Latest / A Little Bit Richer / Why Playing It Safe with Money Can Be Risky
Transcript
- 0:00Automated: This series is brought to you by L& G, helping
- 0:02Automated: you build a future that's a little bit richer.
- 0:06Iona Bain: Hello, I'm Iona Bain, and welcome back to A Little
- 0:09Iona Bain: Bit Richer, the podcast helping you feel more confident about
- 0:13Iona Bain: your money, one conversation at a time, brought to you by
- 0:16Iona Bain: Legal and General. Today, we're kicking off a two- part
- 0:20Iona Bain: series all about investing. And if your immediate reaction to
- 0:24Iona Bain: that is, well, sounds a bit overwhelming, sounds a bit
- 0:27Iona Bain: risky, probably not one for me, you're very much not
- 0:30Iona Bain: alone. So, whether you are already investing and wondering if
- 0:34Iona Bain: you're getting things right or you just want to learn
- 0:37Iona Bain: more about this sometimes quite daunting area, in this first
- 0:42Iona Bain: episode, don't worry, we're not going to be diving straight
- 0:44Iona Bain: into funds or portfolios. Instead, we're going to be talking
- 0:48Iona Bain: about why investing can help your financial future, why we
- 0:53Iona Bain: need to learn about emotions, and how we can keep
- 0:56Iona Bain: a cool head and make informed decisions. And joining me
- 0:59Iona Bain: to discuss all this is friend of the show, Emilie
- 1:02Iona Bain: Bellet. Emilie is a former private equity analyst turned entrepreneur,
- 1:07Iona Bain: author, and speaker. Emilie founded the financial education platform, Vestpod,
- 1:12Iona Bain: and hosts the podcast, The Wallet. So, she is just
- 1:15Iona Bain: the person we need to talk to today, to help
- 1:17Iona Bain: investing feel a little more accessible. Welcome, Emilie.
- 1:22Emilie Bellet: Thank you.
- 1:23Iona Bain: Can you explain in 30 seconds or less what is
- 1:27Iona Bain: investing and why it's so important? I'm going to put
- 1:29Iona Bain: my timer on. Okay, go.
- 1:32Emilie Bellet: With investing, you want to make your money work for
- 1:36Emilie Bellet: you, and this is going to help you to achieve
- 1:38Emilie Bellet: your long- term goals. That's different from saving money, where
- 1:41Emilie Bellet: you put money into a safe place that you can
- 1:43Emilie Bellet: access anytime that's really good for your emergency savings and short-
- 1:46Emilie Bellet: term goals. With investing, you're going to put money into
- 1:49Emilie Bellet: things called assets like shares, bonds, property, with the goal
- 1:53Emilie Bellet: to grow your money over time.
- 1:55Iona Bain: Brilliant. I think you had about five seconds to spare
- 1:57Iona Bain: there. That is excellent work. So, that's a really good summary
- 2:02Iona Bain: of what investing is and why it's important. But a
- 2:05Iona Bain: lot of people watching and listening might be feeling quite
- 2:09Iona Bain: nervous about the prospect of investing, particularly when they look
- 2:13Iona Bain: at what's going on in the world. We've got geopolitical
- 2:15Iona Bain: turmoil and uncertain economic outlook, frankly, lots of pressing headlines.
- 2:21Iona Bain: And they might be wondering, why should I take risks
- 2:23Iona Bain: with my money right now? Surely, it's better to just
- 2:26Iona Bain: play safe.
- 2:27Emilie Bellet: Yeah. So, I really understand why people feel a little
- 2:30Emilie Bellet: bit uncertain about the stock market. But here, I think
- 2:33Emilie Bellet: we have to differentiate between uncertainty and risk. So when
- 2:38Emilie Bellet: you're investing money, and here we're talking about investing, achieving
- 2:41Emilie Bellet: your long- term goals, you want to know the level
- 2:45Emilie Bellet: of risk you're taking. Now there's the uncertainty on the
- 2:48Emilie Bellet: market, no one can predict what's going to happen in
- 2:50Emilie Bellet: the stock market. We see big draw- downs in the
- 2:52Emilie Bellet: stock market where the market goes up and down at
- 2:55Emilie Bellet: different points in time. So, what you want to have
- 2:58Emilie Bellet: is time for your money in case something happens in
- 3:02Emilie Bellet: the stock market and for your investments to recover. So,
- 3:04Emilie Bellet: I think that's the difference. There's not a perfect time
- 3:07Emilie Bellet: to invest. Maybe it was yesterday or today, but I
- 3:12Emilie Bellet: would say, don't just wait and get triggered by everything
- 3:16Emilie Bellet: that's going to happen. There's always going to be news
- 3:18Emilie Bellet: on the market, but just getting started on a very
- 3:21Emilie Bellet: small scale and try to be in the market, rather
- 3:24Emilie Bellet: than timing and finding the best time to invest is
- 3:26Emilie Bellet: actually going to be quite helpful with your investments. And
- 3:29Emilie Bellet: it's not about putting all your savings into investing or
- 3:32Emilie Bellet: into an investment pot today, but slowly, a step- by-
- 3:35Emilie Bellet: step, building up a pot over time.
- 3:38Iona Bain: And years ago I heard of this phrase, " Reckless conservatism,"
- 3:42Iona Bain: which really resonated with me because it indicates that actually,
- 3:47Iona Bain: if you are too safe with your money at times,
- 3:50Iona Bain: that that in and of itself can be a bit
- 3:53Iona Bain: reckless and irresponsible. That can be quite a difficult concept
- 3:56Iona Bain: for people to get their heads around, can't it?
- 3:58Emilie Bellet: I think it's quite tricky to understand that having all
- 4:01Emilie Bellet: your money in cash, so in something really safe, is
- 4:03Emilie Bellet: actually risky because you think, oh, all my money's in
- 4:06Emilie Bellet: my bank, I'm getting an interest rate or small saving
- 4:08Emilie Bellet: rates. But actually, what we have to look for when
- 4:11Emilie Bellet: we invest is that there's inflation in the economy, and
- 4:14Emilie Bellet: also, you want your money to grow faster. So this
- 4:17Emilie Bellet: is why with your investments, you want to try to
- 4:20Emilie Bellet: beat inflation or at least keep up. The economy is
- 4:23Emilie Bellet: growing and you want your money to grow over time.
- 4:25Emilie Bellet: So when you're thinking short term, it doesn't matter so
- 4:28Emilie Bellet: much over a period of one to five years, but
- 4:30Emilie Bellet: when you see longer picture, you lose purchasing power over
- 4:34Emilie Bellet: time. So, keeping everything in cash is not always the solution.
- 4:37Iona Bain: Yeah, it's a really good point. Now, many people who
- 4:40Iona Bain: are watching and listening to this might be thinking, I'm
- 4:43Iona Bain: not an investor. Why is that not necessarily true?
- 4:46Emilie Bellet: So, this is what I hear very often, " I'm not
- 4:48Emilie Bellet: an investor, this is very scary. I don't know where
- 4:51Emilie Bellet: to start." And I think your first touch point is
- 4:54Emilie Bellet: maybe your pension. I mean, if you have a workplace
- 4:57Emilie Bellet: pension, most people will be actually invested in the stock
- 5:00Emilie Bellet: market. So your money every month, you are saving money,
- 5:04Emilie Bellet: your employer is putting money into your pension. This is
- 5:07Emilie Bellet: tax efficient also, which is amazing. And the money will
- 5:10Emilie Bellet: go into usually a selection of funds, so you will
- 5:13Emilie Bellet: be exposed to a lot of companies in a lot
- 5:16Emilie Bellet: of different markets and industries. So, your money is invested.
- 5:20Emilie Bellet: So I feel that's already a win, you are an investor, and
- 5:24Emilie Bellet: then that's maybe your starting point when you want to
- 5:27Emilie Bellet: look at your investments.
- 5:28Iona Bain: And so, if people maybe don't necessarily rush out and
- 5:31Iona Bain: start investing after today, perhaps they can already start to
- 5:36Iona Bain: understand this whole area just by engaging with their pension
- 5:39Iona Bain: a bit more.
- 5:40Emilie Bellet: So, this is a really good starting point. First of
- 5:42Emilie Bellet: all, find your login details for your pension. I mean,
- 5:45Emilie Bellet: if you don't necessarily check very often your pension, you
- 5:48Emilie Bellet: don't know where it is, who's the provider. So, find
- 5:51Emilie Bellet: your statements, go online, call your provider, try to log
- 5:54Emilie Bellet: in into your pension. And then what you can do
- 5:56Emilie Bellet: is review your contribution. How much money are you putting
- 5:59Emilie Bellet: into your pension every month? Is your employer contributing to
- 6:03Emilie Bellet: your pension and how much? Can you actually change this
- 6:06Emilie Bellet: contribution? Can you increase them if you have the saving
- 6:09Emilie Bellet: and investing capacity? And then it's looking at, how is
- 6:12Emilie Bellet: my money actually invested? And you'll be surprised to see
- 6:15Emilie Bellet: a series of funds. So, that's quite interesting to look
- 6:17Emilie Bellet: at how it invested. You'll see the allocation, stocks and
- 6:21Emilie Bellet: bonds and cash, and also maybe the type of funds
- 6:25Emilie Bellet: and the level of risk. So usually, you will see
- 6:27Emilie Bellet: three level of risk, A, B, C. So you will
- 6:30Emilie Bellet: be adventurous, balanced, or cautious. And it's just making sure
- 6:34Emilie Bellet: you are in the right level of risk for your
- 6:37Emilie Bellet: age and the time horizon. If you're in your 20s, it's very
- 6:40Emilie Bellet: different than if you're in your 50s, for example, when
- 6:42Emilie Bellet: you look at investing for retirement.
- 6:44Iona Bain: Yeah, it's really important to know what is appropriate for
- 6:48Iona Bain: your stage in life because if you're younger, you can
- 6:50Iona Bain: maybe take more risk, if you're older, maybe you play it a bit
- 6:53Iona Bain: more safe. So Emilie, this is a bit of a
- 6:55Iona Bain: tough question, but I have a feeling that you're going
- 6:58Iona Bain: to be up for answering it. What's one mistake that
- 7:01Iona Bain: you wish that you hadn't made but that you've learned
- 7:04Iona Bain: from when it comes to investing?
- 7:06Emilie Bellet: Oh, there's a lot of mistakes I've made, but I
- 7:09Emilie Bellet: think one is around picking individual stocks. So when we
- 7:13Emilie Bellet: talk about investing, we don't want to buy one thing
- 7:16Emilie Bellet: and just hope for the best. So, we want to
- 7:18Emilie Bellet: diversify our money into a lot of different asset classes.
- 7:21Emilie Bellet: We want to be invested in the market, and the
- 7:23Emilie Bellet: market is just like a collection of tens of thousands
- 7:26Emilie Bellet: of companies. Now when I started investing, I built a
- 7:31Emilie Bellet: very small portfolio of a handful of individual stocks, but
- 7:35Emilie Bellet: then they were all in the same industry because I
- 7:37Emilie Bellet: had more knowledge in this industry, probably all in the
- 7:39Emilie Bellet: same geography. And also, only having five stocks is quite
- 7:43Emilie Bellet: problematic. So, one of these companies starting to have operational
- 7:46Emilie Bellet: issues that impacted its profits. Investors started to look at
- 7:50Emilie Bellet: this company and started to lose confidence. I panicked, I
- 7:53Emilie Bellet: sold my investments. Of course, the stock recovered a few
- 7:56Emilie Bellet: months or a few years later, but I had a
- 7:59Emilie Bellet: loss in my portfolio. And that one stock, I would
- 8:01Emilie Bellet: have five, that's like 20%. So, that's a big mistake
- 8:04Emilie Bellet: and that's why now I'm not going to look at
- 8:07Emilie Bellet: single stocks, only if it's a very small part of my
- 8:09Emilie Bellet: portfolio, but try to diversify via funds that will have
- 8:13Emilie Bellet: hundreds or thousands of holdings. And the other one is
- 8:16Emilie Bellet: checking your stocks on your phone and overreacting, I think.
- 8:20Iona Bain: Yeah, I've been there.
- 8:21Emilie Bellet: Oh, you have been?
- 8:23Iona Bain: Yeah.
- 8:23Emilie Bellet: And I think the two emotions that investors are triggered in
- 8:27Emilie Bellet: the stock market is around fear and greed. My greed
- 8:30Emilie Bellet: was to wait for the stock price to go higher
- 8:32Emilie Bellet: and higher and higher and sell at the right time.
- 8:34Emilie Bellet: When is the right time? And also fear, the fear
- 8:37Emilie Bellet: of losing more money, and that's when I sold. So
- 8:39Emilie Bellet: when you go into investing, it's really having a clear
- 8:42Emilie Bellet: mind, being a bit more of a passive investor, so
- 8:44Emilie Bellet: not overreacting to market fluctuations, and you can do that
- 8:48Emilie Bellet: when you have a plan. So you know what you
- 8:51Emilie Bellet: want your investments to achieve, for how long you're investing,
- 8:53Emilie Bellet: what are your goals behind it? And having this on
- 8:56Emilie Bellet: a piece of paper, it doesn't need to be complicated.
- 8:58Emilie Bellet: At least you know what you're doing with your investments.
- 9:01Iona Bain: Yeah, it's really hard though, isn't it? When you see
- 9:03Iona Bain: your portfolio on your phone and if it has been
- 9:06Iona Bain: going up, it gives you a dopamine buzz and then
- 9:10Iona Bain: you become addicted to checking it. And even when it
- 9:13Iona Bain: starts to go down, you just can't take your eyes
- 9:16Iona Bain: off it. So, it's one of these areas of finance
- 9:20Iona Bain: where actually, paying a little bit less attention is probably
- 9:22Iona Bain: a good thing.
- 9:23Emilie Bellet: It's a good thing, and I think investing should be
- 9:25Emilie Bellet: boring. When investing starts to be a little bit exciting,
- 9:28Emilie Bellet: that should probably be a red flag. You should ask
- 9:31Emilie Bellet: yourself, is it actually too good to be true? And
- 9:34Emilie Bellet: if it is, it's probably that you shouldn't invest or you should
- 9:36Emilie Bellet: do more research.
- 9:37Iona Bain: Yeah, very good point. Emotions as you were saying there,
- 9:40Iona Bain: they really, really do drive a lot of investing decisions.
- 9:42Iona Bain: And I think all of us like to think we're
- 9:44Iona Bain: rational, cool as a cucumber. Can you just talk me
- 9:47Iona Bain: through how we can keep calm when markets feel like
- 9:51Iona Bain: they're going a bit crazy?
- 9:52Emilie Bellet: So for me, it's about having this plan, first of
- 9:55Emilie Bellet: all, being financially organized. So you have a budget and
- 9:59Emilie Bellet: you know how much money you're putting into your investments
- 10:02Emilie Bellet: every month. It's better to automate your investments so you
- 10:05Emilie Bellet: are not deciding every month, oh, how much money should
- 10:08Emilie Bellet: I invest this month? How much money should I save?
- 10:10Emilie Bellet: And if you invest money, what funds do I buy this
- 10:13Emilie Bellet: month? So I automate my investment, which means that every
- 10:16Emilie Bellet: day on payday, a little bit of my pay is
- 10:18Emilie Bellet: going into an investment portfolio. So, that removes any decisions
- 10:22Emilie Bellet: for me to pick and choose whatever I want to
- 10:24Emilie Bellet: buy. Now, there's times in a year where you can
- 10:27Emilie Bellet: review, sit down, and look at your investments and check
- 10:30Emilie Bellet: that your contributions are invested properly. So making sure you
- 10:33Emilie Bellet: take a step back, I think it's fine to switch
- 10:36Emilie Bellet: off financial and investing news sometimes. So if there's some
- 10:39Emilie Bellet: areas that you're interested in, maybe take the time to
- 10:42Emilie Bellet: research these areas instead of reacting to market fluctuations. So
- 10:46Emilie Bellet: I would say have a plan, maybe don't check, automate
- 10:49Emilie Bellet: some of your investments, and know when there's information overload.
- 10:53Emilie Bellet: If you've been on some social media, it can be
- 10:55Emilie Bellet: quite, quite triggering and you feel you're missing out, and
- 10:58Emilie Bellet: that's a pretty bad emotion. The former where you're like,
- 11:00Emilie Bellet: something is happening, everyone knows what we invest in, and
- 11:04Emilie Bellet: I'm just sitting there doing nothing. So when you're feeling
- 11:07Emilie Bellet: this, it's probably time to just switch off, go for a
- 11:10Emilie Bellet: walk, switch off your investment app.
- 11:12Iona Bain: So you;re a massive advocate, Emilie, for getting more women
- 11:15Iona Bain: into investing, helping women understand that investing is very much for
- 11:19Iona Bain: them, it's not just for the blokes. But there are
- 11:22Iona Bain: myths and concerns that surround the whole area of women
- 11:27Iona Bain: in investing. So, what would you say to challenge some
- 11:30Iona Bain: of those myths and concerns?
- 11:32Emilie Bellet: So what I hear very often in classes and boot
- 11:34Emilie Bellet: camps is around, " I don't have a lot of money
- 11:36Emilie Bellet: to start investing. I don't know enough. I need to
- 11:40Emilie Bellet: be an expert. It's also too late."
- 11:42Iona Bain: And what age typically do women say that to you?
- 11:45Emilie Bellet: When you look at women, we may not have a
- 11:48Emilie Bellet: linear career path. We know that women are still the
- 11:50Emilie Bellet: primary carers for their families, for communities, for their children.
- 11:54Emilie Bellet: So they may step out of work or earn less
- 11:56Emilie Bellet: for a certain period of time, so usually 30s and 40s. So
- 11:59Emilie Bellet: if it's less money invested, maybe they don't have the
- 12:02Emilie Bellet: capacity to invest or maybe they're investing less. And because
- 12:05Emilie Bellet: we know that investing compounds, the money that you haven't
- 12:08Emilie Bellet: invested early on in your life then will not compound over
- 12:11Emilie Bellet: a longer period of time.
- 12:12Iona Bain: Yeah, so then women have this sense that they've missed out.
- 12:15Emilie Bellet: And they've missed out on retirement, and sometimes they want
- 12:18Emilie Bellet: to start and open a pension and they look at
- 12:20Emilie Bellet: maybe a retirement calculator and they realize, oh wow, I
- 12:23Emilie Bellet: will need to top up my pension, I need so
- 12:25Emilie Bellet: much money now. So it's a little bit of, I'm
- 12:28Emilie Bellet: not going to do it, I procrastinate, or I do it
- 12:30Emilie Bellet: later. So what I say is, it's never too late
- 12:33Emilie Bellet: to start and also, it's never too small. So you
- 12:36Emilie Bellet: can start literally with, I mean, some platforms today even
- 12:40Emilie Bellet: allow you to invest your spare change or even with
- 12:42Emilie Bellet: 25 pound, 50 pound a month, you can start building
- 12:45Emilie Bellet: a pot, especially a pension. We are usually quite good
- 12:50Emilie Bellet: at thinking about short term goals, your next holiday or
- 12:53Emilie Bellet: what you want to achieve next year, but what we
- 12:56Emilie Bellet: need is a little bit more of a plan. It's
- 12:58Emilie Bellet: very important that they look at their life goals and
- 13:00Emilie Bellet: match them with their financial goals. What do I want
- 13:03Emilie Bellet: to achieve in the short term? But at the same
- 13:05Emilie Bellet: time, how do I pay myself for when I retire?
- 13:08Emilie Bellet: Once people start even putting a little bit of money
- 13:11Emilie Bellet: in the stock market is quite reassuring, they understand they
- 13:13Emilie Bellet: can do it, and then they can work on their long-
- 13:16Emilie Bellet: term goals. So I think we need to change also
- 13:18Emilie Bellet: the mindset around investing. I think anyone can invest after
- 13:21Emilie Bellet: having some savings of course, and repaid some of your
- 13:24Emilie Bellet: expensive debts, but it's just about getting started. And I
- 13:27Emilie Bellet: think now there's a lot of structural issues, gender pay
- 13:30Emilie Bellet: gap, women earning less, taking career breaks, so that's going
- 13:33Emilie Bellet: to have an impact on their pension and how much
- 13:35Emilie Bellet: they can actually save and invest. And it's very important
- 13:38Emilie Bellet: to build individual safety nets and individual security. So if
- 13:42Emilie Bellet: you've been relying on your partner, it's making sure you
- 13:44Emilie Bellet: start building your pot, you start building your investments, even
- 13:47Emilie Bellet: if they're much smaller. But having this level of first
- 13:50Emilie Bellet: financial security and then financial independence is going to be
- 13:54Emilie Bellet: really important.
- 13:55Iona Bain: Very well argued. So, I have a confession to make
- 13:58Iona Bain: now, which is that I have been on a break
- 14:02Iona Bain: from investing. I want to go back to it, but
- 14:05Iona Bain: I want to buy a house in the near future
- 14:08Iona Bain: and I want that money to be there for me,
- 14:10Iona Bain: should I need it. And I'm imagining a lot of
- 14:13Iona Bain: people do feel in the short term if they want
- 14:17Iona Bain: to achieve certain goals like buying a house, that investing
- 14:20Iona Bain: is not the right thing for them to do. Is
- 14:24Iona Bain: that a sensible decision, Emilie, or am I wrong to
- 14:27Iona Bain: have a break from investing?
- 14:28Emilie Bellet: I think you know better than anyone what you need
- 14:30Emilie Bellet: and what are your goals. We all have a different
- 14:33Emilie Bellet: life and we save for different things. So when you
- 14:36Emilie Bellet: invest, you should really go back to your goals. And
- 14:39Emilie Bellet: I love to break my goals into short- term goals,
- 14:41Emilie Bellet: medium term goals, and long- term goals. Here, you're talking
- 14:44Emilie Bellet: about one of your goals that is buying a house,
- 14:46Emilie Bellet: and depending on how far or how quick you want
- 14:49Emilie Bellet: to achieve this goal, you will need to put money
- 14:51Emilie Bellet: into these pots. So ideally, in the perfect scenario, we
- 14:54Emilie Bellet: put some money into each of these pots, short- term
- 14:56Emilie Bellet: goals, medium term goals, and long- term goals. What I
- 14:59Emilie Bellet: would say is, depending on also where you are with
- 15:02Emilie Bellet: work, it's completely fine to address your contribution depending on
- 15:05Emilie Bellet: how money you need to cover also your lifestyle and
- 15:09Emilie Bellet: to cover your needs. So you don't want to be
- 15:11Emilie Bellet: in a position where you have a lot of credit
- 15:13Emilie Bellet: card debt, you're struggling to repay, debt starts to snowball,
- 15:17Emilie Bellet: but at the same time, you're investing when you're paying
- 15:19Emilie Bellet: a lot of money on your interest. Same when you
- 15:21Emilie Bellet: don't have an emergency fund, maybe you can keep investing
- 15:24Emilie Bellet: a little bit, but also build this fund that you will
- 15:26Emilie Bellet: have in case something happens. Because the problem with investing
- 15:30Emilie Bellet: is that the money is invested in the stock market. If
- 15:33Emilie Bellet: you need cash for any reason but if something crazy
- 15:37Emilie Bellet: happens, tomorrow the stock market crashes, your investments drop maybe
- 15:41Emilie Bellet: 20%, 30%, but you need the money. Where are you going to find
- 15:44Emilie Bellet: the money if you can't sell your investments at a decent
- 15:46Emilie Bellet: price? You're probably going to go with credit card debt
- 15:49Emilie Bellet: or overdraft. So, it's all about managing what you need,
- 15:53Emilie Bellet: what are your goals, versus what you can do. But
- 15:55Emilie Bellet: I would say is, I don't think you should stop
- 15:58Emilie Bellet: investing because of the uncertainties on the market. You may
- 16:01Emilie Bellet: think, oh, look at what's happening today, I don't know
- 16:03Emilie Bellet: when I'm going to start investing again. So maybe you
- 16:06Emilie Bellet: have lower contribution, you keep investing, and then when the
- 16:09Emilie Bellet: time is right, then you can start and up your
- 16:11Emilie Bellet: contribution. Because we think as investing as sacrificing a little
- 16:15Emilie Bellet: bit of money, it's locked for a long period of
- 16:17Emilie Bellet: time. But think of it as really paying your future
- 16:20Emilie Bellet: self and really visualizing why you will need the money and
- 16:23Emilie Bellet: how you will use the money in the longer period
- 16:25Emilie Bellet: of time.
- 16:26Iona Bain: Yeah, and feeling inspired to invest because you know that
- 16:29Iona Bain: that's going to be building up that bigger pot for
- 16:31Iona Bain: you so you've got more choices further down the line.
- 16:35Iona Bain: Okay, Emilie, you have convinced me that I may be ought
- 16:37Iona Bain: to just get reconnected with my investing portfolio and it'll
- 16:41Iona Bain: be for my own good. So, there will be people
- 16:44Iona Bain: watching and listening who might be thinking, investing is not
- 16:47Iona Bain: something that I can do right now. Maybe because I've
- 16:50Iona Bain: got credit card debt, maybe it's just something that I
- 16:53Iona Bain: just don't have the bandwidth to really think about. But
- 16:56Iona Bain: what are some of the reasons why people should have
- 16:58Iona Bain: a baseline of knowledge about investing, regardless of whether they
- 17:01Iona Bain: do it or not?
- 17:02Emilie Bellet: I think you can just really understand the basics of
- 17:04Emilie Bellet: investing, that it's a way to build wealth over a
- 17:07Emilie Bellet: long period of time, that your goal is to beat
- 17:09Emilie Bellet: inflation. So, I really see it in two buckets, saving,
- 17:13Emilie Bellet: short term, investing, medium to long term. So, that's the
- 17:16Emilie Bellet: first thing you need to understand. The second thing is
- 17:19Emilie Bellet: around maybe scams and anything that could happen around the
- 17:22Emilie Bellet: investing space. Maybe people want your money. We've seen a
- 17:25Emilie Bellet: lot of scams going around on social media, phishing emails
- 17:29Emilie Bellet: and stuff like that. So just understand what is legit
- 17:32Emilie Bellet: or not with investing, and these are very common and
- 17:35Emilie Bellet: people feel for it. So if it happened to you, don't worry,
- 17:37Emilie Bellet: it happened to so many people.
- 17:39Iona Bain: That's really, really good advice because people could perhaps see
- 17:43Iona Bain: something online and think, well, that looks like a fantastic
- 17:46Iona Bain: scheme, I really need to get in on this. But
- 17:48Iona Bain: actually, if it's too good to be true, then you
- 17:52Iona Bain: need to walk away, and that's why I need to
- 17:53Iona Bain: understand why investing works.
- 17:55Emilie Bellet: It's about learning about yourself and your reaction when there's
- 17:59Emilie Bellet: big moves in the stock market.
- 18:00Iona Bain: Learning by doing.
- 18:01Emilie Bellet: Learning by doing.
- 18:03Iona Bain: So, if viewers and listeners are anything like me, they'll
- 18:06Iona Bain: want to go and have a cup of tea or
- 18:08Iona Bain: a cup of coffee after listening to this chat and
- 18:10Iona Bain: really think about what we've been talking about today, because
- 18:12Iona Bain: it's been so fascinating. But whilst they're waiting for the
- 18:15Iona Bain: kettle to boil, what's one thing they could do after
- 18:19Iona Bain: our discussion today?
- 18:21Emilie Bellet: So, one thing they could do is probably check their
- 18:23Emilie Bellet: pension contribution. How is their pension invested? And if you
- 18:26Emilie Bellet: don't have a pension, is maybe getting informed about opening
- 18:30Emilie Bellet: maybe a personal pension or a SIP and really trying
- 18:33Emilie Bellet: to think about your future self, and this should be
- 18:37Emilie Bellet: one of your top goals.
- 18:38Iona Bain: Fab, log into your pension account. Great stuff. Thank you
- 18:41Iona Bain: so much, Emilie, it's been such a pleasure having you.
- 18:43Emilie Bellet: Thanks for having me.
- 18:46Iona Bain: That's it for part one of our investing chat. In
- 18:48Iona Bain: part two, we'll be getting more practical. We'll talk through
- 18:51Iona Bain: the different ways you can invest and how to build
- 18:54Iona Bain: a diversified portfolio. So, if today helps you feel a
- 18:58Iona Bain: little bit curious about investing, part two is where we'll
- 19:01Iona Bain: turn that confidence into action. So, why not share this
- 19:06Iona Bain: episode with a friend? Start your investing journey together and
- 19:09Iona Bain: help them get a little bit richer too. This podcast
- 19:13Iona Bain: is brought to you by L& G. You can keep
- 19:16Iona Bain: up with the show on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, at Legal and
- 19:20Iona Bain: General. If you have a question or a topic that
- 19:24Iona Bain: you would answered on the show, then you can get
- 19:26Iona Bain: in touch on our socials. And until next time, see
- 19:30Iona Bain: you soon. Thanks for listening and watching.