Latest / The Curve / What Olivia Dean reveals about the music economy.

Transcript

What Olivia Dean reveals about the music economy. · The Curve

0:00
Welcome to the Curve Weekly, where we read the finance news you don't have to.
0:04
I'm Vic Harris, I'm a finance professional and have made a career out of making money
0:08
for other people.
0:09
And I'm Sophie Hallwright, I'm an XTV radio music industry producer and I was just really
0:14
sick and tired of not knowing anything about the economy or money, so we made this podcast.
0:19
We are also joined by our producer Emily Rigby and our social media manager Lucy Monroe,
0:23
who we're doing, all the hard work behind the scenes to make this show possible.
0:26
In today's episode, we have both been to see Olivia Dane, the amazing, amazing artist,
0:32
and naturally we're breaking down her business model.
0:34
Is it her billion dollars of streams?
0:36
Is it her sold-out shows?
0:38
Is it her endorsements that make it the most money?
0:40
We break it all down.
0:41
Next up, the London Marathon has brought in a record amount of money into the UK economy.
0:46
London and the UK used to be one of the financial hubs of the world, if not the financial hub,
0:51
but things are not looking very shiny at the moment.
0:53
So we're going to look into what does this mean for your investments and your wallets.
0:56
It's also a reporting season, which means some of the biggest companies on the earth are
1:01
delivering up their report cards and most of them are terrifyingly good.
1:05
We're doing a quick fire round on what this tells us about AI, your daily habits, and
1:09
the future of bi-singentech.
1:11
There is a cool girl at Felicia Brand that you may know, in fact, you definitely will know.
1:15
It's underperformed by about 80% and there is a lot of drama going on behind the scenes
1:20
in terms of who should lead the company, what direction they could go in.
1:23
So we're diving into what happens when a brand loses its cool, the board starts fighting,
1:27
and the new person being brought in comes straight into the drama.
1:30
Before we dive in, absolutely no personal chat.
1:33
We go straight into our favourite girl, Olivia Dean.
1:38
I woke up so excited this morning.
1:42
Nice.
1:43
I am going to my favourite artist, Olivia Dean.
1:47
I wish I knew her middle name, or would have used her full name.
1:49
I went on Wednesday.
1:50
Did you?
1:51
It was.
1:52
So good.
1:53
Really?
1:54
Okay.
1:55
I felt like I was watching Tina Turner or Diana Ross before they become, well she's already
2:01
incredibly famous.
2:02
But you know, I was like, this is someone that's going to be around for a long time.
2:07
And just knowing every single song, I was like, really need to go to a toilet and I was
2:10
like, you know what?
2:11
I just can't.
2:12
I just can't.
2:13
I'm in a pump of squat.
2:14
Right here.
2:15
But no, it was incredible.
2:17
I came home and I was like, gosh, I wonder how much she makes.
2:20
Because she sold out three O2 arenas, which are Londoners like, you know, a massive, massive
2:24
iconic arena.
2:25
And how big is O2?
2:27
Because that was where we went for Tina Swift.
2:29
22,000.
2:30
Quite people.
2:31
Lot, isn't it?
2:32
Can I say before we move on to the stats and finances of this, which I'm quite excited
2:37
to look into?
2:38
I love.
2:39
And I've tried Purbe's flight and not engaged with the social media post, because I want
2:43
to be surprised.
2:44
I'm going to be like, I've seen that on Instagram.
2:47
But the tiny snippet that I saw, she's wearing this big, beautiful white skirt or something.
2:52
And I just thought, it's so nice to see an artist wearing beautiful clothing that's
2:58
on tacky, but still quite big and performative and looks good on stage, because I feel like
3:03
her styling is quite cool.
3:05
It's not like tacky and girly.
3:06
It's all pretty.
3:07
Right.
3:08
Like it's all, because she was like, jeans and sneakers, when she first released her first
3:14
album.
3:15
And now, she's had like a mess of glass, like she's always been stunning, but like in terms
3:20
of her fashion, like the fan that does her hair when she performs, you know, like all
3:25
of that.
3:26
Even like, do a leaper or Taylor Swift, you look at their outfits.
3:30
And it's for do a leaper, you kind of like, I'm a bit disappointed that that's your stage
3:34
outfit, because you have impeccable cool style in real life, but then as soon as you're
3:39
on stage, you kind of look like you're wearing one piece glitter.
3:42
Yeah.
3:43
And it looks like in that tiny, stiff, and I sort of Olivia Dane that her outfits are
3:48
beautiful clothes that she wore a beckon bridge dress or something when she did Australian
3:55
to her, and it sold out 10 times over of course it says, yeah, I mean, she is a walking.
4:01
I was going to say, hang on, which is not what I mean, but you would see her in the outfit
4:04
and think, how gutted would you be if she, well, you'd be stoked if she wore your label,
4:08
but then you'd be gutted that you didn't like stock more and then you sold out, you'd
4:12
be like, that's even for beckon bridge, the fact that yes, like maybe that style sold
4:17
out, but probably a lot of people would never heard of beckon bridge until that point.
4:20
Totally.
4:21
And it's also like people into your, onto your website, right, onto your, yeah.
4:24
But yes, we want to show deep dive on her because there's a lot going on behind the scenes
4:29
and I love that this is a story we're going to talk about because it's not the kind of
4:32
thing that you would see in the news or headlines, but I'm assuming you're watching the show
4:36
thinking, hmm, yeah, I was just like, there's been a lot of artists that have been touring
4:40
lately. I was like, how much do they get from touring, like who owns them, like all of
4:44
this, and she's sexually assigned to universal music, which we also spoke about the other
4:50
week.
4:51
And I can't remember why.
4:52
Oh my god.
4:53
My brain is turning on.
4:54
Oh no, we spoke about it because there's someone trying to take it over private equity
4:56
that raised a guy.
4:57
Yeah.
4:58
And it's trying to get, um, Bill.
4:59
Bill.
5:00
One of the two.
5:01
One of the, yeah.
5:02
It's definitely not Mary or Jane.
5:03
You're like, did you know Mary was actually one of the top names for like 2025 or something?
5:08
It's not true.
5:09
I was like, I need to send this to someone.
5:11
It's because you mention it in every podcast, but anyone that's new here, the old geez will
5:17
get it, but, but every time you try something, it's an example of something, so it might
5:21
be.
5:22
Mary goes to the shop, but every name she uses happens to be Mary.
5:25
Anyway, she's owned by universal music.
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She's also huge on all the streaming platforms.
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She, man I need, has had over a week to hear this live.
5:35
Did you cry any of the songs?
5:37
I did.
5:38
There was, yeah.
5:39
There's a few night.
5:40
Yeah, yeah.
5:41
All the way through.
5:42
No, I didn't cry.
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I was like, decked out in the show.
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I was like, come here.
5:45
Why did you buy?
5:46
I got a t-shirt and a hat.
5:47
Oh, look, it stopped.
5:48
You did.
5:49
That's so funny.
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I don't such a wiser money.
5:51
Sorry.
5:52
Uh, do as I say, not a load, though.
5:53
But she's had a billion streams on Man I Need, which is wild, like a billion, a billion
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people have listened to that song.
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And so I was like, well, I wonder how much they get.
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Because I know they get very little from those streams, but they get 0.003 to 5 cents per
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stream.
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So, yeah, a billion streams is like three to five million dollars, which is still nothing
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though for how many people have listened.
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And how few artists would get to a billion?
6:22
Like Spotify must just be like a bit of a, like, cream on the top kind of thing.
6:26
Yeah.
6:27
I mean, I think that's the point, right?
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It's almost it creates the fandom or the people that listen, but it's absolutely not
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the only money that anyone can.
6:35
And that, that three to five million is shared between the label, the distributor, publisher,
6:39
Trump.
6:40
Like there's so many people in that food chain that get Olivia Daniel any other artists to where
6:44
they are.
6:45
And then I was looking at her income.
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And I was like, well, you know, how much does she make from touring?
6:49
40% is from royalties and streaming.
6:51
Oh, yeah.
6:52
So majority.
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I would have thought.
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And then 30% from touring.
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Because again, I think we're touring.
6:57
There's so much cost, right?
6:59
You have to have that stuff production like, yeah.
7:02
And then 20% from endorsements like Chanel and stuff.
7:05
Because she's obviously the face of a lot of brands now.
7:08
I'm so shocked by that because I was looking at how much she was like earning per show.
7:14
And she's doing, I think, 50, 52 nights, which is like 1.3 million pounds per show.
7:22
When I saw that, I thought, oh, well, obviously the biggest money make of her must be touring.
7:28
It's wild that it's not.
7:29
Well, it's, yeah.
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You only get about 10 to 20% of your tour profit, like profit, and she goes to the artist.
7:37
Because I was thinking, one nearly 1.5 million pounds per show, what a day rate.
7:42
You know, I was thinking.
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But like, earning from her, she goes up, she sings her 20 songs and she gets nearly 1.5 million.
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Obviously not.
7:50
Yeah.
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But you think like, yeah, what goes into her tour.
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And then you look at Justin Bieber and he got 10 million for two weekends.
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You know, and she's doing like 50 two shows.
8:00
Like even though that's a lot.
8:01
Yeah, but this is why so many artists are touring because it is a good money maker.
8:05
You know, like Spotify's so crowded now, the discoverability and like trying to get through so much of the noise of like so many artists on there.
8:13
One of the things that I thought was quite interesting when looking at her financials and the idea of being with universal music.
8:20
I don't know how people will feel about this because I also, I think there's still this underlying
8:26
the record labels do others dirty or their big dirty awful men that are like,
8:32
take all the money from our beautiful artists.
8:34
I feel like there's still that.
8:35
What was that movie?
8:36
And they were like, it was a honey?
8:37
No.
8:38
Oh, I loved that film.
8:39
I know.
8:40
That song, I believe, was kind of my like amp up song as a teenager whenever I was feeling nervous for an exam.
8:45
I'd be like, I believe.
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Yeah, anyway, I am so embarrassing.
8:49
My sister actually brought that up the other day in front of someone I was quite mortified.
8:54
Like I would sit in my room listening like crying, but like you've got it.
8:57
How many like 90s movies were there like that though?
9:00
Like so many.
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And like all of them just popped off.
9:03
Yeah.
9:04
But I was thinking do our listeners or do people feel like they would want or be excited by the idea of being invested in the artist?
9:12
Because obviously as a fan you can buy a ticket, you can buy merch, which is giving the artist money.
9:18
But if you invest in universal, you technically could own part of Taylor Swift, Billy Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter,
9:28
some people run like when you're going to a concert, you can be like, well, it's not all, you know, the money that I've spent on this concert is actually coming back into my pocket a little bit.
9:36
Do you know what I mean?
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If you invested in universal music, literally I was looking at all of the artists that are under that umbrella.
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It's kind of most of the music artists that are like Lady Gaga.
9:47
Do people feel like if they're invested in a label, they can then feel excited about an investment?
9:54
Because I think there's this disconnect between, okay, I'm investing in, I don't know, the S&P 500 or whatever.
10:02
And you know, we always talk about investing things that you know or like or love.
10:06
Maybe just like flipping the switch and thinking, if you love artists, you could look at all of the different record labels and how much they make.
10:14
And you could actually invest in them if you wanted to.
10:16
Yeah. And then, yeah, when you're deciding to go to a concert, if you're going to go to Taylor Swift or, I don't know, Bad Bunny, you'll be like, well, I've got to tell us what because the money's going to come back into my pocket eventually.
10:26
Yeah. I mean, I'd love to do a deeper dive on this at some stage because I think then there's a huge narrative around women, particularly in pop, pushing forward culturally, but also financially.
10:39
Like, I could be maybe seeing this with just a feminist lens for the sake of it, but when I look at what's happening in the music industry and you know, you see headlines like in 2024, women were like absolutely dominating Billboard 100.
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Like there was mostly women pop songs that were top rating. And then you think, okay, so all of these artists that are killing it, often a woman.
11:05
And then they're going and doing shows like we spoke ages ago about Taylor Swift and her like, was it two billion or something she made on her tour.
11:12
Like it was crazy. Yeah. And what that did to the economy around the world with people going and spending on hotels and blah, blah.
11:18
And it'd be quite interesting to do a deep dive on women in the music industry in general, because I do feel like there's something interesting in the angle of they're bringing all this money into this asset that is music.
11:32
But underlying people who own the record labels or pulling the strings are often men, you know, like all of the CEOs of these businesses are all men, except the people that are making them the most money are female artists.
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Which is why the more women invest and the more women invest in the likes of universal music, the more women own universal music.
11:53
Because there's a shareholder you own the business. Therefore, you can decide who runs the business. So it's like if there's, you know, a CEO or that you don't agree with or that you want in the business that you run.
12:05
Yeah, the more that you are, the more that you have a say in her business. So yeah.
12:08
I was just thinking general this whole conversation, which we've now had a few times with, yeah, with the idea of I think because you were talking about universal being taken over by a new private equity company.
12:17
And we spoke about that a few weeks ago, a few mister in the curve weekly, but I think there is like kind of this big movement happening within people seeing music and the music industry as a really valuable investment.
12:28
And it's interesting because I love it because I love music and I'm also love pop and I love artists like this that are owned by big record companies.
12:36
And I don't know, I feel like there's something in it particularly for people that feel kind of unexcited by stock investing.
12:42
Yes, because it's not tangible. It's not exciting. But if you feel like, well, I'm invested in all my favorite artists, that's kind of fun.
12:48
Yeah.
12:49
And when you listen to it and you know, you've got a stream and you think, okay, part of this is going to my investments in universal politics going to my artists that I love.
12:57
It's like with everything, right? Like even if you owned a car brand, then you're more unlikely to buy, you're more likely to buy that brand of car.
13:05
As a consumer and support it because you're like, well, I've got a vested interest in this being successful.
13:10
Even clothing brands, you know, as a, yeah, you become a bit more of a invested consumer as well.
13:17
Yes. Because the more purchases of something, better that stock is going to do.
13:21
Yeah. Yeah, love that.
13:23
Ah, the UK. I feel like we're in a sinking ship, aren't we?
13:31
I mean, I want to instill some positivity for people out there, positivity, some positivity for Brits out there.
13:39
But honestly, really struggling to find some positive headlines about the UK at the moment.
13:43
Really?
13:44
Yeah. Sorry guys.
13:46
So if anyone that's not in the UK or hasn't seen stuff on social media, the London marathon is this massive event that happens every year,
13:54
huge amount of money's raised will get into the stats and stuff in a second.
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But I didn't go to this and I am really gutted. Everyone says it's the best part of humanity.
14:04
You go there and people are just cheering on strangers and people are crying and like there's just like a lot of love there.
14:11
It sounds like the airport scene of love actually.
14:14
Yeah. Oh, I saw this video of this guy standing on one side of the train waiting for the team to get the tube.
14:21
And there was like a sea of people on the other side.
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And he was wearing his medal and the whole other side of the platform just starts.
14:27
No way.
14:28
Do you know this is a controversial opinion?
14:32
But I feel like doing the marathon now has become so normal.
14:37
Like I went and bought groceries that I realized it is enormously.
14:42
I need to do one.
14:43
No, no.
14:44
No, absolutely not.
14:45
And I think I wouldn't because so many people do them now that I don't feel like I've got to get the credit that I would want.
14:50
I know it's like, because it's like, oh, you ran the marathon.
14:52
Cool.
14:53
I know 500 people have done a podcast.
14:55
Oh, cool.
14:56
I mean, I love it.
14:57
It's like so unoriginal, which is so shit to say.
15:00
And this is one of my favorite stats.
15:02
You have a sorry show with you, but I was saying this to our team off my last week.
15:07
And I thought, okay, and I think I've definitely told you this before.
15:11
But running a marathon is actually like it started because someone ran to deliver a message that they absolutely had.
15:20
It was some really important message.
15:22
I probably need that part of the story to make it a bit more of like a well moment.
15:25
But basically this person who I think was a guy ran with this know for 42 kilometers, delivered the know and then died.
15:33
And that's where the marathon came from in terms of it being called that.
15:36
So obviously it's a really far way to run and huge stress on your body.
15:42
But now that everyone's doing it, I'm just to put like, oh God, now it feels like not a big deal.
15:46
Congrats to anyone who has run a marathon.
15:48
I mean, the training, the mental fitness that goes into it, the like physical fitness.
15:52
Yeah, I can't even you need some really good playlists, you know, universal must be killing it online.
15:58
So would you say that because apparently not listening to music because the atmosphere is so encouraging and amazing that people don't have ear pods in.
16:05
Which I just thought, oh God, I feel like I would be backing the train with the loudest Justin Bieber playing.
16:10
And then I get to a point where there isn't spectators.
16:13
I'm not going to keep going.
16:17
But anyway, yes, I looked into the numbers.
16:20
Funny that the London marathon is, it's the world's biggest marathon, which is crazy.
16:26
I was like, what about the New York marathon, Boston marathon?
16:28
No, there is nearly 67,000 people that run that ran the marathon in 2026, 800,000 spectators.
16:37
Nearly 100 million pounds is raised for charities.
16:43
That's so impressive.
16:45
And there was about a 400 million pound economic boost to the area from restaurants, from people coming into London to view it.
16:52
A combination like all of that.
16:54
400 millions a lot.
16:56
It is a big money maker for London, not just a marathon run.
17:02
It's so interesting, this idea of cultural moments or events, whether it's a festival, whether it's Coachella, whether it's Glaston River, it's London marathon.
17:11
I never really thought of those as opportunities to make money.
17:14
I know that sounds like a weird thing to say, but I met someone recently who's been trying to get a new festival off the ground and trying to get investors for it.
17:22
And we knew then here the stats of how much.
17:25
I think it was a $17 million profit we spoke about with Coachella, and it's privately owned business.
17:31
There's so much money to be made in creating events and moments for communities to participate in something.
17:38
It's not just a cool event.
17:40
There's a lot of financial upside.
17:43
That's why a lot of countries bid for bigger events, right?
17:48
It's going to cost us $2 billion, but we're going to get $5 billion out of it for the economy.
17:55
You always think of it as a return on investment.
17:58
Did you see even Nike did the whole advertising campaign run on the marathon?
18:02
No, I didn't.
18:03
It was quite bad.
18:05
It was like this big billboard, and it's like, runners welcomed, walkers tolerated.
18:11
And it got ridiculed.
18:14
And it was like a few weeks leading up to the marathon.
18:17
I just don't understand how shit like this gets through a marketing team that bad.
18:20
But I'm also like, we're talking about it.
18:22
True.
18:23
Maybe they were like, do you know what?
18:24
Who cares?
18:25
It's controversial, but let's put it out there.
18:27
Yeah, you're right.
18:28
Maybe it is the most genius thing ever.
18:30
Yeah.
18:31
London marathon.
18:32
We should do it next year.
18:33
Oh, there's no way.
18:34
Also, I would be walking, I'd be walking for sure.
18:37
I'm ready to half marathon, and I'd never run more than five Ks.
18:40
And it was the night before, and I was like, should I do it?
18:42
I'm like, how can I do it?
18:43
Just put one foot in front of the other.
18:45
It's so classic, Victoria.
18:46
Honestly.
18:47
It makes the I reckon like three weeks after, like my hips were fucked up.
18:50
It was just bad.
18:51
Every, I don't know.
18:52
I reckon it was, yeah, I was just like, you idiot.
18:54
Why do you think that you would just say, been in the knee running?
18:56
Can you say, been a marathon?
18:57
Anyway, that's probably the most positive news he had lying out of the UK at the moment.
19:01
I love it.
19:02
Yes.
19:03
So we'll start with the good.
19:04
And yeah, the UK is really struggling at the moment.
19:06
And it's a combination of a lot of things.
19:08
But one of the headlines is that we've had an increase in taxes this year.
19:12
And so now the taxes in the UK have risen the most in any other country,
19:15
any other developed country.
19:17
So they rose about two and a half percent last year.
19:21
So we're now at about 32% is what the average person is paying in the UK on tax.
19:27
So let's say you earned £100, £30 of that on average is going to the government attacks.
19:32
Yeah.
19:33
Last year was one of the biggest jumps in developed countries around the world.
19:36
And that's a combination of national insurance has gone up in the UK.
19:41
National insurance is like superannuation.
19:43
So that's what you put into a big, big, big pot for the whole country so that if people
19:47
retire with no retirement savings, there is a little bit of a buffer.
19:52
It's tiny, but it's like that's kind of the base that the government will pay you
19:56
about your pension, state pension essentially.
19:58
So that went up massively last year.
20:01
Also we spoke about this of the fiscal drag.
20:07
So behind the scenes something happened in the UK and like all this tax business was happening.
20:12
And we were trying to understand as a team what was going on.
20:16
And the word fiscal drag kept getting thrown around.
20:18
And I would say four out of five of us, the only person that was going on was Vic.
20:22
And we were, everyone was just like fiscal what?
20:25
What the hell?
20:26
And it was, it's essentially when the tax brackets are frozen.
20:30
So they, like if you think about inflation, everyone's wages on average should go up in line with inflation.
20:36
So like two to three percent a year.
20:39
But can you explain why?
20:41
Oh my god, we're here again.
20:42
No, no.
20:43
This is a sculpted history.
20:44
Explain it again.
20:45
Because when I first heard that I was like, I don't know what that means.
20:48
So this is like because the cost of everything is going up, you know, two to three percent on average a year.
20:54
That's inflation.
20:55
Then if you want to stand still and actually still be able to afford what you can afford each year,
20:59
then your wages should be going up at the same amount.
21:02
Which means you stay in the same tax bracket based on what you earn.
21:06
Well, the tax brackets then need to go up in the same way.
21:10
Yes, because otherwise you're just naturally going up into a higher tax bracket.
21:14
So it's kind of, oh my god, okay, I've got a good example.
21:16
So let's say you were on 49,000 pounds and you didn't go up in line with it.
21:22
Sorry, your salary does go up with inflation.
21:24
So you get to 50, but the tax bracket doesn't move in line with inflation.
21:28
You then hit a new and much bigger tax bracket.
21:32
But you're actually kind of earning the same as what you did a year ago because you've just gone up with inflation.
21:36
And so like your boss might be like, yep, cool.
21:39
We're going to give you a three percent pay rise.
21:41
That tips you into the higher tax bracket because the tax bracket hasn't moved.
21:44
You're only taxed so that higher tax rate on the additional income that falls into that bracket.
21:48
But still, you'd be sitting there going, cool, I've got a three percent tax.
21:50
And you actually could be worse off.
21:52
And it's actually no, no, you might have one percent.
21:54
So therefore, inflation's three.
21:56
So basically the point is it's kind of a cheeky way for governments to say that they're not raising taxes, right?
22:04
But they actually are secretly on that.
22:06
That's what fiscal drag is.
22:07
Yes. And so that's how it's way more so same.
22:10
I think we've had a lot of refining in Australia now.
22:14
But yes, so that is also another reason why taxes, you know, the amount of people in our paying tax has gone up.
22:22
And just saying this is also not just specific to the UK.
22:24
Not fiscal drag or the idea of this is like something to be aware of in general because if you are tipping into a new tax bracket,
22:31
you also could say to your employer, hey, actually don't give me that three percent.
22:35
Like if fiscal drag is happening, whatever, and the government is not moving your tax brackets in line with inflation,
22:40
but your salary is, you could actually say, I actually don't want to increase in line with inflation,
22:45
because I'm going to be tax more.
22:46
Yeah.
22:47
Instead, could you give me this?
22:48
Yeah, you could be like, can you, uh, in my future, or like, do you know, do it?
22:51
Or give me a week holiday or whatever that looks like.
22:53
Or drop down to four days a week instead of, yeah, so you could do it.
22:55
Or pay for my, um, in shelf insurance, because it's just really important to know that it's not as black and white if you've got like a three percent pay rise.
23:04
That, that will translate to three percent extra in your bank account.
23:07
Just, just be aware like there is other things to consider.
23:10
Yes.
23:11
So yes, that's what's also happened in the UK.
23:13
There's also inflation now as expected to be back over five percent, which as we just spoke about,
23:20
two to three percent is pretty much the norm.
23:22
And we are seeing this around the world because of what's going on in, um, in the Middle East.
23:26
And the oil prices now, you know, back above kind of $126.
23:33
I know, my God.
23:35
But so that's, you know, a lot of countries around the world are bracing for inflation.
23:38
We've already started seeing, started to set comes from the US.
23:41
And the, in the UK, the thing is going to be back over five percent.
23:43
We haven't been back there since, you know, 2023 when it was back at seven percent.
23:48
Oh, exhausting.
23:49
Inflation, honey, that has not fun for anyone.
23:51
Yeah.
23:52
And now because of that, people expecting that the UK could get into recession at the end of, end of this year.
23:59
So there is higher taxes, higher inflation, likely sort of a recession.
24:04
We're also seeing youth unemployment at the highest it's been in over a decade.
24:09
And that is super dangerous because, you know, that leads to crime.
24:12
It leads to an unmotivated workforce, you know, trying to engage those, like a younger worker,
24:18
is really difficult once you start kind of getting into this.
24:21
I think the thing is really hard though.
24:23
And, you know, you, I was speaking to a friend whose partner is working at Meta in San Francisco.
24:29
And they're cutting 20% of their stuff.
24:32
He was basically saying, I'm actually feeling okay because I'm sort of that mid-level.
24:36
I'm not earning outrageous amounts where they're going to try and, you know, cut me out,
24:40
because they're going to, it's going to help their operating expenses.
24:43
But really, the people that are going to suffer the most are new, young, grad.
24:48
Because it's AI that's adding all their jobs.
24:51
And so that actually is kind of terrifying.
24:53
And there's been a raise in the minimum wage, which was in the budget in May.
24:58
This is in the UK.
24:59
In the UK.
25:00
But that's also having, that's kind of having the opposite effect.
25:02
Because, because workplaces kind of fought now to hire young staff.
25:06
Because we've got to pay them more.
25:07
And they've got all these others.
25:09
So it's like, there's just a lot going on in the UK right now that is kind of hitting businesses
25:14
and people at all different angles.
25:16
It's actually so interesting you say that because Emily and I were talking about
25:19
her would be so great to have a junior editor in.
25:21
Yeah.
25:22
And I was looking at our forecast and budget and thinking it would be so great to have, you know,
25:27
someone to help with those edits.
25:29
But then, and I was putting it in the contract align.
25:31
Yeah.
25:32
And then I was like, oh, actually, it kind of makes sense for them to actually maybe be full time.
25:36
But then obviously because national insurance and all those things are so expensive,
25:39
it actually kind of doesn't make sense having them in a contract role for a business does.
25:43
But that's not great for young people trying to get jobs.
25:46
No.
25:47
So I don't know if there's any amazing editors that are interested in that.
25:50
Please reach out.
25:51
But yeah, I think this is not great.
25:53
No, no.
25:54
And like, just looking at, I know we talk and talk and talk about inflation.
25:57
But I just kind of wanted to bring it back to, but a reality is that inflation is increased
26:02
the cost of goods by 25% over the last five years.
26:06
So that's like, if your salary, say you're on a 50,000 pound salary, and that was five years ago,
26:12
you need to be on at least 62,500 to be standing still now.
26:18
That's 12,500 pound increase over five years just to be standing still.
26:23
And standing still means you're just, your salary is just increasing in line with inflation.
26:28
And the reason that's so important is because if you are not the things that you can buy is less
26:35
because like, you're, you know, shopping trolley of groceries now costs 25% more than it did five years ago.
26:43
So you can no longer afford the extra milk and butter and butter.
26:47
And you know, you can cut things out of your grocery basket or your trolley because you can't afford them.
26:53
And the key thing here is you should be asking your boss.
26:59
Anyone else. Make sure your salary is increasing in line with inflation.
27:04
And the reason this is so important because if it goes up by five percent, your salary should be going up by five percent.
27:09
It's not an increase.
27:10
And like, we sit here and we're like, that's up five percent.
27:12
Oh, it's up seven. It's only up two.
27:14
But I just wanted to look at it on the broader scale.
27:16
It's like over the last five years of us talking about this inflation is going up 25% in the UK.
27:21
A lot of other countries are pretty similar to be honest.
27:23
So just be aware and have those conversations with your workplace.
27:26
Side note and maybe not a conversation for right now saying we could talk about later.
27:30
But just the idea of the UK being in not in a great position.
27:33
It made me think about everyone who has their pension in the FTSE 100 for example.
27:39
So that's the top 100 companies in the UK.
27:42
And it's one of the worst performing globally.
27:44
If you have your pension mostly in the FTSE 100 on one side, I want to be like, move it.
27:51
You'll get more if you're in other countries.
27:53
But also it's this weird cycle where it almost feels like an empty restaurant that actually has really good food.
27:59
And people just avoid it because they think, oh, well, there's no one there so it's not worth it.
28:03
And then eventually it goes out of business.
28:05
And that's quite scary for the UK economy.
28:07
What's also like, if it doesn't perform well, people don't invest in it.
28:10
Therefore companies don't IPO or they don't want to be listed on there anymore.
28:13
So then they move to other stock exchanges and it's kind of a deep spiral.
28:18
And we're kind of not saying that the London Stock Exchange is on a deep spiral moment.
28:23
But it's like, South Korea's stock market has now officially taken over the UK's stock market.
28:27
And we sit here going, we're in the financial hub of the world.
28:29
We're like, we're really not.
28:31
Not really. We need to move South Korea now.
28:33
But like, it's, yeah, it's, I mean, just to play in perspective.
28:36
Like, there's been a 30% increase in the last 10 years versus the S&P 500, which is the US top 500 companies,
28:44
which is done over 200% is like, really not doing well.
28:49
And it's also a function of, there is very few tech names in the UK stock market.
28:53
Ah, that's really interesting.
28:55
And there's obviously been the last like 10 years has been an absolute surgence in tech names.
29:00
Yeah, the UK is more pharmaceuticals, energy, sort of like BP and shelter.
29:05
They're doing really well.
29:06
But yeah, over the long, over the last 10 years, it's been very tech focused.
29:11
And that's more to the US and Asia as well.
29:15
Yeah, you're like Samsung and all of that.
29:18
Which actually brings us on to reporting season.
29:22
This is a fixed favorite time of the year.
29:24
Reporting season, think of like, you know, when you see all this corporate memes online,
29:28
and they're like, it's Q1, it's Q2.
29:30
It's basically the idea of the financial year is broken up into quarters.
29:34
In the US, in the US.
29:36
Well, kind of everywhere, it's just that it's different quarters and different parts of the world.
29:39
And in the US, you have to report quarterly.
29:41
And in Australia, you do it twice a year, which is actually so much better.
29:45
Yeah.
29:46
But basically, they have these reports where they have to put out in particular quarters to show investors
29:52
the financial health and the future of projections.
29:54
And it's part of being a public company, right?
29:56
You have to disclose your financials publicly and discuss some of the investors.
30:00
And that happens at four times a year in the US.
30:02
And so it does lead to a bit of movement in share prices,
30:05
because people now have more information.
30:07
They can, you know, dissect and figure out if the company's doing well or not.
30:11
And so Alphabet, you know, this week's a big week,
30:13
because we've got a lot of the largest companies on the US Stock Exchange.
30:16
So we had Alphabet.
30:18
The issue price was up.
30:20
This is Google for anyone.
30:21
This is Google.
30:22
Yeah.
30:23
The 11th consecutive quarter revenue growth for, you know,
30:26
a big company like Google is insane.
30:28
They're growing 22%.
30:29
They're growing the revenue 22%.
30:31
But you don't see those figures in, you know, trillion dollar companies.
30:35
No.
30:36
The dollar value of that 22% increase is insane.
30:39
Like, you know, like you'd see that at a smaller company
30:41
when you're revenue's gone from one million to two million or, yeah.
30:44
Yeah.
30:45
It's harder to get.
30:46
It's harder to jump in a, in a big company that's already making a lot of money to increase that,
30:50
but even one percent's enormous.
30:52
It's like the law of large numbers, what you call it.
30:55
We might, as you get bigger, it's actually really hard to keep those kind of double-digit growth rates.
30:58
But anyway, they managed to do it.
31:00
But I just do something in that, which I think is quite a penny drop moment for me.
31:04
That's also where you think, where that talks about the future,
31:08
like people invest in the future that they think they're going to see.
31:11
It's a lot harder for a company like alphabet or Google that's already enormous
31:14
to go and then continue to do really well, because it's already done really well,
31:19
which is why when people make a lot of money often,
31:21
it's when they kind of make a bet on a smaller business that they think is going to be big in the future,
31:25
because they have further to go, or it's easier to make massive gains when you're smaller,
31:31
which I don't know if that's helpful for people,
31:33
but it's almost like if you'd invested an alphabet 20 years ago,
31:37
which is why it's just like, it's insane that they're still doing 22%.
31:42
It's like, it's easier for a small company to double in size than it is.
31:46
It's really easy for a company, but we're actually, I mean, I can't eat my words,
31:49
because we're seeing these companies are just doubling, like it's crazy.
31:52
It's crazy. Microsoft, this is one of the very few tech companies now
31:58
that is actually making money off AI in terms of the public.
32:03
Like with Google, Gemini, it's all an add-on.
32:06
It's enhancing your stung when you're already paying
32:11
and then all of a sudden you get it for free.
32:13
Oh, totally, as a user, you're like, yeah.
32:15
Now I've got Gemini and all these things.
32:16
Whereas out of all these results that we've seen so far,
32:20
everyone's talking about AI, how much is spending on it?
32:22
But Microsoft, the highlight of their result was that AI is no longer just a cost.
32:27
It's actually becoming a big contributor to the business.
32:30
And it added about $37 billion in annual revenue last year.
32:36
What is it that they're selling? How are they doing it differently?
32:39
So with Microsoft 365, it's an add-on.
32:43
So you have to upgrade to use AI.
32:46
But they've got 450 million people paying for this,
32:49
what they call commercial seats on Microsoft 365 now.
32:52
That's only 3% that they've converted to AI.
32:55
Oh, whoa, so there's huge growth there.
32:57
So the runway is, I looked at that and I was like,
32:59
oh, only 3% and I was like, actually, no.
33:01
That's like the biggest opportunity.
33:03
Yeah.
33:04
So.
33:05
Also with Microsoft.
33:06
Yeah.
33:07
Microsoft's making come back.
33:09
Never actually went anywhere.
33:11
But I think the thing with Microsoft as well is because it's so clever
33:14
because it's so embedded in these enormous companies that are struggling
33:18
to know how on earth they can integrate AI.
33:20
Because it's way harder to do when you've got all these RKX systems.
33:23
Yeah.
33:24
So for people that then see, oh, perfect.
33:26
We're on Microsoft and we can upgrade and pay to get access to AI.
33:30
It's so genius because it's all these businesses that don't know how to do that.
33:33
And of course, the paper.
33:34
And of course, the paper.
33:35
Microsoft is more of a kind of a B to B rather than, well, yeah.
33:39
So many of the businesses we work with are on Microsoft.
33:42
Yeah.
33:43
It's definitely more of a corporate and like big corporates.
33:46
Yes.
33:47
Yeah.
33:48
When you're like, send to Google Meet, they're like, oh, can we do that?
33:50
Can we?
33:51
Yeah.
33:52
Yeah.
33:53
Yeah.
33:54
Yeah.
33:55
And we can.
33:56
Or like also like the log with Microsoft, there's so much more security around there.
33:58
Yeah.
33:59
Definitely built for bigger businesses.
34:00
They have to be quite careful about data leaking and whatnot.
34:03
Amazon, they doubled, nearly doubled their profits this year, which is insane.
34:08
Like there, and then they started digging into their prime.
34:11
So that's like the subscription base.
34:12
They have 230 million people that have signed up to Amazon.
34:16
Of course, there's do not it is.
34:17
They're so clever about it in terms of when you log in.
34:19
When you check out, and they're like, do it for seven days.
34:22
And then you automatically make back what you would have paid and shipping straight away.
34:26
So of course, you're going to do it.
34:27
They've got a bit of trouble for like making it really difficult to like cancel or like, yeah, bus.
34:32
I know.
34:33
But gosh, I know.
34:34
I think that too.
34:35
I'm like, oh, I've just clicked through it and I'm like, yeah, I've signed up.
34:38
Yeah.
34:39
And then you don't even know we've signed it yet.
34:40
But their prime members spend double.
34:44
Then they're not.
34:45
And that's why me might it's dangerous.
34:47
Because then all of a sudden, you're like, oh, well, I need this.
34:49
I'll quickly get it and it's delivered straight away.
34:51
Well, it's also like if it's free shipping, well, I might order more.
34:53
Yeah.
34:54
So that's the whole psychology.
34:55
So there, like this is such an extraordinary piece of like consumer psychology of, yeah.
35:01
And it's why their retail business is growing massively.
35:04
Their cloud business is sort of its fastest growth in three years.
35:09
There's just, you know, there's companies are just absolutely killing it still,
35:12
which is mind blowing.
35:13
And then lastly, we admit that they had their fastest quarter of growth as well this year.
35:18
Wow.
35:19
There is 3.6 billion people that use one meter app a day.
35:24
And wait, wait.
35:25
What's app?
35:26
Facebook.
35:27
They use every day, 3.6 billion people.
35:30
Like that is more than a third of humanity that uses.
35:34
Imagine running that business.
35:36
And I can get in touch with the third of humanity you like at drop in years.
35:39
No, yes.
35:40
No wonder they're getting pulled up for sure.
35:42
Oh, I think they need to start like meta AA.
35:45
I'm completely addicted to all of their apps.
35:48
I was like, won't that be?
35:49
No, I'm serious.
35:50
I'm like this morning.
35:51
I was found myself on my Instagram.
35:54
The first thing I did.
35:56
My boyfriend came out to the room and I actually threw my phone across the ground
35:59
and hid under the covers like a child.
36:01
I did that.
36:02
I do that.
36:03
I was like, what are you doing?
36:04
Nothing.
36:05
I just feel stupid.
36:06
I feel stupid.
36:07
I'm like, it's so embarrassing.
36:08
And I'm like, no, I'm actually being the news.
36:10
Yeah.
36:11
I'm like, I was on e-mail, actually, which is just as bad to be fair.
36:14
I know, yeah.
36:15
It's like what are you doing?
36:16
It's dumb.
36:17
I know.
36:18
Okay.
36:19
I try to train my algorithm to be news, newsy.
36:21
And then all of a sudden I'll stop on some like, I don't know, college and eyepatch.
36:24
And then it starts beating me.
36:26
I know.
36:27
It's so bad.
36:28
Yeah.
36:29
And constantly stuck in them.
36:31
I think that's it.
36:32
The big question this is, is when does AI investment start showing up as actual revenue?
36:37
Microsoft's doing it.
36:38
A lot of the others.
36:39
It's just, you know, better versions of older products.
36:42
So, yeah, I think that's kind of what people concerned.
36:45
It's like there is billions being spent on AI.
36:49
And yes, it improves customer's stickiness.
36:51
Like, you know, cool.
36:52
Gemini, we're going to stick around because it's like, wait, it's now better.
36:55
It's a better product.
36:56
But when you're spending that much, you have to get a bit of it.
36:59
You have to get a good return on investment for spending that much.
37:01
I mean, it's kind of nice to see it's someone's get making money out of it.
37:04
The fact that Microsoft is actually making money.
37:06
Yeah.
37:07
Because we haven't really talked about that at all.
37:09
There's just all this, like, well, where is the revenue coming from?
37:12
Yeah.
37:13
People making money.
37:14
The next one I'm quite excited about.
37:18
And I love that you titled it Lululemon drama.
37:22
Lululemon drama.
37:23
So dramatic.
37:24
I mean, we've spoken at length about how badly Lululemon has been doing lately.
37:29
Like, not lately, like, for a long time now.
37:31
Yeah.
37:32
You know, they were the poster child for afflager, for health and wellness.
37:35
Everyone was wearing their leggings.
37:37
You know, like, it was, and they did so well for so long.
37:41
But when you're at the top, there's kind of only one way to fall.
37:44
And we've seen it lose its edge to L-O.
37:49
I also just think when you're doing one product, like leggings, how do you keep expanding on that, right?
37:55
So anyway, their shoe price is down 50% in the last year.
37:59
And I want to put that in perspective because the S&P 500, top 500 companies in the US, is up 30% in the last year.
38:05
Oh shit.
38:06
So that is 80% on the performance.
38:09
Like, you could have owned the S&P 500 and had a great 30% return.
38:14
If you had all your eggs in Lululemon, you would have underperformed most people by 80%.
38:20
Oh, not right.
38:22
But yes, 50% is bad.
38:23
But when you put it in compared to what everyone else is doing, it's even worse.
38:27
So it's in a bit of crisis mode.
38:29
And it's just an ounce.
38:31
The reason we're talking about it now is it just announced this week that it has got a new CEO.
38:36
And she is an ex-ex 700 from she Heidi.
38:39
I was very excited to do that.
38:40
Same.
38:41
And then as I dimped in, I was like, oh, I know, same.
38:44
I saw the same thing, let's explain why we both thought that.
38:46
Yeah.
38:47
and I saw that Hitler and I was like, this could make sense.
38:50
It could be a really good turnaround.
38:51
Lululemon, great call.
38:53
Anyway, Lululemon was actually founded back in 1988 by Chip Wilson.
38:58
He served a CEO to about 2005, then he left,
39:02
and it had a number of CEOs since then,
39:04
but the brand just really hasn't.
39:06
It's struggled massively.
39:08
So he has been pushing,
39:11
he still owns 9% of the company,
39:13
and he has been pushing for a new board of directors.
39:16
Because remember, shareholders vote in the board of directors who vote in the CEO.
39:20
So if you want to bring about change to the CEO,
39:23
you need to bring about change in the board,
39:25
because otherwise the board can put in a CEO of their choice.
39:27
So he's trying to bring in new directors,
39:29
so therefore he can bring in a new CEO or CEO of his choice.
39:32
But that's all kind of being broken down.
39:36
Then we spoke about this briefly as well.
39:38
They had an activist investor called Elliot Investment Management,
39:41
which is one of the most feared activist huge funds.
39:44
They really get in there and bring about change.
39:46
They bought over a billion dollars of Lululemon shares.
39:50
So they put that in context.
39:52
The whole size, the whole market cap of Lululemon is 16 billion.
39:56
So they're on the building.
39:57
So like a 16th of the company, which is a lot.
40:00
And they had someone they wanted to put in,
40:02
who was from Ralph Lauren,
40:04
and they had that person lined up.
40:06
And then they've got the existing board that has appointed Heidi.
40:11
Okay, sorry, I actually missed that part.
40:13
So the existing board, which the founder,
40:15
who actually sell Lululemon is trying to replace it anyway,
40:18
is the one that's made this decision.
40:20
And the share price fell massively on the news.
40:24
It dropped it out.
40:25
I dropped it out 15%.
40:27
So that means investors aren't happy with the board's choice
40:31
of Heidi from Nike.
40:33
So there's been the background like,
40:37
I'm dumb, hey.
40:38
Stop making stupid decisions.
40:40
So I think there's going to be a bit of noise going on at Lululemon
40:43
because he'll have to eat a shareholder vote to replace the board,
40:45
he'll see it people on side,
40:47
Elliot investment wants someone different.
40:49
Or how old would he find it?
40:50
There's kind of these three different angles.
40:52
Like if two of them could just band together
40:54
to bring about change a lot quicker.
40:56
But it just goes to show like the how distracting it can be
41:01
when a board isn't aligned or,
41:05
yeah, it's just like there's so many pretty egos
41:08
and people, people seeing potential in Lululemon still.
41:11
But it's been run poorly and it must be so frustrating
41:16
if you owned 9% of the company like Chip
41:18
and just seeing all these poor decisions being made
41:21
and you're trying to bring about change.
41:23
And it's kind of heartbreaking, right?
41:24
Because it is a good brand.
41:25
I do think it has just lost its kind of like cool factor of it.
41:29
I was about to say I think that's kind of the issue
41:31
like when I was looking into this,
41:33
and at first I thought, hi, they're amazing.
41:35
But then Nike's actually done quite badly.
41:37
Yeah.
41:38
So having someone that's come from another, you know,
41:40
almost consumer facing business is not that great
41:44
to then put someone into that role.
41:46
You know, like I think Lululemon used to be genuinely cool.
41:51
Now like the ones that you mentioned like Aloyoga,
41:54
which is still private, it's not a public company.
41:57
But you know, you see people like Kendall Jenner
42:00
who can be able to tell us off wearing that brand
42:03
and it makes it cool again.
42:05
And then you see Skimms, Kim Kardashian's brand,
42:07
which is still selling.
42:09
Now it's like selling at Malaysia.
42:11
So there's just like, there's all this competition
42:13
to be cool in the space.
42:15
And Lululemon is not doing that well.
42:18
It's like skincare.
42:19
It's like every celebrity is kind of launching then.
42:21
You know, like it's hard.
42:23
And to be honest, I don't think they'll ever get back
42:25
to where they were.
42:27
They had a great sweet spot for many, many years.
42:30
But Elliot, they have an incredible track record
42:34
of turning businesses around.
42:36
Not necessarily back to where they were, but at least.
42:38
Why would you not just let them do that?
42:39
I know.
42:40
And so, yeah, I mean, if I was to trip, I'd be banding with them
42:43
and be like, how do we get, yeah.
42:45
Also, like these options like to sell to Nike, right?
42:47
Or to, you know, maybe it isn't a standalone business.
42:50
But they'll be looking at all options.
42:53
And just like with any kind of decision,
42:56
there's going to be people that think one way is best,
42:59
people that think the other way is best.
43:01
And yeah, I just think it'll be incredibly distracting
43:04
because management isn't going to be focused
43:06
on growing the business.
43:07
They're going to be focused on, you know,
43:08
how do we deal with all this kind of activism going on?
43:11
And how do we deal with all these kind of different angles
43:14
that people want to take in terms of board ownership?
43:16
Like sometimes, sometimes it's great
43:19
because it can create more value.
43:21
Other times, it can be incredibly distracting.
43:23
Well, I think, I mean, you then look at Coach Ella,
43:25
for example, and they had that L.O. Plenty studio
43:28
and all of the biggest influences went there.
43:30
And while Lulu Lemons, like, scrapping around
43:32
trying to figure out who their CEO is,
43:34
there's all these other brands putting cool into Atlesia
43:37
if they were putting their time and energy into doing the same stuff
43:40
other people are doing.
43:41
Lulu Lemmon could be cool again.
43:42
It's funny. I was walking down Oxford Strait
43:44
and I saw this massive queue outside the Lulu Lemmon store,
43:47
like down the road, around the corner.
43:49
And I was instantly like, oh, my gosh.
43:51
They got like, I love that.
43:53
You're a mediator for.
43:54
And I was like, oh, my God, this is a research.
43:56
I was thinking more of buying this.
43:58
I was like, oh, my God, there's something are they doing
44:00
like a really good collab?
44:01
This is the start of the turnaround.
44:02
And then it was like marathon, middle engraving queue.
44:05
And I was like, I mean, quite genius for them.
44:07
They had all these people through the store.
44:09
Yeah, nice.
44:10
Quite genius then to put the hand up, they're like, well engraved
44:12
or, you know, like, yeah.
44:13
But that's the sort of shit they should be doing more.
44:15
Totally. Yeah.
44:16
But it's also like one hit one day back.
44:18
Anyway, there's an annual meeting in June to figure this out.
44:22
I'll be watching it very closely, because it'll be life.
44:24
And then it flicks drama.
44:25
I mean, I'd love to go along.
44:27
And just like.
44:28
I kind of do.
44:29
Honestly, it's so shocking to me that I'm almost
44:31
wanting to come to.
44:32
Yeah.
44:33
Like, who am I?
44:37
So one of the topics that we were going to talk about
44:40
in this episode was like, sort of woman babies
44:43
what's going on in that space, which maybe haven't made
44:46
it interesting.
44:47
But when we started digging into this,
44:49
Vick's done a lot of research.
44:50
And then I started doing research.
44:52
And we've now got so much information on this
44:55
and realised it's like quite an enormous one.
44:58
That it's almost, there's almost too much to talk about
45:01
in a curve weekly.
45:02
I don't know if we want to give a headline here
45:04
or if we want to just see if people are interested
45:07
in more of a deep dive, but maybe just give a top line
45:10
Vic on why this caught your eye.
45:11
And we can just do a poll maybe if you listen to this
45:14
or want to hear more.
45:15
I think we almost do, actually, maybe we do a full episode
45:18
on it.
45:19
Yeah.
45:20
It was a headline around, like we always talk about
45:22
like women having less children or women
45:24
are delaying having children.
45:26
But I didn't actually realise that the delaying
45:31
of having children, like the impacts that has.
45:34
And from like a personal finance point of view,
45:36
but also from an investment point of view,
45:38
like how does that, there's so many opportunities
45:40
and so many things to consider.
45:41
And like it also costs more if you're having them late.
45:44
Like there's so much in it.
45:45
It costs more if you're having them later.
45:47
Because of you have to use IVF and all that.
45:49
Of course, yes.
45:50
But then you have more, you know, usually more disposable.
45:53
Like there's just so much to unpack.
45:55
And I just thought it was like, okay, women having less children,
45:57
they're having them later, which means overall
45:59
must mean there's less babies being born.
46:01
But it's actually quite interesting.
46:03
And just the split between the haves and the have-nots.
46:08
And now it's coming down to having children,
46:10
which is quite sad.
46:11
Yeah. And I actually, it's so interesting
46:13
because I interviewed someone.
46:14
We actually haven't released this episode yet.
46:16
It was just the other day.
46:17
But one of the things that we did speak about
46:19
was the idea of people delaying having kids.
46:21
And what that's doing for the economy for businesses.
46:24
So many ripple effects.
46:26
It's insane.
46:27
Oh my God.
46:28
But also I just, it really changed my perspective on everything.
46:33
In terms of, you know, there's obviously the financial barriers
46:36
for a lot of people that are choosing not to have kids yet,
46:38
because they want to be in a position when they do it.
46:41
But then when they do it, they then maybe have to pay five AF
46:43
because they're passed there for their child.
46:45
They're trying to be iceberg.
46:47
Oh, there's just so much to talk about with this.
46:50
So I don't know.
46:51
If you're sick of this conversation, you can vote no.
46:54
If you would like to hear more,
46:56
I actually was so surprised at how interesting I found this.
46:59
And I think that when it comes down to whether you have kids
47:02
or you don't have kids, understanding the macroeconomics
47:05
of what this issue is doing and how it's impacting
47:09
not only your own personal situation,
47:12
but businesses in the economy.
47:14
But also in the 10s.
47:15
From an investment point of view as well.
47:16
It's quite exciting.
47:17
Yeah, yeah.
47:18
There's such a mega trend.
47:19
True.
47:20
Right at the forefront of view.
47:22
Oh, yeah.
47:23
Okay, oh, okay, right.
47:24
Let us know if you want to hear more on that.
47:26
We're just going to really quickly answer a community question
47:29
before we wrap up.
47:30
I'm going to read this up.
47:31
So every week I see in your sort of in the red in the green
47:34
segment, and I feel like maybe I'm going wrong somewhere
47:37
as I'm always in the red.
47:38
I keep blowing out each month, but it's frustrating
47:41
because I feel like I really don't spend much
47:43
and my outgoings aren't that big.
47:44
God, I feel so similar.
47:45
I really want to start investing,
47:47
but I don't actually have anything left at the moment to invest.
47:50
Do you have any recommendations for how do you get my finances
47:53
organized?
47:54
I've heard about Solve talk about her emergency fund
47:57
and her pot.
47:58
And the way she organized her money,
48:00
please teach me as I really want to start investing.
48:03
Go ahead.
48:04
There's a lot of tech here.
48:05
Firstly, in the red in the green, kind of love that it's taking on.
48:08
Oh, I know.
48:09
If anyone hasn't seen this, it's in our newsletter.
48:11
Sign up for our newsletter via the link in the podcast show notes.
48:13
Okay, where do we start with this?
48:15
I mean, God.
48:16
This is just exactly what we're going through right now with the IOU.
48:21
Yeah.
48:22
I'm kind of like there's so much here that I'm like,
48:24
that would be perfect.
48:25
Yeah, I agree.
48:26
So we actually just, we released a podcast this week with Lucy Blackison.
48:29
It's the third episode for our IOU partnership,
48:31
which we're doing with Ben Zed and it's literally designed for beginners,
48:35
particularly people who feel overwhelmed by like the fact
48:38
they haven't actually got the foundations of their finances sorted.
48:41
So I would say, firstly, start listening to that series.
48:44
It's really obvious if you scroll through our podcast,
48:46
like what is the IOU?
48:47
It's like a kind of retro looking light blue color.
48:51
And we do actually have IOU the practical lessons too,
48:54
which if you're like, I just actually would love to sort of get it sorted.
48:57
You can find out all the details in the, in the podcast show notes
49:00
for that we'll just maybe put a link.
49:02
But let's just do an overview answer as well,
49:04
because I'm sure a lot of people listened to that,
49:06
thought like same, same, same.
49:08
Maybe we focus on the part of like not having enough money,
49:11
week to week to invest,
49:13
because I do think that that's such a common feeling for so many people.
49:17
Yeah, I think it's, it's creating like a budget, right?
49:21
Well, like being very aware of your speed.
49:23
I think the first thing is like how much you're incoming
49:25
and how much is it outgoing?
49:27
Like if you don't have visibility on that,
49:29
you will keep going out each month,
49:31
because you don't have visibility to put,
49:33
how much you put in an emergency fund, how much you put in my pots,
49:35
how many do it like,
49:36
and therefore how much to invest.
49:38
I think that's really really important.
49:39
It's like the training wheels for investing.
49:40
Yeah.
49:41
It's like if you don't have the full picture,
49:43
how are you supposed to know?
49:44
Because then you're like, oh gosh, that's right.
49:46
I had that 200 grand that we, sorry,
49:48
that $200 that we announced.
49:49
It was 200 grand, but jealous.
49:51
So jealous.
49:52
200 pounds that we announced there that you didn't know about.
49:54
You know, like it can just really throw you.
49:55
So I think having visibility across everything
49:58
is absolutely the first step.
50:00
And yes, that means probably being a bit uncomfortable
50:04
and realizing how much just meaning on eating out
50:07
or subscriptions or whatever it is.
50:09
But I also want to add,
50:11
I think it's important to say there is also an amount
50:15
that you maybe don't have anything left over to invest.
50:18
If you're earning 25,000 pounds or 30,000 New Zealand a year,
50:22
it's not a lot of money to live on.
50:24
So I think there has to be an element of knowing
50:27
it's actually okay to not be putting that much aside.
50:31
What's probably more important to think about is the habits.
50:34
So for example, what VIX just talked about
50:36
with putting the foundations in place,
50:38
even if it is literally five pounds
50:40
or five New Zealand dollars a month going in,
50:42
the habit of doing that from when you're not earning it a lot
50:46
and being able to increase that as you get more money coming in each month,
50:50
it's more the mentality and the ritual and the fact you're doing it,
50:54
knowing that not a hundred percent of your pay
50:56
should be going towards your spending each month.
50:58
Otherwise, if you're used to that,
51:00
when you then earn more money,
51:02
you'll just expand what you spend on.
51:04
And I think if you can just,
51:06
it's almost like just getting your head the fact that,
51:09
ideally, you want at least 20% of your money going towards
51:12
future stuff, like saving and investing.
51:14
But the reality is a lot of people don't have that much.
51:16
Not even if it's five.
51:18
It doesn't matter.
51:20
You just start automating an amount,
51:22
but you do have to start with the basics of knowing
51:24
all of your different amounts before you can do that.
51:26
So I think I use a really good place to start
51:28
if this sounds sort of familiar for you.
51:30
Don't feel so bad about the fact that you're not maybe doing a hundred pounds
51:34
or a hundred dollars start with something.
51:36
Because it is really amazing how much the mentality shifts
51:40
can help make you feel better about what your,
51:42
what situation you're in.
51:44
If you're just doing something in the right direction.
51:46
And then you kind of adjust and don't realise that
51:48
that 10 pounds a week or whatever has gone out.
51:50
And then you start being like, cool,
51:52
I'm going to try and increase.
51:54
It's like starting a small step is better than just like,
51:56
or wait till I can,
51:58
cut away 200 pounds.
52:00
It's like, no, no, just start with 10.
52:02
Then move it to 20, then 50, then you know.
52:04
I think the other thing to keep in mind is
52:06
you do actually have to constantly assess
52:08
what is going into the different buckets
52:10
as you get more money coming in.
52:12
The last thing you want to be doing is just lifestyle creeping without thinking about it.
52:16
Because there might actually be at some point
52:18
so an extra 200 that you put into investments.
52:20
But if you're actually just spending it without awareness of where it's going,
52:24
you're actually never going to get anywhere.
52:26
And building wealth is not about how much money is coming into your account.
52:28
It's the habits that you put in place.
52:30
So I think if that makes you feel better,
52:32
there's people that are on teaching salaries,
52:34
which unfortunately are really low,
52:36
that have more than people that are on finance salaries.
52:38
Because they just constantly spend everything they have.
52:40
So it's, it don't feel disempowered if you don't have a lot.
52:44
But just put those things in place
52:46
to get yourself into a better position.
52:48
That is all we have time for today.
52:50
Have a great week everyone.
52:52
Thank you for listening.
52:54
Have fun tonight, sir.
52:56
Oh my god, thanks.
52:58
I'll take lots of videos and photos.
53:00
Thank you so much for listening to The Curve Weekly.
53:02
Make sure you hit subscribe or follow wherever you're listening.
53:04
So you're always up to date with the latest finance and investing news.
53:06
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53:08
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53:10
But until then, listen to a raise in the curve.
53:12
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53:14
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53:16
We're also around all week on socials
53:18
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53:20
And all the links are in this podcast show notes.
53:22
We hope you have a great week and we'll catch you
53:24
for the next episode of The Curve Weekly on Monday.
53:26
Okay, quickly, The Curve was created to empower and educate you about investing.
53:36
But we are not financial advisors.
53:38
Our platform exists for educational purposes only.
53:40
And it doesn't provide personalized investing advice for your individual needs.
53:44
And should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision.
53:48
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53:50
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53:52
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53:54
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53:56
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53:58
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