Episode 62 – Time to Reflect
Episode 62 – Time to Reflect
In this episode Chris, David and Producer Tommo share some ideas to think about during lockdown, given what we know about money and happiness. The guys share how they have been spending their time and not their money. They take a look at what we can do right now and what positives we might want to continue after the lockdown. The #tightasstommo is a classic but sensible one – but we will let Producer Tommo off, he is in lockdown with a toddler!!!
Welcomes and Introductions
To buy the Financial Wellbeing Book and support the Penny Brohn Cancer charity, click here for the Amazon link
What is this podcast all about?
- How are we feeling during lockdown and some practical suggestions of what people can do right now.
Tight Ass Tommo
Child names, car number plates and lack of spending in a pandemic!
#tightassstommo’s tip of the week – bit of a boring one, but great whilst we have time on our hands to sort through paperwork –
Specified Adult Childcare Credits
Click on this link to go directly to the government website with more details
Today’s Topic – what have we all been going through and what can we learn from it?
Two things may happen when all this is over
- Go back to our old ways
Or
- We seize the opportunity to keep the positive changes going
How can we all come out of this with a better relationship to money?
Tommo & Toby!
Everybody is talking about time . . .
David, on gardening, writing his novel and his ineffably polite nephew
The importance of an emergency fund
Our choices when it comes to money and time
Charity donations – time and/or money
“By focusing less on money and more on time, it is easier to use both of those resources In happier ways.”
Happy Money – Dunn & Norton
Positive ways the guys have been spending their time
What has Producer Tommo learned as a financial adviser?
- How people at different life stages are reacting in different ways
- Addressing the worry and confirming it’s ok to worry
“This is normal, this is in our DNA to be worried It’s okay. Not everybody will feel as worried as others.” Neil Bage – Be-IQ
Click on this link to view the Ovation and Be-IQ Webinar about understanding our behaviours
Click on this link to listen to Episode 36 – Understanding our Attitude to Risk with Neil Bage
- Tommo’s tip – make a note of how you are feeling right now and use this to inform better decisions going forward
It’s up to us what positive changes we want to stick with when we get out of lockdown
What can we do right now?
What is a financial plan?
- It’s going to have a summary of objectives.
- It’s gonna have some sort of a cash flow forecast, or a spreadsheet to see if those objectives are achievable and . . .
- Some specific actions for how that’s going to be achieved
Buy the book for more information!
If we’ve got time on our hands, we have a great opportunity to think about what’s important.
Thanks to the lockdown the guys recorded the podcast via Zoom, here is a glimpse behind the scenes for you –
Transcribe of the Podcast Script:
(scroll to the bottom to listen to the episode)
David 0:02
Welcome everybody to another one of our Financial Wellbeing Podcasts. And this is rather a special one because normally we are gathered together in Budd Towers, all together in the same room. But we’re recording this one in the middle of the third week of the COVID-19 isolation. So we’re all sitting in our separate houses. I’m at home in my home office, Chris and Tommo, their own respective places. We’re hoping we can get through this without further interruptions from Tommo’s son, Toby, but we’ll see how it goes.
Anyway, my name is David Lloyd, writer, broadcaster, sort of co-host of this podcast, Chris, who are you?
Chris 0:39
I’m Chris Budd standing in my cabin in the garden where I spend most of my time these days actually. So I’ve been self-isolating for quite a few years. No great shock to me!
David 0:48
Yeah, I’m sure your family are absolutely delighted that you have a shed in your garden during these troubling times. . .
Chris 0:53
The feeling is mutual, I can assure you!
David 0:56
Tommo who are you?
Producer Tommo 1:00
Tom Morris, Director and Chartered Financial Planner at Ovation Finance, who kindly put on this podcast for the listening public. And yeah, I’m currently looking at Chris’s fetching headgear that he’s got on to try and make it sound good, but he does look like a little bit of a plonker! But hey we’ll let him off.
David 1:20
Nothing new there. Yes, I realized looking at myself, I’m desperate for a haircut, but I haven’t found a barber yet with six foot long scissors! So I’m just having to let it grow long. I used to have very long hair. Well, I might have to revert to that.
Anyway, just as well a reminder that these podcasts are all based around the Financial Wellbeing book which Chris has already referred to. And that is generally available. So if you’ve not heard of that before and you’d like a copy, get yourself a copy. It’s available on Amazon. They’re still delivering. It’s very cheap and all the profits go to Penny Brohn cancer care.
What’s on today’s podcast, Chris?
Chris 1:54
Today, David, we are going to have a chat about how we are all feeling during this lockdown. What we might be learning about money and maybe a practical suggestion or three as to what people might be doing right now.
David 2:06
Excellent. Now we usually have a section here where we look at common questions from clients of Ovation Finance, but we’re going to look into that in a little bit more detail later.
So instead, let’s move on to probably the prime feature in all of these podcasts #TightAssTommo, where our producer Tommo gives us a hint, or a way of saving money.
Chris, have you got one before we come on to Tommo?
Chris 2:30
I do. This is a bit silly. It is extremely silly, but why not? It’s a fun one from our old friend of the show Chris Anchors who is @anchors43 who said – “name your child, your current number plate, then keep your number plate and then when they pass their driving 10 you can give them a personalized number plate is a gift. Eat your vegetables EZ67 DCR”
David 2:52
That’s brilliant. I’ve got one before we come on to Tommo which is basically self-isolate during a pandemic! I’m not going to the pub. I’m not going to the restaurant. I’m not going to the theatre. I’m not going to the cinema. Which is fortunate really because, you know, in common with a lot of people income at the moment for me, non-existent. So that’s a very good way of saving a little bit of money.
Tommo what have you got?
Producer Tommo 3:15
Well, I’m going to dust off an old favorite of mine. We are currently indoors with a bit more time on our hands. Well, some of us do anyway, I’m sure we’ll touch on the fact that I’ve not got so much time on my hands with a toddler but there’s another point. And it’s a tip that I’ve mentioned before, but I think it’s worth remembering is we’ve got this administration time on our hands and it’s called the Specified Adult Childcare Credits. Now, quite a mouthful, and we will put a link in the show notes. This is particularly for parents who have a child under the age of 12.
I use myself as an example in this – so my mother in law looks after Toby once a week and my wife works and earns enough via her salary to already get National Insurance credits. So what we can do is actually pass on the notional child benefits National Insurance credits to her mum at the end of each tax year, which is great for her because she’s retired now, she’s got a few gaps in her National Insurance credits. So we shift what Lindsay would have got through the child benefit system over to her mom. So that means that she gets an extra state pension without having to put her hand in a pocket. So it’s a really good system. It works for grandparents other relatives that are looking after small children. It’s just a bit of a fill up there for people who are doing the childcare. Who might not necessarily be getting anything for it.
Chris 4:50
How does somebody actually get that Tommo?
Producer Tommo 4:52
So I will put a link in the show notes, but it’s on the government website. And again, I think I mentioned before the government website these days for this sort of thing is actually really quite good. And what happens is, is that once the tax year is done, you’re able to claim for it, all the details are going to be on the link. I could bore you to tears otherwise with all the details of exactly how to do it, but it’s brilliant, just to put a monetary figure on it. To get an extra year’s worth of credits for your state pension would cost you around about 700 pounds. And that’s actually worth about 250 pounds to you extra a year when you come to state pension age. So some really good deal.
David 5:34
Excellent. That’s well worth knowing. Thank you, Tommo for that rather sensible #TightAssTommo tip.
Producer Tommo 5:39
Sorry.
Chris 5:41
Bit boring if I’m honest. I prefer the one about your wife’s small feet!
Producer Tommo 5:45
I should have brushed that one off.
David 5:48
Right, Chris, why don’t you introduce our subject for today?
Chris 5:52
Okay, Thanks, David.
So, it’s a bit of a delicate subject because I want us to reflect a little bit about what we’re all going through at the moment. To see what we might learn from these last few weeks of us all having to be at home. I’ve been speaking to quite a lot of people, I’m sure we all have, as I’ve been part of loads of online meetings. By the way did anybody buy shares in zoom before this all started?
David 6:13
My financial advisor didn’t tell me to!
Producer Tommo 6:16
Did you hear the story that people thought they were buying zoom, but were actually buying a different company that had sort of the moniker of zoom in as a share. A company that’s completely irrelevant.
Chris 6:30
Well, there’s a lesson in that isn’t there?
Anyway, I’ve been, I’ve been on zoom all week it’s great. And I’ve been speaking to loads of people. And it strikes me that one of two things is going to happen when we emerge from the other side of this pandemic. Either we are going to go back to old ways, or we’re going to emerge to change in some way. I think we have an opportunity to change. So I’d like to reflect on lessons we might be learning right now as we record this. So we might all come out of this stronger and with a better relationship to money.
David 6:58
Sounds good, but why do you call it a delicate subject?
Chris 7:02
Well, I don’t want to be preachy about it. It’s a tough time for many people, including some of us. You know, my incomes gone through the floor of my consultancy business. So it’s not about us telling people what they should do. I saw a tweet from some idiot the other day saying, if you’re not learning a new skill or language right now, then you’re missing your opportunity – we’re not going to patronize people by telling them this, things like that. But we’ll just go through a few things that we suggest people might like to think about, given what we know about money and happiness.
Producer Tommo 7:30
And I’m gonna share a few things that I’ve learned as a financial planner, both myself and also with discussions that I’ve had with clients.
David 7:40
And from my perspective, when I think about how I’m feeling about things, it’s a bit weird. I’ve got a lot of time on my hands and yeah, I’m also finding myself very busy filling that time.
Producer Tommo 7:51
You want to try being in lockdown with a toddler. . .
David 7:54
Thank you.
Chris 7:56
We had a little from Toby earlier on
Producer Tommo 7:58
Oh my goodness, because we’re still working full time within Ovation, we’re very fortunate that we’re able to continue what we do, actually probably at the most important time for clients for us to be there. But also my wife’s a teacher so she’s trying to fit in her timetable of doing the work that she needs to do. And then a toddler who bless him needs to be you know, stimulated, given activities to do all of that. It’s Yeah, a busy time in the Morris household.
Chris 8:27
Any tips for people with toddlers about, how to get them to expend energy?
Producer Tommo 8:31
Oh, do you know usually I’d say just let them off their leash like a Labrador, but of course we can’t really do that! So what can you do? Do you know there is a lot of good stuff on YouTube these little kid yoga sessions or kids exercise sessions. It’s Andy Safari adventures or Andy’s adventures my son’s obsessed with, who does these yoga activities with them so there’s plenty out there.
Chris 8:55
Have you found yourself at two o’clock in the afternoon next to your son trying to turn from an acorn to a tree?
Producer Tommo 9:02
The sad thing is though, as you can well imagine a toddler is far more flexible than his old man. So he puts me to shame. I let him off the leash, we got a paddling pool out today. That’s a start.
Chris 9:16
So I don’t know about you guys, but I find that the one subject, it’s a bit like when you have a baby, everybody talks about sleep. And right at the moment I find that everybody’s talking about time, you might have an employee that’s been furloughed, or a business that’s been mothballed. And that some of those people literally have nothing to do during the day and some of the Tik Tok and YouTube videos coming out as a result are very entertaining! So one way of looking at this situation is that we have an opportunity with the time that we have been given, even if we didn’t actually ask for it.
David 9:49
Yeah, I guess that does rather depend on what you do with that extra time. Assuming, of course you actually have any extra time. This would be the case for everyone given it might be like Tommo, you know at home, looking after children, you obviously haven’t got an awful lot of extra spare time to use up there?
Chris 10:07
Yeah, exactly. And that’s why we’re just trying to give people things to think about. Because we don’t want to generalize in a situation like this. I did a little survey of a bunch of financial advisors, a group called the Next Gen Planners – a bunch of mainly younger advisors. And I asked them if they were much more busy, a bit more busy, a bit less busy or much less busy. And I was really surprised result was almost equal across the four categories. So some people are much busier. And some people have not much to do. So we either have less time or much more time, so it’s different. What about you, David?
David 10:40
Yeah, well, obviously I’m self-employed. I’m used to being at home so from that side of it, nothing new. I mean, I had an interesting thing happened to me just a few days before lockdown. My brother who lives in Saudi Arabia contacted me. He’s stuck in Saudi Arabia. His wife was in China visiting her mom and was stuck in China. Their son Ross, my 16 year old nephew, was at boarding school in Norfolk, but the school was closing. So he didn’t have anywhere to go, he couldn’t get home. I drove to Norfolk and picked him up and brought him back. So he’s been staying with me for the last few months now. And I have to say, initially, I thought, oh, how’s that gonna work, you know, 16 year old in the house, but actually, he’s been an absolute diamond. And we’re getting on really, really well. But what we realized fairly early on was one of the ways of making that work was we need to set routine for ourselves. So he’s been doing great work around the garden, I’ve set lots of little tasks, and a big patch of lawn. He’s de-turfed it, he’s dug compost into it, he’s turned it into a vegetable garden, we put a fence around it. I’ve spent more time in the garden than I ever have at this time of year. So I’ve been doing more stuff in the garden.
I’ve gone back to my novel, which I’ve been writing for about three years now. And I’d ground to a halt with it. Graham Greene, the novelist set himself a target of always writing 500 words a day, and I thought, well, if that’s good enough for Greene, then it’s good enough for me. So I’m writing a minimum of 500 words Today, but it’s usually near 1000. So all of a sudden, I’m cracking on with my novel, I’ve only got about 15,000 words to go in the first draft, I’ll be done. So that’s very exciting. So there are upsides to all of this.
The downside is, I don’t get a chance to see my partner Gail, she’s a doctor, her daughter lives with her and she’s working in a care home. So we’ve decided we can’t really spend any time together. And that’s been really, really difficult. But actually, you know, we’re getting through and we’ll hopefully all come out the other end. And I’m trying to make sure that my wellbeing remains good, but certainly my Financial Wellbeing is obviously not so good. But fortunately, I’ve got a bit put by so I just hope that by the time that all runs out, the government will have come up with a financial compensation scheme for which I qualify, because at the moment, there isn’t one.
Chris 12:46
I think that’s going to be one of the big things that people will learn out of this, is the importance of an emergency fund. Having three months expenditure sitting in a bank account doing nothing is like day one of financial planning school so hopefully people who didn’t have that will now make that one of their aims over the next few years is to build that up.
But I want to just refer to a book called Happy money by the authors of Dunn and Norton, because really interesting – one of the five areas that they talk about with money and happiness is the effect of decisions and depending on whether we view those decisions from the perspective of time, or money.
So they say that if we view our choices as being how we’re spending our time, they tend to be intrinsic focusing internally, or what makes us happy and things like social relationships.
But if we focus our choices on money, then those choices will be less likely to be about our wellbeing.
Now, there are quite a number of sources and research pieces. What caught my eye was if you ask people to donate to charity, rather than saying, ‘Can you give some money to charity,’ you start by saying ‘Are you able to give any time to that charity.’ Then, even if they can’t, when they do donate money, they end up donating more money, if they have first considered it in terms of time. So if we see time as money, you know that old, I don’t remember who said it first of all, but time is money, then we’re actually reducing our happiness. So for many of us who do have more time on our hands at the moment, but of course, we’ve got less money. So perhaps there are some like me that have had speaking engagements cancelled and furloughed, and people are receiving less income. So if we look at your choices, David, that you’ve just described, are they based upon money or time? Now I think it’s fair to say that nobody, apart from JK Rowling writes a novel for money today. So that decision to go back to your novel that’s about time I imagine, isn’t it?
David 14:32
Yes, it is. I mean, I hope obviously, I mean, there are people that make money from novels, I don’t anticipate that I will make as much money, if any, from my novel as I do from writing for television, which does pay very well. But primarily, it’s about time. It’s about doing something nice. I always said I would do and I’ve never done before. And I’ve just wanted to get to the point where I can turn around and say, yeah, I’ve written a novel. So that’s the main reason I’m doing I’m doing it because I’ve got the time to do it. I’m doing it because I’m enjoying doing it. If as a result of that, I do make a little bit of money from it, you know, three and six, whatever that might be. That would be great. It might become an international bestseller! Who knows? But that is not my prime motivation. I’m doing what I’m doing because I want to get it written.
Chris 15:26
Yeah, yeah. And likewise, the gardening I guess, you know, you’re turning your lawn into a vegetable patch. That’s fantastic. That’s gonna save you money in the future. That’s a healthy thing to be doing.
David 15:36
Exactly. So I, you know, I enjoy gardening, but it’s not at the top of my list of priorities. Now I’ve got time I’m rediscovering how nice it is to spend an hour or so every day.
Producer Tommo 15:47
Supervising somebody else doing it. . .
David 15:52
Yeah, exactly. You know, he gets up before I do, and works whilst I am still in bed. But I’m doing my bit as well.
Producer Tommo 16:00
That’s boarding school, that if he’s up early in the morning, well . . .
David 16:03
Yeah, I know. Listen, it’s given him a fantastic grounding that school, and you know he’s ineffably polite, incredibly polite, hard working – usually gets up at six in the morning and goes to the school gym. So just getting up early in the morning and some gardening instead.
Producer Tommo 16:17
I do remember because I called you a few weeks back to touch base. And I think you must have been in the car driving back from picking him up. And I do remember you were you were excited to spend some time with him. But at the same time, I could hear the quiver in your voice. I’m glad it’s working.
David 16:36
It’s working out really well. Im glad to say really well.
Chris 16:39
But the message is – is that although it’s not easy, if we can see this as an increase in our time rather than a reduction in our income, it might make the situation easier, easier to handle. And if I just conclude with a quote from the book of Happy Money,
“By focusing less on money and more on time, it is easier to use both of those resources In happier ways.”
Producer Tommo 17:02
Yeah. And I’m gonna use one example for me now, as I said, still working as normal. But one thing I have in my routine now and have in my life, is every meal time I’m sat down with a family. You know, phone switched off, outside world switched off too, three times a day, breakfast, lunch and tea/dinner. I’m able to really have had some quality time with my family, which wouldn’t necessarily happen before because of commuting normal working day. So yeah on the subject of time, I’m gaining that back, which is great.
David 17:35
Well, one positive that I’ve noticed as I’ve been walking the dogs, or perhaps doing my daily or every other day run that I do, the number of families you see walking out together in a way that they wouldn’t normally be doing. And some of them might be struggling a little bit but you get the impression that for many of them, actually, it’s probably a pleasant surprise to realize that they can do something as seemingly mundane as just going for a walk together.
Chris 18:00
Because what we’ve got to do, the challenge is, can we keep some of these good habits going? Post lockdown. So there we go, just a little thought about time and that book Happy Money is a really, really interesting book on the subject of Financial Wellbeing.
David 18:12
Right, so Tommo, you must have been, when not trying to manage your toddler, very busy over the last few weeks with this, you know, stock market crash and everyone at home with more time to worry about it. Is there anything particularly that you’ve learned from that experience?
Producer Tommo 18:27
There’s quite a few things I’ve learned from that experience. The first one being is not everybody feels the same way about what’s going on is the big one. I have spoken to some clients who have been understandably nervous about seeing their pot reduce in value. But as I like to reiterate, this is temporary, you still own the same amount of everything. It’s just worth a little less right now. And this is what happens with investing and why it’s important to have cash set aside to make sure that you’ve got time to allow things to recover and just reminding why we’re invested in the first place is often to meet our longer term objectives and future lifestyle.
But a lot of people that I’ve spoken to, this is unique. It’s not like the stock market is the only thing that’s worrying people. A lot of the time, they’re not that fussed with what’s happening with their pension or their ISA or investments, because to be quite frank, there’s bigger things going on. So it’s, it’s been about learning how people have reacted during this time.
It’s been fascinating, really, and it’s something that that I will take on, once we come out of this, because this will pass, I’m convinced of that.
David 19:42
It’s been interesting for me, because I’m 65 this year, next year will be 66. Clearly, that’s how it works! And I’ll qualify for my state pension then. So in my own mind, I thought well, one more year of working, you know, pretty much full on and then I can start to make a few choices about how much work and I know Tom, you and I have discussed this. And actually, what’s happened is that I’ve got an early insight into what retirement might be like. And I have to say, if it wasn’t for the financial uncertainty, I’d rather like it! But I’m at a different stage in my life than you are or even Chris is, we’re probably at three different generations. And so it’s probably easier for me to say that I think if I was, you know, younger and still had much of my future ahead of me rather than behind me, then I would be a lot more worried I suspect about the implications of this for me and my family.
Producer Tommo 20:33
Yeah, I think we’re touching on how everybody has different circumstances, different situation’s, at different points in their life and reacts to things differently. Now one thing I’m saying when I’m when I’m hearing people with that anxiety on the phone, all that worry and that concern is just letting people know it’s okay to feel like that. That is completely normal. I had a fascinating chat with Neil Bage. Who was a guest on the podcast a while back, and we did a little bit of a webinar for our clients. And he touched on this and he put it brilliantly said, “this is normal, this is in our DNA to be worried It’s okay. Not everybody will feel as worried as others.” So that is important to address that particular point.
But yeah, people are in different stages or to be to be frank, those that are a bit younger, if with focusing just on their pension pot building up, they’re not that fussed, because ultimately, they are probably gonna have some regular contributions going in each month, that’s going to be buying things a little bit cheaper, their okay, it’s miles away ‘till they need it.
Those approaching retirement are probably a little bit more nervous about what’s going on. But then again, you put things in place and plans in place to make sure that even if there is a wobble in the market, they’re still okay, we still buy them time to let things recover.
But it’s fascinating that you’re at that point where you’re making this transition or we’ve been discussing this transition and you’re been forced to experience it. And that’s going to inform so much of our discussions going forward. So I think a big tip I would give to people is just note how you’re feeling right now. Maybe get a pad of paper, scribble it down. How are you feeling? How are your emotions? What are the positives about this particular period of time? What are the negatives? Because then you can look back in a year. And actually, how was I feeling in that time? How was I making decisions? Can I learn from that? You know, I’ll use an example – if you’re really not enjoying this experience that the markets going down, does that inform how you should be investing once we come out the other side of this? So it’s just really this is a real life experiment going on.
David 22:51
I think this comes back to Chris’ point earlier, which is – this going to fundamentally change the way in which we think, not just about our investments, but about life in general. I think in some ways it will in other ways. Sadly, I suspect it won’t. But we won’t know until we come out the other side.
Chris 23:08
But it’s up to us, David. That’s the thing. It’s up to us whether it does or not. That’s Tommo’s point. There are some things in society that may or may not change, but society is only made up of the collective will of the people within that society. So if we all have a different attitude towards our money, then society will change a little bit. Governments will change. I wonder if, you know, someone like Boris Johnson, who’s got his critics, I have been one of them. We wish him well, right at the moment, obviously. And I wonder if somebody like him will come back to politics and just see things a little bit differently, because this is serious stuff. And maybe it’s time to stop arguing between politicians and start trying to do common good, you know. Let’s not get too much into that one.
Producer Tommo 23:48
Yeah, I know where you are going with this. I suspect the way that people are still using politics at this time to stick each other with makes me think that it’s not going to be quite as rosy.
Chris 23:58
But that’s up to us. I’m sure, and if we as people say, “You know what we’ve had enough of that,” then it will have to change because you know the old expression you get the government that you deserve. But anyway, that’s a political thing. So let’s not get too much into that. But whether we change is up to us, that we control whether we will come out of this with a different attitude to money or not.
David 24:19
Yeah, okay, so thanks for those thoughts Chris. Have you got any other tips about what we can be doing while we’re stuck at home what other people might be able to fill their time with?
Chris 24:29
Yeah, I’m very conscious that our, we call Tommo the producer, he’s not the producer – Tammy’s the power we all know that . . .
Producer Tommo 24:37
It’s just a fancy name because I don’t know what else to call me!
Chris 24:46
Tammy made a comment that a lot of Ovation Clients have been saying to her, have been asking “What can we do?” They’ve been asking for things to do. So at the heart of Financial Wellbeing, number one of the five list of financial things that constitute Financial Wellbeing is Having a Clear Path to Identifiable Objectives. Which in very simple terms means having a financial plan.
Now, this is quite an interesting one for me, what actually is a financial plan? If listeners to this podcast, have financial advisors, what would they actually pull out of their file or open in a Word document that they can point at? And say that is my financial plan?
David 25:27
I was just gonna say If only we had a Chartered Financial Planner we could ask? Tommo you know anybody?
Producer Tommo 25:34
No, I’m afraid I’m afraid I’m at a loss . . .
David 25:36
Do you think then, you’ll do?
Producer Tommo 25:41
A financial plan, it’s an interesting one. It’s something that you can tangibly pull out and go, right. This is where I’m trying to get to. And this is how I’m trying to achieve it. And we use a document. We call it the Financial Wellbeing Plan when we first start out with our clients. And every year we update that. And it could be a simple one pager, where it just goes – right, these are where we’re trying to get to. And this is what we’re doing with your finances to get you there. And this is what you’re going to be doing with your life to achieve these things. So it needs to be stated. You need to update it, at least every year. We have a saying Ovation, “you’re going to see us at least once a year, whether you like it or not.” And I stole that one from Chris . . .
Chris 26:28
You stole all your lines from me!
Producer Tommo 26:31
But that’s incredibly important because it’s not just about focusing on the plan, its planning. As we are discovering right now, it’s about updating the plan. It’s evolving the plan. So it’s having this initial bedrock that we use, and then iterations of that as we go forward.
Chris 26:53
So the financial plan will have three parts to it. It’s going to have a summary of objectives. It’s gonna have some sort of a cash flow forecast, or a spreadsheet to see if those objectives are achievable and then some specific actions for how that’s going to be achieved.
Producer Tommo 27:07
Didn’t Chris put it so much more eloquently than me? I really went on waffle then! The rest of what I just said ignore – Chris nailed it.
Chris 27:17
This is what the Financial Wellbeing book does. So just to give ourselves a little plug again, but bear in mind all the proceeds go to charity, the Financial Wellbeing book was written so that people can make their own financial plan. So if you want something to do buy the book, go through it and this is where to do it, you read through the Financial Wellbeing book without writing too much then but then when you get to the end you start again and then you go through it again like a workbook because you need to read through it first of all to get your thinking and then you go through it practically so if people want something to do right now buy the Financial Wellbeing book and work through it.
Producer Tommo 27:52
Buy it directly from Penny Brohn and all the proceeds go to them so that works. Yeah, it is, you touched on it and I’ll repeat again Chris, is talking about, it’s constantly going over it, re-evaluating it, because life does change. But what a perfect time, we’ve got time on our hands, we have a great opportunity to think about what’s important.
David 28:13
Well, life does change indeed, and who knows, by the time this podcast goes out where we’ll be at as a country, so wherever you are, or whatever is happening in your life while you’re listening to this do stay safe, and do tune in again for another one of our Financial Wellbeing Podcasts.