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What Women Need To Know About Money · A Little Bit Richer

• 0:01
  Kia: Hey, it's Kia. When it comes to finances, it can
• 0:04
  Kia: sometimes feel like a really negative space for women. L&
• 0:07
  Kia: G Research last year found that the average pension pot of a
• 0:09
  Kia: woman at retirement was found to be less than half
• 0:12
  Kia: of that of a man at the same retirement stage.
• 0:15
  Kia: So there's a gender pension gap and a gender pay gap. There's
• 0:18
  Kia: the expense of childcare and a conversation to be had
• 0:21
  Kia: about flexible working. There's a ton to talk about, but
• 0:24
  Kia: there is hope. I'm joined today by Emilie Bellet. Emilie
• 0:27
  Kia: is passionate about helping women improve their financial lives. She's
• 0:31
  Kia: the host of her podcast, The Wallet, and the founder
• 0:33
  Kia: of Vestpod, a community with a mission to help people, especially
• 0:37
  Kia: women, achieve financial independence. She's also wrote the book, You're
• 0:41
  Kia: Not Broke, You're Pre- Rich, which feels very on- brand
• 0:44
  Kia: for a little bit richer. So let's dive in. Emilie,
• 0:50
  Kia: what are some of the challenges that women face in
• 0:52
  Kia: the financial space?
• 0:53
  Emilie Bellet: So if you think about our lives, women tend to live longer,
• 0:56
  Emilie Bellet: so we should be the one taking extra care of
• 0:59
  Emilie Bellet: retirement and planning ahead. But I feel there's a lot
• 1:02
  Emilie Bellet: of hurdles and challenges along the way. So let's think
• 1:06
  Emilie Bellet: about first the gender pay gap. Women are going to
• 1:08
  Emilie Bellet: be paid less than men, then we tend to have
• 1:11
  Emilie Bellet: a working life that's not as linear. So we may
• 1:14
  Emilie Bellet: take breaks because we take care of our children, but
• 1:16
  Emilie Bellet: it's also taking care of elderly parents, taking care of
• 1:19
  Emilie Bellet: families, of communities. Women are still the primary carers, so
• 1:22
  Emilie Bellet: taking time off means less money being saved, less money
• 1:25
  Emilie Bellet: being saved for the short term, but also for the long
• 1:28
  Emilie Bellet: term. And also women tend to invest less than men.
• 1:32
  Emilie Bellet: So because they're not taking this extra risk with their
• 1:35
  Emilie Bellet: money, they're not necessarily getting this extra reward and building
• 1:39
  Emilie Bellet: pension pots over the long term. So there's this motherhood
• 1:42
  Emilie Bellet: penalty, good daughter penalty. I hate having all these penalties
• 1:46
  Emilie Bellet: on women's life, but it's really important to think about
• 1:49
  Emilie Bellet: the long term. Another statistic is that 34% of women
• 1:54
  Emilie Bellet: say that their financial situation keep them up at night.
• 1:57
  Emilie Bellet: So I think because we didn't necessarily have these conversations
• 2:01
  Emilie Bellet: about money, don't have the education, and this is men
• 2:03
  Emilie Bellet: and women, we never received any financial education. There's also
• 2:07
  Emilie Bellet: a lack of confidence when it comes to finances. So
• 2:11
  Emilie Bellet: even if women are really good savers, they're not actually
• 2:14
  Emilie Bellet: always investing for the long- term and putting money into
• 2:17
  Emilie Bellet: their retirement. When you look at pension pots, women will
• 2:20
  Emilie Bellet: have pension pots that are half the size of men
• 2:24
  Emilie Bellet: at retirement, and this comes from habits that will come from much
• 2:29
  Emilie Bellet: earlier in their working lives.
• 2:30
  Kia: I mean, as a woman myself, I can definitely attest
• 2:33
  Kia: to the things that you said, right? When it comes
• 2:35
  Kia: to being a woman, as you so lovingly put it,
• 2:38
  Kia: I mean there are penalties for ... You go through life,
• 2:41
  Kia: you want to have children, now you've got that penalty
• 2:42
  Kia: there. And I think it is so important as women, I
• 2:46
  Kia: think, I can't remember the exact number, but there is a stat out
• 2:48
  Kia: there that shows that women are better savers, they save
• 2:51
  Kia: more than men, but maybe they didn't take as much
• 2:53
  Kia: risk on their money. So they didn't put it in investments to help it grow.
• 2:57
  Kia: So I think there is that. But speaking about investment
• 3:01
  Kia: then, what is this investment gap? So can you describe
• 3:05
  Kia: what it is and what can be done about it?
• 3:08
  Emilie Bellet: Yeah. So the investment gap is the difference between the
• 3:12
  Emilie Bellet: number of women investing and the number of men actually
• 3:15
  Emilie Bellet: investing money. And in the UK there's a £ 15 billion
• 3:19
  Emilie Bellet: investing gap between men and women. So of course, that's
• 3:22
  Emilie Bellet: going to make a huge difference in terms of wealth
• 3:25
  Emilie Bellet: building because women, as you said, are great savers, but
• 3:28
  Emilie Bellet: not all women are actually investing money. So they're losing
• 3:32
  Emilie Bellet: out because by making your money work for you and
• 3:34
  Emilie Bellet: putting your money at work. In the stock market, you
• 3:37
  Emilie Bellet: may expect higher return over the longer time. But of
• 3:40
  Emilie Bellet: course, this comes with a notion of risk and risk
• 3:43
  Emilie Bellet: is very difficult to comprehend. So when we look at
• 3:46
  Emilie Bellet: the younger generation, you think about maybe the financial crisis
• 3:50
  Emilie Bellet: in 2008, people may be worried about the stock market.
• 3:53
  Emilie Bellet: There's a lot of misconception when we think about in
• 3:57
  Emilie Bellet: culture and movies, we think about the Wolf of Wall
• 3:59
  Emilie Bellet: Street. So investing seems really scary and seems something that's
• 4:03
  Emilie Bellet: not for everyone. So we sort of miss this education
• 4:07
  Emilie Bellet: from a very young age about delayed ratification and budgeting
• 4:11
  Emilie Bellet: and how to put your money at work to generate
• 4:13
  Emilie Bellet: more return with your money and building wealth. And these
• 4:15
  Emilie Bellet: are very important concepts. But if you don't start, then
• 4:18
  Emilie Bellet: you may not have the confidence. You may feel a
• 4:20
  Emilie Bellet: bit worried about asking for help, knowing where to go
• 4:24
  Emilie Bellet: when you need financial advice. There's also a financial advice gap
• 4:27
  Emilie Bellet: in the UK to add to our gaps where most
• 4:30
  Emilie Bellet: people are not going to have access to a financial
• 4:33
  Emilie Bellet: advisor maybe because they don't have enough money. So there's
• 4:35
  Emilie Bellet: a lot of responsibility and personal responsibility to get started
• 4:39
  Emilie Bellet: managing your money and investing your money because this is going to
• 4:42
  Emilie Bellet: be really important to build financial security and financial independence.
• 4:47
  Emilie Bellet: It's not about having more money, it's about having more
• 4:49
  Emilie Bellet: money to be able to achieve your goals, to live
• 4:52
  Emilie Bellet: the life you want. So I feel this investing piece
• 4:55
  Emilie Bellet: is really where I want to help women to just
• 4:57
  Emilie Bellet: get started on a very small scale. Now, there's a
• 5:00
  Emilie Bellet: lot of platforms on the market where you can invest
• 5:02
  Emilie Bellet: your spare change, you can start investing with £ 50 amounts.
• 5:05
  Emilie Bellet: So it's getting started into this habit and trying to
• 5:09
  Emilie Bellet: understand risk and see risk not necessarily as something that
• 5:12
  Emilie Bellet: is bad but risk more as an opportunity. And when
• 5:15
  Emilie Bellet: you invest in the stock market and if you have
• 5:18
  Emilie Bellet: a pension, your money is invested. So most people don't
• 5:20
  Emilie Bellet: actually know that through your workplace pension, you're contributing towards
• 5:24
  Emilie Bellet: your future, but your money is going to be invested
• 5:26
  Emilie Bellet: in a collection of different companies. It's trying to understand
• 5:29
  Emilie Bellet: a little bit more about how the stock market work,
• 5:31
  Emilie Bellet: build up this confidence, understand risk, and feel a little
• 5:34
  Emilie Bellet: bit more comfortable with this term of investing. And it's
• 5:38
  Emilie Bellet: the same as investing in your personal career, in your
• 5:41
  Emilie Bellet: personal development where you do a lot of things for
• 5:43
  Emilie Bellet: yourself to feel better, but you can do also some
• 5:45
  Emilie Bellet: of these things with your finances. And it's starting from
• 5:48
  Emilie Bellet: maybe learning a little bit more about money, investing a
• 5:51
  Emilie Bellet: little bit. So starting on a very small scale actually
• 5:54
  Emilie Bellet: works and it compounds over time, and that's one of
• 5:56
  Emilie Bellet: the greatest lessons in investing.
• 5:58
  Kia: Absolutely. I think like you mentioned, when it comes to
• 6:01
  Kia: investing, you mentioned the Wolf of Wall Street, when you
• 6:04
  Kia: think about investing, you think about men on the trading
• 6:06
  Kia: floor doing all this. It feels so far away from
• 6:09
  Kia: what you could do, especially as a woman. But I
• 6:12
  Kia: think alongside all the things that you mentioned there, it's about
• 6:14
  Kia: representation as well. So we've mentioned there are a lot of gaps,
• 6:19
  Kia: there are a lot of gaps for women out there,
• 6:21
  Kia: but as a woman, what can you do to be
• 6:25
  Kia: better prepared when it comes to your finances?
• 6:28
  Emilie Bellet: Yeah. So I think it takes a little bit more
• 6:30
  Emilie Bellet: planning and also thinking about what does money mean to
• 6:33
  Emilie Bellet: you. When we think about money, finances, investing, that can
• 6:37
  Emilie Bellet: be quite scary and overwhelming and you don't know where
• 6:39
  Emilie Bellet: to start. So it is just trying to start with the basics.
• 6:43
  Emilie Bellet: And often when we run our courses and boot camps,
• 6:45
  Emilie Bellet: we try to have these conversations about money. There's still
• 6:48
  Emilie Bellet: such a big taboo around money because they have this lack of
• 6:51
  Emilie Bellet: education and money being the thing where it's quite, I
• 6:55
  Emilie Bellet: mean, I've always been taught that it's quite impolite to talk
• 6:57
  Emilie Bellet: about money, that girls shouldn't talk about money. When you
• 7:00
  Emilie Bellet: look at the statistics, girls actually receive 20% less pocket
• 7:03
  Emilie Bellet: money than boys. And our money habits come from a
• 7:06
  Emilie Bellet: very young age, from age three to 7 years old.
• 7:08
  Emilie Bellet: So we sort of grow up with these beliefs around
• 7:10
  Emilie Bellet: money. So I think doing a little bit of work
• 7:12
  Emilie Bellet: on your money mindset by having a conversation, trying to
• 7:15
  Emilie Bellet: write your money story, maybe seeing a money coach also
• 7:19
  Emilie Bellet: financial advisors can also help you. But really doing the
• 7:21
  Emilie Bellet: work for yourself. And then it's organizing your finances, not being
• 7:25
  Emilie Bellet: worried about checking your bank accounts. And I know that's
• 7:28
  Emilie Bellet: quite scary for people who never look at their finances.
• 7:30
  Emilie Bellet: But on the morning, try to check your bank account
• 7:33
  Emilie Bellet: once a day, you'll feel empowered, you know exactly how
• 7:35
  Emilie Bellet: much you have. And the same is going to go
• 7:37
  Emilie Bellet: for debts, trying to understand how much debt do you
• 7:40
  Emilie Bellet: have, how much savings do you have, and try to
• 7:42
  Emilie Bellet: understand your basic numbers. So having a little spending plan,
• 7:46
  Emilie Bellet: trying to check for the past months, or for the
• 7:48
  Emilie Bellet: past three months, how have you been spending your money?
• 7:51
  Emilie Bellet: So this is the first part. And then thinking more
• 7:53
  Emilie Bellet: broadly about wealth, we all should think about wealth. And
• 7:57
  Emilie Bellet: of course, here we're talking financial wealth, but knowing a
• 7:59
  Emilie Bellet: few numbers. So maybe trying to calculate your net worth,
• 8:02
  Emilie Bellet: which is the sum of all your assets, minus the
• 8:05
  Emilie Bellet: sum of your liabilities. If you're quite early in your
• 8:08
  Emilie Bellet: working life, and if you have a lot of student debt, you will
• 8:10
  Emilie Bellet: have a negative net worth. But that's okay. It's just
• 8:13
  Emilie Bellet: a matter of improving this number over time, knowing how
• 8:16
  Emilie Bellet: much savings you have. So really knowing these numbers, also
• 8:19
  Emilie Bellet: your credit score and writing them down and having maybe
• 8:22
  Emilie Bellet: a little date with yourself on your money once a
• 8:26
  Emilie Bellet: month. And I'm sure you talk about that also with
• 8:28
  Emilie Bellet: your friends and communities, but it's having this regular catch-
• 8:32
  Emilie Bellet: up with money, I think is really helpful. And not judging
• 8:35
  Emilie Bellet: yourself really, sort of detaching your self- worth from these
• 8:39
  Emilie Bellet: numbers. They don't define you, the amount of money you
• 8:42
  Emilie Bellet: earn, the amount of debt you have, they're not your
• 8:44
  Emilie Bellet: personality. So trying to separate the two, I think is
• 8:47
  Emilie Bellet: quite important. But be very realistic about how much money
• 8:50
  Emilie Bellet: you have, how much money you don't have, and what are your
• 8:53
  Emilie Bellet: goals going forward.
• 8:55
  Kia: I love that, especially when you mentioned about net worth.
• 8:57
  Kia: I remember I checked my net worth when I was
• 8:59
  Kia: in my first year of uni at 18, and I don't
• 9:02
  Kia: think I've seen a minor sign as big as that
• 9:05
  Kia: when I looked at my net worth. Thankfully it's gone up since
• 9:07
  Kia: then, but I find that quite funny. But I love
• 9:09
  Kia: the point where you mentioned actually talking to people. I
• 9:12
  Kia: think we have this culture in society where we don't
• 9:15
  Kia: talk, so things become taboo. And you never know if
• 9:18
  Kia: you see your colleagues are any more than you because we
• 9:19
  Kia: don't talk about it. And I've made it a thing
• 9:21
  Kia: of my own friendship group that us as girls will
• 9:24
  Kia: come together and we'll just talk about money. Sometimes it's like, "
• 9:27
  Kia: We want to go out here, but girls, I haven't
• 9:29
  Kia: got the money this month. So let's be mindful of
• 9:31
  Kia: the budget." And having those open conversations make things easier.
• 9:34
  Kia: You can bring up, you know what, I'm going to
• 9:36
  Kia: go through this pay rise. It just makes that conversation a
• 9:38
  Kia: lot easier to have with people. So I think it's
• 9:40
  Kia: definitely a good thing to try and incorporate for people.
• 9:42
  Kia: So Emilie, when it comes to the cost of kids
• 9:45
  Kia: specifically, because that can be a very big cost for a lot of
• 9:48
  Kia: parents. How can women and partners financially prepare for this?
• 9:52
  Emilie Bellet: Yeah. So I think what I see very often, and I have three
• 9:55
  Emilie Bellet: young kids. So for me, building a business, having kids,
• 9:58
  Emilie Bellet: living the corporate world, that was a lot. And it
• 10:01
  Emilie Bellet: takes a little bit of planning instead of reacting. So
• 10:05
  Emilie Bellet: when women are pregnant, they usually think about, " Okay, what's
• 10:09
  Emilie Bellet: going to happen to my salary? I will have to
• 10:11
  Emilie Bellet: pay for childcare." Childcare in the UK is one of
• 10:13
  Emilie Bellet: the most expensive in the world. And when we have
• 10:16
  Emilie Bellet: conversation about childcare, women tend to compare their salary with
• 10:19
  Emilie Bellet: the cost of childcare. But actually, maybe they have a
• 10:22
  Emilie Bellet: partner and they can share this cost with their partner.
• 10:24
  Emilie Bellet: So I think it's trying to plan with your partner,
• 10:27
  Emilie Bellet: cost of childcare, what do you want to do? Do
• 10:29
  Emilie Bellet: you want to go back to work? How much is
• 10:31
  Emilie Bellet: it going to cost us? And try to see this
• 10:33
  Emilie Bellet: cost of childcare as an investment that will allow you
• 10:36
  Emilie Bellet: if you want to to stay in the workforce, if you
• 10:39
  Emilie Bellet: want to take some time off, can you also plan
• 10:41
  Emilie Bellet: for this time off understanding that you will not earn
• 10:44
  Emilie Bellet: any money? So there's also no money that's going to
• 10:47
  Emilie Bellet: be put into your savings and into your investment plan.
• 10:50
  Emilie Bellet: And a conversation you can have with your partner is
• 10:54
  Emilie Bellet: around pensions. So if you're taking time out of work
• 10:57
  Emilie Bellet: and that you can have a few kids and then
• 11:01
  Emilie Bellet: very easily you're five years out of the workforce or
• 11:03
  Emilie Bellet: 10 years and you haven't saved any money. So making
• 11:06
  Emilie Bellet: sure maybe your partner knows about that and is helping
• 11:09
  Emilie Bellet: you and paying into your pension, or you can help
• 11:12
  Emilie Bellet: your partner. So having this thing where you work as
• 11:15
  Emilie Bellet: a team and collectively to make sure you build up
• 11:18
  Emilie Bellet: financial independence together for your household, but also independently, making
• 11:22
  Emilie Bellet: sure you have your own money, you have your own
• 11:25
  Emilie Bellet: pension pots because you never know what can happen. And
• 11:27
  Emilie Bellet: also when you start having children is how do you
• 11:30
  Emilie Bellet: talk about money in the family and how you start
• 11:33
  Emilie Bellet: educating your children because as we know early education will
• 11:36
  Emilie Bellet: have such a big impact later on in life. So
• 11:39
  Emilie Bellet: involving them in basic money decisions, and that can be
• 11:42
  Emilie Bellet: budgeting, delayed gratification, saving for something you really like. Also,
• 11:47
  Emilie Bellet: when it comes to raising kids, there's important conversations to
• 11:50
  Emilie Bellet: have around flexible work and shared parental leave. So it's
• 11:53
  Emilie Bellet: important for both partners to maybe be able to take
• 11:56
  Emilie Bellet: some time off to spend time with the kids to
• 11:58
  Emilie Bellet: make sure the other partner can also stay the workforce.
• 12:01
  Emilie Bellet: And the last thing is for parents, for young parents,
• 12:04
  Emilie Bellet: when you have children, you should apply and potentially claim
• 12:07
  Emilie Bellet: for child benefits. So if you are out the workforce,
• 12:10
  Emilie Bellet: you may not be entitled to actually receive a payment,
• 12:13
  Emilie Bellet: but you can check that on HMRC, on the governance
• 12:16
  Emilie Bellet: website. But actually, can you get your national insurance contribution
• 12:20
  Emilie Bellet: to make sure you're not losing out in terms of
• 12:23
  Emilie Bellet: your state pension?
• 12:24
  Kia: I think that's really good. A lot of good valuable information
• 12:27
  Kia: there for people who are parents or becoming parents very
• 12:29
  Kia: soon. Emilie, I want to end with the same question
• 12:34
  Kia: that I ask every single week. What three tips can
• 12:37
  Kia: you give to help people get a little bit richer?
• 12:40
  Emilie Bellet: So my first tip is about money mindset. Really try
• 12:43
  Emilie Bellet: to understand what does money mean to you, what you
• 12:45
  Emilie Bellet: can do for your finances, because we may have so
• 12:48
  Emilie Bellet: many limiting beliefs around money. The second one is around
• 12:51
  Emilie Bellet: investing. Start investing even on a small scale. And if you have a
• 12:54
  Emilie Bellet: pension, check your pension, make sure you're contributing. If you
• 12:58
  Emilie Bellet: don't have a pension yet, it's maybe the time to start
• 13:01
  Emilie Bellet: figuring out how you can save for your older self
• 13:04
  Emilie Bellet: and try to connect with your future self. And my
• 13:07
  Emilie Bellet: third tip is learn more about money, become more financially
• 13:10
  Emilie Bellet: confident. You can start again on a very small scale
• 13:13
  Emilie Bellet: with maybe books, video, courses, podcasts like this one, and
• 13:17
  Emilie Bellet: slowly learn the tips, find some guidance, and become more
• 13:21
  Emilie Bellet: financially confident.
• 13:22
  Kia: Emilie, thank you so much. You have shared so much
• 13:26
  Kia: useful information for all of our listeners. And hopefully, this can
• 13:29
  Kia: be the starting point, close that gap that we see
• 13:32
  Kia: with women to become more empowered with their finances. So thank you so
• 13:34
  Kia: much for coming on. Next week I'll be chatting with
• 13:37
  Kia: digital nomad Claire Rhodes. Make sure to catch the episode
• 13:40
  Kia: to hear all about the exciting prospect of traveling while
• 13:43
  Kia: managing work in the UK. In the meantime, follow the
• 13:46
  Kia: podcast, leave us a review, and tell a mate. See
• 13:49
  Kia: you next week.