Informed Choice Radio Personal Finance Podcast

This week I've been in Port Talbot in South Wales, for the Great Pension Debate II. In this episode, I'm sharing the story of why this conference was held in this seaside town in South Wales and some of the key points coming out of the two days.

In this episode, I chat to Sarah Davidson from Boom! about how credit unions work and the type of work they do, across both saving and borrowing, as well as their support for the local community. Boom! is a credit union for people who live or work in West Sussex, Surrey or Kingston. They give local people access to fair and affordable loans, savings accounts and prepaid cards. They exist to help make life better for people in West Sussex, Kingston and Surrey. A credit union is an independent not-for-profit organisation. It’s owned and controlled by its members, who all have something in common, in the case of Boom! the fact they all live in a particular area. To use the services of a credit union you must be a member. Credit unions are committed to being responsible lenders, making ethical choices, and making life better for their members and their communities. To do this, different credit unions may offer slightly different services. Credit unions have been around for decades and today there are more than 40,000 credit unions in 79 countries. There are 118 million other people around the world who believe in and benefit from the ethical and community banking approach that credit unions share. Here’s my conversation with Sarah Davidson from Boom! Credit Union in episode 336 of Informed Choice Radio.

In this episode, how can families cope with the crippling cost of living? I share some new research into rising living costs and then suggest some steps we can take to deal with them. My five tips for coping with cost of living increases: 1 - Learn to budget effectively 2 - Trim the fat from your household budget 3 - Bring in some extra income 4 - Shop around for cheaper deals - mortgage, insurances, utilities. 5 - Make some lifestyle changes - i.e. drive less, walk or cycle more. I would love to hear your thoughts. Leave me a voicemail via our website, email me at martin@icfp.co.uk or get in touch on Twitter, @martinbamford. I’d love to hear from you. If you enjoy listening to Informed Choice Radio, please take a moment to leave us a review on iTunes. It only takes a minute. Visit icradio.co.uk/itunes which will take you straight our page. Follow the link to ratings and reviews, and leave us a review, and we’ll read it out in a future episode.

How can millennials, especially entrepreneurs in this generation, forge a better relationship with work and money? My guest on the podcast today is Amanda Abella. Featured in Forbes, The Huffington Post, Inc, and Business Insider, Amanda has created an online community where millennials can learn how to make money online and actually enjoy their financial journeys. Her ever growing community is currently made up of over 30,000 individuals across social media and email subscriber channels. The world’s fascination with money – and her own need to learn about healthy financial habits – led her to start her career as a freelance writer who focused on financial topics in 2010. Since then her company has expanded to providing content marketing and financial education courses. Additionally, Amanda is a certified professional coach who has undergone several trainings including the IFC accredited International Coach Academy. With her business and life coach training, as well as her own experience, she offers coaching and digital training materials for millennials (and millennials at heart) who are interested in healing their money mindset and starting their own profitable businesses. Amanda combines positive psychology with her business and finance background to create trainings that help students and clients through the emotional and practical sides of money and entrepreneurship. In 2014, Amanda launched her Amazon bestselling book, Make Money Your Honey: A Spirited Entrepreneur’s Guide to Having a Love Affair with Work & Money. She launched the Make Money Your Honey podcast on iTunes in 2016. In 2016, Amanda won the Plutus Award for Best Designed Personal Finance Blog for her blog, AmandaAbella.com . Amanda has won the South Florida Bloggers Award for Best Finance Blogger in 2016 and 2017. Here's my conversation with Amanda Abella, author of Make Money Your Honey: A Spirited Entrepreneur's Guide to Having a Love Affair with Work and Money, in episode 334 of Informed Choice Radio.

In this episode I'm talking about retirement income; the good, the bad and the ugly. I'll be talking about a new report from the Financial Conduct Authority, looking at how the retirement income sector is serving consumer more than three years after the introduction of pension freedoms. There's also a roundup of the latest personal finance news and the after show, where (after an extended break from these Friday episodes) I talk about what's been going on recently in my world and in the world of Informed Choice.

We all want to lead a life of greater purpose and happiness. Cultivating the Finnish quality of sisu might be the answer. My guest on the podcast today is Joanna Nylund. She was born and raised in Finland, where she started her writing career doing music reviews for a local magazine at age 15. After studying English literature at university and living in the UK for a few years, she has been working as a translator, journalist, copywriter and photographer. She now lives in Helsinki with her husband. Joanna's new book, the subject of our conversation today, is a comprehensive guide to the Finnish attitude of courage and determination in the face of adversity. The ancient Finnish word sisu describes an attitude of courage, resilience, grit, tenacity and perseverance. This key psychological competence enables extraordinary action in times of adversity. To have sisu confers a further dimension of doing so with honesty, integrity and humility. There's a personal finance aspect to sisu too, something we cover during our conversation. Here's my conversation with Joanna Nylund, author of Sisu: The Finnish Art of Courage, in episode 332 of Informed Choice Radio.

My guest today is Andy Bird, an independent leadership consultant, coach and author. Andy began his career over 30 years ago working for Unilever in the UK, South East Asia and India. He set up and led their pioneering Marketing Academy before moving on to become a Co-Founder of Brand Learning. Widely recognised for its distinctive client work and company culture, Brand Learning has since grown into a global capability consultancy and recently became part of Accenture. Today on the podcast, I'm chatting to Andy about being inspired. Being inspired can be a magnificent, invigorating feeling. But it's also one that we know surprisingly little about. Does it happen by chance? Are all forms of inspiration the same? Can we influence how and when we feel inspired? These are searching questions, particularly for people who take on the responsibilities and challenges of leadership. Given the tumultuous state of the world today, effective leadership throughout our organizations and communities has never been more important. Equally though, there has also never been greater pressure on leaders to perform and to provide inspirational leadership for their people and teams. Andy's book, The Inspired Leader, is based on extensive new research, conducted in association with Henley Business School, into the real life experiences of leaders from many different walks of life. Drawing on the latest behavioural science, Andy Bird explains how inspiration is actually experienced by people in positons of leadership. He also examines how they maintain it over time despite the many obstacles and challenges they face.

My guest today is Jude Thorne, founder and CEO of a loyalty rewards programme with a difference. Jude has 24 years’ experience in customer relationship management, customer loyalty, marketing and branding. She joined AirMiles in 1994 after senior roles within the advertising industry. In her roles as Marketing Director and then as Managing Director, Jude focused on deepening customer relationships, creating centralised accounts and focusing on customer and client communications and service. The creation of new products and services underpinned the company’s progress and by the time Jude left AirMiles at the end of 2000, the company had increased its profits to £27.2 million, making it the most profitable subsidiary of BA Worldwide at that time. Jude then established Verve Partnership Ltd with Steve Toomey ex FD of AirMiles. Verve advised on customer loyalty programmes for companies such as Sainsbury’s, MBNA, RCI, Cendant Group, John Lewis PLC, Virgin Nigeria and HSBC. Jude is a founder shareholder of The Ice Organisation Ltd. As you'll hear in this episode, Ice is a free loyalty programme that gives customers flexible rewards when they buy from its environmentally conscious retailers using their registered Mastercard credit card. Ice rewards are always given on top of any other discount, promotion or cash back offer. I speak to Jude about some of the current trends in loyalty reward programmes, how as consumers we can choose which loyalty programmes in which to participate, some of the environmental issues that impact the use of loyalty programmes, and much more. Here's my conversation with Jude Thorne, founder shareholder of The Ice Organisation, in episode 330 of Informed Choice Radio.

What if money was easy? If you’ve ever wondered why some people make money easily, enjoy great holidays, have nice things and retire rich, while others always seem to struggle, it’s not because they are more intelligent or just lucky. It’s simply because they have better beliefs about money and a system that works. And that's the subject of the book my guest today has written. Warren Shute is passionate about financial planning and you will understand this if you ever meet him, watch his YouTube channel or read his new book The Money Plan. For more than 20 years Warren has helped thousands of people make better money decisions. His Wealth Management firm, Lexington Wealth, offers comprehensive financial planning and investment advice to individuals and his online business www.Lexo.co.uk offers the investment solutions available at his firm directly online. In 2016 he set himself an audacious goal to help one million people secure their financial future. Knowing he could never do this one-on-one at Lexington he set up www.WarrenShute.com to offer Financial Education for the Nation. Working as a financial educator, he uses his experience of thousands of face-to-face client meetings with his skills as a Master Practitioner of NLP and personal development coach. His new book is called The Money Plan. In The Money Plan, Warren shares his proven plan so you can clear your debts, secure your tomorrow and live for today. Here's my conversation with Warren Shute, author of The Money Plan, in episode 329 of Informed Choice Radio.

My guest on the podcast today is Vishal Agarwal and he has lived the corporate life cycle from start to finish. He started as an intern and worked up to Senior Deals Partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Until very recently, Vishal was a Global Top 500 Senior Leader for General Electric before becoming Chairman and CEO of his own private investment management firm, Full Circle Africa. During his twenty-four-year career, he navigated all facets of corporate life from building teams and delivering value, to translating multinational visions into local wins. In his new book, Give to Get, Vishal illuminates rarely discussed challenges for those in business leadership roles, from overcoming “new guy syndrome,” to creating a stakeholder map, taking your credit to the bank, finding your why, earning trust and building support, and overcoming burnout. I think this conversation is a must listen for anyone working in a corporate role, for both leaders and those aspiring to become leaders. And if that's not you, then who do you know who would get some value from listening to this episode? Please pass it along. Here's my conversation with Vishal Argarwal, author of Give to Get, in episode 328 of Informed Choice Radio.