Informed Choice Radio Personal Finance Podcast

What is the biggest waste of money in your life? Inspired by an article from Business Insider, this week on the show I'm looking at 14 ways to stop wasting your money. It's a particularly important areas to address because wage growth is currently lagging behind inflation for the first time since mid-2014.  Average weekly earnings excluding bonuses increased by 2.1%. in the three months to March, while inflation rose by 2.3% in the year to March 2017. Personal finance news update -Price inflation has risen unexpectedly in the year to April, reaching its highest level since September 2013. -Buy-to-let mortgage activity has halved since the introduction of higher stamp duty for landlords. -US investment giant Vanguard has prompted talk of an investment platform price war following the launch of their new service for personal investors in the UK. -1.4 million UK households are struggling to pay their mortgage and 2.6 million people think their monthly mortgage payments are too high. -Generation X entrepreneurs struggle to balance family life with their ambitions for business growth, according to new research from Lloyds Bank. Get answers to your personal finance questions Do you have a personal finance or investing question for Martin? Email martin@icfp.co.uk or ask on Twitter @martinbamford. You can call our dedicated podcast voicemail line on 020 8144 2745 with your question or visit www.icradio.co.uk/voicemail to leave an online voice message.

Here at Informed Choice Radio, we're not afraid to examine the big ideas. And few ideas are bigger than the concept of a universal basic income.  Professor Guy Standing is a founder member and honorary co-president of the Basic Income Earth Network. This is a non-governmental organisation that promotes a basic income for all.        Basic Income is a regular cash transfer from the state, received by all individual citizens. It is an acknowledgement that everyone plays a part in generating the wealth currently enjoyed only by a few.  Political parties across the world are now adopting it as official policy and the idea generates headlines every day.  Guy Standing has been at the forefront of thought about Basic Income for the past thirty years. His recent work has concerned the emerging precariat class and the need to move towards unconditional basic income and deliberative democracy. Guy's new book is Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen.  In the book he covers in authoritative detail the impact of basic income on the economy, poverty, work and labour; he dissects and disproves the standard arguments against Basic Income; explains what we can learn from pilots across the world and illustrates exactly why a Basic Income has now become such an urgent necessity. Welcome to Basic Income & How We Can Make It Happen, with Professor Guy Standing, in episode 216 of Informed Choice Radio.   Get answers to your personal finance questions Do you have a personal finance or investing question for Martin? Email martin@icfp.co.uk or ask on Twitter @martinbamford. You can call our dedicated podcast voicemail line on 020 8144 2745 with your question or visit www.icradio.co.uk/voicemail to leave an online voice message.  

Today's episode of Informed Choice Radio is a little different. We're taking a closer look at achievement. What does it take to achieve more in life, in fact to become a super achiever? My guest today knows all about becoming a super achiever; he's interviewed more than 4,000 of the world's highest achievers. Corey Poirier is an award-winning speaker, host of the Conversations with PASSION Radio Show, a best-selling author and founder of a media company. Corey has interviewed successful business people in all sectors and has discovered the key traits that all  super achievers have in common. He's been described as the modern day Napoleon Hill due to his study of success. Listen to this episode to find out what sets super achievers apart from mere achievers, the importance of continually feeding your mind, and how we can make sure we don't settle for an average life. Welcome to Super Achievers, with Corey Poirier, in episode 215 of Informed Choice Radio. Get answers to your personal finance questions Do you have a personal finance or investing question for Martin? Email martin@icfp.co.uk or ask on Twitter @martinbamford. You can call our dedicated podcast voicemail line on 020 8144 2745 with your question or visit www.icradio.co.uk/voicemail to leave an online voice message.

Hello and welcome to the final episode in a series of Informed Choice Radio podcasts as we celebrate Financial Planning Week 2017. If you're one of the millions of people in the UK who could do with improving their overall financial “fitness”, Financial Planning Week is especially for you. It's a consumer awareness campaign which helps you take some simple steps to kick start your future. This year's campaign is taking place from 8th to 12th May 2017, right across the UK. In this episode, it's the end of the week so we're talking about the end of the financial planning journey, retirement. Or is it the start of the journey? I'll let you be the judge of that. Joining me for this episode is my father and fellow director, Informed Choice founder Nick Bamford. Useful links -Nick's Email -Nick on Twitter Get answers to your personal finance questions Do you have a personal finance or investing question for Martin? Email martin@icfp.co.uk or ask on Twitter @martinbamford. You can call our dedicated podcast voicemail line on 020 8144 2745 with your question or visit www.icradio.co.uk/voicemail to leave an online voice message.

Hello and welcome to the fourth of five special episodes of Informed Choice Radio as we celebrate Financial Planning Week 2017. If you're one of the millions of people in the UK who could do with improving their overall financial “fitness”, Financial Planning Week is especially for you. It's a consumer awareness campaign which helps you take some simple steps to kick start your future. This year's campaign is taking place from 8th to 12th May 2017, right across the UK. In this episode of the podcast, following three days of guests talking about various parts of the Financial Planning journey, it's a solo-round. I'm going to talk about investing with confidence. I share five key points to consider when investing money: 1 - Link your investing goals to your financial goals 2 - Consider attitude to risk and capacity for risk 3 - Diversify across major asset classes 4 - Rebalance your portfolio once a year 5 - Don't watch the news Get answers to your personal finance questions Do you have a personal finance or investing question for Martin? Email martin@icfp.co.uk or ask on Twitter @martinbamford. You can call our dedicated podcast voicemail line on 020 8144 2745 with your question or visit www.icradio.co.uk/voicemail to leave an online voice message.

Welcome to the third of five special episodes of Informed Choice Radio as we celebrate Financial Planning Week 2017. If you're one of the millions of people in the UK who could do with improving their overall financial “fitness”, Financial Planning Week is especially for you. It's a consumer awareness campaign which helps you take some simple steps to kick start your future. This year's campaign is taking place from 8th to 12th May 2017, right across the UK. In this episode of the podcast, on day three of Financial Planning Week 2017, I'm joined by my friend and fellow Financial Planner Justin King. Useful links -Justin's Website -Justin's email -Life Planning for You -Man Searching For Meaning Get answers to your personal finance questions Do you have a personal finance or investing question for Martin? Email martin@icfp.co.uk or ask on Twitter @martinbamford. You can call our dedicated podcast voicemail line on 020 8144 2745 with your question or visit www.icradio.co.uk/voicemail to leave an online voice message.

Welcome to the second of five special episodes of Informed Choice Radio as we celebrate Financial Planning Week 2017. If you’re one of the millions of people in the UK who could do with improving their overall financial “fitness”, Financial Planning Week is especially for you. It’s a consumer awareness campaign which helps you take some simple steps to kick start your future. This year’s campaign is taking place from 8th to 12th May 2017, right across the UK. The Financial Planning Week campaign aims to raise awareness of how important financial planning is to your life. It’s not just for people who have never thought about their finances, it’s for everyone, whatever your situation. Putting some simple financial plans in place and making some smart decisions to help achieve your goals and dreams in life is the first step towards really taking control of your life and gaining valuable peace of mind. In this episode of the podcast, on day two of Financial Planning Week 2017, I’m joined by my friend and fellow Financial Planner Pete Matthew.   Useful links -The Automatic Millionaire -Enough?: How Much Money Do You Need For The Rest of Your Life? -Meaningful Money -Pete on Twitter Get answers to your personal finance questions Do you have a personal finance or investing question for Martin? Email martin@icfp.co.uk or ask on Twitter @martinbamford. You can call our dedicated podcast voicemail line on 020 8144 2745 with your question or visit www.icradio.co.uk/voicemail to leave an online voice message.

Today is the start of Financial Planning Week 2017.  If you're one of the millions of people in the UK who could do with improving their overall financial “fitness”, Financial Planning Week is especially for you.  It's a consumer awareness campaign which helps you take some simple steps to kick start your future. This year's campaign is taking place from 8th to 12th May 2017, right across the UK.  In this episode of the podcast, on day one of Financial Planning Week 2017, I'm joined by my friend and fellow Financial Planner Ruth Sturkey to define Financial Planning and talk about the six-step process for Financial Planning.  Useful links -The Red House -Ruth on Twitter Get answers to your personal finance questions Do you have a personal finance or investing question for Martin? Email martin@icfp.co.uk or ask on Twitter @martinbamford. You can call our dedicated podcast voicemail line on 020 8144 2745 with your question or visit www.icradio.co.uk/voicemail to leave an online voice message.

Nobody should regret the decision to retire, yet more than 80% of over 50s think they made the decision to retire too early. That's the main topic for the show today; how can you live a retirement with no regrets?  Personal finance news update -Parents lending money to their adult children have become a top 10 UK mortgage lender, with children increasingly relying on financial support from the Bank of Mum and Dad. -Rising pension deficits could result in "difficult discussions" for some of the largest businesses in Britain. -Average house prices fell for a second consecutive month in April. -Global prices for avocados have reached a record high following a poor harvest, growing demand and industrial action. -Almost half of people would not use a live-streaming service to pay their respects if they had to miss attending a funeral for other reasons. Money article of the week How to Live a Luxurious Life While Still Saving Random fact of the week The first state pension was introduced in 1909 at just 5 shillings or 25 pence a week. It was paid to around half a million people who were aged 70 or over. At the time it was introduced, only one in four people lived to age 70. You didn't receive the pension if you had been in prison during the past ten years or if you owned too much furniture. Inspirational quote Our money quote of the week comes from actor Will Smith who said: "Too many people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like." Aftershow links Cranleigh Trail Marathon Martin's Instagram Think Small: The Surprisingly Simple Ways to Reach Big Goals, by Owain Service and Rory Gallagher Financial Planning Week 2017 Get answers to your personal finance questions Do you have a personal finance or investing question for Martin? Email martin@icfp.co.uk or ask on Twitter @martinbamford. You can call our dedicated podcast voicemail line on 020 8144 2745 with your question or visit www.icradio.co.uk/voicemail to leave an online voice message

My guest on the podcast today is Dr Gleb Tsipursky. Gleb is founder of Intentional Insights; a nonprofit that empowers people to refine and reach their goals by providing research-based content to help improve thinking, feeling, and behaviour patterns. His primary vocation is helping people, organisations, and society as a whole use science-based decision-making and emotional and social intelligence to avoid disaster. Gleb explains that, at their root, disasters stem from poor decisions. People make bad decisions in their everyday lives, which results in them losing money, time, relationships, health, and happiness.  This is a conversation of two parts. We start by chatting about purpose; the techniques we can use to live a more meaningful life and the role politics plays in finding purpose. And then we move onto decision making. I ask Gleb what's at stake when we make important financial decisions and who is most likely to make bad decisions. Welcome to Purpose & Bad Decisions, with Gleb Tsipursky, in episode 208 of Informed Choice Radio. Some questions I ask: -How did you become a disaster avoidance expert? What does the career path look like to become that? -What methods and techniques can be used to live a more meaningful life? -What role do politics have to play when it comes to a sense of meaning and purpose? -Something else I've seen you write about is the use of rituals and celebrations in order to construct our own personal sense of meaning and purpose. Does that also fit into this sense of community, and, I'm also guessing, into self reflection, too? -What's at stake when we make really important financial decisions? Thank you for listening! To get new episodes of Informed Choice Radio sent directly to your device as soon as they are published, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher Your reviews on iTunes are incredibly helpful and really appreciated. We get notified about each one; please leave a note of your name and website URL so we can mention you in a future episode.