Informed Choice Radio Personal Finance Podcast

I'm a master procrastinator. Easily distracted, very proficient at finding trivial things to fill my time, right up until a looming deadline, when I become the most productive machine known to humankind. It turns out that, as a nation, we're pretty good at putting off important financial decisions, sweating the small stuff instead. In this episode, I chat about some interesting new research which found that we lack the mental space to tackle money matters, and what we can do about it. There's also a roundup of the latest personal finance news, and the aftershow, where I talk about what's been happening at Informed Choice this past couple of weeks, as well as why I spent a couple of hours swimming in a very cold lake on Sunday morning.

It seems that all investors want to be contrarian investors. My guest today explains that being a contrarian is hard work. It requires a lot of patience, both in terms of waiting for opportunities and then waiting to be proven right. And it requires us to go against basic human instincts, fighting our natural tendencies to go with the flow and follow the herd. But this is, of course, why being a contrarian works. John Stepek has been writing about business, economics and investment for more than 20 years. He's the executive editor of MoneyWeek, Britain’s bestselling weekly investment magazine. His new book, The Sceptical Investor, pulls together the latest research on behavioural finance, and examples from well-known contrarian investors, to offer practical techniques to help you to spot opportunities in common investment situations, from turnaround plays to bubbles and busts, that others in the market miss. John warns that being a contrarian investor won't make you popular and it won't make you famous. But it will make you money. Here's my conversation with John Stepek in episode 416 of Informed Choice Radio.

What happens when an intensively farmed estate is handed back to nature? In this episode of Informed Choice Radio, something a little different. I recently had the opportunity to speak to the award-winning nature and travel journalist Isabella Tree about the Knepp Experiment. Isabella, along with her husband, the environmentalist Charlie Burrell, are custodians of the 3,500 acre Knepp Castle Estate in West Sussex. She's author of the acclaimed book Wilding: The return of nature to a British farm. In Wilding, Isabella Tree tells the story of the ‘Knepp experiment’, a pioneering rewilding project in West Sussex, using free-roaming grazing animals to create new habitats for wildlife. Part gripping memoir, part fascinating account of the ecology of our countryside, Wilding is, above all, an inspiring story of hope. So how did this interview come about? A while ago, Nick went on a butterfly safari at Knepp. He often talks to his clients about it, and recently we purchased a copy of Wilding for a couple of clients. Nick then suggested we approach Isabella to ask if she would join us on the podcast. From a personal perspective, as chairman of the Knowle Park Trust, I was interested to learn more about the role of humans in encouraging and supporting wildlife to an area. There's a personal finance angle here too! As you'll hear in this episode, Issy and Charlie were massively in debt when they make the decision to re-wild Knepp. The transformation of their farm has created some interesting new revenue streams and employment opportunities too. Without further ado, here's my conversation with Isabella Tree, author of Wilding.

A successful entrepreneur living in Southern California, my guest today had built a “dream life”; a happy marriage, a two-year-old daughter, a membership to a boat club, and a BMW in the driveway. But underneath the surface, he was creatively stifled, depressed, and overworked trying to help pay for his family’s beach-town lifestyle. Then one day, he listened to a podcast interview that changed his life. Five months later, he had quit his job, convinced his family to leave their home, and cut their expenses in half. My guest today is author, filmmaker and FIRE fanatic Scott Rieckens. We're diving into the FIRE movement in this episode, something I've been wanting to cover for a long time on Informed Choice Radio. What's FIRE? It stands for Financial Independence Retire Early, and it's a rapidly growing community of personal finance extremists. In essence, FIRE means tracking your spending and making adjustments to achieve and maintain a standard annualised spend, usually 50% or better. Yes, Scott and other advocates of the FIRE movement are successfully saving half or more of their take-home pay each month, as part of their journey towards financial independence and early retirement. By following the FIRE principles, you save up enough for a 4-6 month emergency fund, and once that’s funded, put the leftovers in tax advantaged accounts invested in simple index tracker funds. Anything left over once those accounts are maxed out are also put into investments. Most people try and stay as passive as possible with their investments so they can spend more time doing what brings them the most happiness. Financial Independence, Retire Early. You're going to enjoy this one. Here's my conversation with Scott Rieckens, author of playing with FIRE, in episode 414 of Informed Choice Radio.

I came across an article on Marketwatch.com last week, and it's a controversial one. We hear a lot about the benefits of index tracker funds. These are the low-cost funds that aim to replicate the performance of a market index. It's a style of investing sometimes called passive investing, although of course there are still active decisions to make about which index to track. The Marketwatch article is a write-up of a new study, which throws into question a big part of the rationale which is driving investors towards index tracker funds and exchange traded funds, ETFs. That rationale? That even skilled investment managers can't beat the market, so there's no point in paying them to try, so you're better off sticking with index tracker funds instead.

An Economist Walks Into a Brothel. It's not the first line of a bad joke, but the title of a new book all about unexpected places to find risk. Is it worth swimming in shark-infested waters to surf a 50-foot, career-record wave? Is it riskier to make an action movie or a horror movie? Should sex workers forfeit 50 per cent of their income for added security or take a chance and keep the extra money? You might not expect an economist to answer these questions, or other questions people face in daily life, including who we should date or how early we should leave to catch a flight from the airport. But then you've never met my guest before. Allison Schrager is an economist and award-winning journalist. She's spent her career exploring this subject of how people manage risk in their daily lives. This is so important, because whether we realise it or not, we all take risks large and small every day. Even the most cautious among us cannot opt out--the question is always which risks to take, not whether to take them at all. What most of us don't know is how to measure those risks and maximize the chances of getting what we want out of life. So that's what we cover in the episode today. Allison shares some ways to dealing with risks; these are the same principles used by professional risk takers, like poker players and big wave surfers. Here's my conversation with Allison Schrager, in episode 412 of Informed Choice Radio.

Did you know that 90% of women will have complete control over their finances at some point in their lives due to lifecycle events like divorce or simply by outliving their spouses? This is why it's so important for women to talk about money, yet so few do. In this episode, I chat with Debbie McGrath, author of a new report called Why Not Now, which is all about the cost to financial and emotional wellbeing when women don't talk about money. We also hear about how much money UK employees are losing out from unpaid overtime. Our correspondent Kitty speaks to Jeff Phipps, Managing Director at ADP UK, to discuss their new report which found more than a quarter of workers wouldn't know if they have been paid incorrectly, and what to do about it. There's also a roundup of the latest personal finance news and some news from the world of Informed Choice this week.

Wages for the majority have been stagnant for decades, but a lucky few have enjoyed a pay bonanza. Top company bosses take home in several days as much as most people earn in a whole year. My guest on the podcast today is Deborah Hargreaves, former business editor of the Guardian and a founder and director of the High Pay Centre, an independent think-tank that monitors executive pay. Deborah's new book is called Are Chief Executives Overpaid? In the book, she explains why pay for the top 0.1% has sky-rocketed in the past 20 years. She gives a devastating account of how it has created a vicious circle that destabilizes our economy and undermines social cohesion, demolishing the twisted logic of the chief executives who say: 'I'm worth it', when that means raking in £70m a year. Deborah's book is a rigorous expose of the dysfunctional nature of our 'winner-takes-all' economy, debunking the myths behind top pay and examining a range of pragmatic solutions. Here's episode 410 of Informed Choice Radio, an interview with Deborah Hargreaves of the High Pay Centre.

What are the simple systems you should follow to boost your long-term wealth? In this episode, I'm sharing four systems that i believe can have the biggest impact on your long-term financial success. We also hear about the onset of Making Tax Digital, and the importance of efficient business systems to help cope with that change. And the collapse of Wow Air has left thousands of passengers stranded. What does this mean for airline passengers? There's also a roundup of the latest personal finance news, and an update from the world of Informed Choice this week.

There is increasing pressure for all of us to take responsibility for our own financial security and wellbeing. But we often overlook how the benefits that come with a job can help us do just that. My guest on the podcast today is Jason Butler, co-author of a new book called Essential Personal Finance: A Practical Guide for Employees. The book focuses on these valuable work benefits and shows how you can build on this important foundation to achieve financial security and your life goals. When we talk about valuable financial benefits at work, we're talking about things like pension schemes, life cover, sick pay, access to cheap loans, savings schemes, even financial coaching. But many of us take these things for granted or simply don't realise how valuable they can be. A topic we've touched on before on this podcast is financial stress and the impact this can have on our performance in the workplace. So I think this is a really important subject and Jason shares some great insights in this interview; ideas that are equally as valuable for employers and employees. Here's my conversation with Jason Butler in episode 408 of Informed Choice Radio.