question because it's thrown out this two episode behemoth of a of a of a of a of a podcast. Um but actually it's been really good doing it and it and if it and if it produces a guide for you as well, you know, do what's right for you. Try to simplify as much as you can but without going overboard. Yeah. Well done Andrew.
Well, Andrew, thank you for that. And that's it though for this session. So again, show notes, meaningful money dot TV slash session six two four. Downloadable guide is there. Hope you enjoyed this one and last one. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you, Rog.
Tired now.
Yeah, me too.
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