The Financial Wellbeing Podcast

Episode 74 – Interview with Ash Phillips Whilst it is easier than ever to become and entrepreneur, there are still barriers to creating a successful business. The guys chat with special guest Ash Phillips, founder of Dffrnt, and explore how to find the right investors for your vision. With the brilliant Bage’s Biases and #TightAssTommo tips, after five years the Financial Wellbeing Podcast still going strong Welcomes & Introductions Happy 5th Birthday to The Financial Wellbeing Podcast We want to thank each of you, our listeners, for giving our podcast a chance and helping us grow. We appreciate the comments, feedback, and most of all, we love the ongoing conversations happening about financial wellbeing. Here’s to five more   What is today’s podcast all about? Guest interview with Ash Phillips, founder of Dffrnt – a community for founders and creators. The chat is all about democratising entrepreneurship and helping young people with start up businesses find the right investors for their idea. Bage’s Biases Every episode, Behavioural Finance expert, Neil Bage, is going to be giving us his money behavioural tips. We are hardwired to make bad decisions about money because we have biases built into us from our experiences through life. We will keep hearing from Neil to help us recognise some of these behavioural biases and hopefully lead us to making better financial decisions. – Link to Episode 36 – Understanding our attitude to risk– Link to Episode 21 – Financial capability– Link to Bitesize Behaviour Podcast This episode – Hindsight Bias #TightAssTommo Featuring scorned lovers and disgruntled friends Today’s topic – The best time to start searching for car insurance renewal quotes Interview with Ash Phillips Democratising entrepreneurship There is more awareness of becoming an entrepreneur for a career, yet there are still a lot of perceived barrier to access The main blockages to a new start up business Access to networks – “its not what you know, its who you know” The cycles of business fundraising Socio-economic divide that stops access to investors What are ‘angel investors’ Yenna/Dffrnt Those with experience helping out those just starting 3 myth busing tips about starting your own business Impostor syndromeSell something!Finding the right investor Click here for more information about Dffrnt and the support it offers to help start and grow new business Conclusions from the guys Do you have any financial wellbeing questions you would like us to answer? Or do you have a #tightasstommo money saving tip you would like to share with our listeners? If so, let us know by going to Twitter @Finwellbeing or email – contact@financialwell-being.co.uk If you would like to purchase a copy of The Financial Wellbeing Book please click on this link to visit Penny Brohn UK shop

Episode 73 – Don’t Be A Creep As we earn more income, we spend more money. Is that inevitable? Maybe not . . the guys take a practical look at how we can all avoid lifestyle creep. Along with Bage’s Biases and #tightasstommo money saving tips, come and have a listen to find out how you can find financial wellbeing. Welcomes and Introductions Not celebrating a birthday, the experience of quarantine with a four month old baby and . . .David’s book, click on the image below for more information; What is todays podcast all about – Looking at the issue of Lifestyle Creep, why we never seem to have enough money left at the end of the month, and what we can do about it. Bage’s Biases Every episode, Behavioral Finance expert, Neil Bage is going to be giving us his money behavioral tip. Exploring and thinking a little bit about the behavioral traits we have towards money can inform us, so we can make better money decisions going forward. – Link to Episode 36 – Understanding our attitude to risk – Link to Episode 21 – Financial capability – Link to BeIQ | Beam App This episode – Illusion of Control The ability to recognise that there are some things that you could control. But many things that you cant. David Lloyd *caveat, cash under the mattress just to hold is not financial advice! However, Ovation Finance are pension specialists, so do get in touch for brilliant advice on how your pension can bring you wellbeing. Click here for more information or call on 0117 942 4333 #TightAssTommo Featuring the benefits of lockdowns and getting old!Click here for more information on completesavings.co.ukUnfortunately Debenhams is no longer accepting vouchers in store or online. Do double check before heading out, but most stores will be open until the 15th May 2021 if you want to try and grab a bargin. Quick pause for Tommo to check on Lindsay and Bella! Todays topic – Lifestyle Creep, as we earn more money, we spend more money and never seem to have any money left at the end of the month. The technical name for this is Hedonic Adaption Set Point Theory – have another listen to episode 64 As we make more money, so our expectations and desires rise. Cash flow forecast, where we take a client’s expenditure, and current assets, pensions, etc. and their income. And we start to project it forwards over their lives. One very important piece of information, the level of income the client believes they will need for a happy retirement. And we talk the client through this process using many of the principles we talked about in these podcasts, help the client understand, what actually makes them happy. Why such a big difference in perceived income needs? Anchoring bias – have another listen to episode 69 As we earn more income, we spend more money. Is that inevitable? Is there anything wrong with that if is? Are we spending more money on things that genuinely increase our wellbeing? Are we setting money aside for things that might make us happy in the future? You are paying into a pension towards your resignation, not your retirement. So what can people do to stop this Lifestyle Creep? Oliver Berkman – have another listen to episode 27 Routine and automation. Giving stuff up can help you begin to reframe the way you look at things. The proceeds of the Financial Wellbeing Book, go to Penny Brohn UK Cancer Centre.A complimentary approach to cancer care, and later life care. Catherine Zolleman – have another listen to episode 40People with a life ending diagnosis, often come to report an increase in their wellbeing. They’ve gotten rid of the distractions in their lives, that aren’t adding to their wellbeing. And instead, they just focus on the things that make them truly happy. Hedonic Adaptation The Financial Wellbeing Junkie – have another listen to episode 64 always seeking short term fixes of wellbeing, to keep up to that set level. Wellbeing by Rath/Harter – click here for more information on this book A sense of belonging in our local community is a huge factor in overall wellbeing. Link to the chaotic parish council zoom meeting! (bonus link – kids are far better behaved on these Zoom calls!) Conclusions from the guys – Lifestyle Creep means that as we add more we spend more doesn’t always add to our wellbeing. And to combat that lifestyle creep, we should automate savingscreate routines around the things that bring us wellbeing positive reminders of what gives us wellbeing around us try to avoid distractions and comparisons This is what a good financial planner can do and Ovation Finance can help you. Ovation get to know you and find out your motives – so your money can help you spend time to maximise your wellbeing. Click here for more information. Do you have any financial wellbeing questions you would like us to answer? Or do you have a #tightasstommo money saving tip you would like to share with our listeners? If so, let us know by going to Twitter @Finwellbeing or email – contact@financialwell-being.co.uk If you would like to purchase a copy of The Financial Wellbeing Book please click on this link to visit Penny Brohn UK shop Transcribe of the Podcast Script: (scroll to the bottom to listen to the episode) David Hello, everybody and welcome to yet another edition of our financial wellbeing podcast. We’ve just had a heated debate off air as to exactly which number in the series this is, we all know that it’s somewhere in the 70s. And that’s as much as I’m able to tell you. Joining me today, my two very good pals and partners in financial honesty, rather than crime, Chris Budd and Tom Morris. Say hello Chris. Chris Hello Chris David Hello Tom Producer Tommo Hello Tom David Good, and it’s like the two Ronnies and my, and my name is David Lloyd. For those of you that have listened before, we like to get together every so often. And we talk through issues concerning financial wellbeing. And today I’m a little bit concerned about the episode – it’s called “Don’t Be A Creep” I’m bit concerned that Chris has come up with this because he’s harbouring some long standing grudge against the two of us. And it’s all going to come tumbling out. Can you tell us more Chris? Chris Well, that is actually true. But that’s not what the episode is about. We’re going to look at the issue of lifestyle creep, why we never seem to have enough money left at the end of the month, and what we can do about it, because we do always like to try and be practical along with our theory . David Absolutely, that is very true. No matter how much money you got somehow, it never seems to be enough. Now, before we got the first of our features what’s happening in our lives, guys? Chris I was rather confused today. I was chatting to you before we came on air, I wished you a very Happy birthday, because Facebook told me it was your birthday. But I understand Facebook’s got it wrong? Chris Well, yes, I think it’s amazing that people put their dates of birth on social media, because it’s a the birth is the moment you phone up your bank one of the first things they say is can we check if it’s you, give us your date of birth. So I put a fake date of birth on social media actually use a different one for each social media. But the great thing is every once in a while in the middle of February, I get loads of lovely messages saying Happy Birthday. But it actually isn’t. That’s why it works quite well. David But then of course you have to go to great lengths to explain what you’ve done. It’s very sensible, by the way. So as I said to you earlier, I do wonder, maybe you should choose the 29th of February as your birthday, then you only have to do the explanation once every four years. . . Chris Or maybe Christmas day when nobody’s watching or something? David Tommo, happening with you? I can hear the sound of crying children in the background there. Producer Tommo Yeah, that’s my life working from home still. And that is my soundtrack. Bella is, what is she . . . four and a bit months old now? So yeah, crying is the thing. It’s all good. Producer Tommo so good. Chris I think we need to just ask Tommo what the experience is like having two weeks, unable to leave the house with a four year old and a four month old baby. Producer Tommo Yes, I did have, my phone pinged, due to do some contact tracing. Thankfully, we didn’t have Coronavirus. But we did have to stay in for, was it 10 days. It was an interesting experience, to say the least. It tested, tested the patience. So yeah, anyone who’s gone through it will know exactly what I’m talking about. Not being able to let off, I say a four year old boy, he’s like a Labrador, you need to go out for a walk. So yeah, it was interesting. We got through it. We’re alright. We’re still here. David It occurs to me that it now must be getting on for, it’s now early February when we record this. And I think it was what end of March last year when we when we went to virtual on our podcasts. So it’s been a long time actually, since we’ve even seen each other. But some people might say is good, but I don’t! David think Chris David, we should we always get the lovely question how are you, but we never ask it back, how are you? David Good, thank you. Looking forward to New Year, just come off the back of dry January, which was an interesting experience and largely enjoyable. Chris Hows the sales of your book most importantly? David It’s selling all right, as you know, Chris, you know self publishing, you’re not going to necessarily make a huge amount of money from it. But the sales have been pretty steady. And I’ve noticed that every so often, if you don’t do any publicity, you don’t sell any books. But if a little post on social media, something on Facebook, or Instagram or Twitter, I was in a little article in the local parish magazine recently, and that always leads to a few sales. So sticking on it, the most thing about my book is that I’m going to go into a studio in Chippenham and record the audio book version of it, which is very exciting. So I should have an audiobook version coming up hopefully in two weeks time. I’ve also been working on a TV adaptation of it. Now this is not anything anyone has commissioned. That’s what I do. You know, that’s why of course still. But I just finished now episode three of three, I’m turning it into a three parts TV series, which I have to say I’ve really enjoyed writing because all of the thinking about plot and character I’ve done years ago. So it’s really just a question of how I could take the story of character writing very well, and make it work in a visual way so enjoyable, and I should put it out there and we’ll see if anybody picks it up. But that has occupied my time for dry January because surprise surprise, I had nothing else to do and I had some spare energy. Before we move on to the subject of today’s podcast, Don’t Be A Creep. We’re gonna come to the first of our regular features, that is Bages Behavioural Biases. Where good friend of the podcast, behavioural finance expert, Neil Bage, gives us a one minute introduction to a different behavioural bias that affects how we make decisions about money. Now what is Neil telling us about this week? Chris I think we’ll let Neil answer that because he tells us the beginning of this clip, let’s have a listen to it . . . Chris There you go. I think it’s very interesting. I um, I used to work with a guy, used to work in central London – Oxford Circus. And this chap lived in Surrey. And he drove to work every day. Into Oxford Circus every day. When I asked him one day, he paid huge amounts of money for parking and, and I said, Why do you do this? You know, you just train’s, fantastic trains from where you live. And he said, I can’t I can’t bear to be on public transport. I want to be in my car, so I can be in control. And I would say what, so you’ll sit on Pall Mall for 45 minutes at five o’clock in rush hour? There’s no control there. But he wanted to feel that he was in control of his journey. And he had no control over it all. David Yeah, it’s that it’s that ability to recognise that there are some things that you could control. But many things that you cant. And there are so many factors around money that you can make the wise decision, I guess. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to get the outcome that you hope for every time. Producer Tommo This is interesting. We’ve seen it in, in financial advice in the last, well, number of years with final salary pension transfers. This idea I want to control my pension. And I think Neil just summarised it, you can’t control your pension. What’s the point. You know, ultimately, it’s invested and lots of other factors are involved that impact it, yeah this idea of control. Yeah. Powerful one. Chris Another example Tom, there’s one chap, finanal pensions freedoms aswell when people were taking all their money out of their pension, paying tax on it, putting it back into their estate, and then a tax environment, which is absolutely crazy thing to do. And I remember one one friend of mine who did it and why did why are you doing this? And he said, I just want to get my hands on the money. I don’t want to be in a pension, I want to get my hands on the money. What are you going to do with it when you get your hands on it? I’m going to buy a flat and rent it out. Well you haven’t got your hands on the money then have you! David I think everybody should have a small amount of money in that pension pot,they can take out as cash and just like put it under their mattress and take it out every day just rub their hands on it and savour the feel and the crinkle of the money, but it shouldn’t be enough that it’s going to fundamentally affect their monies investment. Producer Tommo I must cavieat, that came from David, that is not financial advice from Tom Morris, the actual advisor here okay. David No, I know. It panders to that need of all of us to get their hands on the money. Let’s move on to the next of our features, our first is our #TightAssTommo feature where our Prince of Parsimmony, Tom Morris comes up with once again, another really, really good money saving tip. Before we move on to Tommo, I have a couple this week actually. Both of which I’ve realised have been as a result of recent events. Firstly, if you want to save money, I can strongly recommend being in lockdown during a pandemic. Because I was recently looking at my cash flow, but the amount of money But to my surprise, I have a little bit more money than you know than I thought I had. So I sat down and realised all the things I haven’t spend money on over the last year and those are holidays, going to restaurants, going to pubs, going to the theatre, to the cinema. And I’ve saved an absolute fortune. It’s been a bit miserable. But that’s one way of saving money. And then the other one. The other tip I’ve got is is be old! Because the other day, I’m, I’m 66 this year. In May I’m going to be 66. Chris No! David I know unbelievable isn’t it. And the other day a letter from the government inviting me to apply for my state pension. So as of May of this year, nine grand a year, thank you very much. Obviously I’m putting into it, I paid into it, I’m only getting money back I paid in over the years. But that’s a nice feeling. So, so my two recommendations are live in a pandemic and be old. Chris Very good. The thing about saving money is that, there’s some statistics about how much debt has been repaid over the last 11 months, because people haven’t been spending money so they’ve been putting it away and putting off credit cards or what have you so some good has come out of this pandemic. David Good. Okay, Tommo, give us your big one. Producer Tommo This one straight to it. Website called competesavings.co.uk. is one of these cashback sites, some terrific cashback when we’re here to encourage people to spend money willy nilly, but we do need to spend money from time to time and why not get some savings along the way. So complete savings.co.uk, sign up whenever you’re thinking about buying something, click on it. There’s some great cashback. eBay 10% cashback, Hermes 10% cashback, Debenhams 10% cashback. I’m not sure that’s going to be much use any longer is it? David That reminds me I have a Debenhams voucher. I need to spend that quickly! Producer Tommo Yeah, quite. There you go there’s a tip go spend your Debenhams voucer quickly folkes. I think you can even get a widget on your on your Google Chrome that makes sure that if you’re on site that you can get some cash back that you are directed towards it. So there you go elsewhere to CompleteSavings.co.uk. David Fantastic crying child sound effects. Producer Tommo We’re not even gonna bother editing that out, guys. This is working from home life, right? David It’s the reality of life, excellent. Okay, Chris, why don’t you introduce our subject for today? I will, but I would just saying about the crying child. One of the things I really liked about lockdown is the standards of what it is to be professional, have significantly reduced under the lockdown. Producer Tommo Tell you what though, as much as we could just carry on. That is quite a lot of crying. And I think it’s only appropriate that I go to lend a hand quickly to see if there is anything that needs to be sorted. So . . . Chris A quick pause David It’s gone quiet now. Chris So today, we’re going to talk about lifestyle, which is a term that describes how as we earn more money, we spend more money with the result, we never seem to actually have any money left at the end of the month. Now there is a technical name for this Hedonic Adaption, regular listeners to the podcast, hopefully remember Set Point Theory, which says that we oscillate around a set level of wellbeing, which is unique to each of us. 60% comes from DNA. And we do have a tendency to return back to that stable level of wellbeing despite what life throws at us. But and this is where the theory of like the Lifestyle Creep, it also means that as we make more money, so our expectations and desires rise. Producer Tommo A great illustration of this this year, one of the things we do for our clients is their cash flow forecast, which you’re familiar with David. This is where we take a client’s expenditure, and current assets, pensions, etc. and their income. And we start to project it forwards over their lives. We make a few assumptions such as job changes, retirement dates, and so forth, one off costs, such as weddings and gifts to the children to help them get on the property ladder. And we see what the client needs to save in order for them not to run out of money in retirement. You also need one other very important piece of information, the level of income the client believes they will need for a happy retirement. David Well, interesting you say that having just done very recently, this process once again with you Tommo, I can confirm that that does involve sometimes, a bit of guesswork from the client. Producer Tommo It does. And we talk the client through this process using many of the principles we talked about in these podcasts, help the client understand, you know, what actually makes them happy. And it just so happened to speak to two clients near to each other recently. They were in similar positions and starting to think about retirement. And we discussed their income needs and one client told me they reconed they needed around about 50k a year in retirement. The other client said they needed an income in retirement of 100k a year. It’s got me thinking, what was so different about the wellbeing needs of these two clients, with such a huge difference in their perceived income needs? Chris And what was their income before Tommo? Producer Tommo Good question, Chris. Well, that’s certainly had something to do with it. Because the client who said they needed a higher amount was earning a lot more than the other client. David Surprise, surprise. Now, Neil Bage talked about this didn’t he with his biases. Anchoring was a called? Producer Tommo He did indeed, David your memory amazes me! This is where, whereby how we estimate somethings value, it’s influenced by a previous thing. So if, you tell me you bought your watch for £500, I’m going to offer you a higher price to buy off you. And if you told me you bought for £50, I’m probably going to offer you something less. Chris So Anchoring is definitely part of the story. But can you also imagine that the client who was earning a lot more, is also therefore going to be spending a lot more. So when they consider what they need to be happy in retirement, they base it on what they’re currently spending, whether or not that is making them happy? David Well, that’s inevitable. Surely. As we earn more income, we spend more money. Is that inevitable? Is there anything wrong with that if is? Chris Not necessarily it depends, doesn’t it? Are we spending more money on things that genuinely increase our wellbeing. When we come to not have those things anymore, are we unable to let them go even though they aren’t bringing us joy. And this, to me is the biggie, by spending more, are we failing to save. To set money aside for things that might make us happy in the future? That’s where Lifestyle Creep can be a real problem. So if someone gets a pay rise from a job, they don’t enjoy, and they spend that money, they aren’t ready for the day that they don’t have to do that job anymore. There’s a great line on this that I’d like to quote from a South African financial advisor. Tommo and I are involved with the organisation, Next Gen Planners, and they did a global commute last summer. And, excuse me for getting this, attempt her first name, Kalonzo Masanga. I think it’s how you pronounce it. I have been asking. And she’s had this great, great line. She said, you are paying into a pension towards your resignation, not your retirement. Lovely way of looking at it. David Yeah, I like that. Okay, so what can people do to stop this Lifestyle Creep? Chris Okay, we’ve got a few suggestions. So firstly, you can construct permanent reminders of what makes you happy. In order to avoid being distracted and spending that extra money on things you don’t really need. And that don’t add to your wellbeing. We get positive emotions from positive life changes, but those positive emotions decline over time, as we revert back to our set points of wellbeing. So we can therefore remind ourselves of that change, what life would be like without it. Now, just to be a bit extreme, it’s silly here just to illustrate the point, a previous guest of the podcast one of our absolute best guests, although we do say that about everybody, every time we mention them. Oliver Berkman wrote a brilliant book called the antidote, which I recommend to anybody. It’s such an interesting book, it’s all about the antidote to positive thinking, really, really good. And he cites the Greek philosopher, Epictetus. And he suggested that every time you kiss your child, good night, imagine them dying the next day, in this way you will appreciate and get the wellbeing from the ones that you love by imagining them not there. And then appreciating them when they are, okay. rather extreme and not for everybody. But I hope it gets the point across. David Well it takes to gloss off bedtime doesn’t it! Maybe something like, you know, a nice painting on the wall might be a better way of doing it. But obviously I do, I do appreciate the point. Learning to value the people who are important to you. Producer Tommo Can I suggest a lesson free a way of maybe achieving this, maybe create, what you call an active plan for reminding ourselves by using some routine and automation. I recall being given some advice when we first had children, that my wife and I should set one night aside. Book a babysitter, you know, every couple of weeks, every month, whatever it might be, it might be that we only go for a walk, having that routine will ensure that we continue to appreciate our relationship. Now, lockdown is actually made that quite tricky. So there’s, there’s no doubt that when this is over, we really need to be making time for just the two of us. And there’s so many financial advisors, we use this very in their financial plans. At Ovation, we produce a financial well being report, which shows what the client has achieved and what makes them happy. We go over this at every meeting that we have for them, at least once a year, and we’ll go through it. And we’re talking about these things that make them happy, their objectives, what motivates them, so that they are reminded of the things that they should actually be thinking about in their lives. But just on the point of automation, and spending. This is where things like direct debit saving, could be your real helper here. Because if you just do it and it’s set aside, all of a sudden, you’ll realise Oh, Crikey, I haven’t got that money in my bank account anyway. So think about when you do get that pay rise, think about what makes you happy saving towards that future. And actually setting up automation, automatic direct debit savings is a great way as well. Chris David can I just ask you a question – there’s another way of doing this, it is positive effects wellbeing. You mentioned, you’ve just done a dry January. I know that did dry January because you were moaning about it on Twitter. I think I saw one very funny tweet where you said I feel better I’ve been sleeping so well and I’m bored. So how good besides glass of wine when you finally allowed to have it? David Well it was undeniably extremely enjoyable I have to say but talking about letting things go. It also made me realise that my, put this carefully, my dependence of regular glasses of wine is actually something that I could do without and you know, having a bit of a bit of a regular tipple not every night but you know, a regular tipple for most of my adult life, a glass or two a night, puts a nice day and gets you into the evening. To go a whole month not drinking at all isn’t something quite frankly, I’ve done dry January before but not something I often do. But what it did do was make me realise that I could do it, that I could manage without something that I thought was a very important part of my socialising and my circle of life, and actually much as I really did enjoy it and will continue to enjoy the class of wine that I drink. I also enjoy the nights when I don’t kick off the next day, because my head is clearer and more energy. So by giving stuff up, I think, particularly when you can begin to reframe the way you look at things. And I guess that’s exactly what we’re talking about here. You know, this Lifestyle Creep takes over. You think, well, I have to spend that amount of money every month, on wine. But when you can spend that you can then begin to appreciate the benefits of saving that money as opposed to just focusing on Oh my god, I can’t have a drink. Chris Very true, very true. I didn’t publicise it, but I actually also had a period of absence and I had a dry January the fourth. David Well done, Chris. Chris So I know we’ve mentioned this before, but I think it bears repeating the the proceeds of the Financial Wellbeing Book, go to Penny Brohn UK Cancer Centre, where my wife works as an oncology nurse and she spends time there as well. To remind people, what Penny Brohn do is they have a complimentary approach to cancer care, and later life care. And it’s not instead of the chemo, but it’s supporting the chemo. And it’s things like mindfulness, wellbeing, nutrition, exercise, and the science behind them, it is fantastic place. And one of the things that Catherine Zolleman when she was on our podcast said and my wife repeats this I just find amazing is that people with a life ending diagnosis, often come to report an increase in their wellbeing. And we’ve talked about this and thought about this. And we think it’s basically because they’ve gotten rid of the distractions in their lives, that aren’t adding to their wellbeing. And instead, they just focus on the things that make them truly happy. Now, of course, this is not the way that we’d ideally like to have our attention focused, but maybe we can learn and get clarity on what brings us joy, our intrinsic motivations, and see anything else as distractions. Producer Tommo As, as you said at the beginning, Chris, what are the effects of this Hedonic Adaptation is the endlessly increasing aspiration. And we spoke in an earlier podcast about the idea of the financial wellbeing junkie, always seeking short term fixes of wellbeing, to keep up to that set level. The positive stimuli being short lived means that we keep increasing our aspirations to seek positive stimuli. I always think it’s like chasing the dragon. But if you are familiar with the concept of, of of not sure you would be but I’m not somebody who’ss going down as like just Google it,, you’ll see what I mean. A bit like lifestyle creep, where our lifestyle changes to reflect the increase in levels of our income, is we never quite feel that we have enough was enough left over at the end of a month, no matter how much we earn, is constantly creep towards trying to get that stimulus of, of, of wellbeing. If we could therefore find a way to continually remind ourselves of the things that has given us wellbeing, for things that are given us well being we can avoid these pitfalls of head hedonic, struggle with that, hedonic adaptation of chasing things that don’t add to our wellbeing. So it’s really crucial that we really do focus on on understanding what that is. David Yeah, and I would imagine that comparison is another factor of Lifestyle Creep. As you learn more, perhaps you moved to a bigger house, how you socialise with people, perhaps now all of a sudden, you get to socialise with people who take skiing holidays, they invite you to join them. So you’ve got to keep up. Chris Yeah, that kind of sense of belonging in our local community is a huge factor in overall wellbeing. For the folks that we always refer to Wellbeing by Rath and Harter, based on Gallup polls, has community as one of the five pillars of wellbeing. So, maybe sometimes you need to do the same expensive things in your local community in order to feel that you belong, that’s understandable, but maybe you could belong in other ways, rather than trying to keep up with material possessions. David Well, yeah, I mean, absolutely. I mean, I’ve offered in the past as do you Chris, you know, I do a lot of work in community. I’ve been kind of the government at the local school, like a long standing involvement with the local club. Now, parish Council, you know, none of those things make any money, but I do because I’m really involved in my community and it brings a sense of wellbeing. Chris And from now on Tommo, you will be referred to as Jackie Weaver Producer Tommo Jackie Weaver. That’s a real timestamp, isn’t it? If you don’t know that this being recorded – what is the council’s name? David Heartford perhaps I can’t remember? Producer Tommo Absolutely superb. David I have only seen a brief clip, I better watch the whole thing later on. Producer Tommo I should pop up a link in the show notes. This is absolutely fabulous David Definitely should, right. So one of my roles in the podcast is to sum up also to stop us getting too far off the point. Let’s try and recap what we’ve discussed. So this is how I see. Lifestyle Creep means that as we add more we spend more doesn’t always add to our wellbeing. And to combat that lifestyle creep, we should automate savings, create routines around the things that bring us wellbeing positive reminders of what gives us wellbeing around us. Try to avoid distractions and comparisons. Does that sum it up? Producer Tommo I would say perfect. David Excellent. Right then. That’s a good way to end the podcast. So on that basis. Thanks very much for joining us today. I hope you found it useful. Please join us next time we come together for another one of our financial wellbeing podcasts.

Episode 72 – Financial Psychology with Anne Abbenes Why does talking about money cause such anxiety? Special guest Anne Abbenes takes a look at the psychology behind what is happening in our brains when we are dealing with our finances. With a great Bage’s Behavioural Bias and some questionable #tightasstommo money saving tips, we have plenty of takeaways to help you make better financial decisions in this episode. . . Welcomes & Introductions Click here for more information on Chris Budd’s booksLink to the Initiative of Financial Wellbeing website Click here for more information about Producer Tommo Link to David’s book What is today’s podcast all about? A chat with Anne Abbenes, a certified financial behaviour specialist and president of the Financial Psychology Institute of Europe. We will be looking at how our brains react when we start talking about money and how we can improve our financial decisions. Bage’s Biases Every episode , Behavioural Finance expert, Neil Bage, is going to be giving us his money behavioural tips. We are hardwired to make bad decisions about money because we have biases built into us from our experiences through life. We will keep hearing from Neil to help us recognise some of these behavioural biases and hopefully lead us to making better financial decisions. – Link to Episode 36 – Understanding our attitude to risk– Link to Episode 21 – Financial capability– Link to BeIQ | Beam App This episode – Probability Neglect #TightAssTommo Featuring lazy charity shop shenanigans, questionable oysters and helping to avoid food waste. Click here for more information on Odd Box.co.uk Interview with Anne Abbnes What is Financial Psychology? What happens in your brain when you make a financial decision? reptilian/mammalian areas of the brainour inner Einsteintalking about finances with others leads to anxiety Why does our brain react to a financial question in fear? Money is still a taboo subjectevolution wise, money is still a relatively new concept for our brains to deal with An illustration on why continuing education about psychology and money is important Our brains are wired for survival, looking at what comes next, not long term thinking What can we do to make better financial decisions? Exploring our relationship with money Moneyscripts by Brad Klontz Is it possible to challenge yourself? Can awareness be enough? The Financial Psychology Institute of Europe Financial behavior is determined by subconscious money beliefs. Sound financial decision making is hampered by unhelpful and sometimes destructive money beliefs. The Institute is helping professionals to stimulate individuals & groups improve their financial health by providing insight in psychological aspects, emotional barriers and destructive financial behaviors that inhibit financial and emotional happiness. Click here for more information about Anne Abbenes and the institute Conclusions from the guys Do you have any financial wellbeing questions you would like us to answer? Or do you have a #tightasstommo money saving tip you would like to share with our listeners? If so, let us know by going to Twitter @Finwellbeing or email – contact@financialwell-being.co.uk If you would like to purchase a copy of The Financial Wellbeing Book please click on this link to visit Penny Brohn UK shop Transcribe of the Podcast Script: (scroll to the bottom to listen to the episode) David Hello everybody and welcome to another one in our series of financial wellbeing podcasts. My name is David Lloyd, broadcaster, writer, actor, man about town and I am joined by Chris Budd, hello Chris . . . Chris Your not man about town at the moment! David I am stuck at home. Chris tell us a little bit about yourself. Chris I wrote a book called The Financial Wellbeing Book. A few other books – The Eternal Business about employee ownership. We’ve got the novels, got another novel coming out soon so we’ll come back to that in future podcasts and chairman and founder of The Initiative for Financial Wellbeing, so financial wellbeing, money and happiness is kind of one of the things I think about quite a lot in life. David Well fortunately because that’s what this podcast is all about! And Tom is what expertise, do you bring to the table? Producer Tommo Not a lot to be honest with you. No, I have many years as a financial planner, I am a Chartered Financial Planner and also a director over at Bristol based financial planning firm Ovation Finance, and like Chris, I am the director of The Initiative for Financial Wellbeing. So yeah, I’d like to think I have some expertise to bring to the table. I feel it’s quite hard to say that out loud, but I’d like to think that I know a fair bit about this topic. David Well, I’d like to think that too, given that you are my financial advisor. Chris David, I’ve been doing a bit of thinking recently based on a book called How to Write One Song by Jeff Tweedy, the main man for Americana group called Wilco, and he starts his book off by talking about the difference between who you want to be and what you want to do. And I think that’s just such a fascinating idea because Tommo is undoubtedly an expert in financial wellbeing, and one of the best Chartered Financial Planners in the UK etc etc. But that’s not who he wants to be, it’s what he does. And so we get to judge him because of what he does and we can therefore say who he is being, but he obviously doesnt like to say about himself. I think that’s such an interesting idea. Jeff Tweedy talks about how, when he was nine, he used to tell everybody that he was a songwriter because that’s what he wanted to be. And then by the age of 12 he thought ‘I better actually write some songs’ because he told everybody he was a songwriter but hadn’t actually written anything. So we did. So, what you do and what you want to be is such a fascinating concept, it talk about it for ages. David Well I think who Tommo wants to be is Joe Root actually! Producer Tommo Time stamp, and we are recording this over and over in India and, yeah, a big cricket fan and this is actually going to be one of my tips in the moment so I shan’t spoil it too much but Joe Root has just scored 100, not out, staggering readiness 300s in 3 tests. Thats . . . anyone who’s not into cricket, you wont know anything about it, I get it. But if you do like cricket, is an outstanding achievement. David As a point of information Tommo, you did just say we’re recording this over in India. I think there should have been a comma in there. We’re recording this, meanwhile over in India. Producer Tommo Right. Yes, thank you. David Let’s move on, then. Chris what’s happening in our podcast today? Chris Today, David, we are going to have an interview with Anne Abbenes, who I will tell you a little bit more about later, but she’s very much into financial psychology. David Before we move on to that let’s have the first of our two regular features. The first one being Bage’s Behavorial Biases. An old friend of the podcast behavioural finance expert Neil Bage give us a one minute introduction to a different behavioural bias that effects how we make decisions about money. Neil Bage Probability neglect. There is a simple truth that underpins this behavourial bias, and it’s that humans are really bad at assessing risks. We are generally so bad at this that we assume that common activities we engage in, like driving a car, are safer and unrisky than less common activities we engage in, like flying in a plane. Now one of the reasons that people brains get messed up like this is because we also have a tendancy to confuse probibility with possibility. So when it comes to financial decisions or investing money, is there a posiblity of me loosing money – of course there is. But that’s not the question you should be asking. You should seek to understand the chance, the probibility of loosing money and potentially how much. This conversation is part of a risk taking discussion that any good financial planner would explore with you in detail. David Excellent. Well I have nothing to add to that. The great thing, I think about Neil’s biases he expresses them, you know, within the one minute, so clearly and succinctly. I thought that was great. Okay, let’s move on then to the next of all regular features #tightasstommo. Before we get today’s tip, I’ve got one for you. We’re recording this early February. I’ve come off the back of dry January, I’ve saved myself, without going into the exact details of how much I spend on booze. Myself and my partner both gave up for a month, and I’ve saved myself an absolute fortune. So, if you want to, if you want to save a little bit of money, stop drinking for a month. Producer Tommo That would do it, that would do it. Probably bought yourself an extra couple of months, life as well so . . . David Yeah definitely, definitely. Yeah, Chris have you got anything for us today? Chris I do David, it’s not a serious suggestion. I hope it’s not a serious suggestion! It comes from an Australian website called The Cusp. and they suggest that if you need your clothes dry cleaning, then donate them to a charity shop, wait a week and then buy them back. I’m not actually sure if I would save you any money. I think it is possibly more of a lazy way, a very expensive way to get your clothes washed. David I like supporting charity aswell. Tommo, main man, what have you got? Producer Tommo I have a couple one that I thought was a bit of a giggle. I got this from a friend of mine Rich Ellis via the Viz comic, and he put this on Twitter – save money on expensive oysters by drinking seawater from an ashtray. Okay, why not. So that did make me chuckle. I do have a serious one, there is a website that is worth going to check out, and that’s called oddbox.co.uk. Concept and this is, something we talked about before, is that there are fruits and vegetables out there that don’t quite look as they should do as we’re used to seeing in a supermarket. And what they do is they get these throw aways is the wrong work. Where they haven’t cut the mustard because there might be a wonky carrot, or a wonky courgette, whatever it might be, but they put these, they package them into a box, and you can get them delivered to your home so it’s saving on food wastage. And a pretty good deal, along the way as well so that’s oddbox.co.uk. David Great one. In fact now most of the major supermarkets now will do that they’ll give you the option to buy wonky carrots, you know that might just take a little bit more peeling, but they remain essentially carrots. So I’m all for that, I think there’s a whole load of nonsense around having to present our food. We are wasting an awful lot of food. Producer Tommo Absolutely and that’s definitely what they’re trying to deal with. And I will caveat that at the moment it’s London in the southeast, but that’s an awful lot of your country to at least start looking at this so hopefully that will branch out, like, save the planet save money. Fantastic. David There’s a positive message to tuck into. Our interview, Chris who have you chatted to this time? Chris Right, we have a chat with Ann Abbenes, who is a certified financial behaviour specialist. She is also president of the Financial Psychology Institute in Europe. She’s not a for profit organisation, so just our kind of person. So let’s have a listen to my chat with Ann. Chris Ann, thank you so much for joining us on our podcast. Anne Abbenes It’s a pleasure to be here Chris. Thank you. Chris I think it might be a good idea to just give us a brief introduction to all the things that you do around personal finance. Anne Abbenes I work with a combination of finance, psychology and law. And that just happens for me to work like that. And I’m educated as finnancial planner, a psychologist, and also in law but I just make a combination of it. Chris Thats a combination that we’re really interested in, how do those two things come together, it’s fascinating. The, the term that you use to put this together is Financial Psychology. So what is Financial Psychology? Anne Abbenes Financial Psychology is the integration of finance and the whole field of psychology. I assure you of course you’ve heard of behavioural finance, I read your book. And behavioural finance is based on cognitive psychology. Cognitive psychology is something which is developed in a lab environment. And just about our cognition, that’s part of our brain which is learning, and all those kinds of things. And there’s more psychology to us humans and clinical psychology is the whole field of psychology. So financial psychology is also part of behavioural finance and the rest of it is the whole field of psychology you apply to finance. Chris So one of the things that I know you’re, you’re an expert in is neuroscience. Before we start looking at neuroscience and money. What is neuroscience? Anne Abbenes Neuroscience here you have the whole definition of a part to keep it simple, it’s just a seeing in, what’s happening inside your brain. And I think neuroscience scientists will kill me if I put it this way, but I always as – it’s how your brain works that are kind of biology in your brain and how the neurons are reacting and acting. And that’s the base of our behaviour, so how the brain is wired. And you can apply that also into finance. Chris Okay. Okay, let’s do that then. So, so what is actually happening in your brain when you need to make a financial decision? Anne Abbenes It’s with every decision, and with finance, it’s just a little bit more complicated. When your financial advisor or a financial planner is talking to you, he’s talking to your prefrontal cortex. This is where your thinking takes place. If you look at the brain, we have our reptilian brain that’s the oldest part, and our limbic system that’s the reptilian brain, and our mammalian brain. And they are in charge, as well what’s happening, then we are anxious and money, just causes fear. And when we are anxious or when we are have to take a decision. You have to talk to the part of the brain which is in charge, and the part of the brain which is in charge are the mammalian and reptilian brain. And then we are anxious. When we make a financial decision, we just have to know how the brain works, a short explanation is a simplified model that’s the triune brain, the triune brain is our reptilian brain that’s the first part that comes alive. The second part is our animal brain. And the third part is our inner Einstein. That word a professor of me, my mentor told me that clause and I just thought everybody knows what an Einstein is. When we make decisions, and a financial adviser or planner you are for just recently, and with logic and explaining things but that’s the wrong part of the brain, you are approaching. The part which is in charge are the reptilian and mammalian brain, and our brain is just wired like that over a million years. And at the moment, we take the financial decision. A lot of people are anxious because finance is more intimate than other things and it’s real big taboo. So, when a person enters your office as a financial adviser then they are scared. They have a lot of high anxiety. For even talk about money. So, when the level of anxiety increases. Then just inner Einstein, is the captain but he has nothing to say, and the reptilian/mammalian brain takes over. So, you have to speak to that part of the brain and that’s where the emotions are and then our other reactions are. And that brain just doesn’t pick up information and that’s how you could survive as a species, because in the Stone Age, that you hadn’t have any time for is that rope or is that a snake. Is that, is that a bush or is that a tiger, you just have to do something. So you flee, you fight or you freeze. And if you don’t do that, yeah, then you won’t survive. So it’s very important. Just not only to talk to, talk to the Einstein but talk to the whole brain and that’s something which is often forgotten. Chris So I’d like to know how we do that in a moment, but first a couple of thoughts or questions. What is it about money that makes it a fearful thing to us, then why does the brain react to a financial question by fear? Anne Abbenes That’s a good question, Chris. Money is still a taboo. And what I found out I thought oh maybe it’s because of the heritage of money because I know in Holland a few hundred years ago if you were in debt you’d get literally scaffolded or you went to jail. But money is really a taboo subject. And we also learned from our parents that certain topic to talk about, when people are getting married they talk about everything, we see real life soaps, every day on television, we hear it on the radio, we talk about everything, about our sex life about our, our health, health problems, but not about money. So, it’s our heritage and money is for our brain, money is brand new. The stock market is from the 15 century, so and our brain is millions and millions of years old. So our brain has to get used to the idea of money. So it’s, it’s the only thing to think about, oh I have to go to the financial planner, that’s, that’s all. That alone is increasing our anxiety Chris And financial planning is a very new discipline isnt it? Were talking decades only really that financial planning is out in the public so to speak. Anne Abbenes Yeah that’s true and what’s also funny what I found out, which is funny. If you ask a financial planners. I had to explain for continuing education programme, I had to explain why emotions and why psychology is important. They said, Oh no, that’s not true and money isn’t a taboo, what are you talking about? And there are four gentlemen in front of me. And they, and I said okay, okay you don’t think it’s too important. Okay, let me do a quick test and they said yeah, that’s okay. And so okay write down the amount which is in your bank accounts, and they just, they did it. And after that, I said, Okay, please, one by one, tell out loud, what’s on the piece of paper in front of you and they just refused. And they said I was rude and how could I ask that. And I said, Okay, yeah, that’s my point. So it’s really a taboo and, yeah, we just have to take that into account when we are giving financial advice to other people, Chris Yeah that’s that’s a great illustration, did they accept the point, out of interest? Anne Abbenes Yeah, they accepted, than I could do the continuing education, they said it’s okay to make your point! Chris Yeah, so that’s a fascinating point that is the one thing you don’t talk to your friends about is your finances isn’t it. You talk about anything else, but not your finances. So, so that means that when you do need to talk about your finances, you’re finding it very difficult, very awkward and therefore, the, the animal part of your brain is the one that’s functioning, not the sensible, thinking part, have I summed that up well? Anne Abbenes When your brain is functioning. They are all working together. Without your animal and reptilian brain you just can’t make a decision. It’s not possible, you can’t make a decision with only the prefrontal cortex, so it’s really not possible but if they work together, then you get a sufficient decision. Chris So, how then do we get the three of them, two of them, three of them working together when it comes to a financial questions? Anne Abbenes Before I tell them about that, the ancient brain, let’s say the reptilian/mamillion brain there are responsible for 90% of the decisions. And working together, just letting the information of the financial plan of financial advisor land into the brain is just to reduce the anxiety of the, of your clients let them know that you’re on the same, same tribe, because our brain is wired like a tribal culture. And so let’s just make it real because saving and futuristic planning, that wasnt, that isn’t an advantage in our survival. That brain only thinks for the, for a short time, and what’s next, what’s tomorrow, what’s, what’s happening in a week. What’s happening in two weeks, and saving, that’s against how our brain is wired. Chris I can vouch for that my brain certainly isn’t wired for saving! Anne Abbenes And it’s logical because when you just, you had food and then you hide food for the others or just didn’t eat it, you were thrown out of the tribe. So it’s very important to let your clients experience that you are in the same tribe. So that’s very important to do that. Chris So, reduce anxiety, make it real, empathy so that you’re feeling, as you said you’re a part of the same tribe, where somebody doesn’t have a financial advisor, what can they do to help themselves to make better financial decisions? Anne Abbenes What you can do is just see, just explore your own relation with money and that’s what you can do yourself but also it’s also cool to do that with an advisor. And then you get what are my money beliefs, and you have money scripts and Brad Klontz discovered them, Brad Klontz. And I’ve worked with the money scripts, in the court. And that means I get a lot of divorce settlements and then distress is at the highest point and the money is just very important. And money scripts that are difficult unconscious beliefs, we have about money. They are developed in childhood and they drive all our adult financial behaviours. And they are subconscious beliefs, we have about money, but we don’t talk about that much, because we don’t talk about money, let alone, talking about our beliefs about money. Most of the time we don’t know we have them. And if you look at the word belief, a belief is something that is in your brain so it doesn’t have to be true. Most of the time, they aren’t accurate. And we are developing them when we are children. So when you are a child looking at the world from that perspective. Just an example, I just, was in a place somewhere and I went to the lake. I was walking there with a sister, oh let’s go to the lake we have been here before when we were five years old and in my memory the lake was so big, so big. And we were there and I thought, hmm, this isn’t a lake, just a small pond. So that’s also with money you have money scripts in your head or money beliefs, which are wired there when you are a child. So maybe you don’t need them anymore, but then you don’t know you have them and they drive your financial behaviour. Then is very important to explore this and to discover them and to addressing them and see if they are holding you back from making sufficient financial decisions so that’s very important. Chris Do you think it’s possible to challenge yourself? Anne Abbenes Challenge yourself? Chris If you have these beliefs. Is it possible for you to uncover the self limiting beliefs, yourself? Anne Abbenes Yeah it’s, Yeah, of course you can, and to also, the good news is, they can be changed. And some of these money scripts are formed at a deep primal level and become part of our real truth. So, they are developed for survival and protection in that unpredictable world, and they are resistant to change when there’s a strong emotion attached to them. But you can explore it yourself, and just say, what’s your first memory of money. What your parents taught you about money. And something coming from the psychotherapy is when you have a fear of something just go talk with it. So you put a chair in front of you say okay, money, sit down. And you just start a conversation with money, and then write down, what’s in the conversation and then ask the question- What with my mother say about this. What would my father say about this. And that’s a easy way just to find out that money beliefs. Chris So, supposedly does that exercise, other commands that’s a very powerful exercise talking to money and and bringing mom and dad into the conversation I’m doing it in my head right now and once you once you do that and you start to realise what your beliefs are around money, then what you do about that? Anne Abbenes Most of the time, when you get, awareness is enough. So, most people when they are aware of that. Of that money script they know. Okay, this was this was because this, because that. Sometimes they’re intergenerational. So sometimes the grandparents, in a war developed the money belief. And you know that you don’t need them anymore. So, it just kept aware of them is helpful. So when you know them and it’s also great for awareness. Then you just know, and it’s, it’s just become aware and then you can just make better decisions, you learn to know yourself so that’s a part also of wellbeing learning to know yourself and learning about your beliefs, about your past it’s a very important part. Chris And presumably you can then decide which of these beliefs you want to carry on with, it’s a choice isn’t it? Anne Abbenes Yeah, it’s a choice and they are, you can rewrite your script, so that’s that’s that’s the good part of it, you just can rewrite your script. Chris Ann, we could talk about this stuff for ages and ages I know we only just touched on the surface of this, but perhaps just to wrap up, could you tell us about the Financial Psychology Institute of Europe. Anne Abbenes Yes, we want to increase the understanding of how psychological aspects influence financial behaviour and financial decision making. So we’re just embrace all the people who are basically this with, we’re on a mission to get to improve the world’s financial health. And we establish evidence based interventions for it, and we educate financial professionals, mental health professionals and other professionals, so they can work in a better way with our clients. So, that’s our call. Chris I think it would seem to me the message that’s coming out of this is, if we understand how we make decisions around money. We will make better decisions around money. Anne Abbenes Yes, and if we understand ourselves better, then we just, having informed content there’s something in financial services are working with, just getting information, but getting the informtation of yourself about your own money beliefs. That’s something which is very important to do. So that’s a big part of our financial health and financial wellbeing, getting to know yourself and there’s a lot of attention of exterior finances and with a life planning, there’s also a lot of attention over the interior finances, about your, your present, about your propensity about your awareness, the future, of your dreams, your possibilities. But the past is also a very important part of it and that’s are your beliefs your money scripts, your emotions, your your your unconscious, beliefs, Chris Absolutely fascinating thank you so much for joining us really really appreciate it. Anne Abbenes Glad to be here. Thank you. David Well, fascinating stuff that. I have to say a lot of it, I want to say felt familiar. She gave us a new insight to certain things that we’ve discussed a lot on the podcast over the years. About financial wellbeing of Know thyself, self limiting beliefs that we often have about money. Chris I love some of the stuff she talked about that, how our brains havent been used to money within this period of evolution. So the way that we deal with decisions and make decisions around money, just doesn’t come naturally to us. It’s fascinating stuff. David Yeah. And also another thing she said that struck me as well, that money or thinking about money can cause fear and create anxiety, and that’s very true as well. If we can find a way of reframing that focusing on thinking, rather than making a scared about how we could make our money feel better is great. And also, her assertion that the self limiting beliefs that we talked about before, can of course be changed. They don’t have to be constant, but you do need to be aware of what it is that’s causing them before we go about trying to change. You know you can you can re-write your scripts as she says. Producer Tommo I’ve got nothing to add chaps, I think you’ve summarised it brilliantly. I think it was a terrific interview so thanks for that Chris. David We hope you’ve enjoyed that we always find we do something different, and we’ll do that next time we come back with another one of our financial wellbeing podcasts. For now, goodbye.

What gets you out of bed in the mornings? Join the guys as they discuss how we can structure our finances to create and keep the balance between pleasure and purpose for long term wellbeing and fulfilment. With another Bage’s Behavioural Bias and #tightasstommo’s money saving tips we have a pleasurable podcast for you . . . Welcomes & Introductions Click here for more information about the Initiative of Financial WellbeingClick here for more information about Ovation FinanceDavid’s new book, click on the image below for more information; (Editor Tammy – as requested by David, details on how to buy a copy of the book! ) What is todays podcast all about? – A chat about the balance between pleasure and purpose from the book, Happiness by Design by Paul Dolan. Bage’s Biases Every episode, Behavioral Finance expert, Neil Bage is going to be giving us his money behavioral tip. Exploring and thinking a little bit about the behavioral traits we have towards money can inform us, so we can make better money decisions going forward. – Link to Episode 36 – Understanding our attitude to risk – Link to Episode 21 – Financial capability – Link to BeIQ | Beam App This episode – Loss Aversion TightAssTommo Featuring a thrifty way to get a free umbrella!Click here for more information about the Olio app Todays topic – The balance between pleasure and purpose Age Concern study – those who reported the greatest wellbeing are those who were living a life with meaning The meaning of life . . . is? What is the difference between how we spend our time and the things that we think will make us happy? A client example – We focus on a snapshot moment when we should look at the continuing narrative How do you actually find purpose in your life? Teaching kids to ride bikes Purpose and pleasure when it comes to parenting! Using football to illustrate the difference between pleasure and purpose Finding the right balance for wellbeing A financial plan should be reflecting and aiming towards that thing that gets you out of bed in the morning. “goals and objectives are what we do during the day, but purpose is what gets us out of bed to do them” Do annual meetings with your financial advisor just look at a snapshot in time? It should be about coaching, to equip you to know what is important and remind yourself of that on a regular basis And for those without a financial advisor? Get a financial plan in place and make time each day to remind ourselves why we made that plan Episode 55 – overcoming Anxiety with Nick Elston The highs and lows of social media Focus on the objectives not the money Click for more details on the book Happiness by Design by Paul Dolan Conclusions from the guys Do you have any financial wellbeing questions you would like us to answer? Or do you have a #tightasstommo money saving tip you would like to share with our listeners? If so, let us know by going to Twitter @Finwellbeing or email – contact@financialwell-being.co.uk If you would like to purchase a copy of The Financial Wellbeing Book please click on this link to visit Penny Brohn UK shop Transcribe of the Podcast Script: (scroll to the bottom to listen to the episode) David 0:10 Hello, everybody and welcome to another one in our long running series of financial wellbeing podcasts. My name is David Lloyd, writer, broadcaster actor. I’m here to act as referee and the common man while I field comments and questions from two brilliant financial brains, the first of which is going to introduce himself now Chris Budd. Chris 0:34 Good lord David that that was, what have you had for breakfast this morning. My name is Chris Budd. I authored the book called The financial wellbeing book and I do lots of other stuff like play guitar and lots of that go on a lockdown. Bought a couple of new guitars during lockdown. So I’m not sure it’s been very good, very good financial wellbeing thing for me this lockdown. David 0:53 And the other genius financial brain is Tom Morris. Tell us about yourself Tommo? Producer Tommo 0:58 Well, I’m not sure about genius. But you know what I’ll take it. I have. I am a Chartered Financial Planner and director at Ovation Finance, which is a financial planning business in Bristol, and I’m also a director over the Initiative for Financial Wellbeing which is an organisation that had its roots in in this podcast, I would suggest and now is formed into a 200 plus member led organisation all trying to focus on the area of financial wellbeing and delivering it to their clients, which is is fantastic. I know about you, Chris. But it’s just been so exciting seeing people engage with this and and it’s just amazing. Chris 1:41 It’s been quite a summer, isn’t it? Yeah. Because we only launched it back in January, and that we’ve already got 230 members, and we’ve got a conference coming up in May. Regional meetings. Oh so much stuff going on. I’m supposed to be spending a day we can spend two or three days a week on it. And if there’s any financial advisors listening who haven’t come and joined us yet, please do. David 2:00 Brilliant well done, guys. And, Tom, I understand there’s been an addition to the Morris family. Producer Tommo 2:05 There has I am a father of two children now. Yes, young Bella, she on this recording since. I should really know this is six, almost seven weeks old now. Yeah, it’s a whirlwind. But it’s quite, people have been asking me what how does it feel going from one to two. And it’s far easier than going from naught to one I would say, going from naught to one, you go from not having to be responsible for anything really other than yourself to having to be responsible for this little, little thing. And then all of a sudden, you’re already used to that. So going to two, it’s been absolutely fine. Apart from that. The lowered sleep. Yeah, it’s great. Yeah, I’m really happy. I couldn’t tell you. It’s a cliche, but I’m incredibly proud and happy dad. David 2:51 Brilliant. Well done. Chris, you’ve been up to anything exciting had any more children? Chris 2:56 Not that I know of. Actually, given the luck that I can be absolutely certain of the fact that I haven’t. I haven’t left this house for like nine months. There’s a friend of ours, mutual friend of ours, David Hannah, who does the illustrations for my novels. And she texted me the other day about novel three, which I’m, I’m just finishing up just to say how are you? Isn’t life dull? I thought that’s a very good way of putting it. But David, we shouldn’t go by talking about novels. We shouldn’t let this go by without mentioned of a certain other addition to your family, your new novel? David 3:28 Indeed, yes, I went after after many, many years of writing for TV and saying I must write a novel one day and having spent five years on and off writing it, I finally got a novelr out. And it’s selling very well. It’s getting great reviews. I’m really pleased with it. It’s called ‘A Most Unwelcome Connection.’ I’m sure Tammy will stick something in the show notes at the end to tell you how you can buy it. If she doesn’t. I’m never doing another podcast. Yeah, no, it’s gone really well. And you all know, Chris, more than certainly more than I do. I mean, the the excitement of you know, I knew that novel really well. I was very familiar with the characters I knew the words on on a screen. But there was nothing that quite prepared me for that rather magical moment of holding a book in my hands, that I had written. I had, you know, my name on it. And it was all encapsulated in this lovely book smelling book. Yeah, so yeah, so that’s, that’s been great. And I’m already now working on the sequel. Chris 4:23 Brilliant, brilliant. I remember when I had my first box of books arrive at the doorstep and I ordered 50 copies I think to sell and give away to friends what have you. And then when the second book came along, I ordered 20 copies because I still got a few the first one and having just done the order. I’ve ordered three. David 4:42 You got a little bit more reasonable. I’ve got a few knocking around but not many, actually. Not many. Anyway, enough about us. We need to move on now to the purpose of today’s conversation. Chris, you better tell us what that is. Chris 4:56 So we’re gonna have a chat about the balance between pleasure and purpose. And it comes from a book called happiness by design by Paul Dolan. So we’re going to talk about some of the ideas that he shares in his book. David 5:10 Brilliant look forward to that. But before we do that, we need to move on to the first of our regular features, and that is Bage’s Behavioural Biases. Were all friend of the podcast, behavioural finance expert, Neil Bage, gives us his one minute introduction to a different behavioural bias that affects how we make decisions about money. And that Chris, what is Neil telling us about this week? Chris 5:36 Today, Neil talks about loss aversion Neil Bage 5:41 Loss aversion. loss aversion is our tendency, our natural desire to prefer avoiding a loss when compared with acquiring and equivalent gain. What this basically means is that we would feel losing £10 more than we would feel gaining £10. So if you’re walking down the street and find a £10 note on the floor, brilliant, of course, you’d feel happy and chuffed that you’ve just found money. But equally, if you put your hand in your pocket, and realise that you’ve lost £10, that feeling the sinking feeling you get in your stomach, that loss aversion being played out. And it is really powerful if we don’t keep it in check, or slow down to consider its effects when making decisions. And we could end up very quickly in a place where we’re doing something to try and avoid a loss, but actually end up losing something else. So don’t let loss aversion take control, making you miss out on new opportunities or new experiences simply based on a fear of losing. We risk things all the time. Just getting out of bed today, and getting dressed carries a degree of risk. So don’t let your aversion to loss become too dominant in your life. Don’t ignore it. But don’t let it control you either. Producer Tommo 6:57 Yeah, once again, Neal is nailed it hasn’t he absolutely nailed it. Yeah, loss aversion is a big one. I find with conversations with, with clients as there’s no doubt we do feel loss considerably more than we feel any gains. And it’s something we have to be really aware of that when somebody is trying to manage their finances or life in general, that we try and provide some buffers to these losses to make them feel a bit more comfortable, because we will feel them. But some people will feel that more than others. So it’s something we definitely need to be aware of that. Yeah, loss losses, or the perception of them can be quite tricky. So yeah. Well, well put, Neil. David 7:42 So now let’s move on to another one of our regular features. I say another one it is the prime feature. It is the reason that people tune in to this podcast. Yes, I witter away. Yes, Chris gives us his, his brilliant financial analysis and knowledge. But in the end, what this is all about is our next feature, Tightasstommo. It’s when Tom Morris gives us the benefit of his meanness. When he explains to us how in the financial world or in any world, you can save yourself some money. But before we come on to the master himself, Chris, have you’ve got anything for us, Chris 8:20 I’ve got one today, David, which is how to get free umbrellas. Never spend any money on an umbrella ever again. What you do is you go to the last department section of your local railway station, and you say excuse me, I’ve lost an umbrella. It’s small and black, and it’s extendable. They’re bound to have one there and they’ll give you a free one. Producer Tommo 8:41 I like that. Yeah, that’s brilliant. I’m going to struggle to Trump that David 8:46 Do your best, Tommo you can do it. The world is waiting. Producer Tommo 8:49 Oh, goodness, me. So I came about this only this morning, actually, somebody had put it out there that there was this organisation called Olio. That’s O L, I O. And it’s olio x, ex.com. in the show notes. What they do is they link neighbours and the local community up together and you’re able to sell or give away food that’s close to its used by day or food, that surplus, maybe you’re even able to sell some some cakes that you’ve made that are no longer required. The whole idea is is that reducing food waste, which has been shown to be a huge, has a huge impact on on the environment, but also enabling people to get access to food at a lower cost. I don’t know if it’s free or not. But like I said, I only saw it this morning. I’m going to go and investigate it more. But it seems like right up our street is saving money but but also reducing the impact on the environment. David 9:55 Excellent, particularly in these times of you know people having to take recourse to a foodbank. Some things like that, that sounds like a really positive thing. Producer Tommo 10:03 Yeah, absolutely. So Olio. Yeah, I’m gonna, I’m gonna really check it out, get get involved. David 10:10 Thanks for that. All right, let’s move on then to the main event. Chris, why don’t you tell us again? About our subject for today? Chris 10:19 Okay, David, thank you. So there’s a recent Age Concern study of wellbeing among retired people. And it showed or concluded that those who reported the greatest wellbeing would those were living a life with meaning. David 10:32 Now, that’s great expression. But what does a life with meaning actually mean? If you pardon the expression? How to find meaning in life is a pretty big question. Monty Python tried to make a film about it, but not fully, fully addressed it? Chris 10:47 Well, like most conversations about meaning of life if they raise more questions than answers, didn’t they? But they did it in a very good way. So So what is meaning or let’s use another word for it purpose, and let’s explore the balance of purpose and pleasure. Crucially, then, of course, how we structure our finances to create and keep that balance between purpose and pleasure. And so to do this, I’ve been rereading a really good book by a guy called Paul Dolan. It’s called happiness by design. So if anybody’s interested in the ideas in this podcast, I strongly recommend that you check out that book. So let’s start off with talking about pleasure. There’s a difference between what makes us happy and what we pay attention to. There’s a difference between how we spend our time and the things that we think will make us happy. And in many ways the gap between these two things defines our wellbeing David 11:40 Right, hold your horses, Christoph, I need to get my head around that statement. So as I understand it, you’re talking about the gap between what actually makes us happy, presumably, this is the ‘Know Thyself’ principle that you’ve talked about for many years, and how we spend our time which is taking our immediate attention. Chris 12:00 Yeah, exactly. And there’s an analogy Paul gives in the early on in his book, which I really like, which is, it’s like the difference between a movie a film, and a photograph. A film is the continuing narrative, where a photograph is just one snapshot in time. And we tend to focus on the snapshot the moment of happiness or wellbeing or unhappiness or whatever. So to give an example, it’s, it’s possible to be unhappy in a job, while quite happy at that particular moment, the thing that you’re doing, which can thereby stop us from taking action. David 12:35 Can you give me an example to illustrate this, Producer Tommo 12:37 I’ll jump in here, if you don’t mind. Because I can think about a few clients, actually, this fits. I’m not going to use a real name here, this is pseudonym for obvious reasons. But a client called Aill and Bill worked for a company that he didn’t like, but he was well paid. He liked his colleagues, and he enjoyed the particular job, he was doing well enough. So you can see there was this snapshot of enjoying what he does in the day, but wasn’t necessarily enjoying the company he worked for, you know, he didn’t like his line manager. What the company did, he just didn’t really believe in. So every day, Bill will go into work focused on what he’s doing now, and actually be happy doing his role. So was wasn’t unhappy. However, whenever he went on holiday, it was felt a little bit, wan’t exactly excited to go back and do the job. He wasn’t fulfilled by it. So I guess what I’m trying to say is his job, in in the moment was giving him happiness, but actually wasn’t given a huge amount of purpose. Because the wider aspects of what it involved wasn’t making him particularly happy. Chris 13:51 I suspect, you guys know, certainly I can, I’m sure a lot of listeners can think of times of their lives when they’ve been in that situation. I can think of a lot of financial advisors, for example, who loved the idea of financial wellbeing but are in jobs, which give them targets to sell products, etc. And they probably enjoy the time with the client, but overall, it’s not giving them the fulfilment. So Paul Dolan’s first suggestion is that we stopped focusing on the snapshots of life, those moments of pleasure, and instead look at how these add together over time. So now let’s look at purpose. We talk of financial wellbeing in terms of living a meaningful life. We use the word purpose a lot, I do anyway. But that word purpose is a big word. It can feel a little overpowering. Yeah, how you actually find purpose in your life? It’s a big issue. David 14:36 Yeah, I think for me, it’s about I mean, I guess I would separate it out. One purpose in my life is to is to earn enough money to live you know, and that’s clearly there as a whether you’d call it a purpose or a function, but for me, I have a wider purpose and nice to feel that I’m making a positive contribution. And Chris, you and I have over a long period of time, you know, volunteer for our local cricket club, done a lot of work there. I just joined the local parish Council, I’ve been a, I’ve been a school governor. And for me, it’s about the purpose in my life is about making a wider contribution to my own community. And I guess those are things that I can feel that I’m doing something useful, when I’m doing it but also retrospectively as I can with a cricket, which I’ve stepped away from now. I can look back on that and think, yeah, you know, I made a difference. It’s something I can look back on with pride. Chris 15:29 Yeah, absolutely. So there’s a longer term thing. And I often say to people of all the things I’ve done in life, that cricket section that you and I got going is probably one of the things I’m most proud of, of all the things that I’ve done. And you’ve got things like your Bafta award, for the award winning show Maid Marion and her Merry Men. We don’t mention that enough, actually. Because there will be some of our listeners that, that will remember that show and not realise that you were Graham, the guard. David 15:54 So it was indeed and it was it was the best job, apart from this one, that I ever had. Certainly paid better than this one. But yeah, it was a great Kids TV series, late 80s, early 90s. For those that haven’t got a clue what we’re talking about, yeah. Chris 16:09 Still available on DVD. David 16:11 It is indeed Yes, on blu-ray DVD. And indeed, you can stream it on Amazon Prime. Chris 16:17 There you go. There you go. So you got to go and see what Producer Tommo 16:19 That does mean, born in the in 1987, I very much enjoyed it, David, at the age it was meant to be enjoyed. So thank you, it was it was an excellent show. Chris 16:29 So there you go, you’ve got you’ve got the longer term purpose of something like that, or there could be just a moment when you show the kid to bowl leg spin. And in that moment, you’ve got pleasure as well. So it’s a balance between these two things. Producer Tommo 16:40 I’ve got, I think I’ve got an example of this. And it only happened this weekend, I have shown Toby how to ride a bike, and he actually got it, you know, it was just amazing. I think I actually showed you the video, I’ve sent you the video, Chris, you you’ve seen it, you know, he actually does have an extended period of time where I’m not holding on, it was amazing. And you get, I got that great sense of, of, of pride and, you know, happiness with that, but also a sense of purpose that my role as a father is or as a parent is to teach my child these things. So some of my purpose is to teach my children how to do things so that they are, they’re able to live a life where they could cycle a bike to school, or whatever it might be. Chris 17:31 I just share a quick story about my daughter, Ella and her bike. Because, because it’s a big moment to teach your kid to ride a bike. And so I had it all set up that we were gonna go to a certain, to Wells actually, to ride a bike and she kept saying, It’s okay, because I can already ride a bike and you can’t, I can’t that I can’t Ella. Look, it’s not you don’t just get on it. You know, you need to learn I need to teach you is it? No, but I can do that. Ella I know you think you can, I sound like Nemo’s dad here, I know you think you can. But you can’t you know. So we get down to Wells. And then we put on the bike, bam, off she goes. And she comes around in a big circle, skids in front of me says what about that then aye? And I said, but, but, I’ll be learning at school. I just haven’t told you. Grrr David 18:19 Well, there’s a lesson for us all there, obviously, our instinct as parents is we want to inform and educate and guide and lead our children. But sometimes they’re best left to their own devices to get on with it themselves. Chris 18:32 So this, this parenting actually gets a specific mention in this book, Happy Happiness by Design, because I’m not sure you’re gonna like this. But there are studies that show that being a parent doesn’t actually add to your overall wellbeing over time. But what it does do is it changes the balance, I think Tommo’s gonna be able to relate to that. It changes the balance between doing things that are purposeful, and things that are pleasurable. I think you could probably vouch for that at the moment. Producer Tommo 18:58 Yeah. Are we saying that I’m definitely in the purposful zone rather than pleasurable? Yeah, I could get I could get that. Yeah, you know, your purpose at the moment is to get up and change a nappy at three in the morning. I mean, that’s, that’s my purpose in life right now. Is it pleasurable? I think we all know the answer to that. David 19:19 Yeah, but Tommo the pleasure will come later in life when, when one of your children or both of them will say, Dad, come on, we’re going down the pub, and I’m gonna buy you a pint. And that’s when the pleasure comes. I mean, my son who I still remember, I could remember teaching him to ride his bike. I could remember changing his nappy and all of those things, but you know, he’s 32 now he’s a man and yet still, my boy. Producer Tommo 19:42 Yeah, there you go. David 19:43 I get, I get certainly you know, a lot of pleasure now from seeing him having turned up into a well rounded and independent young man. Chris 19:52 So let’s let’s look a bit deeper into the no lifestyle stuff that we always go on about in these podcasts and have them for years. Let’s look at that pleasure and principal balance. And let’s try and illustrate this difference between pleasure and purpose. So, David, what would you say are your favourite type of TV programmes or movies? David 20:13 Well, obviously, I’m tempted to say the ones I’ve been in, but but that’s, but actually I’ve, you know, I love a nice documentary. And, you know, I’ll take as an example, you look at some of the great documentaries David Attenborough has made over recent years, you know, the Blue Planet, and all of those things that educate, inform, but also really make you think about, you know, the state of the planet. So probably something like that is going to give me a huge amount of satisfaction at every level. Chris 20:41 Okay, Tommo me what about you? Producer Tommo 20:43 Sport. Sport for me, if I’ve got an opportunity in some spare time, certainly over the weekends, I just watch whatever live sport there is, you know, particularly rugby and cricket, I can’t get enough of it. Chris 20:55 So this illustrates and that obviously, there’s no right or wrong answer to it, because it’s whatever is unique to you. But it demonstrates the difference between whether you do things for pleasure or for purpose. I watched recently, a really good film recommended Triak of the Chicago Seven on Netflix. And I suggest that’s a fairly purposeful type film. It’s a true story. I also love going to see Bristol Rovers, I get great purpose from the fact that I go with my son, even if there isn’t always a pleasure to be here for the actual football. David 21:25 Right? Well, I mean, I can share that with you as well, Chris, because I, obviously, football, I remember picking, picking my son see Bristol City, the other Bristol team when when he was a kid and getting huge amounts of purpose from that. And although, you know, I would argue that the general standard of football over the years made it slightly. The same principle applies is that you’re they’re doing something with your boy. And whatever it is, whoever you’re watching, whatever your opinion might be of the relative merits of the teams that we support, that that essential thing that you do is the great thing. Producer Tommo 22:01 Can I ask a question here? Those examples of you going to sports events with your with your boys? Is that purpose or pleasure? Chris 22:12 It’s it’s a purposeful thing to do. No doubt about it whatsoever. That of course, yeah, it’s still good for purpose, I guess. Would you disagree? You asked the question. Producer Tommo 22:25 A little bit. Yeah, I’d say that there’s that that’s a pleasure pursuit. David 22:30 I think it’s both. I think it’s I think you go there with a purpose. Your purpose is to go to the football, you get pleasure from doing something with your with your child. And you get extra pleasure if your team wins, which clearly is something that Chris will be less familiar with. Chris 22:46 I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist. David 22:48 I tried to be fair, I tried to be nice, Chris. And I just couldn’t stop myself. Producer Tommo 22:55 As a neutral, he’s got a point, Chris i’m afraid. Chris 22:58 The silly thing is if you look at the number of games won and lost over the last 10 years between Bristol Rovers and Bristol City, I suspect it’s about the same. It’s just a different divisions. David 23:09 Well, I’m going to come back at you in the next podcast with that stat. We’ll see. But presumably, this challenge that we’re talking about between pleasure is a key to long term well being. And I would imagine that, that living a life, which is all pleasure, and no purpose wouldn’t be especially fulfilling. But then I can also imagine that a life which is all purpose, and no pleasure, wouldn’t be much fun after a while. So surely, it’s about finding the right balance for each of us. Producer Tommo 23:39 Yeah, absolutely. It was going to be over the long term, not just at that snapshot in time we talked about. So when we look at structuring our finances, when we work, you know, work out our financial plans, we need to work on that Know Thyself part, so that we understand our own balance between purpose and ultimately, what the thing the thing that gets us out of bed in the morning, and pleasure, you know, considering how these series of moments will add up to, to provide us long term well being, you know, that’s what our financial plan should be reflecting and aiming towards. Chris 24:14 I had a really good definition of purpose actually, a little while ago, somebody said, ‘goals and objectives are what we do during the day, but purpose is what gets us out of bed to do them’ as a really nice weapon money. Let’s give the last word on this to Paul Dolan then from the book. Now a direct quote from the book. ‘The value of our lives comes from the experiences of pleasure and purpose over our lifetime, not from a judgement we might make in an arbitrarily chosen moment in time.’ David 24:41 Oh, that’s great. Now given that, I’ve got a challenge for your two brilliant financial planning brains. So this podcast is all about how we can use money to make us happier, and not just wealthier as our strap line right now, you’re saying that we shouldn’t judge happiness by a snapshot in time, yet you call the client in for a meeting just once a year as you did with me last week tamo for an annual review? Producer Tommo 25:05 Well, I’m put on the spot here now arn’t I? I better come up with a good answer! And I think we have to realise that it is very difficult for somebody to be next to you, throughout the whole of the year or this whole long snapshot in time. What my job as a financial planner is, is that when we sit down for that once a year, it may be more regular than that, for some clients, certainly those that are going through a big transition, is to equip you with the skills to be able to understand these things for yourself. So this is where coaching comes in. So I’d like to think that a lot of our conversations, we have David at all around really trying to understand what’s important to you, looking at all these snapshots added together, so we can, you know, get this theme about what is important to you, What’s your purpose, and ultimately, what makes you happy. And then enabling you to take that away, and implement it for between when we see each other and the next time we see each other because unfortunately, I can’t be there with you at all times. So I need to equip you with the skills to know right, what is important to me, and then make sure that you are reminding yourself of that on a regular basis, David 26:23 Which is exactly what you did at our last meeting, you came up with some great solutions and suggestions about, you know, I’m at a stage in my life where I’m moving from working into a more retirement based life. And certainly the advice you gave me was very, very useful. Chris 26:39 I think it’s also fair to say that not everybody will want to or you can get afford to see their advisor every quarter or every month. So So seeing an advisor who’s going to equip you, I think, you know, make sure you’ve got one of them. Producer Tommo 26:51 It’s also the case, and I hope, David, you’ll agree with this is that we are open to having conversations between our our more organised meetings. So we may well have a telephone call along the way that you want to sense checks and things with me, emails, you know, as long as an advisor is open, to having these conversations between meetings, it does enable you to make sure that it’s not just the snapshots that being talked about, and the wider things are being discussed. And yeah, it’s important that we do provide the support. But ultimately, having those big meetings a little too often they can start to become a bit stale if we’re not careful. David 27:31 Yeah, I think that’s fair comment. And I think, obviously, you and I have a slightly different relationship given that we come together for these podcasts quite often, it gives us an opportunity to catch up on small things, when we’re chatting. But certainly those, those big meetings are very important because they tend to be a bit more focused, you go right, these are the issues, we need to sit down and address them. But what I valued about the relationship I have with you and indeed previous advisors that I’ve had at Ovation is the fact that I do know that you’re always there that I can pick up the phone or send you an email and that for me is an ideal advisor client relationship. Producer Tommo 28:07 We better make sure we continue that then hadn’t we! David 28:11 What about those people who don’t have a financial advisor? And we know that a lot of people who read the financial well being booked to turn to that, if you like, is their financial advice? How should they remind themselves of their relationship to their money on a regular basis and keep in touch with their financial wellbeing? Chris 28:28 Thats a good challenge David had to make financial well being something that you attend to every day, not just at certain moments, and then forget it again. So let’s just remember, this is all about the balance between pleasure and purpose. We need to make sure we take time, I would suggest each day to remind ourselves of our plan. So we need to create that financial plan in the first place. And actually thank you for mentioning it, the financial wellbeing book will help you to do that. But then just remind yourself every, not necessarily every day about your plan. But remind yourself every day about you. There’s an old friend of the podcast, Nick Elston, who can be heard, I think, I don’t wish to be rude to the other guests we’ve had. But I think it was the best one, best episode we produced, number 55. He was absolutely fantastic. And he showed a great tip recently to a group of financial advisors that Tommo and I are a part of called the Next Gen Planners. I’m a bit too old for them, but they still let me in. I suspect you might be getting a bit old from at some point, but Producer Tommo 29:23 Im told it’s a mindset, not an age thing. So I hope, I hope . . . Chris 29:27 Yes, yes, definitely. So So Nick said on that on that pod on that little commute that we do every morning with a group of people. He said, just make sure that a little bit of each day is allocated for you. Now I just that really hit me. I’m sure I’m not the only one who finds that I spend so much time every day providing things for the people whether paid or not paid whatever. And I just don’t get to put aside time for myself. So after hearing that step I actually wrote which bit of you, sorry, which bits of today is for you on a postcard and I’ve pinned it behind my workstation, so I see it every morning, which bit of today is for you. David 30:07 Excellent. So and if I understand Mr. Dolan correctly, a major source of unhappiness is the way we focus our attention on the wrong things. So this could be I guess, what social media is a big thing now, isn’t it? You know, we’re all very easily subsumed by what we see on social media. And we can very quickly get trolled and bullied if we dare to mention something that’s not you know, in the current zeitgeist and, and that can take us away from the thing that we believe is really, really important. Chris 30:39 I think, I get a bit frustrated, if I’m honest with you, I love my Twitter. And I get a bit frustrated when I hear people say I don’t do Twitter, because I don’t like what I see. People being negative, you literally choose your own feed on Twitter, you choose your followers. So if somebody is putting something in that you don’t like, don’t follow them. mute them. David 31:01 Exactly. Right, Chris. And I’ve done that I’ve I mean, Twitter is, let’s face it, it’s not, it’s not the lovely fluffy place it was 10 years or so ago when we both joined it. But it still is, for me a source of great amusement and entertainment because anybody that goes on my timeline with any degree and never to negativity or degree, I just sling them off. I’m not interested in engaging with the wider world. I just want to engage with people that make me feel good. Chris 31:26 Yeah. And it’s not only getting people that agree with me, I’ve got lots of people don’t agree with, it’s that negativity and unwillingness to to engage in a conversation. So yeah, you literally choose your own timeline. Producer Tommo 31:39 Do you mind if I come in with some practical stuff chaps as, I think some listeners do like to think well, how can I actually implement this within my financial plan? Chris 31:47 You mean, they don’t want to listen to me and David moaning about the world. Producer Tommo 31:50 If they want to hear you moan about Twitter, etc, they go watch Social Dilemma on Netflix, an excellent documentary that will give you all the insight you need onto this. So if you remember the two grumpy old men on on the Muppets, this is what I’m looking at right now. David 32:05 Less of the old! Producer Tommo 32:08 Okay, so let the point of a financial plan should be to create a clear path to identifiable objectives. I.e, you know, the purpose, the pleasure, what’s it all for? So we need to create that clear path. These objectives, which we could call intrinsic motivations, which we’ve discussed before, on this balance between pleasure and purpose, and are unique to each individual. So once you’ve identified your objectives, why not keep an overview of this to hand? Maybe pin it on the wall, next to Nick Elston’s tip of have you taken some time for yourself each day? Why don’t you pin it on the water? What are your motivations and objectives? What’s important to you? It’s the reason why so many of us keep a picture of our family close at times. And we want to be reminded about the things that are important to us. So that if you’ve got something that you’re specifically aiming for, and oh, such as a holiday, why not pin that up on the wall. Now make your money real to you. You know, without focusing on the amounts, just what your money can actually achieve for you, you know, these objectives that are so important. That being said, when it comes to the actual nitty gritty management of your money, you know, I recommend that you look at it less often than that, you know, it’s important to look at these objects of everyday but looking at your money should be done a little less often, otherwwise, you can get really wrapped up and it’s not going to be great for your your well being. You know, a good example is to look at your investments every day, watching whether the stock market’s gone, up or down, it’s no good for your wellbeing. And, you know, it’s gonna give you false feelings anyway. Remember, investments is a long term thing. Also, automation is your friend. So set up direct debit savings towards these things that are important to you. It enables you to have mental space to focus on the things that are important to you. And also, you know, that action has being taken. Also, if you’re in retirement, make sure your income is automated, so you’re not constantly worrying about action being taken. And finally, if we actually think about our spending, do you review it every couple of months to make sure it’s aligned to that purpose and pleasure that we discussed? And this can be straightforward these days. There are many apps now where you can link your bank account, and you’re able to get a good breakdown of where your money’s going. I know, for example, clients at Ovation, we provide them with a portal and they can link their bank account in there. And they’re able to do budgeting very easily a click of a button. You know, every couple of months they can see, okay, that’s what’s coming in. That’s what’s going out. Is it actually being spent on things that provide pleasure. Is it being spent on things that provide purpose if the answer is no. Then we need to reassess it. If the answer is yes, tick that box and carry on enjoying your life. David 35:01 Great advice. Tom, I thought you mentioned that portlet our meeting last week and you still have to send me the link to set it up, so I’m just reminding you about that. Producer Tommo 35:09 What a terrific advisor I really am. All the truth is coming out now, isn’t it? David 35:15 You’ve had other things on your mind Tommo, so that’s fine. So what’s the name of that book again, Chris? Chris 35:21 It’s called Happiness by Design by Paul Dolan. I stress that the points about the pleasure and purpose balance that we’ve been talking about. That’s just the first chapter. There’s loads of great stuff in the rest of the book. So it’s definitely one that we recommend. David 35:33 Well, I shall go away and read it. So thanks very much for that guy’s a really interesting chat today I thought, I hope you’ve all enjoyed it listening at home or in the car or wherever you’ve been listening to us waffling away, and I hope that you will join us again very soon. Next time we come together for another one of our financial wellbeing podcasts.