Podcast appearances and mentions of pete matthew

In this Meaningful Money Q&A episode, Pete Matthew and Roger Weeks answer six listener questions on UK personal finance - from gifting money to children using the 'normal expenditure out of income' rules to whether ISA withdrawals can support one-off big spends. They also cover pension consolidation and FSCS protection, investing while living abroad, how DB pension accrual affects SIPP annual allowance, and how to bridge the gap to State Pension without over-relying on AVCs. Finally, they tackle the practical steps to opening a Stocks and Shares ISA - and how to get started with confidence. Practical, jargon-free guidance for UK savers and investors navigating pensions, ISAs, tax and retirement planning. Shownotes: https://meaningfulmoney.tv/QA53  02:35  Question 1 Hi Pete and Roger, I have followed meaningful money for around 6 years now and it has been an invaluable source of sensible advice which I have followed. This has left my wife and I in a very good situation for retirement as you will see below. You deserve an MBE at least!. Love the double act with Roger as well. I am 62 and my wife is 60 years young. Our total pensions will be around 35K a year which is all we need for our basic living cost and general going out etc. We have a house worth £750K with no mortgage and no debts. I have a DC pension around £920K and my wife around £650K and our two boys have just moved out of our house and so we are now retiring and relearning life B.C. (Before Children). I have begun looking into gifting them money out of excess income. I like the idea of giving with warm hands - and strangely so do my boys! Putting our scenario into google gemini, using UFPLS with regular drawdowns and keeping within the current 20% tax band we could each have around 50K income after tax over the next 30 years. Really cannot see us spending more than 40K/year travelling and this will certainly reduce in time as we get older and so will give the increasing excess to our kids. To keep HMRC documentation simple (hmm) we plan to use our joint account to give gifts to the boys but I am guessing that we will need to prove to HMRC that we have equal income to do this? So my wife will take 8.5K less from her DC pension than I from mine. I hope this all makes sense. I presume if our incomes were not balanced we would have to pay out from our individual accounts and document both for HMRC purposes? In addition I have 200K and my wife around £150K in ISAs and savings . I know we can each gift 3000/year from the ISA as well as using excess income from our pension. Again, I asked google gemini about this and apparently I can use the ISA for certain capital payments. Eg a) to buy a new car b) redo bathroom/bedroom c) a large holiday  Not sure what would be the position if we said our largest holiday each year is paid from an ISA and any other holidays are from our pension income and we still gift excess to the kids? - seems a very grey area. I am sure in time HMRC will look closer into this area. So I think it will be sensible to still use the ISA in the next few years and not take everything from the pension and possibly change to funds from accumulation to income as well? One last thought as all this is based on the current tax rates. The IHT rate NRB has not changed since 2009 and would be worth around £530K today and I am presuming there will be increasing pressure to raise this given house price growth and especially after 2027 when pensions are included in the estate for IHT? Best Regards, Bill   09:37  Question 2 Dear Pete and Roger, I can't thank you enough for the excellent free content you put out into the world. I recently got diagnosed with a degenerative condition which will affect me and my family down the line. Your podcast has inspired me to take control of my finances including putting the right protections (insurances) in place and using investing to help navigate a more uncertain future - THANK YOU! The information is accessible and you guys make me chuckle as I go about my day! My question... I am keen to make my life easy when it comes to managing my finances but I have hit a wrinkle in my plan. My preference would be to consolidate my pension into as few pension accounts and underlying funds as possible.  To me the levels of protection available through the FSCS seem too low to be compatible with keeping a pension all with one provider. Am I missing something? How do you think about balancing this risk, without ending up with lots of pension accounts with different providers? Additionally, I have been selecting the same low cost All-World tracker ETF across my family's ISAs and SIPPs, is this inherently risky too and should I aim to use different fund providers (perhaps that aim to achieve the same investment objective). Anyway, I may be being overcautious here or be misunderstanding the level risk but any reassurance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you again Andy   18:24  Question 3 Hi Roger and Pete, I'm 32 and I've been listening the podcast for a few years and the advice (particularly about investing) has helped me immensely. I have a question about investment portfolios when moving abroad. I moved away from the UK 2.5 years ago, at which point I stopped investing into Vanguard and moved to Interactive Brokers. I still have a decent amount invested in Vanguard, but I'm not sure whether it makes sense to consolidate everything into one platform or keep it split over two. I don't have any immediate plans to return to the UK, although I imagine I will eventually. Do you think it makes any difference in how the investments are split, or am I worrying about nothing? Thanks for sharing any of your *thoughts* and perhaps clearing this up for me. Keep up the amazing podcast, Michael (originally from Cornwall!)   21:23 Question 4 Hi Pete and Roger I recently discovered your podcast and am working my way though the back catalogue! I am finding it extremely informative and it is helping me demystify a subject I have found confusing for a long time, so thank you. My question is how do I calculate the amount I can contribute annually to my SIPP whilst also contributing to a DB pension and AVCs (£200/month)? My annual gross salary is £25744. I opened the SIPP to give me flexibility to retire earlier than 67 when I intend to access my DB pensions (as well as my current local government DB pension I have a deferred University DB pension from previous employment), ideally between 60-62, and access the SIPP along with my S&S ISA to bridge the gap. Thanks, Melanie   27:28 Question 5 Hello Pete & Roger, I'm a long time listener and as a result in far better financial shape than I was for many years, thank you. In work I am often akin to the Shawshank Redemption character Andy Dufresne as I find myself offering financial or pension scheme advice to colleagues. This advice ends with recommending your good selves and the knowledge repository that is the Meaningful Money archive and books! I am 56 and just over 4 years from my planned early retirement at 61,  when I will have 36 years contributing into a company DB pension. I plan on taking this in a stepped format (with PCLS) to offer a higher initial payment until my state pension starts 6 years later at 67. To maintain basic rate income tax, I am paying my maximum matched pension contributions plus AVC's through salary sacrifice (until 2029) to keep just under the 40% tax limits. My wife will be solely reliant on her (full) State Pension having not contributed to a personal pension, she will receive this when I am 64, meaning our combined funding danger zone will be around 3 years during which we may need funds to top up our income either from the PCLS pot or ISA savings to this final combined total, "our figure". So my question: You repeatedly talk about retiring with options such as having pensions, ISA's and savings etc. but I am concerned my pension and AVC fund will be totally concentrated with little else. After maximising the pension and AVC contributions it looks likely I will not contribute enough to fund a savings pot that could comfortably cover the 3 year danger zone. Will this pension / AVC concentration matter? Should I continue paying the AVC's to avoid higher rate tax on my income and recovering tax rebate into the AVC pot? To me this makes sense, but would funding a savings pot give us flexibility to fund our pension gap somehow that I am missing, and do I need to target an ISA or other savings pot in my remaining working years. This prospect would feel like not living for today, but retirement is in touching distance so might it be worthwhile? Many thanks & best regards, Tim   34:52  Question 6 To the Bruce Springsteen and Little Steven of the financial world! Hi guys my name is Cam, I'd just like to say you guys are absolutely fantastic at what you do, the knowledge you provide is genuinely incredible and immensely helpful. I think I speak for all your listeners when I say without your podcast there would be a lot of people struggling with personal finance! Keep up the good work Pete and Rog! I am 27 years old, 17 months ago I quit my 9-5 and started my own dog walking business, I have since trained to become a dog trainer too. My business has gone from strength to strength and I'm very proud. However the change from going from a wage structure to a varied income per month has been a tough adjustment especially when saving and wanting to invest and so on. I contribute to my pension each month, I pay into a LISA each month (for a first time home) the only thing I don't do is pay into a stocks and shares ISA. Firstly how do I open one? I have listened to your podcast for well over 2 years now and have listened to the majority of the back catalogue, I feel like I know what to do but it's a genuine fear that's stopping me from opening one. I don't know how to explain it - it's almost like my head is telling me 'don't open one you'll mess it up.' Is it literally as simple as sign up to a provider, open an account, add money in each month? I feel stupid saying I'm fearful of opening one but I genuinely am! The last part of my question is simply is there anything else I should be doing that I'm currently not?  Insurance wise I have income protection and the necessary insurances for my business. Thanks once again you absolute legends! Cam Boring Money ISA Comparison: https://www.boringmoney.co.uk/compare/stocks-and-shares-isas/ 

Nicholas Dickinson bought his first significant Bitcoin stack on the all-time high. Three months later he was 40% underwater. He didn't panic. He read more books and bought more.Nicholas is a hotelier with 40 years in the industry — currently running a 50-acre country house hotel in Norfolk. He's also one of the newest, and arguably fastest-moving, members of the Bitcoin Business Network. In just nine months he's thinking in Bitcoin, buying at what the power law tells him is a 50% discount, and working out how to bring Bitcoin into a 40-year hospitality business without losing his board.

In this UK personal finance Q&A episode, Pete Matthew and Roger Weeks answer six listener questions covering pensions, retirement planning, investing, and mortgages. You will hear practical guidance on topics like using UFPLS and ISAs for gifting, whether dividend income is a sensible retirement strategy, and what to consider before consolidating multiple pensions into one provider. The episode also tackles planning priorities, including how to sense-check your annual financial review, when it is worth switching to a higher-equity pension fund, and how to balance pension contributions versus ISA funding and mortgage overpayments. If you are looking for clear, jargon-free retirement and wealth-building advice in a UK context, this one is packed with real-world considerations and next-step thinking. Shownotes: https://meaningfulmoney.tv/QA50    02:24  Question 1 Hello gents, My wife and I are hopefully about 5 years off retirement starting at 60, and thinking about options for gifting. We are both planning to stay within the basic band, but if plans go well we hope to support our kids while we're still alive with help towards a house deposit or similar. Am wary that a large withdrawal from a DC pot would likely take us into high rate tax. This would be mainly on me as we'd plan to spend my wifes smaller DC pot down during 60-67 to max personal allowance before state pension kicks in. Is there any downside if I immediately draw UFPLS from my DC up to the top of the basic rate threshold, and putting excess into a cash or S&S ISA? That would then build up tax free and be used to fund family gifts (or perhaps replacing a car). my thinking is - the portion we move to ISA is still effectively part of the retirement portfolio - just held in a different wrapper. thanks for your priceless information (for education and information only not guidance!) over the years. long may it continue! cheers, Richard   07:15  Question 2 Hello Pete and Rog, Loving the Podcast having only found it recently.  You're doing great work. I've bought and read your retirement book, signed-up for an intro call with Pete and am thinking about doing your course. In the meantime, and I know this is greedy, I have three questions.  I think they'll be interesting to your listeners, though, so here we go... First, what are your thoughts on funding retirement income completely or mostly from dividends / coupon payments, rather than capital withdrawal?  For me it seems very attractive because I can draw-down the income on a quarterly basis while not touching the capital.  That makes me feel safer from having to sell in a down-market.  I can also expect the capital to grow a bit over time, at least the equity generating dividend element.  That said, I've seen one of the other retirement finance podcasters say that technically it doesn't matter whether you take income or capital. Second, if I adopt an UFPLS approach to my pension and, rather than take a large tax free sum one-off, I take the 25% of each withdrawal as tax free, how does that work in the future in two respects.  First, can the government later change the rules and say that I can no longer take 25% as tax free?  I assume they can, which would be worrying.  Second, does the lifetime £268k limit for tax free cash still apply cumulatively over-time i.e. can I only continue to take 25% of my withdrawals as tax free up until they cumulatively sum to £268k?  Or, am I allowed to take 25% of each withdrawal, even as the fund might grow in value and then the total of these 25%s over say 10-15 years eventually exceeds £268k? Third, I'm aware the age at which you can take your pension is changing from 55 to 57.  I will be 55 in March 2027, so can access my pension under current rules.  But I will not be 57 when the change kicks-in in April 2028, so am I going to then lose access to my pension for a number of months until I then turn 57 in Mar 2029?  I've heard someone say that there might be an exception for people who have already accessed their pension.  I've also heard it depends on whether there are certain protections/terms around the individual pension fund.  Any advice on whether this would be true would be very helpful. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on any or all of the above. Best of luck with the pod. cheers, Steve 14:52  Question 3 Hi Pete & Roger, Thanks for the advice (go on, name that film) over 2025 and the podcasts. There is a ton of material on you tube covering why pension consolidation is a good thing. How it simplifies the admin. How it makes it easier to track what you have and how it is performing etc. Why wouldn't I want to consolidate all my pensions and what could be the disadvantages of consolidation? Recently I've met with my IFA and for a year now I have been investing heavily into my SIPP. As the IFA he charges for the service he provides and I am happy with that (for now). The charges are low with this provider (Quilter) and it performs well as a medium risk opportunity. My IFA, rightly in my opinion, suggests avoiding keeping my Octopus (previously Virgin) pension as this doesn't offer flexi drawdown and is higher risk than my Quilter SIPP but with only slightly better performance. I have four pensions (SIPP) in total. Now my IFA would of course benefit from me moving all funds to Quilter as he receives a percentage fee on a larger chunk of funds. So that is a warning sign for me as he cannot really be impartial. At the moment I can track my pensions online and I do this almost daily, they all have the relatively same performance and together average about 9.6% over the past 12 months. They are all broadly within a single percentage point of each other. I can see the following arguments to avoid consolidation altogether. 1. Tracking multiple pension funds is not actually hard to do. 2. Maybe when it comes to flexi access draw down it gets a bit more complex to get the tax free elements right to be as tax efficient over the long term but the pension companies track the percentages taken so I cannot see this as a big problem either. 3. Having multiple SIPPS allows me see how they perform against each other. Sometimes one is a little more volatile than the others but in actual fact I'd like to see more volatility on one over the other. Makes things more interesting. Of course that might change in later life so I may choose to draw more heavily on the well performing fund with more risk as I reach later life years. 4. Multiple SIPPS allow me to have funds with different levels of risk associated with the investments, so I might choose one fund to have medium risk and another quite high.  5. The big one for me though. Why, why, why would anyone trust a single SIPP provider with all their future wealth? No matter how well it is managed today and the regulations which are in place and the FSCS protection etc, I just cannot stomach the risk in a single point of failure. Why? So the IT platform could collapse making the funds inaccessible either for a short time or for months. Rogue actors inside or outside the company could arguably sabotage the platform. Yes this is highly unlikely but it can happen. Spreading the risk mitigates this. There is a very real concern. Poor management of the funds could lead to a serious downturn in the investments whether that be short term or longer term. Now the underlying funds might underperform but if that is your key worry then you'd simply change the SIPP investments. When I research reviews on the web for anything I look for the pros and cons and decide which opinions seem most sensible to reach a balanced view. However in the case of pension consolidation everyone seems to recommending consolidation, not one article about keeping them separate. Yippee cay aye (same film) and best regards, Andrew   25:05 Question 4 Hi Pete and Roger, Love the podcast. I have just completed my annual review (thanks for the checklist from earlier seasons) and was wondering if you can suggest if there is anything else I should consider or am missing to help position me better financially. For context I am 37 and married with two children under 5. Pension - I contribute to my workplace pension which is 4% and the company contributes 8% (their max). S&S ISA - I invest 5% of take home pay into two vanguard funds monthly. Children S&S ISA - I invest a small sum monthly into each child's S&S ISA, both vanguard target retirement funds for when they turn 21. Emergency Fund - I have 4 months expenses in a cash isa. Life cover - I have a private policy and 8x salary death in service benefit. Critical illness cover - I have both a private and work policy. Income protection cover - Again I have both a private and work policy, work policy is limited to 36months and private policy is to age 65. Mortgage over payments - I overpay the mortgage monthly with aim of reducing LTV and length of term when current fixed rate ends Debt - I have no major debt I think I am in a good position, but wanted to sense check in case I am missing something. Thanks and keep up the good work. Marc Annual Review: https://meaningfulmoney.tv/2023/03/01/simplify-your-annual-review/  28:22 Question 5 Hello to you both, I just wanted to say I really enjoy your podcast and your YouTube channel. My question relates to my Workplace pension. I want to move from the default lifestyled fund into a 100% global equity fund. I also have a SIPP and an ISA that are fully invested in the same global equity fund and I wanted to bring them all into line. I have a salary sacrifice scheme with a 5% employer match and I wanted to take full advantage of that by paying into a better fund. I can't fully transfer without losing the match so I have left it for too long. I am debt free including the mortgage and I have redirected my mortgage payment into my SIPP. My question is, at 47 3/4, is it too late to switch from the default fund? I'd welcome your take on that. Keep up the good work Kind regards, Matt   31:02  Question 6 Hello Pete and Roger, Really enjoy your podcast and find your advice really insightful, many thanks for what you do. My question is about pension planning and specifically about getting the balance right between pension contributions, ISAs and reducing my mortgage. I'm 46 and have saved from an early working age to build up a total pension pot amount of £510k as of today. I have prioritised my pension over other kinds of investments given the tax related attractiveness of pensions and use salary sacrifice as a way of keeping under £100k income - something important for us as a family in terms of qualifying for child nursery support, plus of course in maintaining my personal allowance. I find my job quite stressful and would like to be able to retire in 10 years at 57, or at least take on a lower paid (maybe even minimum wage) or part time role at that time for a few years until retiring fully. My assumption is that to be able to make this a reality it would be wise to build up my ISA, (which as of today totals only £15k), as a tax efficient bridge until nearer state pension age, and to minimise the need to drawdown excessively on my private pension in the early years. Assuming you concur, my question is would I be best to reduce my pension contributions to enable me to put more in my ISA?  Of course this would mean potentially losing/ reducing my personal allowance. The other factor in play here is my mortgage which is higher than I'd like at £380k. Ideally I'd like to increase my level of mortgage overpayments significantly in order to try to reduce the balance as much as possible over the next decade whilst working full time but again this will see me going over the £100k income level in order to do so.  I know I could probably clear whatever mortgage is remaining in 10 years from my tax-free pension amount but I'd like to minimise taking the tax free money in order to help the pot compound as much as possible to take me through to old age but also help support our two girls who are currently just 8 and 3 in their early lives. Your thoughts and advice would be gratefully received. Many thanks in advance and please do keep up the great work you do! Kind regards, Lee

In this episode of the Meaningful Money Podcast Q&A, Pete Matthew and Roger Weeks answer six real listener questions on UK personal finance - from inheriting a SIPP (and the under-75 vs over-75 rules), to how inheritance tax could hit a property-heavy estate. They also discuss what to do with a large Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP) holding, whether a longer 35-year mortgage can be a safer option, and the realities of financial planning for UK expats. Finally, they tackle a growing concern for many UK investors - how to protect wealth from increasingly sophisticated scams and impersonation fraud. Shownotes: https://meaningfulmoney.tv/QA49  02:04  Question 1 Hello Pete & Rog. Thanks for the wonderful podcast I will keep it as brief as possible as it means hopefully you can squeeze more content for your listeners. I am a 35 yr old renting in London with a salary of approximately 35k and would consider buying my own place if I could build up enough of a deposit. My mum died a long time ago but my dad has just been informed that he has a medical condition which will probably end his life in the next 5 years or so. He is currently 73. I don't have any siblings and my dad has shared with me the details of his assets which primarily comprise of a SIPP of around 200k (he has taken and spent his 25% tax free amount). My question may sound a bit morbid but it reflects the reality of life unfortunately. It's about the rules of inheriting this SIPP. I'm not sure I fully understand the 'rules' about if my dad passes away before 75 or after he is 75. My understanding is that if less than 75 I can just 'cash in' the 200k tax-free and for example use it as a deposit for a house. That seems straightforward. But hopefully he will get well past his 75th, so if that's the case I understand the 200k would be taxed as income, so I would be crazy to take it all out in that way. So what would be my options in that case? - Is there any way to take it out of the pension wrapper without having to pay tax to give a bit more flexibility? - could I just inherit it as a pension and if so, would I still be able to take 25% tax free? - can I draw down from before I reach pension age e.g. to pay the mortgage or rent (mindful not to go up into the next tax bracket)? Have I got the rules right and are there any other options I could consider? Regards, Steve   07:08  Question 2 Hi Pete & Roger Love the content and just discovered your YouTube podcast! I'm concerned about my wife parents (Mid 70s) inheritance tax liability and was wondering if you had any advice on how to structure the portfolio to reduce it or if it was worth considering a gifting strategy. Primarily I'm concerned as the recent inclusion of pensions into IHT from 2027 and I'm pretty sure their estate is over 2m and therefore a reduced residence nil rate. Rough figures are below: Current house - 1.1m (according to Rightmove - jointly owned) Own another house 800k (according to Rightmove - jointly owned) Own a holiday letting business (retirement business) which has three properties circa 1.1m (according to Rightmove - jointly owned) With this in mind I put their IHT liability at 2m+ without factoring their pensions Questions What do you consider the ball park IHT bill to be? How do you suggest my wife (mid 30s) approach this issue? Or should she just deal with the cards as they lie in the future? Tony   14:05  Question 3 Hi Pete & Roger, I wanted to start with a thank you for your podcast - specially for acting as the friendly, inclusive and relatable voices of finance. The podcast is a welcome change to the scarier world of finance which many of us sometimes run and hide from! My question for you is regarding my ESPP. I was employed by a US-based company around 10 years ago. During my time there I was able to sacrifice a percentage of my salary which was put towards the purchase of company shares at a discounted rate. It's a very effective scheme, and although my salary there was modest, I've been able to leave the shares alone which are now worth around £230k. The predicament I now have is what to do with these shares. I've been happy to let the shares sit and grow, which they have been doing extremely well, though the value of them now has me wondering what my future strategy should be. For reference, the 10 year growth on these shares is around 850%. As far as I'm aware, I'll need to pay tax on these shares when it comes to selling them as there's no way to transfer them into my stocks & shares ISA or similar. So it's either leave them where they are, or sell some/all of them now and transfer the cash (after tax) into my stocks & shares ISA, SIPP or elsewhere. I'm 40 and looking to purchase a house next year with my partner - though we don't need these funds for that purchase. I have a stocks & shares ISA, a cash ISA and a SIPP, as well as a modest amount in a LISA and cash savings. Whilst I don't feel like I have all of my eggs in one basket, I do feel increasingly nervous about the value of the shares which are entirely dependant on the success of one company. That said, the returns to date have been incredible and I wouldn't want to miss out on future growth. I'd love to know if you have any guidance on this, and if there's any factors that I haven't considered yet. Thanks again, Ian   20:36 Question 4 Hi Guys, Love your podcasts. You've helped me a lot with understanding my finances and I'd love to ask a question. My wife and I are 36 and have been back in the UK for 3 years. We are hoping to buy our first property in 2026. Due to our age, is it okay and safer to do a 35 year mortgage and pay more off monthly to pay the mortgage off quicker? We aren't high earners but hoping to put any extra onto the mortgage principle. Hope to hear from you. Kind Regards, Dhiren   23:49 Question 5 Dear Pete and Roger Thanks a lot for all the education and sensible insights you are providing to all I am an avid listener of your podcasts and  watch your videos regularly.  Now I can see Roger as well.  Both very handsome and knowledgeable. Your discussions are lively and interesting. I am also a member of the academy from the beginning. Also on Facebook community. Currently working my way through retirement guide. I am working abroad for nearly 8 years. I was told by a financial planner that he can't advise non UK tax payers as per regulations. Since then you have been my main source of information and guidance. I am an Ex NHS consultant and now receiving pension. I have a very small SIPP and substantial Investment ISA which I can not contribute to. So my main investment is through GIA. All via Vanguard. Apart from this I have stocks and shares account with a couple of providers which helps me to keep thinking about investment opportunities. I am not a big risk taker and currently doing well with my stocks. I read and listen to a variety of educational materials to help with this I have 2 questions. Is it possible to get financial planner help for UK citizens while working abroad? What should I do with my investments before coming back to UK to live, for tax planning and reduce risk of huge tax for selling investments after coming back? Currently I am in Middle East with zero percent income tax. My pension is also at zero percent under DTAA arrangements. Sorry for long question. Thanks a lot again for your suuuuuuuuuper work. Continue great job Kind regards, Sudhakar Link: Perceptive Planning https://www.perceptiveplanning.co.uk/world-citizens  28:37  Question 6 Hi Roger and Pete, Love the podcast. Thank you for everything. This is about to be a long question, for which I'm not at all sorry. I've seen articles and videos about the increased sophistication of hacks and scams. Things like stealthily getting access to accounts and for years collecting information that can then be used to impersonate you to socially engineer access to bank accounts. AI plays a part in letting people change how they sound to make impersonating on calls easier than ever. Going forward, I'm worried that one of the biggest threats to my wealth is not a market crash, but someone getting access to my investments through fraudulently calling support lines and impersonating me, or alternatively getting access to my money through 'traditional' password leaks and viruses. To this end, I've been overpaying my mortgage as a way of having money locked away in an asset that cannot be liquidated without a solicitor (and hopefully more stringent checks of identity), but I'm going to be mortgage-free in less than 5 years at this rate.  My question is: Am I overblowing the risk here, and what are my options if I want to reduce the my risk from this perspective? I have considered: - Having multiple S&S ISAs with different providers should mean that only a fragment of my portfolio can be lost through any one hack. - Buying 'real' estate as an investment seems appealing from a security standpoint, regardless of expected returns, and although recent changes have made BtL less attractive, the old Rothschild saying of "Buy when there's blood in the streets" could mean that now might be a good time to buy. Is there an advantage in having overseas property as a wealth storage mechanism? - Putting money in my DC pension pot will lock the money away until retirement, but suddenly becomes fair game to foul play once I do. - Buying an annuity is not as fiscally efficient as drawdown, but is an attractive way of mitigating risk of losing it all to a scam caller. Especially if I'm old and doddery and more likely to fall for a scam. - Buying physical gold (and a safe or a Swiss safety deposit box) doesn't appeal to me, but I have considered it. Please assume that I'm being sensible with passwords and 2FA. My question isn't about basic IT security practices, but which of these decisions you think might be a good/bad decision and whether there's anything I haven't considered. Thank you, Alex Link: Cal Newport - https://calnewport.com/    

Chris Budd is a former financial planner who believes we're building wealth in completely the wrong way. ❓Survey - how are you saving for your future? ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://makingmoney.email/survey⁠⁠

In this Meaningful Money Q&A episode (QA46), Pete Matthew and Roger Weeks answer six listener questions on the financial decisions many UK households are wrestling with right now. We cover bridging the gap to the State Pension with fixed-term annuities, strategies for staying under £100,000 adjusted net income (and avoiding the 60% tax trap), and how LGPS "CARE" pensions work including whether salary sacrifice can reduce student loan repayments. There's also practical guidance for self-employed listeners facing a tough year and needing to cut costs, plus how to think about funding private school fees without derailing long-term plans. Finally, we discuss how to decide whether to take the maximum tax-free lump sum from a defined benefit pension, including the trade-offs and how to model the impact. Shownotes: https://meaningfulmoney.tv/QA46  02:18  Question 1 Hi Pete & Roger, I am a long-time fan of your podcasts, and I often sneak off during the day for some peaceful R&R and listen to your latest release or even go back on old shows. My wife and I are in the fortunate position that we have both retired but still have a number of years before the state pension will commence (6 years / 2 years). Our long-term plan was to build up our private pensions so that we would have a comfortable retirement but also be able to leave our two children a reasonable inheritance which has meant we have been reluctant to dip into our DC pensions too early. With the proposed changes to IHT bringing in the unused pension pots on 2nd death into the estate and on current projection we have in excess of £1m in DC pensions which unfortunately are heavily weighted in my favour to 80/20 and we both have a DB scheme each (circa 5K) which have been activated. My questions relate to fixed term annuity. To bridge the gap between retirement and receiving the state pension for my wife circa 6 years, I was considering looking at one of these to cover sufficient income to take her up to the personal tax allowance limit bearing in mind the annual DB income. My dilemma is where or how best to fund this. Can we or do we use our personal savings? Do we use my wife's DC pension in part? Can I use my own DC pension, but any withdrawal would be subject to 20% tax rate so not a preference even if allowed? As part of my look into these fixed term annuities, there also seems to be an option to have guaranteed cash return at the end of term.  Is there any sense in considering this as it would require a bigger investment or withdrawal?  Would this cash also be tax free or would it be income and added to your existing income stream? It would seem to me that if I wanted to reduce the pension pot differential but ensuring the tax payable was only 20%, then I could either max my withdrawal requirement annually or consider the annuity route but this could be complicated with my state pension commencing 2027? Should I be hung up on the pension pot differential values between us and does the IHT rule of the couple's tax-free limit being £650,000 nil rate ignore where the money originates.  This pension pot differential must be quite common, do you have any other comment or suggestions that would be helpful. I, like many of your listeners enjoy your banter and how you impart knowledge to the wider audience for their better good – a big thank you for this. Best Regards Brett. Meaningful Academy Retirement Planning 11:04  Question 2 Hi Pete & Roger, I'm a big fan of the podcast — thanks for all the clear and practical advice you share each week. My base salary is about £76k, but with shift allowance and a car allowance my total package is closer to £90k. On top of that, I can earn overtime (which is unpredictable) and I also get a discretionary bonus of up to 20% of base salary. The challenge is that we don't find out the actual bonus figure until the end of March, but if we want to waive it into pension we have to decide in advance — so it's guesswork. Without any planning, the bonus can push my adjusted net income over £100k, which means I start to lose my personal allowance and fall into the so‑called "60% tax trap" between £100k and £125k. At the moment, I already have several salary sacrifices in place: – Pension, Holiday purchase, Share Incentive Plan (SIP). I'm now considering adding an electric vehicle through salary sacrifice, which would reduce my taxable pay by about £10.5k a year. That would keep my adjusted net income below £100k, but it obviously reduces my monthly take‑home. I'm 29, so I don't mind putting a bit extra into my pension for the long term, but I don't want to over‑commit too early and lose too much cash flow now. In the next year or so, my wife and I are also planning to have children — which adds another layer, because if my income goes over £100k we'd also lose access to childcare perks. I know there are worse problems to have, but I'd really like to maximise my take‑home pay without losing benefits and while staying as tax‑efficient as possible. So my question is: how should someone in my position — with variable overtime, an uncertain bonus, existing salary sacrifices, and family planning on the horizon — think about the £100k threshold, the 60% tax trap, and the personal allowance taper? And more broadly, how should PAYE employees balance lower monthly net pay against the tax efficiency, taper protection, and childcare benefit eligibility that salary sacrifice schemes can provide? Many thanks. Lewis. 19:48  Question 3 Hi Pete and Rog I'm 28 and my fiancé is 26 so we're at the early stages of building our empire. The knowledge and insight I've picked up from listening to you over the past 12 months has been a massive help, so thank you! My financial situation is fairly run of the mill: a  Salary Sacrifice DB pension with a 6% employer match, early days Stocks & Shares ISA, emergency fund etc. However my Fiancé works for our local council and has a DC pension titled "CARE". From what I can understand, this means every year she works, she builds up an amount, that yearly amount tracks inflation up to retirement, then at retirement all those revalued yearly amounts are added together to give her a guaranteed annual income for life. To my question! Firstly, is my understanding correct, or is there anything I'm missing? And secondly, is there a way of playing with her percentage pension contribution to lower the amount of student loan she has to pay back? Bonus question: I've just finished Q&A Ep31 and caught wind Pete had a beer - what's your tipple of choice? Always thankful for each episode and video you provide! Thanks, Tom   24:23 Question 4 Hi Pete and Rog Long time Facebook group, podcast and you tube fan, asking a question that I haven't heard answered yet. I am self employed, and have been for 12 years now. 2025 has been an unexpectedly difficult one in my industry with corporate customers cancelling projects and budget cuts, and individual clients feeling uncertainty. How can I make hard decisions about cutting back on my business and personal expenses, whilst also staying as positive as possible about the future? My turnover is down about 30%, with a knock on effect on my income. I've stopped investing in my pension as the business isn't making enough profit to do so, and am now looking at cutting back on business expenses like the subcontractors I book to work with me and marketing (which I've held off doing hoping income will recover). Meanwhile I took on many personal expenses that feel very hard to cancel like private health cover for my family, income protection insurance, gym membership, kids sports clubs and their  orthodontist treatments - all totalling £6-800 pounds per month. I'm not sure where to start! Thanks for considering my question. Best Wishes, Lara   31:40 Question 5 Dear Pete and Roger, Loving your podcast. I can honestly say listening to it has transformed my relationship with money and investing. My husband used to do all the money management alone and seems thrilled I've finally shown an interest... Short version: - She 39, he 44 - Her - late starter due to Uni and maternity - now profits of £60pa self emp - He has £50k pa accrued in DB scheme plus AVCs - maxing contributions - He sacrifices to stay below £100k - ISAs - they don't say how much As the children are approaching secondary age and with some SEND issues in the mix we are looking at all the options including fee-paying independent schools. Luckily with the age gaps we have we will only be paying for two kids at any one time and grandparents are stepping in for eldest. This is costly, but I think doable for us as we're quite frugal people anyway. I'm now working out how best to fund this. If we reduce our pension contributions we will lose huge amounts to tax and student loan deductions (in my case) - 62%/47% (him) and 51% (me) will be deducted and we'll lose the childcare funding for our toddler which will be a massive blow. Would it be mad/bad to release some equity from the house, enjoy this money now and pay this off with a pension lump sum when we can access it? I feel that it would be absolutely mad to retire with far more than we need, whilst our children missed out but also mad to miss out on the tax relief. I'm really interested in your thoughts and if there are other ideas? We have just a few years to prepare and ideally I'd like some flex or contingency in any plan. Could an offset mortgage be useful here? I could go full time but I don't want to miss out on raising the kids so this would be the last resort. It just feels like a cash flow issue that needs some planning for. HELP! Thank you for reading, fingers crossed I've got all the vernacular right and haven't caused any confusion. Take care and best wishes, Annie   36:58  Question 6 Hi Nick…Roger…and the other guy!  I'm an avid new listener having read and loved Pete's retirement book and binged on your podcasts. I'm loving what you do and how you do it, and have recommended you widely.  My question relates to how I judge the amount of tax free lump sum to take from a DB scheme. It feels wrong to convert inflation-protected DB pension into a lump sum, but I'm thinking of taking the maximum and wonder if I'm being foolish. I could take my £40k DB in 18 months or could reduce this to £26k for £190k lump sum with a commutation factor of 14. The spouses pension is maintained at 50% of the unreduced pension (ie £20k) even if I take a lump sum. Nice! My wife will also have a £6k DB at same retirement date. We will both receive max state pensions 2 years later. We also have SIPPS and some ISAs and I am confident that these non-DB funds will see us through to state pension age with good margin. My budget shows we will need up to £60k PA spend for very comfortable retirement. £40k PA to cover basics. If I didn't take a lump sum then we have £40k (DB) + £6k (wife DB) + £24k (SP) = £70k income. This works. But as I say, I actually think I should take a max £190k lump sum… This would mean £26k (DB) + £6k (wife DB) + £24k (SP) = £56k total index linked, which works out at £49k after tax.  The additional £11k PA will be easy to provide from the  invested lump sum. But the real reason to take the max lump sum is to manage the risk of me being first death. If/when that happens then my wife has £20k (spouse DB)+ £6k (her DB) + £12k (SP) = £38k index-linked income, or £33k after tax. I think she'll need to find £15-£20k PA from the invested lump sum to stay comfortable. This feels more borderline, especially as she has little natural affinity for investing and may be better buying an annuity.  It seems to me that I would be wise to take the full lump sum to best provide for my wife should I die first (statistically the most likely). This matters a lot to me. Is this reasonable thinking? Or is there a way of judging an in-between lump sum? With kind regards, Tim  

In this Meaningful Money Q&A episode, Pete Matthew and Roger Weeks answer six listener questions on UK personal finance, pensions and investing. We cover inheritance tax (IHT) and who actually pays it, a defined benefit pension "state pension deduction" before State Pension age, and whether salary sacrifice affects higher-rate tax relief. We also discuss whether global tracker funds are too concentrated in the US, how offshore investment bonds compare to a general investment account (GIA), and how IHT taper relief works for gifts and the nil-rate band. Shownotes: https://meaningfulmoney.tv/QA44  03:40  Question 1 Hi Pete and Roger, I have been really enjoying your podcast and have learned so much about finance, tax and investments that I did not know before. I enjoyed your episode on inheritance tax. I have a question regarding inheritance tax and what happens if beneficiaries are unable to afford to pay it. My parents are wealthy with three properties (mortgages all paid off) and a large private pension, my parents also had a limited company which they used to maximise their earnings by minimising tax. However, me and my brother are average in the financial sense, where we have "normal salaried jobs", as my father would say. We earn far less than him and hence have much less assets. I own a house but have most of the mortgage left to pay because I only bought it last year. I am also single and live alone on my single income. My brother rents a flat and spends most of what he earns and has no concept of saving/future plans or investments, he does not even have a pension. I am under the assumption that the IHT has to paid first before the inherence is released, rather than IHT simply being deducted from the actual inherence itself before distribution? When I look at the total of my parents assets, me and my brother have no where near enough money to be able to pay it, due to the large gap in wealth between us and my parents. I tried to discuss this with them a few times but was fobbed off. They don't have any plan in place, all they have is life insurance to cover each other should one party die, and a simple one page will including just each other and us, no extended family. My brother and mum have no clue about money, and my dad who is in charge of the finances has multiple health problems of late. I am anxious of the day when I will be asked to pay tons of IHT which I might not be able to able to afford, especially because I am single and have my own bills and mortgage, I can't afford another loan. Is there a way to get around this or reduce the burden? If I cannot afford to pay the tax, can I simple "run away" from the situation and decline being a beneficiary, hence shoving the responsibility of IHT onto other family members? I don't really understand the process of probate, and whether my parents life insurance would pay it, but it seems to be that it pays out to the spouse should the other die, so I assume this would be added to the total assets and hence increase the tax burden should the other die? My parents don't seem to be bothered and are reluctant to discuss this so I am unsure what to do. How do "average/mediocre" kids like me and my brother usually deal with the tax from being born into a wealthy family? Sorry if this is a silly question, but I would appreciate any words of financial wisdom. Many thanks, Lava 13:08  Question 2 Hi Pete and Roger, I hope this message finds you well. As an avid listener of your podcast for the past couple of years, I want to express my gratitude for the way you break down financial and pension topics that can often seem overwhelming. Your insights have been invaluable to me. I wanted to share a personal experience and seek your views on it. After dedicating 42 years working at M&S, I am now approaching 60 and preparing to take my pension later this year. While I am proud of my long service, I've encountered an unexpected surprise in my pension arrangement. I have a Defined Benefit (DB) pension valued at around £9,000. Per year. However, upon receiving my pension quotation, I discovered that the scheme is structured to pay me this amount only until I reach 65 years of age, after which it reduces by approximately £2,200, a 24% reduction. This reduction is based on the assumption that the State Pension will compensate for the difference. However, with the State Pension age being pushed back, I will experience a reduction in my income before the State Pension begins when I turn 67. This situation feels particularly unfair, especially given that at M&S, there are a significant number of women who are lower-paid workers. The unfairness is further accentuated by the fact that the reduction is a fixed sum, irrespective of one's earnings. This fixed sum reduction impacts lower-paid and part-time workers disproportionately. I would greatly appreciate any insights or advice you might have on how to navigate this issue. Thank you once again for the fantastic work you do. Your podcast has been a tremendous help in making sense of pensions and finances. Best regards, Joan   20:06  Question 3 Hi Pete and Roger, Discovered the podcast and book a few months ago while trying to get more organised with life admin and planning for the future. Enjoying working through the back catalogue of the past seasons on the podcast and that's been very helpful - thank you. I do have a question about salary sacrifice/exchange in a workplace pension around tax brackets. As I got a promotion at work a few years ago I ended up moving into the higher 40% tax bracket so I adjusted my pension contributions - my workplace offers salary exchange for pension contributions - to bring my adjusted salary to below £50k and stay within the 20% income tax bracket and also saving on National Insurance contributions and tax relief. However, last year, another promotion led to another increase in salary and several things going on such as buying a house meant that I hadn't adjusted the pension contributions enough and my adjusted salary was above £50k and a portion of that was taxed at the 40% rate. Question I have is can I claim back the tax at the 40% rate from HMRC or does the salary exchange mean that I have already had the maximum tax relief applied? Thanks and keep up the good work, Simon 23:42 Question 4 Hi Pete and Rog, Only just discovered the pod and loving it! You advocate global trackers and I can see why, as they are cheap and simple and have the appearance of diversifying risk. But do you not worry about putting 60-70% of your money in one market (the US), which is what a global tracker does? I understand that you're letting the market determine how your capital is allocated, but what is 'the market' when so many other people are also just investing in global trackers? It seems to me there is not enough price discovery and trackers may be chasing a bubble. Would love to get your views. Cheers guys. Will https://www.timeline.co/resources/indexing-the-paradox-of-concentration-of-return  Adviser 3.0 Podcast episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-Y4jVxDLL4  30:09 Question 5 Dear Roger and Pete Huge fan of the show! I had a question about offshore investment bonds. I'm an additional rate taxpayer and after contributing to pension and ISA, am then looking at what could come next. I've seen offshore investment bonds as an option, however I'm struggling to see how they would deliver a better outcome (assuming the same underlying investments) than simply using a GIA, and selling down the investments once I stop work. Thanks again, Matt Investment Bonds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q5HBoXmekI  35:28  Question 6 Hi Pete, Roger and Team, Firstly, thanks to you all for the amazing podcast, I have been listening for years and it has given me the confidence to manage my finances. I spread the word to all who will listen! My question is regarding tapering with relation to gifts and IHT. The scenario is this, a person is gifted a fairly substantial sum (say £100k) but less than the £325k personal allowance. The person who gifted the sum then dies at 6 years post gift. The persons estate is say £750k. In this case does tapering occur? Even though the gift is less than the £325k the whole estate is well over the personal allowance. Would IHT be paid on the sum over £325 with tapering on the gift? For example £325k IHT free due personal allowance, £100k at 6% taper relief with the remainder at normal IHT rates? Hopefully that's a short enough question! Many thanks, Alastair

Pete Matthew and Roger Weeks cover self-employed saving rates, inheritance tax and estate planning, and how dividends are treated inside pension drawdown (including SIPPs). They also discuss salary sacrifice and contribution limits, the pros and cons of recycling tax-free cash, and whether to overpay your mortgage or invest via a Stocks & Shares ISA. Shownotes: https://meaningfulmoney.tv/QA42  01:07  Question 1 Hi Pete and Roger, Thank you for your amazing podcast! My question is about budgeting & savings percentages: Should you aim for a % of your gross pay or your net pay when it comes to aiming for a savings percentage? e.g. Invest 20% of gross or net? I'm self employed and work contract to contract. From each contract payment I have to give 25% to agents and lawyers. Then I get paid the rest and have to put aside some of the money ready for the Tax man. When planning for how much I should save / invest from each contract payment should I be putting aside: 20% of the original contract amount? (which would be prior to the agents taking their cut and prior to the tax man taking his cut?) 20% of the amount left after the agents but prior to the tax man? Or 20% after both the agent cut and tax man cut? Thank you! Isabel 05:50  Question 2 I am a 70 year old widow with no children.  My current net worth is about £2 million. This is made of of a house (£500,000), savings and investments (£1,150,000) and a drawdown pension pot of £350,000 which I inherited from my husband.  My husband died aged 68 so the pension pot is currently tax free. I plan to leave our inheritance tax free allowances of £650,000 to family, mostly nephews and nieces and the reminder to charities.  The drawdown pension will also go to named family members until the rules change in 2027 after which this will also go to charity.   I understand that this would mean my estate wouldn't be subject to inheritance tax.  Am I right about this? Is there anything I might not have thought about or any flaws in my thinking? Thank you for your very informative podcast, Susan 08:24  Question 3 Hi Pete and Roger,  I'm still catching up on the back catalogue and am still loving the show, the listener questions are a great alternative, absolutely brilliant :) My mind has been wandering as it usually does, and this time thinking about my retirement plan and what dividends will look like at retirement. I have some queries I would love you to clarify please if possible. As it stands I have a combination of SIPP and stocks & shares ISAs all globally diversified with various stocks and ETFs etc and also a NHS DB pension.  I'm about to turn 49 and planning on a retirement at around 60. I'm trying to plan in the most tax efficient way (obviously this may change with future governments). For now though I am trying to max out my ISAs regularly for the tax free benefits and in particular focussing on a goal of using global ETF high yield dividends as income  annually at retirement. I have a Vanguard SIPP with 3 ETFs. I plan to take the 25% tax free amount from this when I retire. The rest (75%) I plan to leave as is, in the same ETFs and as they will hopefully still be paying dividends, I am a little confused as to how these will be regarded, such as for tax purposes? My assumption is the dividends will be added as cash to my now 75% remaining pot and then if I start to drawdown on this then I guess I will be taxed as normal depending on my tax status at the time only on what I drawdown as income. However when the dividends are added to my drawdown (75%) portfolio will this be part of my annual tax free (currently £500) dividend allowance OR will they not count as they are in my "pension pot" (and not classed as income) as is the case currently pre-retirement? At the present should I actually be adding the dividends that I currently receive in my pension pot to my annual tax free allowance (£500 for me)? (I assumed dividends in a SIPP don't need declaring/adding up towards your annual tax free dividend allowance). I hope that all makes sense? Thanks for all your work with the podcasts and Listener Questions too, you guys are awesome! Cheers lads, Jon 13:22 Question 4 Dear Pete and Roger, I've just turned off lifestyling on my pension thanks to your excellent podcast and videos. You may have saved me thousands so many thanks! I now have a cunning plan! I work for a university and have a hybrid pension with the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS). Payments for my regular defined benefit (DB) pension are made via salary sacrifice. I'm also making additional voluntary contributions to the defined contribution (DC) part of USS, also by salary sacrifice. I've increased these DC payments to a level where my reduced effective pay is just above the level of the National Living Wage. As all my USS contributions, DB and DC, are made by salary sacrifice, they count as employer contributions. As I understand it, I am also allowed to make employee pension contributions to an entirely separate SIPP up to the full level of my Relevant Earnings, which in my case is my salary alone. Is that correct? If so, am I allowed to make employee contributions up to the level of my original salary (before salary sacrifice reductions)? Or am I only allowed to make employee contributions up to the level or my reduced salary (after salary sacrifice), just above the level of the National Living Wage? Is my plan a sound one or is it a cunning plan worthy of Baldrick? I'm 54 years old and a basic rate tax payer with a salary of about £37,000 per annum. I do not expect to be promoted. Simon 17:56  Question 5 Hi Pete and Roger, Long time listener and watcher on YouTube and think it is absolutely wonderful all the free good advice you put out there. I hope you give yourselves a pat on the back for helping so many people build their wealth and no doubt have a better future in their latter years than they would have had without you. As I reach a certain age I am pondering a strategy and was wondering if you could advise if this is a flawed approach, letting the tax tail wag the dog or perfectly valid. I've never heard anyone suggest it and can't believe that I have an idea that experts haven't thought of. It involves recycling tax free lump sums from an existing DC pension. My understanding is that you have to "break" ALL the conditions to breach the recycling rules and the one I am considering not breaking is "tax free lump sum is less than £7,500 in any 12 month period". The idea is this: - Crystalise 30K. £22.5K into a drawdown pot and left untouched so as to not trigger the MPAA. £7.5K tax free cash withdrawn - Take the £7.5K tax free cash and recycle it into a new SIPP - Benefit from 40% tax relief to gain an additional £5K - Do the same a year later and repeat until actual retirement If I did this for the 10 years between first accessing my DC pension and retiring from employment at state pension age that's an extra £50K "free". The only downside I can see is that by crystalising you remove a portion of your existing DC pot from being able to have a 25% tax free slice of a bigger pie in the future. However I would have thought by putting the tax relief and tax free cash into a new SIPP, plus 25% of that total being tax free second time around when withdrawn, it would outweigh the downside, particularly if you think you're going to be a lower rate tax payer in actual retirement. Any thoughts gratefully received. Keep up the great work and fantastic content. Kind Regards, Tom 24:40  Question 6 Hi Rodge & Pete Love the energy of the show, both educational and also very funny one of my favourite financial podcasts! I recently purchased my first home solo at 35 on a 39 year mortgage term which takes me above the standard retirement age and I do hope I am not working full time by the age of 74. I went with the longer mortgage term to keep monthly costs down initially with the plan to possibly review this when my fixed term comes to end in 2030. I contribute monthly to my S&S ISA currently £200 with the plan to double this in 2026 but should I be diverting some of these funds instead to overpay the mortgage? I'm conflicted about this as I believe I will get better returns on the S&S ISA over the 39 year period vs saving interest on the mortgage. I currently contribute to my employer DC pension and also have a fully funded 3 month emergency fund so any spare cash can be put to work for my future. Thanks, Chantelle  

In this Meaningful Money Q&A, Pete Matthew and Roger Weeks answer listener questions on UK personal finance, focusing on pensions, tax, and planning ahead. Topics include SIPP vs Lifetime ISA, retirement drawdown and which accounts to spend from first, Junior SIPPs, gifting company shares (IHT and CGT), and UFPLS vs drawdown.   Shownotes: https://meaningfulmoney.tv/QA41    01:47  Question 1 Hello Pete, Roger and team. I'd first like to say thank you for all the wonderful information you provide, it has been a great aid for increasing my financial intelligence and helping me secure my family's financial future. My question is regarding the benefits of a SIPP vs a LISA in terms of retirement. My understanding is they both benefit loosely from the same boost. 25% Boost for LISA and in effect 25% boost to a SIPP due to the 20% tax relief as a basic rate tax payer? They are both locked away for a long period and are both released early if I was to suffer from any serious ill health or death? Due to this is there any benefit I am overlooking in terms of a SIPP over a LISA invested in a world wide fund? Other than age of access? I am currently 36 and due to the increasing demands of public finances it would be logical to assume a possibility of the state pension age being raised above 70 (above 60 if taken early) or becoming restricted to who can collect (means tested) before I am to reach pension age. Whereas I would be able to claim a LISA at 60 regardless with the added benefit of it not being subject to tax? I have a generous company pension of 6% personal and 13.7% company contributions with an additional 1% matched salary sacrifice. I also put in an additional unmatched personal 3% contribution.  As well as a small military pension. so I would not be without a pension at retirement. Due to this is it worth hedging my bets by maxing my LISA contributions rather than a SIPP to cover potential future scenarios? Apologies for the long winded question and I hope it makes sense. Thank you, Adam   08:42  Question 2 Hello Pete and Roger! Thank you for your wonderful podcast, I started listening several years ago and have found your advice incredibly useful. I am here to ask a question about planning a future for a disabled child. My husband and I are in are late 30s and we have a 5 year old daughter who is autistic and has profound learning difficulties. The challenge we have is how to plan for her future care and our future careers with so much unknown.  We both work full time and are currently both basic rate taxpayers (although we are both getting close to that boundary). We receive child benefit and some DLA for our daughter. When our daughter was born we started saving small amounts regularly into a JISA for her, but as her disabilities became clear we switched and started saving money for her within our own S&S ISAs. We still put money into her JISA when she gets gifts from grandparents etc as it seems disingenuous to keep that money under our names. We have an emergency fund, workplace pensions and are saving regularly into S&S ISAs, as well as mortgage that will last until we are about 60.  Is there anything we should be thinking about or trying to plan for our daughter's future. At this stage, it is difficult to determine how much she will understand about money and investing or whether she would have the capability to work or live independently. It may be that she will be under our care for the rest of our lives. It is also possible that one of us may need to reduce working hours or stop working when she turns 18 and needs care after she leaves school. Is there anything you think we should consider or advice on how to navigate the unknown? We are in the process of putting together a will and in the event of something happening to both of us, the care of our daughter would be covered by my husband's sister, but unsure how to navigate the financials. I appreciate that there are several questions within this question but any advice or areas that we can research on ourselves would be appreciated. Thank you so much, Laura Centurion (specialist IFA for people with children with special needs) https://centurioncfp.co.uk/special-needs/  Scope https://www.scope.org.uk/advice-and-support    16:34  Question 3 Hello First of all, thank you both for your wonderful podcast. I have learned so much. I have a question about the order in which to spend in retirement and how to hold our various investments. We have worked out a cashflow ladder using cash, short-term money markets funds, a defensive mixed asset fund, a 60:40 mixed asset fund and a 100% equity fund. But we also need to think about our various wrappers- about half of our investments are in DC pensions (mine and my husband's), a quarter in ISAs and a quarter unwrapped (which we can gradually move into ISAs). Is there a rule of thumb for how much of each investment should be in each wrapper? I'm also not sure about what we should be spending first- assuming no disasters we are hoping to give some money to our children before too long for IHT purposes. But if we take a large sum out of our pensions to do this, we'll pay 45% income tax on it which makes the IHT saving a bit pointless. So should we be making any gifts from our ISAs and using the pensions first ourselves (taking care to stay within the basic rate)? Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you Elizabeth Meaningful Academy Retirement Planning - https://meaningfulacademy.com/retirementplanning    For a discount, use coupon code: PODCAST 24:03 Question 4 Hi Roger (and Pete!), Firstly, thank you from the bottom of my heart for the education you provide to me and so many others. You've really helped me sharpen my financial tools. After spending the last 12 years self-employed, I didn't take my personal finances too seriously. Now that I have a steady, "grown-up" job, I've been able to get organised. I have a workplace pension, a private pension, a Stocks & Shares ISA, and a Lifetime ISA, all thanks to what I've learned from you both. My question is about Junior SIPPs. I often come across opinions suggesting that these should be the last thing you do, only after every other financial base is covered. I didn't receive a financial education growing up, and there's no pot of gold or property waiting for me down the inheritance road. That's why I'm motivated to change the course of my children's future — even if the benefit is far down the line. For a relatively modest target amount £15,000 each at age 18 (they are currently 1 and 4), I believe my children could have a very strong footing in later life due to the extensive length of compounding available, even without continuing contributions beyond that point, or perhaps with me matching their own contributions as an incentive in adulthood. I believe this will take some of the pressure off them which I currently find myself in having to aggressively play catch up on my retirement plan. They also have Junior ISAs, which I contribute to each month, to give them more flexible money when they turn 18. Their future stability would mean the world to me, even if I won't be here at that point to see them enjoy it! I'd love to hear your opinion on Junior SIPPs, as I don't think this topic is discussed enough — and it sometimes feels dismissed altogether. Thank you, Steven   29:15  Question 5 Dear Pete and Roger, You do marvellous work in educating us all. Thank you. I am a company director with 9 alphabet shares. 5 for me, 2 for my wife and one each for my adult independent children. I have substantial IHT liability so want to gift my shares to my children. The company has seven figures invested in the stock market. Can I gift the shares? How do I go about? Will that help reduce my IHT liability if I survive 7 years after gifting? Will there be a CGT liability on the gift? The company still trades but is unlikely to qualify for BADR (Business Asset Disposal Relief) as majority of assets are in investments. Thanking you, Narendra   36:35  Question 6 Hi Pete and Rog, Firstly, thanks for all that you do, your podcasts, videos and the Academy have really changed mine and my family's life for the better. A pensions drawdown question: If you plan to use all of your tax free allowance on retirement. Am I right that there are no benefits to using UFPLS over drawdown? I think there used to be a benefit with the lifetime allowance but I can't see any other benefits now. Thanks for all that you do, James

In this latest pile of TRAP, the Trap Pack discussTopical TitbitsMeat and Potatoes: The Big Lessons of 2025TRAPist question from Graham Compton https://x.com/GrahamComptonCulture CornerShow links: http://tiny.cc/traplinksSponsor Link: FundmentLive is happening Thursday 29th January 2026. Get your tickets here: https://fundmentlive.com/ ============================Take part in the conversation! We want YOU to suggest topics and questions you'd like the Trap Pack to answer. The best way to do this is to ask them here. Help us to help you! The more followers we have, the more we can do stuff going forward. So please:Subscribe and Like our YouTube ChannelLeave a 6/5 star review on iTunesShare TRAP with your peers and colleagues'Enjoy' the Twitter chat at @AdviserPodcast.

It's our 100th episode—has the podcast changed how we invest? What was our favourite episode? Who's taller? We're picking your questions out of a hat and answering some from past guests, including Meaningful Money's Pete Matthew and Toby Newbatt.

I always love catching up with my good friend and fellow financial planner Pete Matthew—especially when we get to record it for The Retirement Café Podcast. You may have heard Pete on the podcast before (this is his third appearance!) or seen him on his hugely popular Meaningful Money YouTube channel. We've even swapped mics—I've joined his show twice too! We both share a mission: helping people retire with clarity, confidence, and purpose. This time, Pete's back to talk about his brand-new book The Meaningful Retirement Guide. It's packed with straightforward guidance on how to organise your finances in retirement—so you can get on with living the life you've worked hard for. In our conversation, we cover: The biggest mistake people make when planning their retirement Why Pete has no plans to stop working—ever! How one man turned volunteering into a paid role that transformed his retirement plan The shift from saving to spending (and why it's harder than it sounds) What your money is really for As always, I hope it gives you a helpful nudge toward the kind of retirement you truly want.  For those who want to go further, Pete offers a self-paced Retirement Planning Course through his Meaningful Money Academy. The course includes video lessons, downloadable tools, access to financial planning software, and a supportive online community. Use the code PODCAST for a discount. USEFUL LINKS  

This week on the AJ Bell Money and Markets podcast, Charlene Young and Tom Sieber unpack Trump's latest tariff U-turn [02:10] and UK growth forecasts from the IMF that also came with a warning for the Chancellor about her fiscal rules [04:25]. The energy price cap is falling and the Prime Minister says he wants more people to get the winter fuel payment. But as Charlene explores, there is little detail about how and when, and the options on the table might not be a silver bullet [07:05]? Tom reviews Tesla's struggles in Europe [11:28], and why the market reacted negatively to Games Workshop's rising profits [14:10]. Dan Coatsworth interviews Ian Lance from Temple Bar Investment Trust on UK stocks and BP takeover talk[18:07], and Tom Sieber sits down with Ian Conway of Shares magazine to discuss the whispers that London Stock Exchange is considering an overseas listing [32.33]. In our second interview, Charlene talks to financial planner, podcaster and author Pete Matthew as he shares insights on retirement planning from his new book [45.01].

After 7 Years and 344 Episodes it is time to say:  Thank you and goodnight Today - February 25th 2025 - marks the seventh anniversary since the first episode of this podcast went live to the world on February 25th 2018When I first launched the podcast I was advised that the vast majority of new podcast launches don't make it beyond episode seven.So to have reached 344 episodes in seven years of podcasting seems like a reasonable achievement.It also feels like the perfect time to draw halt to the Better Presentations More Sales podcastI started listening to podcasts around 2014 and I remember one of the shows I listened to was a social media marketing podcast hosted by Chris Marr up in Scotland.On one of his episodes the guest was a chap called Pete Matthew who revealed that he was from Penzance in Cornwall.Not too far from me in Truro and the first time I've heard anyone from Cornwall on a business podcast.Pete revealed on the episode that he'd been podcasting himself for quite a number of years.Knowing I needed some help to get started with podcasting I contacted Pete. He generously gave me his time back in the summer of 2016 and eventually after much procrastination I finally launched the podcast in February 2018. Ironically Chris Marr would end up being a guest on my show in 2024.The first 78 episodes were without guests before I worked out how to use Zoom and I interviewed Claire Boscq Scott from Jersey who I met sitting next to at a seminar at the London Business Show in 2019.Juanita Wheeler from Australia was my final and 130th guest.I do intend to return with a new podcast linked to presenting skills sometime maybe in the autumn but until then I'm very much focused on developing my on demand presentation and sales pitch training courses.I would like to say a few thank you's to all the people who made this podcast run for as long as it did.Firstly Pete Matthew who provided me with the knowledge and encouragement.My daughter Beth who edited most of the first year or two episodesHer friend Lauren who provided the voice introduction for the first batch of episodesMy son Jim who provided technical support when I first set up all the recording kit and his friend Robert who created the podcast logosThe 130 guests who have appeared on the showIt often felt like I was getting a one-to-one coaching masterclass so I'm very grateful for them sharing their insights, advice and expertise.And finally you the listeners of the showI can't believe it's been seven years - I've had a fantastic time and I will be back.So until then enjoy presenting and speaking and remember don't put too many words on your slides!I can help you transform your business presentations, create and convert sales opportunities and win more sales pitches. Click on the links below to find out more and book a free 15-20 minute Zoom call with to discuss what you might need help with. Presentation TrainingSales Training 15 Minute Free 'How can I help you' Zoom callTrevor Lee Linked Trevor Lee You TubeMy latest book: 7 Steps to Successful Presentations

Pete Matthew believes our mindset about money shapes every decision we make with it. Without the right attitude and perspective, even the best financial plans can fall apart. So Pete, a Chartered Financial Planner and Founder and host of Meaningful Money, asks - how can we avoid making the wrong decisions? ✉️ 80% of personal finance on 2 pages Get guide: https://makingmoney.email/80-guide-pete-matthew

In today's episode, Brian has a conversation with Pete Matthew. Pete is a chartered financial planner, YouTuber, author and creator of Meaningful Money. He is also the MD of Jacksons Wealth Management. His book 'The Meaningful Money Handbook' has helped many people on their journey with their money, including Brian.Meaningful Money 1 page financial plan template - https://meaningfulmoney.tv/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/One-Page-FP.pdfTo find out more about Pete:Book - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Meaningful-Money-Handbook-Everything-everything/dp/0857196510YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC39PLqUmy-AKK5HGYYfwFYwWebsite - https://meaningfulmoney.tv/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we have a very special feature on the Financial Planner Life podcast, as we're looking back at some of the best clips around marketing, brand development and content creation.  We draw on the wisdom of previous guests Pete Matthew, Nicola McKenzie, Sam Tate, Matt Cross & Michelle Wilson-Stimson, in this compilation of top-tips, interesting perspectives and advice for those building a brand and business in Financial Planning. Understanding how to market yourself is imperative for any Financial Planning professional trying to expand their network and build their business. We hope you learn as much as we did from these amazing guests!00:00:00 | Intro00:00:31 | Pete Matthew00:03:29 | Nicola McKenzie00:06:39 | Sam Tate00:08:16 | Matt Cross00:12:59 | Michelle Wilson Stimpson00:16:07 | OutroBe sure to follow financial planner life on YouTube for extra content about a career within Financial Planning HIT THAT SUBSCRIBE BUTTON! Below are some excellent links from our sponsor Recruit UK for any aspiring or experienced financial planners looking for new job opportunities or looking to get ahead in their career. Experienced and searching for a new role within the financial planning profession? Click here for a free career consultation.Check out the 2023 Financial planning Salary Guide here. If you would like to discuss partnering with The Financial Planner Life for jobs, advertising, marketing or academies please reach out to sam@financialplannerlife.com or call 07854778712.

 Another fresh episode of The Financial Planner Life Podcast for your eyes and ears and this week's guest is Pete Matthews Chartered Financial Planner, co-owner and CEO of Jacksons Wealth and founder of the Meaningful Money YouTube channel, which provides financial coaching on money management, investing and saving strategies. Pete shares his career journey with us from making a complete U-turn from his previous career in Hospitality Management, to relocating and joining a local firm, through to acquiring clients from retiring advisers.   Pete is also an originator in the world of Financial Planning content creation, starting and running his YouTube and podcast ‘meaningful Money' channel since 2010, and still going strong today with over 4.5 million downloads! He offers some serious wisdom when it comes to content creation, including but not limited to: -       What goes into making enticing content for your audience?-       Building a business with purpose-       Selecting topics of discussion to boost engagement.-       Balancing content creation and your day-to-day workload-       The importance of consistency and continued engagementBe sure to follow financial planner life on YouTube for extra content about a career within Financial Planning HIT THAT SUBSCRIBE BUTTON! Below are some excellent links from our sponsor Recruit UK for any aspiring or experienced financial planners looking for new job opportunities or looking to get ahead in their career. Experienced and searching for a new role within the financial planning profession? Click here for a free career consultation.Check out the 2023 Financial planning Salary Guide here. If you would like to discuss partnering with The Financial Planner Life for jobs, advertising, marketing or academies please reach out to sam@financialplannerlife.com or call 07854778712.

When we keep things simple, we get stuff done. Fact! This episode is looking at how to apply this to your money. And who better to help us with simple actionable money tips than Pete Matthew, of the Meaningful Money podcast. Pete is the king of keeping it simple and getting stuff done so we're very excited he's joined us for this episode. Check out Pete's podcast in the link below.We'll be answering questions on:1. How to simplify your pensions (handy checklist below)2. How to simplify your paperwork3. The most common way we accidentally over-complicate money4. Simplify your thinking5. Simplify your spending plan (a budget that works linked below)6. Our all time favourite quick wins clients have fallen in love withSPECIAL GUEST: Pete Matthew  is a 25-year veteran Chartered Financial Planner, CEO of Jacksons in Penzance, husband to Jo and Dad to two grown-up daughters.In 2010 he picked up a video camera and shot the first video for what would become Meaningful Money. Since then the YouTube channel has clocked up over 4 million views and the podcast has been downloaded 6 million times.For Pete, financial planning is a life skill that should be taught in school and the workplace, but in the absence of that, his goal is to provide as much information as he can, so that ordinary people can help themselves become financially free.Meaningful Money PodcastMeaningful Money YouTubePension checklist https://meaningfulmoney.tv/2021/03/16/uk-pensions-checklist/Budget planner https://meaningfulmoney.tv/budget-planner/YOUR HOSTJulie Flynn is an experienced independent financial adviser and financial coach. Justice and equality drive Julie. Which is why she's spent years studying and researching how stress affects our financial decision making.Julie is best known for her work with women who have lost their partner and coaching financial services business who want to implement fair and transparent charges.Ebb & Flow Financial Coaching | Bree Wealth & Tax | InstagramCAFE EXPERTS:Emily Pool is a Financial Planner and Will Writer. She is passionate about empowering people to invest their wealth (pensions and savings) sustainably and in line with their personal values. Michelle Lambell  started her career in financial services as a Stockbroker in 1999 undertaking both advisory and discretionary investment management. Today she is a Chartered Financial Planner, specialising in retirement planning advice, pensions and investments and a Certified Financial Coach. Support the show✅ And if you enjoyed the show, please leave us a review.We genuinely love hearing your questions and feedback. So, email us a voice note womenandmoneycafe@gmail.com or via instagram with your thoughts and suggestions.

7 Quick Sales WinsTo celebrate 5 years of podcasting I'm sharing in this episode of the Better Presentations More Sales podcast 7 Quick Sales WinsThe first episode of this podcast went live on February 25th 2018. In those early days there was no pattern to when the podcast came out, all episodes featured just me and were quite rangy in their business subject area. After feedback from my podcast mentor - Pete Matthew - from episode 20 the podcast came out every Monday and was re-branded as ‘The Sales and Presentation' podcast.My first ‘guest' was Claire Boscq-Scott  on episode 79, I had met Claire at the London Business Show. In 2020 and after 119 episodes a second re-brand happened and the show was renamed ‘Better Presentations More Sales' the idea being that if you deliver a better presentation you are more likely to be successful, and in business that often means more sales.Here's a quick summary of the 7 Quick Sales Wins:Call current customersBe curious - ask big questionsRespond quicklyMake it easy to buy from youGive buyers time to buySurprise & delight customers Know when to shut up! This is episode 254 of the Better Presentations More Sales podcast -  the previous 253 episodes are available on your usual podcast app or you can listen and download them on the Better Presentations More Sales podcast pageTo find out how more about how I can help your teams deliver confident, impactful, memorable and action inducing presentations please visit my Presentation Training pageFor one to one business leader presentation coaching please visit my Presentation Coaching page  Here are links to the evergreen webinar versions of the presenting and sales skills  sessions I ran in January and February 2023:Win that Sales PitchBe that Confident Presenter7 Quick Sales WinsPresentation Flying StartBefore you book any training or coaching with me it is important for you to be sure that I'm the right person for you or your team so let's have a 15-20 minute informal no obligation no fee chat on Zoom. Simply click here: Trevor Lee 15 minute meetingThanks for listening. If you like the show please do leave a review.Here's how you can connect with me, Trevor Lee, and find out more about how I can help you deliver confident and successful presentations and sales pitches.One to One Business Leader Presentation Coaching Business teams Presentation Training 15 Minute Free 'How can I help you' Zoom callTrevor Lee WebsiteTrevor Lee Linked Trevor Lee You TubeBook: 12 Business Lessons from Running an Ultra Marathon

#149 - Pete Matthew is a Chartered Financial Planner and the host of Meaningful Money.  He explains the different types of pensions, the best places to put your money for retirement and how to build up a pension pot for when you're ready to retire.What you'll learn[2:25] How the pandemic has changed the way people think about their finances.[5:40] The two different types of pensions and how they differ from each other.[9:19] Why defined benefit pensions are likely to be phased out.[10:48] How the 2008 crash changed annuities and the idea of a ‘guaranteed income for life'.[14:44] Whether state pensions in the UK have a future.[17:22] The increase of gradual retirement and reducing your hours before retiring completely.[22:37] How to know if you're ready to retire.[27:37] How much money you should spend when you first retire.[31:25] How to figure out what you need to retire.[35:25] Where to put your money for retirement.[39:00] What to do if you haven't started a pension yet.Resources mentioned in this episode (some of these are affiliate links and we may get a commission in the event that you make a purchase - this helps us to cover our expenses and is at no additional cost to you):Episode 27: Money matters: how to finance a career change – with Pete Matthew of Meaningful MoneyBeyond the 4% Rule, Abraham OkusanyaChanging Gear, Jan Hall and Jon StokesEpisode 82: What are you earning for anyway? The role of money and wealth in achieving life harmony - with Joseph Kuo of Abundance Wealth PlanningFor the show notes for this episode, including a full transcript and links to all the resources mentioned, visit:https://changeworklife.com/will-i-be-able-to-afford-to-retire-how-to-plan-for-a-financially-secure-retirement-even-if-its-years-away/Re-assessing your career?  Know you need a change but don't really know where to start?  Check out these two exercises to start the journey of working out what career is right for you!Take me to the exercises!Also, make sure to join the Change Work Life Facebook group and check out the ways you can support the podcast on the Change Work Life Support page.Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Pete Matthew from King's Church in Walton is our guest speaker on Co-mission Sunday. Pete preaches from Revelation 22:1-5. In these verses we see God's glorious plan for us. How should we live in light of these truths? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmejoEW5do0

Today's conversation is with Pete Matthew, Financial Planner, Podcaster, YouTuber, and CEO of Jacksons Wealth Management. From flipping burgers in McDonalds to becoming Managing Director of Jackson's Wealth Management, Pete followed a fairly classic career path. Until he started messing around with a video camera and creating content. I've titled this episode the Podfather of UK Personal Finance and that is for good reason. Pete has shared countless hours of indepth content on the Meaningful Money Podcast and Youtube Channel in the last decade. Expect to learn about Pete's background and journey, the 3 steps to Financial Success including insight into budgeting, debt, insuring against disaster, paying yourself first, and how to invest wisely, I get into the nitty gritty and benefit from Pete's expertise on striking the right balance between Pensions and Isa payments, the Tax considerations, and how to manage your pension with your employer. As part of this conversation, you will also hear about multi asset funds and what to look for in your initial choices to have a light touch, relatively low admin approach to investing and personal finance. Finally, I ask about risk appetite and tolerance as well as the biggest financial mistakes Pete sees being made and the answers might surprise you. Today's episode sponsor is previous podcast guest, Mike Samuels. Mike is a copywriter who's been responsible for over $170 Million in online sales for his clients, and now teachers others how to become what he calls 'Coffee Shop Copywriters.' He's personally guided over 300 people to the point where they're now earning their living as highly-paid, highly-respected copywriters, earning up to £350 per hour, and getting paid multiple times for one piece of work. Mike is very clear that copywriting is not an easy way to riches, rather, it's a skill that requires practice. However, he's simplified the process, and truly believes anyone who loves writing, and has the drive to earn their living as a writer can do exactly that. He's put together a selection of free templates to get you started, along with access to a masterclass that shows you how to use these templates, and how to find and sign high-paying clients. If this is something that interests you, and you like the idea of earning a great living from your laptop, while mastering an in-demand skill clients around the world happily pay for, head to www.thefreedomkickstarter.com/500templates to grab your templates and free class. Connect with Pete: Website - https://meaningfulmoney.tv/ YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/meaningfulmoney Connect with Col: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/col.cambro/ Email List - https://mailchi.mp/548e38ba5942/colincambro Support me: buymeacoffee.com/ColCamBro

Our first ever guest from episode 1 joins us for this 200th Episode special. We catch up with Pete Matthew from the Meaningful Money podcast to find out more about him, his firm and his content marketing strategy.

Millennial Money Mindset reaches 50 podcast episodes. To celebrate we are joined for the second time by Pete Matthew. Pete's podcast Meaningful Money has been downloaded over 5 million times. Pete is also an author, YouTuber and Chartered Financial Planner.    In this episode we talk about the biggest mistake people make with their money and investing. Pete reveals his own favourite investing mistakes and some money tips on how to avoid making the same mistakes with your own finances. We discuss our favourite books and which have had the biggest impact on our finances and thinking around work and business. All this and more in this special episode of Millennial Money Mindset Listen today as this episode is packed fulled with value   

Is it possible to beat the market and if so how? We explore this question and much more in this interview with Pete Matthew, who is the podcaster and author of Meaningful Money and is also a Financial Planner.  Pete Matthew's podcast Meaningful Money has been downloaded over 5 million times! He is the UK leading authority on personal finance. He shares his experience in this Millennial Money Mindset podcast. What are Pete's three uses of money? What makes life meaningful? How did Pete start his Meaningful Money Journey? He reveals all this and more in this two-part podcast episode. This is the final interview of season 4 of the podcast. I have saved the best for last. Be sure to listen to this episode as it's packed full of value!  

Joined by Qualified Financial Adviser, Pete Matthew, host of the podcast “Meaningful Money”. Pete & I explore how necessary it is to seek financial advice and the reasons why you don't always need to appoint a Financial Adviser to help you make good financial plans. Money is a tool that gets us from A to B and often we are able to make our own empowered choices just by getting the basics in place around money management. Find out more about why money is a lousy master, but a great servant.   In this episode: How necessary it is to seek financial advice and when it becomes and investment worth paying for The difference between financial advice and financial guidance What situations dictate that you move from a do-it-yourself option to seeking professional financial advice Simple steps that will enable people to do the basics themselves Why being intentional with time and money can be so powerful   Resources: Get on the VIP list for my upcoming book Register for my FREE Financial Coaching Masterclass Join The Money Circle Join Catherine's Facebook Page and FREE Facebook Group My Online Courses – Investing for beginners from £1 Catherine's YouTube Channel  Connect with Catherine on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook Books Meaningful Money Handbook The Simple Path To Wealth Connect with Peter on Website, Meaningful Money Podcast, Facebook and Instagram

In this episode of the Better Presentations More Sales podcast Trevor challenges you to share your expertise, to offer advice and tips for free as a way of raising your profile and building trust in your personal brand.Last week I was at a business event in Penzance where the guest speaker was Pete Matthew of MeaningfulMoney.TV - Pete is a financial advisor who started recording advice videos in 2011 before launching a podcast which has over 5 million downloads. Pete was a mentor and inspiration for me launching this podcast. Pete's message at the event centred around giving your expertise, advice and tips away for free via videos or podcasts or articles. That inspired this episode.So here are 4 ways you can share your expertise and raise your profile. When you go networking take a top tip that will be helpful to other attendees and she it before you talk about yourself. Post a top tip everyday for a week on LinkedIn. Do it in a 60-90 second video. You can easily shoot that via the Linked In app on your phone. Take the 5 tips and turn them into a LinkedIn article and post them the following week.Offer to be a speaker at networking and other business events. Offer 10-15 minutes of useful tips and ideas - could be the same 5 tips from your videosOffer to be a guest on a relevant podcast - again sharing those 5 tipsAll very easy to do. You just need to commit to making it happen. It will be worth it. Especially if you repeat the sequence each month. If you have a top business tip for 2022 why not share it on this podcast. Record your tip in 60-90 seconds - use the memo app on your phone and then email it to podcast@trevorleemedia.co.uk. The listener top tips episode will go out mid -December

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In this episode Gary is with Pete Matthew. He is a Chartered and Certified Financial Planner and Managing Director of Jacksons Wealth Management in Penzance, Cornwall. Jacksons has been serving the financial planning needs of local families and businesses since 1923, surely making it one of the longest-established private financial advice companies in the UK. He is an award-winning podcaster and video blogger and his passion is to spread the word that anyone can take control of their personal finances. From motivation to mindset, personal branding to perseverance, you will learn tried and tested ways to generate leads, increase your sales and build a strong lifestyle business. Gary Das takes you on an entrepreneurial journey of education, inspiration, and motivation to help you become a Pro of your industry! What Is Covered In Today's Episode Of The Financial Pro Podcast: The difference between planning and advice Reinforcing the importance of protection  Importance of good financial management How to protect your wealth against disaster Why should you document your journey Visit Financial PRO website www.financial-pro.com Follow Gary Das on Facebook and Instagram Connect with Pete Matthew https://www.instagram.com/pete_matthew https://www.linkedin.com/in/petematthew/  Pete Matthew's Recommend Books  The Support Economy - Shoshana Zuboff    Ego Is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday The Meaningful Money Handbook By Pete Matthew

Pete is a Chartered Financial Planner, a Certified Financial Planner, and Managing Director of Jacksons Wealth Management in Penzance, UK. He's also a very content husband and father of two wonderful children. After reading 'Crush It 'by one of his internet heroes Gary Vaynerchuk, he realised that he could use the internet and social networking to get an important message across. Pete's mission is to convey his belief that Financial Planning is simple for the vast majority of people. And that it is possible for anyone to achieve their goals. Pete tells Mike how he got into financial planning by accident and how he started his podcast "Meaningful Money" as a hobby. Combining his love for explaining with his geeky technological side, his podcast kept growing. Now he has over 5 million downloads and taught tons of people how to build wealth.

This week on The Property Podcast we're battling with Dave Ramsey on mortgages  If you've not heard of Dave Ramsey before he's a huge financial personality across the pond, and he believes that you should NEVER use a mortgage.  And if you've been listening to The Property Podcast for a while now, you'll know that Rob & Rob probably have a fair few things to say about this.  So, in this episode The Robs explain why Dave Ramsey is completely wrong and how leverage is an investor's super weapon.  In the news  This week's news article is an interesting one as it claims that the stamp duty holiday had no effect on the current market frenzy.  Think-tank has suggested that the stamp duty holiday impact has been overstated, but what do Rob & Rob think?  Hub Extra   We're back with another triple whammy of resources for you to soak up this week.   The first one is The Meaningful Money podcast which covers all aspects of money and personal finance. It's definitely worth a listen as Pete Matthew breaks down everything you need to know in everyday language.  We've mentioned this one before, but only because we swear by it and that's the Rich Dad Poor Dad book. Robert Kiyosaki talks all things good debt vs. bad debt, so don't just take our word for it and give this one a read.  If one book isn't enough, then make sure you give The Millionaire Fastlane a read. It's a cheesy title, and a bit of a cheesy book but it's essential if you want to understand the concept of building your wealth and creating more money for yourself.  And if you're looking for the Turn £100,000 into £1 million YouTube video Rob & Rob mentioned, you can find it here.   Let's get social   We'd love to hear what you think of this week's Property Podcast over on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. You might even have a topic you'd like us to cover in the future - if so, pop us a message on social and we'll see what we can do.  Make sure you've liked and subscribed to our YouTube channel where we upload new content every week!   If that wasn't enough, you can also join our friendly property community on the Property Hub forum.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In today's episode we talk career change and money management. Some people feel trapped in careers because they don't feel they will be able to survive if they have to take a pay cut. There is so much to consider. Personal money expert, Pete Matthew, talks us through how to look after our money during a career change. Pete's website: www.meaningfulmoney.tv Pete's book: The Meaningful Money Handbook Pete's podcast: Meaningful Money Podcast hosted by Career Change Coach, Crystal Debrah-Ekolie from voraicoach.com Instagram: @voraicoach Free Career Clarity guide: voraicoach.com Youtube channel: Vorai Career Coach --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/candtpodcast/message

Welcome to Episode 2 Series 3 of You Heard It Here First. As usual we've packed this episode with some cracking recommendations from the truly iconic to lost princesses. Whether you want to improve your money management, enjoy some fiction, learn about queer history, hear about poetry, or get lost in another time, we've got it all!In this series we share lots of our recommendations, but we also want to hear from you! Tell us about your favourite audiobook and be featured on the show – just email YHIHF@audible.co.uk. Send us a voice note or type it out, whichever you prefer!Follow and chat to us on Instagram and Twitter @YHIHFpod Here are our recommendations from this episode:Atomic Habits by James Clear https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Atomic-Habits-Audiobook/1473565421Tan France's Queer Icons https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Tan-Frances-Queer-Icons-Audiobook/B095Z5J8V8The Dream Weavers by Barbara Erskine https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/The-Dream-Weavers-Audiobook/0008195900The Meaningful Money Handbook by Pete Matthew https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/The-Meaningful-Money-Handbook-Audiobook/B07JZR47RROne Last Stop by Casey McQuiston https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/One-Last-Stop-Audiobook/1250803187Reputation by Lex Croucher https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Reputation-Audiobook/1838774130John Cooper Clarke's Audible Session https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/John-Cooper-Clarke-Audiobook/B08LWWRMMTI Wanna Be Yours by John Cooper Clarke https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/I-Wanna-Be-Yours-Audiobook/1509896147Run and Hide by Alan McDermott https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Run-and-Hide-Audiobook/B07FCR7DSQ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

PFS Power Podcast - Episode 13 - Pete Matthew by Personal Finance Society

I am so happy to have one of my heroes on the podcast Pete Matthew of Meaningfulmoney Out topic is financial education for children in a world of plastic and digital payments. We talk about our own education about money from our parents, and the language we use around money with children and as adults

In this episode of the Maven Money Personal Finance Podcast… Andy chats to fellow-podcaster Pete Matthew about some of the unintended consequences of the Attitude to Risk questionnaire presented to clients.   Links:    Humans Under Management   Andy Hart   Leave a review!     Don't forget to check out the Maven Adviser website for more great content.   So sit back and enjoy unrivalled words of wisdom from Andy Hart - host of the UK's premier personal finance show.   Is there a topic you'd like Andy to cover? We'd love to hear from you! Contact Andy Hart directly with any comments / feedback on team@mavenadviser.com. Alternatively you can reach out on Twitter @MavenAdviser. 

If you are a fan of money-related podcasts or video blogs, you may know of this week's guest already – it's none other than Pete Matthew. From flipping burgers in McDonalds to becoming Managing Director of Jackson's Wealth Management, Pete followed a fairly classic career path. Until he started messing around with a video camera.  Knowing that the work he was doing with his clients at Jackson Wealth Management wasn't making the impact on the universe that he wanted to make, Pete sat on the beach talking to his camera and posted the video on YouTube.   A decade later, he is now host of the award-winning podcast Meaningful Money – a podcast dedicated to helping anyone get their finances in order. With the success of the podcast and YouTube channel, Pete has set up an online academy – The Meaningful Academy – which teaches you everything you need to, and should, know about money. Pete joins me today to discuss what motivates him to run Meaningful Money, and why he believes everyone is capable of investing. We also delve into his recent retirement planning series, discussing why retirement planning is so important and the steps everyone should take when thinking about their retirement.

It's not ever day that you get to launch your 200th episode - so who better to help us mark this event than Pete Matthew! Pete has been at the vanguard of personal finance podcasting and sharing of deep insights for many years now - and was an inspiration to Informed Decisions.  We trusted Pete to take over the show - and it'll be fairly obvious to you dear listener that we should probably ask him to stay!! Thanks for your continued listenership, support and for being part of the journey. Join me on the next leg of the journey, as we aim to drive even more value for listeners, and make a very meaningful difference to some charities over the next 200 episodes! That journey starts next week so join the Informed Decisions Podcast Tribe today. Paddy Delaney - Informed Decisions Check out Pete's show if you haven't already - it's great! Meaningful Money Podcast

This week I'm joined by Pete Matthew, a financial advisor and the host of the UK finance podcast Meaningful Money. We talk about the concept of paying yourself first, as well as when you should - and when you shouldn't - get financial advice. Don't forget to join the Cash Chats community on Facebook. * Please do leave a review and rating if this saves you money. * FURTHER READING Meaningful Money https://meaningfulmoney.tv/ Pete's episode on finding a financial advisor https://meaningfulmoney.tv/2013/03/25/mmp008-how-to-find-a-financial-adviser-podcast/ Andy's deals of the week https://becleverwithyourcash.com/category/vouchers-deals/ ABOUT CASH CHATS Cash Chats is presented by money blogger and broadcaster Andy Webb. In 2020 the podcast has been featured as one of the top finance podcasts by Apple, Good Housekeeping and the Independent. In 2019 it was awarded Best Money Podcast at the SHOMOS - the UK Moneybloggers annual awards. On each Cash Chats episode you can hear Andy share ways to get the most from your money. He's often joined for friendly and accessible conversations by a friend from the UK Money Blogger community to cover topics as diverse as freebies and investments. Then at the end of each week stay tuned for a bonus “deals of the week” rundown of the hottest offers from the last seven days. Andy also runs the award-winning website Be Clever With Your Cash, presents Channel 5’s Shop Smart Save Money and founded the community ukmoneybloggers.com. To contact Andy email Andy@Becleverwithyourcash.com ANDY ON SOCIAL Andy's handle is @AndyCleverCash and you can follow him over at: twitter.com/AndyCleverCash instagram.com/andyclevercash     GET ANDY'S WEEKLY NEWSLETTER You'll also get a free Quidco bonus for signing up https://becleverwithyourcash.com/newsletter/   MUSIC The music is Easter Island by Lonely Punk and provided on a creative commons licence 

This is one of the best lessons in investing you will get! Molly Benjamin and Lisa Conway-Hughes are joined by Pete Matthew from the Meaningful Money Podcast who breaks down the world of investing and how to get started. Pete shares his basics rules on investing that he believes anyone can achieve! Confused about starting, then take a listen. Join our Facebook Group here:          https://www.facebook.com/groups/shesonthemoney/ 

•His career to date and the growth of meaningful money •How he bought into his existing company •How he handles prospects from Meaningful Money •How he manages his time despite running two businesses •His thought on pulling Financial Planning into 2016 •His experience of the CFP accreditation

We have a special guest interview in this episode - the legend of financial planning and all round good egg, Pete Matthew. In the interview Pete talks to Chris about his new book The Meaningful Money Handbook. They explore being intentional in your approach to money, top budgeting tips and how to spend your money meaningfully. With great #tightasstommo money saving tips we have an action packed episode for you to enjoy.

The dream of starting your own business is probably the reason you're listening to this podcast. It's important to weigh up a few things before you throw yourself into any new venture though. Running a business isn't for everyone, and there's a couple of reasons why you might want to consider staying in employment instead. Because you're passionate about something doesn't necessarily mean you can make money from it. There needs to be a demand for your product or service. You need to do your research and test the market first. Because you enjoy doing something that you're skilled at doesn't mean that you should go into business doing that thing. Once you set up as self-employed you're going to have to do a lot of other (potentially less fun) things to build your business. If you've given these factors some thought and are still determined to push on, then our contributors in this episode also have a lot of encouragement and reasons for why you should pursue your dream of starting your own business. As we draw the curtain on season one of UK Business Startup, we're joined again by our friends Chris Marr, Julie Christie, Andy Brown, Patricia McGuire, Nicola Donnelly, and Pete Matthew. There are some helpful books that are well worth checking out too. Essentialism, The One Thing, and The E-Myth Revisited. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you again in season 2!

Just because you're self-employed doesn't mean you have to go it alone in business. Joining or building a network of fellow professionals can be hugely beneficial to you for a number of reasons. Despite this, many people still shy away from networking events. Some common excuses for this include… I'd feel awkward I wouldn't know what to say to anyone The people there aren't my target customers The people there aren't in my line of work I'm too busy, it would be a waste of my time It would cost me money as I wouldn't be working I'd rather spend this time on marketing I do all my networking on social media So what are some of the benefits of networking? Building relationships Increasing visibility Becoming known as the go-to person in your own line of work Giving and receiving advice Being around others who know what it's like to run your own business Reducing feelings of isolation Leading to sales and other opportunities Social events and friendships Cross promotion and collaboration In this episode we're taking a deep dive into business networking. We'll be hearing the opinions and experiences of our returning friends Laura Lucas, Alison Colley, Chris Marr, Julie Christie, Andy Brown, Patricia McGuire, and Pete Matthew. On top of that we're joined by business networking expert Stefan Thomas, author of the Business Networking for Dummies book. Stefan brings a wealth of knowledge and advice on his specialist subject, and I'm certain you'll hugely benefit from it going forward. Transcript It can be difficult because a lot of people find it hard to go into a room full of strangers and just start talking to them. But I think if it's something that makes you nervous is just remembering that probably most people feel nervous as well. I'm Colin Gray, and this is UK Business Startup. This week we're getting into one of those areas of business that really splits the crowd. Some people love it, and even more hate it. But there's little doubt that, if you do it right, it can be one of the best ways to grow your business. And, it has a bunch of benefits besides that. You might have guessed by now. Of course, we're talking business networking. Stefan Thomas: A lot of people think that networking is just that thing which some of us who are quite odd do at seven thirty in the morning where we meet up at formal networking events and have breakfast with other people. But networking is about every connection you make along the way. That was Stefan Thomas – author of business networking for dummies. He's one of the top UK experts in this area, so he knows how to get networking right. We'll be hearing plenty from him on this episode, along with a few old friends. Talking of which, here's Alison Colley again from Real Employement law advice on how she sees networking. Alison Colley: When I set up my business actually going to networking and meeting people who had either set up their own businesses or who were providing the sorts of services that I needed as a business was crucial. There's no better way of building trust than at networking. Then you can tap into those resources Chris Marr: It's a bit cliché now but it is true that people buy from people that they know they can trust. Not only that. People refer business to people that they know they can trust as well. The only way to get known by people and for people to like you and to trust you is to build a relationship with people. That was Chris Marr, founder of the Content Marketing Academy. He talked a lot about trust on our marketing episode, and here it is again. This ties back to what Stefan told us – it's those connections, and the trust you build with them. Those are the people that send you clients, or might even become clients themselves. Now, at this point, you might be thinking – this just doesn't apply to me. It's only for b2b companies isn't it? Well, Chris has a good way for you to figure it out. Chris Marr: We look back over the last six months, look at where our business has come from, and we always write down two or three names. That piece of business came from that person, this business came from that person. What you start to realize actually is that people are massively involved in your business. If people just don't know who you are, then you're less likely to get business. We do coaching calls, especially with people who are just starting their business. One of the big things that always comes up is, well, they say to me, “We're not getting enough business.” I immediately ask them, “How big is your network? What are you doing to actively grow your network,” and they're just simply not doing enough to get out there and to be known by people. So, it's not just trust, it's visibility, isn't it? No matter what type of business you have, you can always be more visible. The problem is, this personal connection caper is pretty time consuming… How do you make sure you're making that time worthwhile. Chris Marr: I don't mean going meeting everybody, not going to have a coffee with every single person because it can be a massive time suck. What you need to be good at is qualifying people that you want to connect with, people who have influence, people who clearly are good at introducing people to other people, and people who have quite big networks are the people you're looking to spend time with. What you're not trying to do, and I guess this kind of like the next question is, is not just about spending time with people that could be potential customers, because that's sort of like thinking quite small. You've got to think quite big. You actually want to meet people that have bigger influence. They may never ever buy from you, but they might be … They will probably introduce you to other people, they will probably recommend your services to other people. It's well put – you might well find some direct clients through networking, but the big wins are in the wider viral effect. You get to know 10 people in a networking group, and suddenly you're the ‘roof repair guy' not only for them, but their entire network. When their friend says, Man my roof just fell in, who do you think they're going to tell them about? So, that makes sense – looks like the time's well worth it, as long as you're smart about how you spend it. Remember too that time's just another kind of currency. Here's how Stefan sees it. Stefan Thomas: I treat my networking as part of my marketing spend. That's an investment to my business because I know that an awful lot of the big opportunities that I've got coming up in the coming year and that I've had in the last couple of years have come from a little conversation at a networking event, and if I go to networking events, conferences, seminars, whatever it happens to be, then I'm more likely to start more of those conversations which lead to big opportunities. So, Stefan knows it's worthwhile for him. He's tracking those opportunities and where they lead. But, then, Stefan's a pro. What about mere mortals like us? Here's Julie Christie from Tea Break Tog: Julie Christie: I didn't do anything like that for about three years, and then when I did that everything changed. Pretty much over the course of a couple of months I realized that everything was changing because of the people that I was meeting in this group, just expanding my network, but also encouraging me to think about my business differently. People who were having successes in different areas from me I was able to question them and learn from them and vice-versa. So, this is interesting. She's pretty clear that her network brings big direct benefits. But, she's also starting to delve into the other upside. Because we know that, for all the things we love about running a business, it's not all shiny rainbows. Other Benefits Laura Lucas: I was a bit worried I might be lonely when I first started my business working for myself, but because of the networking I've done I've meet amazing people actually. People who I feel are much more likeminded and much more attuned to the sort of ambitions I've got and where I want my life to go than maybe people who I would happen to work alongside. I always enjoyed going into work and having good relationships with my colleagues and so on, but I feel like there's something that people who have their own business have in common. They've got that vision and that ambition. It's just great to be around those sort of people. It's actually about developing those relationships to see how we can help each other and how we can collaborate and who we can introduce each other to. Is a huge, huge benefit of having a business that I hadn't expected. Julie Christie:  Every week you're with these people who are passionate about their businesses and we're all talking about our business and how we can move it forward. But because you're meeting them the next week you're really motivated to go back and work on those things that you've been talking about. I've meet some amazing people through that, and doing that it has changed the direction of my business and improved my business and made me think with a lot more clarity about what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. For me it's been absolutely huge, huge part of growing my business. Stefan Thomas: But also in business I think that networking helps you to build the structure, to build the support structure around you, and a network of supportive people which to my mind is just as important to sales. There's no doubt that running a business can be a pretty lonely, isolating job. If you're working yourself, who do you turn to for help, for support, for some simple feedback on something? Well, for Laura, Julie and Stefan, it's their network. As they all said there, they've met people through networking, built relationships, found support, and  they've really grown their business as a result. Alright, I'm hoping you're at least a bit convinced, but there's a good chance you've still got a few reservations. Networking does carry a lot of baggage…. I got a sign of this when I asked Pete Matthew if he sees any value in networking: Hating Networking Pete Matthew: Absolutely, though it can drive fear into the hearts of a lot of people. I'm a natural introvert. If I go to a party, you will usually find me in the corner on my cell phone. But I've taught myself to be better, because it's important to have relationships. It's amazing where relationships can go. I even found out that Stefan, our networking Guru, took a while to find his feet. Stefan Thomas: Not only have I covered it hundreds of times but of course I've been there myself. This wasn't something that I was born to do. My very first networking event I really did stand awkwardly in the corner. That was sometime in 2005. There's an awful lot that I've learned since then. It's definitely makes me feel better knowing that I'm not the only one who feels like a lemon every time I walk into an event like this. I always find myself making a meal over pouring a coffee. It's my way of delaying that moment when I have to turn around and try not to look panicked, hoping someone will come over and talk to me. The thing is, it's natural to feel like that, but it's always fine. Laura Lucas: If you're not sure if it's for you or not go and find out basically. It can be difficult because a lot of people find it hard to go into a room full of strangers and just start talking to them. But I think if it's something that makes you nervous is just remembering that probably most people feel nervous as well. You've got something in common with everyone and just really being open to having those conversations. You'll hopefully find, I know I've certainly found that networking events I've gone to are very open and welcoming and people are interested to hear about you and they're keen to tell you about them. It's not as hard as you might think it is. Ok, we'll get over the fear and give it a try. First step, I suppose, is finding a group: How to Network Stefan Thomas: The very first thing that I would do would be to google networking events in your town, wherever your town happens to be. Look for the local chamber of commerce. They are very likely to have some sort of networking event there. It's pretty likely in most towns in the UK that you will also have networking organizations such as 4Networking of which I'm a member and BNI and other networking organizations that exist. Thanks Stefan – simple enough. So, once we're there, how do we get over the fear and make that first introduction? People I think look for some clever answer as to how to start a conversation with someone, and what I have found works best is to go for the lowest common denominator. If you've grabbed a cup of coffee, it's very likely that there are other people grabbing coffee at the same time. Talk about coffee, talk about parking, talk about the fact that everyone got caught in traffic this morning. You're in that enviable position working event, or conference, or seminar, that you immediately have something in common with everyone in the room. An awful lot of my early sales training was about finding that thing that you have in common with someone so that you can start talking to them on common grounds. My usual one is just to catch someone's eye at the coffee table as say, ‘Hey, how's your day been?'. It's simple, easy and usually gets people talking about something they're interested in. It also tends to give me a clue on whether it's sometone I can get on with too, because if they just start moaning about their day, then they're obviously not the most positive of people. Laura Lucas: One thing that helps me on those times when I do feel a bit self-conscious is just to try and find someone that looks more nervous than me and help them feel better. That can be a really effective way of actually forgetting about your own hang-ups. If you make the conversation about the other person you're much more likely to have an impact. Sometimes we'll go in and we'll feel like we're supposed to have this perfect elevator pitch and you should go in, say the elevator pitch and walk out with a client. Well that's not really the purpose of it. It's just begin to know people and it's really about just looking for things that you've got in common. Chris Marr: Be the person that introduces yourself to other people. Don't go sell. Don't sell to people. Just go and meet people. Make friends with people. That's what I always use to say when I go to event, is like who can I make friends with today. That's one of the best things you can do because people hate being sold to, and they can see a mile off, they can see you gearing up to hand your business card over and people hate it. They just absolutely hate it. The best thing to do is to almost forget that you are selling anything at all and just try and meet people and make friends with people. Laura and Chris are spot on here, for me. You can always spot the serial networkers – those folk that see it as nothing more than a chance to push out as many business cards as they can. I really don't know how they can't see what a turn-off that is. They're not building any kind of relationships, and that's where the value lies. Now you might remember Andy Brown from Triple Your Clients. He takes it a step further – he doesn't just think about building relationships – he gives even more value to one of his business groups. Andy Brown: I'm on the committee there and also on the committee of the St Andrews merchant association, even though I'm not actually a merchant, I don't have a shop or anything in St Andrews. I joined the committee because I'm all about being useful and giving value, particularly in the local area. It's not a me, me, me situation. It's just I think you do get a lot of benefits from just giving. You've got to be mindful of your own time, but I say that I've got these skills related to the internet. I can probably help even though you've got a presence on the High Street. I can help for instance the association. Then with the business club we have a website. I update that. Just by definition that I'm updating that I get in contact with all the people that come and speak at the business club. So, part of Andy's networking is doing just a little bit of work for the clubs – stuff that he finds pretty easy – but it helps grow that trust, that reputation, that makes him more prominent in the network. It's all about giving, really. What's the cliché – you get what you give. Stefan sums it up well: How to Talk to People Stefan Thomas: The way that I treat any networking event is to ask a lot of questions, to find out a lot about the other people in the room, and to get to know them. I very rarely try and push my services on people at networking events. Right, we've been along to an event, we've beaten the fear, and we've made some friends. But what we do we do next? What happens after that first conversation? Next Steps Stefan Thomas: If you think about this for a second, when you I and finish this conversation a number of things will happen. You've got your next appointment to get to, you've got your client you've missed a called from, and those little conversations that you have at the event start to slip out of your memory. Now the same happens to everyone else in the room, so it's your job to continue to remind them that you exist. It's not their job to continue to remember you. Chris Marr: Bring the business cards home with you. Ping them on email. Just say, “Hey it was great to meet you today, and I'm looking forward to catching up with you sometime in the future,” and then stay in touch. That's the big thing. Stefan Thomas: There are two things that I talk about a lot in terms of follow up: active follow up. That's when someone said, “Stephen, I'm really interested in what you do.” In that case I make a point to actively follow up, to phone them the next day and say, “Really like that you're interested in what I do. Can we talk about it more?” Passive follow up, passive follow up is I think when most people lose because actually keeping gently in touch with people over weeks, months, and in my case sometimes even years, that's the thing that has often led to the hidden opportunities, the opportunities that I would never have spotted that come out of the woodwork a few months or even years later. I know myself how easy it is to miss this out. We talked earlier about making sure it's worth the time you invest. Well, the problem is, without the followup, it doesn't really matter how well you do in person, nothing's gonna come of it. You need to get yourself a system – Chris mentioned the business cards there – put them somewhere you'll always find them. When you get back to the office, put it in your process that you always look in this place after an event. And you always do it right away. Like Stefan says, this stuff fades from your memory really quickly. Stefan Thomas: With all of the tools that we have in 2015, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, email, the telephone, all of these ways of keeping in touch with people, and yet there's a staggering statistic that 87% of people never follow up after networking meetings. If you just do that, if you just make an effort to keep in touch with people in a very gentle non-sales-y way, then you're immediately putting yourself ahead of the competition. A trick I often use is just to write a few words on the business card. Just something that'll remind you who this person is, what you might have in common, what's worth following up on. Having those little nuggets in the follow up contact really separates from the rest, as Stefan said. And if nothing else, it reminds you who the card belonged to. I've found many a card, weeks later, and had no clue where I got it! Now, Stefan mentioned a bunch of mediums there, so it's worth digging into that a bit. Email, for me, is still the first stop. I'll do that for the main followup. But, social media can be a great addition. Social Media Stefan Thomas:  I also treat all of my social media activity as networking as well, because all the way along I'm either making new connections or I'm strengthening my existing connections. Pretty much everything that we do in our day-to-day business is networking. So for Stefan, actually, social media can support his existing connections, and it can be a first contact for others. You'll remember Patricia McGuire from Purple select – she had a few thoughts on social networking. Patricia McGuire: Sometimes when I look at the way my staff network I think really they spend too much time on social networks and the online platforms doing this. To be honest with you they're really, really valuable. Again, you need to think where are the people you need to talk to, what platforms are they on, and start building relationships with them. If you're using online platforms, so if you're using Twitter or Facebook or whatever, it's not enough to be on those platforms. You need to interact with people, offer advice, tell people when they've given you some advice that's really worked, just interact like you would do in a normal everyday life and you will find that that works very well and business will start being referred to. But I still believe that you cannot beat face-to-face relationships. So, for Patricia – you can build a network online, as you'd expect. But it doesn't replace face to face. I'd say it's a valuable part of your networking, not the whole. Laura Lucas: If you're into offline networking I think online networking can really enhance that, because I'll give you a great example actually. A great friend of mine is Kate McQuillan who has Pet Sitters Ireland. She's a really keen blogger. I met her briefly at the Content Marketing Academy Conference in 2014, so I met her once. We meet. She talked to the conference and I was very impressed with what she'd achieved through blogging. We didn't really get much of a chance to speak to each other, but I really got to know her in the Content Marketing Academy Facebook group. Then I really got to know her personally on Facebook, just from like chatting and interacting, and it's developed into a full bloomed friendship now. She's as much my friend as anyone that I've known since school days or anything like that. She's business friend and she's a personal friend as well. I love that story in that it shows the value of putting long term effort into your network. It's not just those one-off meetings, and it's not even just that follow-up, right after it happens. It's beyond that, making sure that you're building relationships long term – not just for your own benefit, but really creating a partnership with everyone in your network. Stefan Thomas: The process doesn't stop. In 2015 when you and I are talking it is so easy to keep in touch with people, and it's the biggest mistake that most people make is not to keep in touch with people. Laura Lucas: I think sometimes when it's business networking we can think it's all about business but it's actually all about just building a relationship. It doesn't matter what you build that relationship on. I think just take the pressure off yourself and enjoy getting to know people really. Pete Matthew: Find half a dozen people who are like you, small business owners like you but maybe in different markets and just help each other. You'll be surprised where that will end up. This is Colin Gray on UK Business startup, hoping that I've given you the motivation you need to get out there and start building your own network. I promise you, it'll end up being one of the most valuable assets in your business. Now, we're nearly at the end of the season. We'll be tying it up next week with some key takeaways from the series, and giving you an insight into what's coming next. We're also going to be running a little competition leading up to the launch of season 2, so do make sure you tune in next time around. Also, a wee request, in the spirit of this episode, I'd love to ask you for a little referral of your own. I hope we've helped you figure out some of this crazy journey we can business, and if you feel like that's built a bit of trust, then I'm proud to call you part of my network. If that's the case then could you do one small thing. Have a think about one person you know that might like this show. Fire up your email and send them the link, copying us in if you think it'd help – we're on info@thepodcasthost.com. It'd mean a huge amount to me, and it'll help us to get this out to more people, hopefully helping as many folk as we can in the long run. Ok, that's it for this week – this show is created by The Podcast Host, produced by Matthew McLean, written and narrated by me, Colin Gray, and we're a part of the 3B Podcast Network – that stands for British Business Broadcasting. You can check out the other shows on the network at 3bpn.com. Thanks and we'll see you next time.

How do you know when you're ready to take on staff in your new business? Are you ever actually “ready” to take such a step? That's the basis of this episode, as our assembled panel of experts and business owners offer you their own tips and advice for taking on staff. Whether you're a sole trader who needs an extra pair of hands for a few months, or the owner of a limited company looking to employ several people, the process is fairly similar across the board. There's also the danger of putting off hiring staff because you don't think anyone can do the job as well as you. That might be true, but is this approach sustainable in the long term? What happens if you fall ill, or want to take a two week holiday abroad? On this episode you'll hear from recruitment consultant Patricia McGuire, content marketing guru Chris Marr, photographer Julie Christie, employment law specialist Alison Colley, accountant Gordon Howes, and financial planner Pete Matthew. Recommended Reading There's a couple of excellent books on this subject that are worth checking out. The first is a classic called The E-Myth Revisited (Why most small businesses don't work, and what to do about it) by Michael E. Gerber. This one is primarily aimed at small business owners who are trying to do everything themselves. The second is Virtual Freedom by Chris Ducker. Again it deals with the problem of trying to do it all yourself, but this one is a guide to hiring and managing virtual staff, rather than on-site employees. Transcript It becomes very apparent that you can't do everything and that's another piece of advice. Don't be a superhero. You cannot do everything. I'm Colin Gray, and this is UK Business Startup, where this time, we're talking people. Do you remember that quote from Chris Marr last time around? Chris Marr: You need to pick out a time in the day where you are spending an hour or so working on your business. You need to have a plan for that. What are you doing every day to build your business? This is one of the biggest mistakes new businesses make. They forget to think big. They forget to make time for planning, for strategy, for figuring out how to make the business a success. Instead, they just keep doing what they're good at. The gardener keeps gardening, the programmer keeps programming, and the baker just bakes! The problem is, that's not building a business. That's building a job. And it's a really terrible job at that. It relies on you to run, it relies on your time, so when you're not baking, you're not earning. That means no breaks, no holidays, no time to get sick! And it means no time to bring in more customers or grow a business. That's what Chris from the Content Marketing Academy was talking about. So, what's the way out? Well, building a business that doesn't just rely on you. That's what. And that means staff. So, this is where it can get really scary. Julie Christie: I have two employees. I didn't necessarily feel ready to do it. I just knew I had to do it. For two months, I couldn't afford it. I definitely took a hit because I was training her and I was sitting beside her all the time and we weren't taking on more work. Within two months, she was paying for herself. It was a very, very scary move to make but it was the right move and it allowed me to work on the business. I no longer was having to phone clients, go back and forth with anyone, design albums. All the admin was taken away from me so I was able to then do more shoots and more marketing to get more shoots. That's the bit that surprises most new business owners. The admin. There's so much to do, from logging receipts, to paying tax, to handling bills. And that's just the general stuff. There's bound to be tonnes specific to your industry too. So, this is where a lot of people start, as you heard there from Julie Christie, the founder of TeaBreakTog.com. She's still doing some of the main work – photography in her case – but he's using the time that's been freed up to do the marketing too. As Chris mentioned at the start, and even more in the last episode, that's your big job as the founder. Marketing and growing your business. You can still do a bit of the technical work, but you need to find time for the high level stuff. Generally, that means staff. So, how does it work when you're starting out? Let's look at Bill the gardener again. Patricia McGuire: As a sole trader, Bill can take on a temporary member of staff. Certainly, Bill could advertise and take someone on just for a seasonal period of time so he could offer a seasonal contract to them which would be fixed, which means there's no obligation to keep them on after that or he could give something like a zero hour contract just to see how things go. If things work out well, he can tell the employee that he will increase the hours. That's the way in for a lot of people who start out working for themselves. They take someone on for the busy periods. No long term commitments, just getting a bit of help when it's needed. It is a great way to build confidence and learn a few of the processes. And it gets you used to managing people – something most of us aren't used to! So, once you make the decision, what's our responsibility here with the tax office? Chris Marr: He needs to inform the Inland Revenue that he's going to become an employer before he engages anyone. He will register for PAYE as an employer. He will receive his employer's PAYE reference as well as his Accounts Office reference. This is easy enough, and it's the same for a limited company. In fact limited companies tend to do this right off the bat! Either they'll be taking on staff right away, like a café, or you want to get paid as the founder. Either way its' really easy to register on the HMRC website – honestly, quick as anything. Pete Matthew: One thing it's really important now is you've got to report to HM Revenue and Customs now when you pay your employees. You need to pay your employees on a certain day and that will need to be reported to the Revenue on that day, and any tax and national insurance due to the Revenue will need to be paid at the same time. That's called real-time information. Okay, this might sound a bit complicated, but don't worry, there's technology out there to help. Remember on episode 2 when Pete was talking about managing your finances? Pete Matthew: There are, again, software systems usually very often a part of the general accounting software systems that you can buy and they will do all that for you, so you'll need to register with the Revenue as an employer so that you can submit your real-time information, your payroll information as you go. Both Pete and I have mentioned it before, but FreeAgent, is the one I've used in the past. It handles both invoicing and payroll, working out all of that stuff around tax and national insurance. There are plenty of other apps out there that can do it too. So, don't let this part put you off – help exists! Talking of which… Julie Christie: When I decided to hire Fiona, I spoke an HR consultant who talked me through everything. He also put together a contract of employment and all the paperwork that we had to have in place and he advised me on insurance issues and things like that as well. That was all taken care of and then my bookkeeper, she took on payroll as well as keeping the books. It wasn't too bad at all and has been worth that's weight in gold. We talked about bookkeeping and accountants in the finance episode, and Julie highlights it here. They can take on payroll for you, handling all of the fiddly work. And contracts – that's a tricky one, and well worth getting some help with. You'll find HR consultants all over the country, and you could get contracts and handbooks made up for just a few hundred pounds. In most cases, as Julie says, it's worth every penny. Ok, we've dealt with the prep. Everything you need to do to get set up as an employer. That's a bit dry, but the next bit's more exciting – that's actually having them on board, getting the help, the input, the expertise they offer. Saying that, before we get too excited, I guess we need to think about what they want in return… Pete Matthew: Paying staff isn't massively different whether you're in a limited company or you're sole trader. They are your employee and so you have certain responsibilities. A key one, of course, is paying them. They're not going to work for you very long if you don't pay, so that's a drain on cash flow. That needs to be planned in, always a good idea to have two or three months cash flow in reserve if at all possible, so you know you've got at least two or three months' worth of payroll that you can pay your staff so you're never sort of going right to the wire. This ties into those questions at the start of the episode. When do you know you're ready to take someone on? As Pete says, money plays a part. If the work dried up tomorrow, how long could you pay them for? Now, don't let this scare you – it's planning for the worst case. And with the help of someone else, it's even less likely to happen than it is right now. You'll be freed right up to search for more work after all. But, it's worth a think. Next, what about frequency? Pete Matthew: I would err towards paying people monthly for the simple reason that most people pay things out on a monthly basis. They're paying house and car insurance and other things on a monthly basis. It can be easier for your employees to budget on a monthly basis. Having said that, I have been paying on a weekly or fortnightly basis since I was at university and part-time at McDonald's. It's a long time ago. Some people may prefer it. I think the world is increasingly moving towards monthly though. It just seems more logical to me. This depends a lot on industry too – the leisure industry always tends to pay weekly, but the finance industry doesn't, for example. This isn't a big deal, just choose what's right for you. And then? All that's left now, is finding the staff themselves! Alison Colley: If Amy is looking to take on staff, there are various routes that she could take. She could take the traditional route of putting an advert in the newspaper but in my experience with my clients, that can be quite expensive and quite a timely process. Another way of looking for staff would be to use somebody specific like an agency, somebody who she can trust to make those initial findings for her and to try and find the right member of staff, so do the initial interviews and things. From experience, vetting and interviewing takes a long long time… Agencies charge a fair bit for this, but sometimes it's worth it… Alison Colley: The other way of doing it is to look within her circle, within her network, see if there's somebody who she trusts and likes who might be looking for work. I find that way with my clients who were taking on their first member of staff, this is normally how they find them rather than going down the traditional advertising route because it would be quite daunting to bring someone into your new business especially when you've worked so hard on it, so finding someone that you trust and know in the first instance is probably a good way of finding staff. Interviews can only tell you so much, so that personal connection can make a big difference in finding someone you trust. AND someone who's right for the business. You're going to have to live with these people, day in day out, so personality matters. Pete Matthew: These are not just payroll numbers after all. They are people and they come with issues to deal with, things like needing to take time off to go to hospital appointments and emergency, things which might happen to him for family reasons, in inverted commas, that you've got to sort of be able to cope with these things. And that's when things get complicated. Because real people ARE complicated. But here's how Pete thinks about it. Pete Matthew: Certainly, a key thing for me here in my practice is culture. We obviously need people who are competent. They need to be able to do the job but I would rather have somebody who I need to train but who fits in well with me and what I'm building here rather than have someone who is superbly competent but is a bit of a pain to work with. Company culture is huge, and it's all your job at the start. You're the founder, you set the tone. Small companies always have a culture based on the founder's personality, their values. As Pete says, the plan is to find people that fit that culture, and for you to reinforce it every day. If you live and breathe the values of your company, then that's infectious. It improves the morale, the productivity and the work that everyone does. Now, there's one last option I want to go through, before we're done. Just incase it still seems too daunting. There is an easier way, and we've already alluded to it… Virtual assistance – that means working with people OUTSIDE of your business to do the work of an employee. Julie mentioned earlier that her bookkeeper does payroll for her – that's a virtual assistant. The bookkeeper isn't employed by Julie, but she does work for the company. Work that needs done on a regular basis. So, How would that work with Amy, our café owner, for example? Alison Colley: This is certainly something that Amy should be thinking about for things like her marketing and social media whether she goes to somebody using a service like Upwork who provide virtual assistance or whether she goes for someone more local, would be down to her to decide. Certainly, with virtual assistance, you can give them a try without having to commit anything in the long term. You can try a couple of people and see how it works out. I would say that it would be better for a small business to try and do it virtually for those sorts of things initially than taking on an employee and having the additional costs and expense of things like PAYE and national insurance. Great advice there from Alison Colley whose an Employment Law Specialist over at alisoncolley.co.uk. Whether they're in the UK or abroad, working with a VA gives you a tonne of experience in managing tasks and staff. And that's without a lot of the HR or admin headaches. I know a lot of new businesses that used virtual assistants to grow to a certain point and then they've graduated to in-house staff. It lets you get that work off your hands without worrying about long term commitment. Of course, the downside is that they might not be as bought into your business as an employee. And managing staff at a distance can be tricky. But, for most people, especially sole traders or really small companies, it can be a stepping stone to much bigger things. So, are you ready to take someone on? Are you Set for that leap? Patricia McGuire: I think you know when you're ready to take on staff. It becomes very apparent that you can't do everything and that's another piece of advice. Don't be a superhero. You cannot do everything, but there are worries, obviously. How are you going to pay them? How are they going to settle into your business? How are they going to reflect your business? But actually, you know when the time is right. You know when the money is right. You just have to do it. If your business is going to grow, you have to employ other people to help you grow it. This was episode 4 of UK business startup. You can find links to everything we've mentioned on the show at the Startup website at podhost.me/startup/. Thanks too to all of our contributors, and you can find out more about what they do at the same place. If you've enjoyed this show, please do pop over to the iTunes store and give us a review. It helps in a huge way to get the show out to more people. And if you're not on an apple device, then tweet us @thepodcasthost – we'd love to hear what you think. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time!

There's a good chance that you're going to have to act as a marketer in your new business along with all the other hats you'll be wearing, at least in the early days. But without drumming up interest in what you have to offer, letting people know your out there, and ultimately making sales, you won't stay in business very long. That's why it's important to make sure you get your marketing right, and that's the purpose of this episode. Our assembled panel of experts and business owners give their opinions on what works, and what doesn't work so well nowadays. In this episode you'll be hearing from AdWords specialist Andy Brown, photographer Julie Christie, recruitment consultant Patricia McGuire, financial planner Pete Matthew, and content marketing guru Chris Marr. Some of the key tips are; Know your audience. Who is your business for, and where can they be found? Look after your existing clients, get this right and they will tell others about you. Create content. Use the questions potential customers ask you and answer them on a blog, podcast, or video series. Transcript It's about putting out stuff that people can use, which entertains them, educates them, and powers them to take action and ideally, to take action with you. I'm Colin Gray, and this is episode 3 of UK Business Startup. So far, we've had a look at some of the big bits, the intimidating bits. That's company structure, finances, business plans. It's the stuff you imagine you need to speak to the experts about. But, hopefully the first two episodes got you started, and helped make a few of the decisions. Well, today's topic, for most people is a bit more clear. And that's, talking about your business, promoting what you do. Otherwise known as marketing. But really, when it comes down it, it's just finding customers. Or, helping them to find you! So, let's start off with Julie, our friendly, and her early adventures in marketing Julie Christie: When I started I just did everything I thought you were supposed to do to market myself, so I got hundreds and hundreds of flyers run off, and I distributed flyers all around my hometown, offering my photography services. I asked all my friends and family to tell everyone they knew. Really, it didn't work. It didn't work. So you know, Julie's not alone here. It's the way it's always been done isn't it? So it must work? Well, you'd think, but when was the last time you bought something off a flyer? It's so common that we're just blind to that type of marketing now. If that's the case, how do we reach people? Often, it starts really local. Julie Christie: I reached out to people who I knew, who looked like target client, and I offered to do work for them for free, in return for them allowing me to use their photographs, but also allowing me to reach their friends. I'd give them vouchers to give to their friends. I reached out to someone who was a bit of a mover and shaker in the area and she wrote a blog post about me. I tried to reach out to people who would talk about me and I reached out to the right people. The people I knew I wanted to work with. That's the beginning for a lot of businesses. Family, friends, local networks. And it works. Treat them right, and things can snowball. Julie Christie: We really look after our customers. When we get a customer, we send them little gifts in the post. We have a really good relationship with them. We phone them. We have lots of conversations before the shoot. We touch base with them after the shoot, every year at least. We give them Christmas cards. We keep up with them on social media, and we find that they then, because we have such a good relationship with them, that they do our marketing for us. And I think that is a good, solid way to build the right client base. It's a slow burden though, and you have to be brave, and stick it out, and keep working at it. I know a lot of businesses who thrive just on that. Just around word of mouth, referrals and you can do great from that, just like Julie. Let's think wider though, outside of our network. How do we start to find people further afield? You'll remember Patricia, who runs a recruitment company. She had some thoughts about finding people in another kind of network – the one I bet you've wasted at least a wee bit of time on today. Of course, I'm talking about Social media. Patricia McGuire: Talk to your customers and find out where they're living in the digital space because you can waste an awful lot of time trying to cover too many of the digital options, the social media options. Once you know where they're living in this space, start becoming expert in those areas. It might be Facebook, it might be Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram. In my particular case, I use LinkedIn, a great deal. LinkedIn and Twitter would be my two major marketing tools at the moment. I'm also developing podcasting as a tool for marketing my business, too. It's great advice – depending on your sector, your audience is bound to have one or two networks they hang around on most. Do you know which one it is already? If not, take Pauline's suggestion – start talking to people, ask them directly. It's the easiest way. Of course, social isnt' a natural fit for us all. Some are really comfortable interacting online, but what if you're not? Patricia McGuire: So, my main advice would be, don't be afraid. You're going to make mistakes. Everyone does, but you will learn very fast because your bread and butter depends on it. Right, that was outbound – that's you going on the hunt for customers. Finding them where they live, and building that relationship. But, maybe there's a smarter way? What if you could attract customers to you? What if you could do something now that might attract customers to your company for years in the future? Well, that's inbound marketing, and it's all about making yourself easy to find. Chris Marr: No longer are traditional marketing efforts working. You think about paid ads, radio ads, newspaper ads, all that kind of stuff. It might work to a certain degree, but it definitely aren't as powerful as, for example, having a website, having a blog and being found online because to be honest, that's where people are making buying decisions. Yea, but what if you're a care home – we gotta think demographics don't we? Say, my target audience is over-60, so I'd imagine that traditional advertising works best for them, doesn't it? Well, you'd think so, but Chris Marr thought otherwise! Chris Marr: It used to be that people would say like there was a demographic there, that weren't online. Everybody is becoming more online. Even people in their sixties, seventies, and eighties. My granddad is eighty-six years old and has an Ipad and WIFI in the house. It's true, and you're always reading about the grey-pound now – that's the amount of disposable income out there in the older generation and retirees. And, like Chris say, a whole lot of which is online. That means it doesn't matter who you're targeting, the web has gotta be a major priority from now on. It helps too, that the web is the king of cheap, or free, inbound marketing. It's all about the search – and that means Google! And that's the big question every business has – how the heck do I get myself high in the search results. Well, here's Pete Matthew's thoughts on that. Pete Matthew: Definitely content marketing, I think is how it is increasingly being done. It's not the be-all and end-all but it has many advantages. One of them is cost. It's relatively cheap to put out good content consistently. Cheap in terms of money, it's not cheap in terms of time and that's very often the objection that I get from people. You can be targeted, you can reach a very wide audience or you could be locally targeted, if you're in a sort of brick and mortar business where you want to reach your local community, then you can do that just as well. So, content marketing – what's that? In simple terms, it's just publishing good stuff on the internet which ends up attracting people to your website. But what do you publish? Seems like that's a question Chris Marr gets a lot. Chris Marr: He's going to say, “That's great, Chris, I've got my website up and running but I need content. I need information there. What is the best type of content I should have on my website to be A, found in Google, for people to stay on my website and be interested in what it is I'm doing.” You really have to be creating valuable, usable, helpful content that people are searching for. So, not rocket science here. It's helping people, it's showing your expertise by being hugely useful. And that means answering questions. Let's think about Bill again, our imaginary Gardener, how's he gonna approach this? Chris Marr: For example, I'm not a big gardener, but they might say something like, “What's the best way to look after my lawn? Or my grass?” Or “What's the best flower feed for a type of flower?” Here comes my gardener experience. Basically, what I'm trying to get across is, they've got a problem and they're looking for a solution. At this point, I know what you're thinking, but this is what people pay me for? I can't give it away! But that's where the shift is – that's what's separating the businesses that are killing it online just now from the ones that are trying to sell sell sell, and failing. Chris Marr: You're trying to build a relationship with people, so the best content a gardener can do is stuff that people are needing help with right now. They might not want to hire a gardener, but if you're the one that educates them and the one that builds trust with them, when they do need a gardener the person that they're more likely to go to is the person that they've been educated by, the person that they've been building the relationship up with online. You've got to think to yourself, just to strip away from Bill for a second, is what are people searching for on Google? What problems do people have? How can we help them with those problems? How can we answer those questions? That's what people are searching for on Google. That's how you're going to build a relationship with people and that's the type of content that I would advise someone like Bill to do. So it's all about the relationship. They're interested in a topic, you help them, they grow to trust you, and even to like you. In a lot of ways it's about sideways thinking. It's about figuring out who exactly uses your product, and what type of content they'd be interested in. Pete Matthew: Here at my financial advice practice, we want people who are serious about making decisions with their money, they want to achieve their goals. So, my podcast is geared to people like that. We're giving them good information that they can act on themselves while at the same time saying, “Look, a lot of this is really complicated, you might want to see an advisor. Hey, here we are.” It's about putting out stuff that people can use, which entertains them, educates them, and powers them to take action and ideally, to take action with you. It's lots and lots of things you can do, certainly it's working for us. The classic take on this is, give away the what and the why, then charge for the how. OR, another way of putting it – information is free, charge for implementation. That means, no matter how much you tell people, there's always a big group who need more help, some handholding or, even though they know, just want it done for them anyway! And who are they going to turn to. Well, the guy that told them about it in the first place. Looking further, there's another pretty interesting benefit. And that's The fact it can become a really valuable tool in your in-person selling as well. Andy Brown: When I get a prospect comes in to my space, they e-mail me asking a question and I will reach out and say, “Look, I've already answered that question.” In a nice way. You're going to get more value by listening to the show, listening to this episode. That's great because it conveys my personality and my voice and maybe they could get to know me by that vehicle. So that was Andy Brown from tripleyourclients.com. And he's talking about the fact that his customers get to know him through his content – that means trust. That means credibility. That means loyalty. Not to mention the authority he's building by putting out these really useful resources. Articles that seem to directed straight at that person. It's like you're in their head, seeing right through to their secret worries. Andy Brown: I think every business needs to have content marketing strategy, where they're answering questions that their consumers ask. When I've done that, it's been really successful. Page one of Google for the specific search term that I'm targeting. You need to do more of it, I think that you can never end. It's not complicated, the audience asks questions and you answer them. A lot of small businesses, they assume that all those questions can be answered on the phone when someone contacts you, but as we know, that's no longer happening. People are making the decisions before they contact you. They're basically doing the research online. If they can't find the answers on your site, they're going to go somewhere else. Right, we know what we're doing – we're answering question, squashing worries, we're becoming the most useful person in our industry. But how do we get this stuff out there? Julie Christie: We also blog, we have a blog on our website and we do write a lot of content surrounding what you should wear to your shoots, things to think about before your boudoir shoot, how to look after your skin before your boudoir shoot. We try to get found by potential clients through writing content for our blog, as well. Blogging is a great one to start with – that's just writing articles on your website. No kit required – just you, your keyboard, and the last few questions you were asked by a customer. Blogging's also the most direct way to get found in search – Google lives on text after all. But, the downside is that, because it's so easy, the competition is huge. It's still something you can crack if you find your niche, and what's unique about you. But blogging's well supported by the other methods, and ones that might seem a bit more cutting edge. Andy Brown: I've done a lot of video in other businesses that I've had over the years. Not done so much in the paper click space I'm working in at the moment. When I was in the golf industry we relied heavily on them, as you can imagine. On golf tips in small one minute, two minute videos. I still think YouTube is such a massive opportunity for small business. So, if you can offer out evergreen content, you should really take the time and you'll see the results. It's astounding. Video's great for being found, because it gets you visible on the second biggest search engine out there. That's YouTube. It's also an even better way to get your personality across – people can see you, hear you, really get to know you. But, one downside, video can be tricky to make, especially if you want it to look good. Something above the standard selfie stick guerrilla filming. But then again, that's raw, that's honest, and a lot of companies have made it work really really well for them. The other thing about video is that it's a hugely busy medium, and attention spans can be pretty low, people flicking from video to video. So, there's an alternative, and since you're listening to this show, you've probably heard of the humble podcast. Chris Marr: I loved doing video but I began to find myself listening to mono podcasts. I just thought I'd give it a go. The level of interaction from listeners is sky-high compared with video. I think it's because, podcasting particularly, can be passively consumed. You can be doing something else while you are listening to a podcast. Walking the dog, cutting the grass, you can be on the commute, you know? We've all got these smart phones with us these days, which automatically downloaded the latest episode of whatever we've subscribed to. I get to speak into people's ear drums for half an hour every week and there's thousands of people listening. I get to fill a good size local sports arena every week and speak to that many people and they're giving me their attention. I just think that's staggering. Because of that ability to consume it passively and because of that very intimate nature, I think, of having somebody's voice in your ear, it's certainly driven a lot more interaction, inquiries about doing business with us. I wish I'd done it earlier. Andy Brown: I think podcasting has really worked well for me and will work for others because of the fact that you're having a conversation. You can actually talk personally to the listeners, a one-on-one experience. It's not like an e-mail, where the reader's feeling that you're talking to everyone. This is a one-on-one conversation. That connection is what you're really going for in your marketing. We talked earlier about relationships, about building trust, building loyalty – that's what you're looking for. All three of blogging, video and podcasting can do that, and really, good marketing means doing at least two of them, if not all three. Podcasting is a funny one because it's a little bit behind the other two in terms of take up, but that might be a bit of an opportunity. When I asked Andy what he thinks the future of podcasting looks like, he was pretty emphatic. Andy Brown: It's going to be everywhere. Well, if you're sort of nerd-techy like me, it is everywhere but the mainstream will see it in a couple years time. You talk to friends, more and more they're going to be recommending podcasts. The same way that they talk about what they enjoyed on Netflix, for instance. That wasn't around a few years ago. Fast forward to three years from here and it'll just be, “What's your favorite podcast?” Even better, depending on how you do it, podcasting can be the easiest content of all to produce. Andy Brown: It's not a big deal, I record mine on my iPhone and then use an app to produce it. It goes automatically onto my feed, which is hosted on Sound cloud. It's the simplest set up you can have and it's very inexpensive. Marketing is a huge subject – it could be a series on its own – in fact I'm pretty sure we'll do just that, creating a whole season on it for this show. But, when you're getting started as a small business, less can be more. It's really easy to take on too much, to tackle every marketing method out there. But if you cover everything, just a little bit, then it's pretty likely you won't make a big impact anywhere. Sometimes it's best to choose a few key approaches and hit them hard. Concentrate your efforts and you'll see a big impact, then you can move on to the next technique. Or just double down on what's working! Whichever route you take, there's one thing that's even more important – that's' consistency. We all struggle with this. Everyone hammers their marketing in the early days, to grow their customers. That's when you've got lots of time, and not many contracts. But, what happens when the marketing works? Chris Marr: The gardener, for examples, he's got loads of gardens, he's filling up his schedule and all of a sudden, he hasn't got any time to market his business. Now, the biggest mistake that Bill could make is to not plan in time to build his business. The worst case scenario for Bill is: he stops marketing, all of a sudden he starts losing clients for some reason, or customers stop needing him. The next thing he knows, he's got no customers left or he's only got a few customers. Then he starts marketing. Marketing doesn't take effect immediately, it's something you need to be building. It's a foundational thing in your business, something consistent. It's about awareness and it's about staying top of mind and about … Reminding people you exist, basically. I love that – reminding them you exist. Chris's highlighting the fact there that big brands don't assume they can do one big campaign, and that's them in your mind forever. That just doesn't work. You fade in their minds, other brands get themselves out there and overwrite the work you've done. SO, you need to keep doing it. Keep marketing. Every day. Every week. Chris Marr: You need to pick out a time in the day where you are spending an hour or so working on your business. You need to have a plan for that. What are you doing every day to build your business? The most successful people do this….. you've got to realize that actually, you can't just do the gardening. You need to do the marketing, as well. Remember, though – that effort is so worth it. Consistent marketing helps you keep the work coming in, or the sales going out. Not only that, but GOOD marketing, makes sure those sales are to customers you actually like. Customers you WANT to work with. Remember Julie was talking about relationship marketing earlier? If you find customers that fit your personality, your values, your brand, then everything is so much easier. First, your customers stay longer, become more loyal. Next, you get more referrals because they actually like you! Ever better, you can charge more, because you're in demand and you have the social proof to justify it. Last of all, probably the most important one, it makes your work more fun. And what's the point of going into business if it's not to do work we love? Julie Christie: It's really hard to follow this advice, but my advice would be never forget who your target client is and never get desperate. I think that's when you go down that slippery slope and you start working for less money, you start working for the wrong clients. Try and stay strong, try and find that right client. It's easier said than done. This was episode 3 of UK Business Startup, and this time around I want to ask a little favour. If you enjoyed the show and it helped in just a small way in your own business adventure, would you mind popping over to the iTunes store and giving us a rating and a review. It's a huge help in getting the show out to more people. You can do it either in the Podcast app on your phone, or through iTunes on your computer. If you're not on an apple device, then, forget about this itunes caper – instead, just fire us a tweet letting us know what you thought of the show. You'll find us @thepodcasthost on Twitter. Thanks as well to everyone that helped in this episode – all of our interviewees. And you can find out more about what they do at the shownotes today which is at thepodcasthost.com/startup/103 Thanks for listening, and see you in the next one!

So what kind of business do you want to have? Perhaps you're looking at setting up on your own as a sole trader. Maybe you want to rent or buy premises and employ staff. Perhaps you're not even sure yet about which route is best for you. In this episode we're going to take a look at the different business structures why you might choose them. The 3 main trading styles are Sole Trader: You run the business, you do the work. A common route for tradespeople such as gardeners, plumbers, or hairdressers. Partnership: The name says it all. You go into business with a partner and share/run the business between you. A partnership is essentially just like a sole trader split in two. Limited Company: The route commonly taken by business owners looking to grow in size over time. Those who are looking to protect themselves legally by separating the business from themselves. Also, whatever route you choose to go down, you will have to think about how you're going to manage your finances. How do you go about doing this? Should you work with an accountant or book keeper? And what tools are available to help you keep a record of what's going in and what's going out? On this episode we'll hear from financial planner Pete Matthew, accountant Gordon Howes, photographer Julie Christie, and recruitment consultant Patricia McGuire. Transcript Hey, I'm Colin Gray and this is UK Business Startup, the podcast which takes you, step by step, through creating your own business. This, week we're talking structure. If you're starting a business, one of the first decisions – after what you actually do, of course – is what structure you're gonna follow. That's when terms like limited company, sole trader or partnership come up. And, for a lot of people, that's really scary – it sounds like your getting deep into the legalities at that point. This episode should be a big help here, though, giving you some tips on what company structure might suit you. Let's get into it! Pete Matthew: Hi. My name is Pete Matthew. I am a chartered and certified financial planner, which is just a posh way of saying I'm a financial adviser, really. Managing the finances of a business is very much like managing personal finances, but a lot of us are not very good at that, so it's important to put in good practices right from the start. If you're going to set up as a sole trader, or in a partnership with somebody else, or as limited company, you will manage things slightly different. So here's the nub of it – each type of business works quite differently, and, actually, it often works as a bit of a pathway. A lot of people start out at sole traders or as part of a partnership, and then move on to become limited companies over time. Others skip the path, though, and jump straight in as as limited. The question for most people is, where do you start? I asked Pete if that's something he's asked a lot: Pete Matthew: Yes, it is, and usually the answer to that is tax. If you're a sole trader or a partnership, you are your own entity as far as the revenue is concerned. Any profits you make as a sole trader, or your share of the profit of a partnership, becomes your income. Now if business is good, and you get to the stage where your share of the profits is more than 42 thousand, or there about, you are going to be paying higher rates tax, 40%. That's pretty steep. Whereas in the limited company, the money comes into the company, and it pays corporation tax. The difficulty with a company is getting money out. There's two ways you can get money out of a limited company, salary and dividends. It's usually the most tax efficient environment to be in a limited company, depending on your anticipated turn over. If it's going to be more than forty, fifty, sixty thousand, I would definitely look at a limited company. So Pete gives us a good ballpark there – in the region of £50k turnover? Then you might want to think about incorporating. Remember, though, there's a lot more than that goes into it, and one of the biggest is even more legal: that's liability. So, the clue's in the name – the limited in limited company, talks to the limited liability you have as the company owner or director. When you incorporate – that just means creating a limited company – suddenly that company is it's own entity. It's like a person itself. It has it's own bank account, it's own money, and it can shoulder the blame when something bad happens. That means debt, legal issues, and a whole lot more. As a sole trader, the company is YOU and only you. As a partnership, there's two of you, but it's the same idea. You're the one that takes on all the responsibility. I asked Gordon to give us some examples and we came up with a hypothetical gardener called Bill, and a café owner called Amy. His first question for Bill would be: Gordon Howes: Could you have substantial personal liability if something goes wrong? His liability when he starts out is only to himself. He doesn't have any employees. It's unlikely that he's going to reach the VAT threshold with his turn over, and he's going to be dealing with house holders.There's little point incorporating a company and operating through a limited company with the additional regulations and reporting requirements that entails, in his circumstances. In Amy's case, she ticks all the boxes for adopting a trading style of a limited company. A number of reasons, first of all, you have your liability. Liability under fruit hygiene standards, liability to public, who are wandering in and out of your premises. She's taken on a lease on the rented property, so again, she has a continuing liability there. Far better that these things are conducted through a limited company, where there is some shelter from personal liability. We also need to consider the size of our business. I think it's fairly likely that she'll cross through the VAT registration within a first twelve months of trading. It would be better for her to segregate any liability to tax that she can by having an incorporated company. Once again, she's employing people. The moment you employ staff, you are at risk. For example, if you dismiss an employee unfairly, there is unlimited liability. It makes sense for Amy to incorporate a company. So, Pete mentioned turnover as one factor, then Gordon took us to liability, company size, whether you have staff. Lots of things in there. The big thing is, this should give you an idea, but every business is different of course. It's a good idea to talk to an accountant at some point, no matter your situation. They're the ones with the numbers to hand and can give you a wider picture on the pros and cons of each approach. Talking of accountants, that's the next big question – do you need one? What about a bookkeeper. Technically, it's possible to do it all yourself as a sole trader, assuming you're happy keeping the records and totting up the numbers. Limited companies are more complicated, and generally need at least some help from an accountant. But, beyond the minimum, why might you choose to work with someone on this? Here's Julie Christie, our photographer friend, on her experience: Julie Christie: After a year in business, I realized I could not do my own accounts. So I hired a bookkeeper at that point and my bookkeeper kept my books up until a year ago, and then whenever I became a limited company, she said that, you know, I really should start thinking about getting an accountant. So I now have a bookkeeper, and I have an accountant, and I chose them because they were the accountants that she worked with, so it's quite a streamlined process. And that's been amazing for me, because all that time I would spend trying to organize my books, I can now spend actually trying to grow my business and bring some money in. Just to be clear, Julie could have done her own accounts when she was a sole trader, but she either didn't have the aptitude, or the inclination to learn! Here's Gordon again on all of those things Julie and our hypothetical gardener would have to think about: Gordon Howes: Bill is a self-employed trader. He deals with house folders, primarily his customers, and he is going to be issuing receipts. He is going to be receiving and making payments. He's probably very adept and competent at what he does during the day, but does he really want to come home at night and have to start logging every single receipt, every single payment. He's considering buying a van. Who's going to help him make the decision about whether or not he should purchase outright, lease the van, can he afford the new van? He might want to boost his income in the quiet season, over winter. If he goes to an accountant, he can use that accountant as a sounding board. His accountant will have a number of other clients who are in a seasonal trade and might be able to make suggestions that would help him look for new business, identify new opportunities, so that he can increase his workload and stabilize his income during the winter period. So, that's what it's all about. The receipts, the sales, the invoices – a bookkeeper can be a godsend in helping with that. As Julie said, why waste time on admin when you should be growing your business. And then Gordon's point around advice – a good accountant will really help you to grow your business, using all of their experience to guide you the right way. For limited companies, that's not all they do – think about Amy, our café owner again: Gordon Howes: I think Amy should certainly consider engaging an accountant early. She's got a limited company. There are reporting requirements for a limited company. Her accountant will ensure that she compliant with these reporting requirements. She's engaging staff, she's required to operate a payroll. Again, she could delegate that responsibility to her accountants. They will ensure that the payroll is filed in time, that the staffs have pay slips, and can provide her advice on HR issues if required. It's likely that she'll be registered for VAT. Once again, the accountant can ensure that the VAT returns are prepared properly, the correct submissions are made, and they're made on time. With all that in mind, which to choose? Julie worked only with a bookkeeper when she was a sole trader, and then took on an accountant too when she went limited. Me? I did my own accounts when I was sole trader, and only started working with the pros when I incorporated and started taking on staff. Which is the right path? I depends a lot on your aptitude with numbers, and how organized you are. I'm not in the slightest bit organized, so my accounts always ended up a day of stress at the end of the year. I'd take on a bookkeeper as soon as I could afford it if I had my time over. Ok, we're well into the finances now – that's a bit part of the structure. How do we organize that once we've set up the business? Pete Matthew: The first thing you absolutely must do is to keep the business finances separate from your personal finances. That obviously means a separate bank account. You don't want to be mixing the money up at all. It's a fundamental no-no. Ok, straightfoward there. Keep your money apart, no matter what structure you choose. While the new account is still just yours as a sole trader, it makes your bookkpeeing so much easier. On that note, even if you do take on a bookkeeper, there are still a few things you have to do yourself, such as sending receipts, telling them who to invoice. How do you deal with that? Pete and Patricia, here to help as always: Pete Matthew: You obviously need to keep really good records, and this is very often the problem. Receipts very quickly get out of hand. Invoicing can be difficult and difficult to stay on top of. Too many people use manual systems to do that. Patricia McGuire: Right from the very beginning of my business, I saved one morning a week to do all the accounting and the invoicing, although some people say you should invoice immediately. I personally put aside Friday morning, invoicing and doing my accounts. It's a really good idea, from an expenditure point of view, as well as a mental health point of view, to put aside time, have a clear system, and keep your receipts and expenditures very neatly filed. Recording that stuff is key – keeping track of everything. It's such a small job to do day to day, but if you leave it to pile up, it becomes huge. I mentioned I'm far from organized, so I struggled with it, but Gordon outlines why it's so important. Gordon Howes: In terms of knowing how much income you've got, Amy wants to know what her daily takings are. She has a cash register, she need to record the ZED reports, every day. She needs to keep her record of it. Bill, on the other hand, probably not so important for him on a daily basis, certainly on a weekly basis. He wants to know how much he's earned. He needs to issue receipts to clients. He needs to consider how much he's spending on petrol. Each of them have a different requirement for record keeping. No matter what type of business you run, you need to record the money coming in and going out, and either send it to your help to track, or log it yourself. The way I got around it was, the way I solve a bunch of my problems – technology! Pete says it well: Pete Matthew: There are some great software tools out there which are very, very reasonable, which can help you get off on the right footing. I use a system called FreeAgent. There's another one called Xero, X-E-R-O. And these are great, low-cost accounting systems which you can get going with really easily. It really is just about making sure you know what's coming in from what sources, you're keeping really good records. I use FreeAgent too, check it out at thepodcasthost.com/freeagent. But any system of that sort will let you do invoices, track receipts, create reports, and it's actually really useful to use it with your bookkeeper or your accountant. It ties everything together into one neat little package. If you're still struggling to decide on whether you should take on the help, I'll leave you with Julie's ringing endorsement here. Remember, do what you do best, and leave the rest to an expert! Julie Christie: Every year, end of January, all my fellow photographers are on Facebook moaning and groaning about filling in their tax returns. They're staying up all night for three nights in a row, and I have nothing to do. It's all done. I really can't recommend it enough. Thanks for listening to this episode of UK Business Startup, a podcast which takes you step by step through starting a business. This episode was all about the structure of your company, and how it manages its finances. If you want a recap and links to everything we've mentioned here, go to thepodcasthost.com/startup

Pete Matthew is a chartered financial planner and has long been interested in property. He set up the Meaningful Money website and podcast, and has a passion for educating people and helping them plan financially for their future. See this episode on the Property Geek site: https://www.propertygeek.net/podcast/financial-planning-pete-matthew