Tom 03/06 stereo mix

and even if we're setting up because then it's on yeah kind of are we gonna have to try and film or do we just yeah let's try and get it let's try get a little bit of the image what do you reckon in the middle yeah well I was thinking if there's two of us here look for example bang video camera there and then I've got a move seat where the easiest stuff works for me and you've got to hit that angle without getting the other camera I don't know what background we want I mean it's pretty I'd say long as not I'm trying to even the door I mean it's a static isn't it yeah edgy yeah we're in a basement I tell you what you come and sit this side and we've got that yeah and then and then we're facing Tom rather than sitting on the same side as Tom, cool, nice, right yeah nice I've not done many of these is this gonna be close enough? I think the feedback we have always got is keep mics closed keep closed to mics which I think is nice yeah but when we've got the three and we're not having the issue we had with the two was Scott and I were like sharing whatever blah blah blah so I did look at all your questions Scott so I've got answers that would just come to me as we're free flowing, I try to keep them really high level just because make it easy and ask me about anything I know the focus can be on the IFA business yeah I've got the property business yeah you know I've got some fitness and health questions, buzz them in whenever and I think we keep it as natural as possible with this stuff, I was guilty of it, I was a bit pissed on Jay's one so, were you, because the thing is we started drinking as he was setting up and it took an hour to set up so we had down the bottle by the time we'd really got into it, do you know what I hadn't even noticed, yeah well that's it I was aware of it and I didn't want to go rambling I'm just trying to think where that second one could go are you going there? I'll just go there why don't you stand it here and then it's a knife it's just not having the camera in the shot of the other camera if that makes sense yeah I know what you're saying so so if we sit that almost next to Tom bring that as close as it needs to be on the chair yeah because he can then, actually the joy of this is Tom can look at that to make sure it's pointing at us and I can look at this to make sure it's pointing at him should we back face them or front face them? I don't know when I became a movie director that's crazy should I make this one really small as well? or is that crazy? I don't know if it's crazy I don't know if it's that crazy I don't know if I get it why don't you put it on that chair that'd be lower which chair? that's better is that right? I think so yeah that's actually a nice angle it's not going to get you front arm it's going to be a bit more of a side angle do you want me to do it? so it looks a little bit less like we're chatting now yeah it's a more kind of what's it called? casting couch I suppose yeah I'm well up for this we've got the couch and then if we sit here if we sit here yeah that works I think you both be in view do I? yeah perfect it's kind of tall but all that is is soundproofing above you shall I make it lower do you think? the actual thing you can always cut you can always crop it yeah now there's just a nice centred candle in there yeah there you go that'll be pretty simple we got any branded products here? fire out an energy drink or anything? cool is that still recording? how do you guys like to start? we just free ball it we free ball most do you need to cancel the audio on any of these? or do you isolate that? we'll sort the video stuff out it's all so there's that one cool do you want an intro? yeah I can start hello Dave welcome back it's been a while it's been a long time sorry to all our six listeners this has been so long I know you've been waiting with bated breath and we're back we've got another guest today which is very exciting before I do introduce him a lot has changed since we last did a podcast in the world in life I quit my job and Tom who I'm about to introduce in a second was actually with me and he probably sat through a good hour of me just telling him how much I hate working and I'm going to do something with my life and I'm sure this is the first time we ever met and I'm sure he was looking at me over the table with a pint in my hand thinking what is this guy on about that's true I met this new guy Scott he just whinged about his job but it's actually happened which is really exciting congratulations by the way it's scary I'm sure everyone's quit a job in this room before and started a business as well after quitting a job so that's the road I'm going to go on I'll be very selfish I want to ask for a little bit of advice before we get going it might be a nice segway we've both got a bit of a segway I don't know if I should I tell the listeners what I'm going to do here I think let's do a whole exposé reveal it's going to be a bit of a journey I'm going to try and document as much as possible from starting a business all the way through to the highs and lows and all that kind of stuff let's keep it under wraps for the moment we can maybe chat that off air first things first Tom welcome thank you real quick bit of background you've actually started two businesses essentially property and now more recently in the IFA world yeah the property business is definitely more of a I went and started something from scratch I had family that were already in property and then I did this other angle to it the financial advice gig if anyone knows how that industry works you are a business but you're typically a business within a bigger business so less entrepreneurial but still all the same you've got to go and get your own clients you've got to go and service I guess there's just less of the actually there's probably loads of admin but there's less of the running the business I don't want to jump over Dave's introduction but your business it's the same thing you're busy working in and on at all times and the financial advice model is you typically focus on doing the job and you subscribe and pay away a bit of your earnings to a house that does all the running the business part because there's so much to it tons of regulation so you kind of outsource that and you pay away I think that's one of the biggest things I've really struggled with having a business is running it all the other stuff I'd like to think I'm pretty good at being a physio and working with people that's only 20% of the job it's not the whole thing some of my stuff I can outsource website stuff and all those things but unfortunately all the patient notes and all the writing to consultants and stuff which I guess I did before but that's on top of then running a business and you can't outsource some of it you've got accountancy stuff you've got marketing your hour session has got all the extra follow up, all the preliminary book it's everything people think oh I'm paying this much for an hour of your time but actually no that idea of value is definitely in my opinion people are becoming more and more aware of what they get for their buck because we're all from different backgrounds but I've always been perhaps a bit of a stickler for how much I'd be paying for works being done to my house or how much a cup of coffee or something costs but it is the whole part it's what's intrinsic in getting that service in front of you getting it delivered well and now I'm in that business that I'm remunerating for my time I feel it more than ever I'm not just charging you for the hour I see you, it's all the knowledge and the expertise that gets us to here and then beyond but you don't get an opportunity to tell people that people never see the years of experience because they just see oh I could do that they'd be like oh I could go and repair that roof for whatever no you haven't got the experience you need to go and buy all the tools in that case tools are your experience back to my question one bit of advice just to get things going when you initially quit your job to go out I guess this was way back it was 10 years ago worked for a company with Jay I handed in notice and then jumped into unpaid work experience in the property sector because I just knew I needed to 180 from what I was doing how did you feel when you did that? really excited, I was a different age I suppose, early 20s naivety was on my side the finances long story short had gone from a commitment with an ex-girlfriend to living back home with mum and dad so it was like do it or do it now or don't do it so it was mostly naive enthusiasm was that your main trigger? that shift in your life? no it was the pain point of the job you've been there Scott because this was our whole first meeting the drudgery the drudgery of a job you loathe it's like anything in life you'll see it in your job as a physio if someone's got enough pain physical, mental, emotional, whatever they will then seek a solution the solution for my pain of turning up to that job every day was a 180 away from it so unpaid work experience sounded like the best opportunity in the world to go from a central London financial services gig it was in Ilford which is a town 10 miles down the road from me working for a land agent it was a university degree in property development wrapped up in a 6-9 month experience long story short then I hopped from a commercial land agent to a residential estate agency a big county wide one, a family run one just for a good connection and seeing both sides of the track of property the buying it, the acquiring the land, the building how the whole process works to then selling it to the retail world then everything in between the financing, the launching I was six months there and it was I can do this now, I've got enough capital behind me from my own savings and an injection from a family member first project, brilliant second project, third project and then snowballed into what for six years was all consuming rules changed rates got tighter finance costs got dearer and it forced my hand to be like do I want to bleed into this indefinitely do I want to be this portfolio landlord come developer with all the highs and lows and the thanklessness that comes with that no, I really liked what I left behind I just didn't like that company so I dusted off the textbooks, got qualified finished the qualifications and now I've been back at it maybe four years now so what you're saying is that although you had so much pain in that first job that you hated it, best thing potentially could have happened to you because it almost showed you exactly what you do want because if it hadn't been painful enough I'd have just carried on treading water and I do without getting too philosophical, too quick into the podcast we're here for you you've probably definitely seen it in your career it's what ails you it was so painful the drudgery, I was like I need a solution anything, and I found the solution likewise four years ago I was like I can't just keep being this landlord on the beck and call I'm up to 80 tenants and it's like this is broken, that's leaking pay for this I need to outsource it pay away for that pain to be resolved and find something that kind of galvanises you it's a nice there's a psychological there's a load of experiments about it, about people actually being more motivated to get out of pain rather than chasing a reward, obviously they've done stuff with rats and it's like if they stop running they get electrocuted or something negative and therefore they go a lot longer than if oh if they run for a certain amount of time they realise they get a reward, so it's like that stick or carrot and the push of a stick will always be more powerful and produce more action than the pull of a reward. I think we all probably know several people and probably in our own lives know that's true right, just that thing, that fire in your belly, whether it's you're too unfit to climb flat stairs or money so tight it forces your hand I can literally pinpoint two or three instances in my 20s that were big action followed to answer your question Scott the advice is you've already done it, you've already made that leap you've done the pain you've made the leap, just enjoy the fruits now and just don't overthink it and Dave, question to you was it pain that made you leave because you went from the NHS to being private essentially but I guess you're still doing a very similar role but obviously it's a bit different with private clients and the type of client but was it pain that made you leave? Good question probably less than that because I still loved my job I always will love working with people in any way to try and help them improve their life and as a physio that's kind of what you do in any environment I mean look, we lived together at the time during, like I was redeployed during Covid and had to do a lot of work in ITU and I think from that a lot of negative experiences came, you know basically all of the team that was involved with me as a physio and intensive care at that time ended up leaving the hospital ended up having to go somewhere else the stress I think overworked, PTSD overworked and like the environment felt naff and then there was all this clap for the NHS nonsense Thursday night that's all that reminded us that it was Thursday a lot of the time and it was more actually going back to normality of like I was in outpatients before Covid so just people coming in with musculoskeletal injuries, redeployed that was hard work and then we went back and it was kind of like waiting lists were huge, loads of people had operations, people were suddenly there was no rest people actually came back and they were angry initially it was like oh all this gratitude during Covid to like the NHS is naff and blah blah and you had 15 patients a day, half an hour appointments for me it was the biggest push for me to be honest I guess it is a pain point was I couldn't do my job to the ability that I knew I could if I had an hour with somebody and had time people would be like this is amazing and you felt like you had enough time to get in and actually help them not saying that you couldn't help people in half an hour but half an hour appointments every three or four weeks because of the waiting lists I felt that I was doing a disservice to people, I was like if I had time with this person I could make meaningful change, the way the system was set up and I understand why it was set up that way was I'm doing my job at 50% capacity and there was a massive ethical pull of leaving the NHS where I've got very liberal views on how important I think the NHS is for healthcare to be free for people I've done all this training, I think I've got this ability but I'm not really helping the person in front of me as best as I could being, even though they might be the people in need of the most and actually setting something up privately and really getting into the nuances of really good treatment was, so I guess not quite the same way, I didn't hate my job but there was enough to push you rather than pull so what's the new business then Scott or are we not doing that, sorry conceptually? We can go conceptually, we can give it a little taste and do you know what, it's actually quite apt that you're here because I think it's still in the same realm because I think what I'm passionate about is still finance so I want to stay there but I was trying to think of something where I could help a lot of people coming from a background of helping richer people essentially in the wealth management sense, it's your traditional high net worth they're very well catered for in my humble opinion and I think the smaller person does tend to get left behind a little bit and obviously there's this advice gap which is there for many many reasons I think there's because of regulation being one, not having enough funds to invest yeah loads of different reasons why there's this big advice gap and my theory was or my angle on it was trying to figure out what could I do to try and solve this problem so I've come up with an idea to basically, here we go is I feel nervous so I want to provide financial well being as an employee benefit and so I had a chat with Dave very recently about it and I've changed the name it was a good hype man it was called Seek Financial Help I've changed it because I don't want it to be about people who need help it's about talking about money you don't want it to be negative financial well being as I'm sure you know it's not advice it's very much education and guidance which is also part of an advisor's job but I guess one of the key things is that it's not regulated so you're not going to be bogged down with regulation and specific client sizes, it can be for anyone and it can be it's an easier way to service a mass market because if it's through an employer benefit, if someone is struggling with money, the last thing they want to go and do is pay money to see someone to help them and obviously there are charities out there and that kind of thing but if it was a benefit that you know that you could just go to there's no barrier there that's kind of the section I want to get in and obviously there's a lot of consumer duty stuff that's come up which is kind of enforcing this and I feel this is my theory is that the advice gap is going to get even larger potentially The thing with that model is you only need a handful of really good clients and good employers and you're away and it's highly leverageable There's obviously loads of employee benefit style advice out there but they're very focused on a one size fits all solution like group protection I think the angle I definitely want to go at is it's one to one guidance and the way I want to deliver it I'll keep that way under wraps for the podcast we'll chat after but I've got kind of a unique way I'm thinking about delivering it to make it even more scalable so that's where I'm going I think from a more personal note as a friend and someone who's kind of heard about your career moving forward I think you seem very excited by it which is really good to see I'm not saying that you weren't a motivated person but I think as we will both know when it is your baby in your project you're suddenly your eyes light up and you're like yeah I'm going to smash this and it's that thing of and it's the thing that's negative as well at times that you can't stop thinking about it and it's really hard to switch off even when you're not on the clock it's all consuming right it's hard to put your laptop away on holiday and all of those things but wouldn't you much rather be on the clock and consume by something that you are truly passionate about and it's not dictated by someone else it's a bit of an irony that you're all consumed by it but that is exactly what is needed to get something to where it needs to be if you're going to give it it's best chance at succeeding it's going to be a 24 hour 7 day a week gig but it won't feel like that in hindsight you know you won't pause your breath until year 3 or 4 I think something I remember you saying when we first met was you were actually excited for the weekend I think it's like you're excited for Sunday because it meant you could either do some work on Sunday because it was free time and then Monday came around to you all you usually hear is oh it's Sunday, Sunday's scary that feeling is what I've been running away from since that job 10 years ago is just that dreaded Christ not again kind of thing no that's brilliant mate, really exciting yeah yeah as I say I'm going to try and document as much as possible just to see because you never know what's going to happen yeah exactly one more time we've been both through it and there are highs and lows and actually I kind of do wish in hindsight that you learn as you go and the only way of learning is through experience in a lot of my in my opinion you can read something in a book but you've got to go through it and I think that comes around to my piece of advice to you is don't seek for perfection before you've done anything like be led a little bit more by action, 90% is good enough don't waste time don't overthink because you can always change it later you know I spent it was funny because last weekend I met with somebody to pay much better money to redesign my logo right when I started I was trying to get this perfect logo blah blah blah and then I just ended up going on Fiverr £10 logo and I set it up and for 2 years no one's ever gone you've got an amazing logo but equally no one's, I don't think I've lost business, no one's gone you've got a shit logo I'm in an industry where it's all mostly word of mouth people go go and see Dave oh I saw Dave and it helped and reviews and stuff they're not like oh Dave's got this fantastic logo and it was like why was I even wasting mental energy instead of just doing it and I just then put up with it for 2 years and now I'm going okay let's make that slightly better but that can be done just action it get on with it there's absolutely no what's the word there's no compromise for the actual product or the service itself that is ultimately what you're delivering that's the valuable thing it's that old field of dreams and if you build it they will come the marketing happens the logo will find its way if you just focus on what you're actually offering get that brilliant polish as much as you can the rest falls into place because I've done exactly what you've done I've wasted so much time the property business is development come retention where you rent them out split to the sum of its parts refinance it it's a really basic model I tried a few different models of property before that that looked like they might go well failed etc and it was because of all that wasting time on shit process marketing what was I selling or commoditizing nothing valuable the core is just roofs over people's heads the financial advice business goes a bit further in its actual bespoke intimate kind of handholding which you can't quantify the qualitative aspect to it but I just focus on being really good at that and the marketing we talked about earlier has kind of sprung up to support it or my kind of exam you can never do enough exams as an advisor you keep doing and keep doing but that's an ancillary activity waste time focusing on these bits the satellite bits but really just get good and ironically again back to the logo thing we waste time on the things we are fundamentally not good at because we're not good at them we're worried I'm not a designer got no artistic talent at all probably not a web developer so therefore get somebody who's good at it to do that stuff it's fun learning about some of these things but actually I'm good at my job hopefully not that otherwise I would have gone into logo design so Tom how have you found the transition then from property into advising because as you just said it's a very different business model in a lot of ways and obviously you've now gone from cleaning or fixing a bathroom or something I used to have all the bits and bobs oh were you the handyman yeah protected I was like driving around all the properties painting hand up toilet you beds and all that I've got Jay to thank for this he put me in touch with a guy who's a very competent formidable advisor and I said to him I'm interested in getting back into it advice as a support staff person when I was like early 20s how do I get back into it both feet as an advisor and he said where are you now I'm outside one of my properties waiting for a plumber what are you doing I said I know right and he said dust off the textbooks and I did, I did like five exams in a row what I struggled with was jumping back into what I did in mainstream work having been completely autonomous doing things at any point in the week when I felt like it I had to find a more conventional employed advisor gig for a couple of years I felt to earn my stripes to make anyone believe I was capable of doing it and I did and I found a brilliant firm local to me met some great pals it was very much one of those bum in seat 9-5 it was an employed role and there's no issue there but it was not what I knew I wanted I wanted the self employed route the run your own business the advice gig route so I was there for a year but in probably month 9-10 I just started the circuit of interviews and networking I went to every single practice that was top 20 in London got through the door of some not through others you've got a bit about you by the time you explain to someone I've started and run a business it's not a failure it's a successful business running on relative autopilot and I've dusted off the textbooks and thrown myself back into it and I've got a year under my belt some people are like yeah alright you're competing with 10-15 years straight from uni having done it you're competing with people that have got a book of clients already and can bring something to the table but others I got plenty of lovely offers because I just saw that I was I said whether you're my place or not I'm doing this not in an arrogant way I said this to my now employer actually and he wrote it down I said I'm confident just south of arrogant and I meant it it's not some kind of cliche it was like I feel very confident that this is going to be me for the next three decades I would love you to be my forever home but if you're not feeling it then ultimately I'm not going to feel it a year in so let's not waste each other's time I had that conversation a few times but I had great conversations with about 5 firms and I was like Christ any one of you would be great but your route is employed you're probably not big enough you're in the wrong geography and in the end I landed on a central London firm they are always ranked top of the top of the leaderboards truly independent which if you don't know Dave means you're not tied to any bank or any investment provider you are literally you sit the same side of the table as your clients and you go out to market and you find the most cost effective investment solutions the most appropriate products, platforms whatever because you're truly independent. So no hint of bias there you're working for them you're not working for someone else. Exactly and you control price point you know we are just an overlay of fees for the client but the client type and this was one of the questions you said to have an answer ready for who do we serve? The people who have the time, the energy, the inclination or the ability to do things themselves which is a lot of people a lot of people have busy day jobs, family lives some people just it's too painful to focus on so our big offering is the handholding you know it's that support first you know whether it be insurance, investment that's secondary. The first thing we do for people is you've reached a milestone in your financial journey for whatever reason you know I've lost track of all the pensions I've built up in ex-workplaces or I think I've got insurance from my workplace but I'm worried my family might still be vulnerable what do I do and that question is when they invariably come to us and they recognise that this isn't a transactional thing you're meeting a you know it's an intimate relationship starting it do you want to be with this person for the next 30 years handholding them and supporting them through all of those milestones and for a lot of people the answer is yeah absolutely if I can pay a relatively small price to take all that pain all those items off my to do list happy days. I think what you're selling is peace of mind. I think that's kind of what it is right? In a nutshell. In a very succinct nutshell it is and I guess it's when you go to any professional it is you could do it yourself and I think of course in a previous podcast I kind of went through the different stages of like if you have lack of time, lack of knowledge lack of, I can't remember what the last one was now but it was but it's like in that scenario you probably need someone to help you but if but if you're the other side of it and you know you've got loads of time you've got really good knowledge on it and you're really interested in the subject you probably could give it a go yourself and you don't need somebody but I think there is a lot of people who are very intelligent but it's not their thing and they almost want to give you they want to pass responsibility over to you to make sure that their family and their finances are going to be kind of safe and secure if anything happens or when they reach as you say a milestone in retirement for example or having kids or something like that. 90% of my clients are people that are extremely competent and capable in their own respective fields, they just have their expertise and it just isn't looking over their shoulder worrying about basics contributing to their ISAs every year, pumping up their pensions simple investing on a regular automated basis we're just there like constantly nagging and poking saying do this, think about that they say leave me alone for 6 months you do, we're still there we're still ready, we'll poke them 6 months from now and say come on think about this and it's really fulfilling it's not as altruistic as anything in the medical profession I'm not an ER trauma surgeon but people really worry and get themselves in proper tears when it comes to finances it's a lovely thing to be able to genuinely alleviate a bit of that stress because I won't name names I had a client in the last couple of weeks really she was got herself completely out of sorts with the state of things all I had to do was just lay out it's not on paper, nothing's on paper these days on one of these little fancy programs we use a bit of software model out income, expenses model out the impact of gifting some money to a kid for a house and think you've still got X now for the rest of your days if we map in some conservative growth numbers and she was like what was I worried about and that is a really nice thing nice work to do I think two points from me it's a recurring theme of the podcast in a way whenever we do these finance ones I think before I started this and started doing it with Scott I had quite a cynical view to be honest of finance and investors and you know you think Wolf of Wall Street and you kind of have these biases it's not a world I know anything about and the more people I talk to like yourself coming on you go actually that I've been quite cynical about, I mean look we know that there are the more cynical routes into finance but I really like the way you frame that of actually yeah you are serving that purpose person with peace of mind you've not gone I want to make that person money you've gone I want that person to feel reassured and live the life and do all the other things that they want to do we can't control how much money we can make for people, the sad reality is we aren't in control of the markets because otherwise we would not be lending our services to other people, we'd be off somewhere doing it we are financial planners first investment managers and curators second, so what that means is we get to know the individual circumstances, their priorities, their values and that shifts focus appropriately and then when we find out ah, you know, basics are get your budgeting down, make sure you're living within your means, make sure there's some net difference left over in the month, then talk about savings, three to six months screw it away as the rainy day fund, then we can look at proactive investment and you know every step so far there's been value but then it's right, our real specialism kicks in, what's the right tax efficient way to start investing and then what's the most risk appropriate investments to pick for you, after that we've kind of done 90% of our job, it's you're in an appropriate well diversified basket of stocks, bonds, securities it maps your risk profile, it's value for money because we've picked cost effective providers and we know we're competitive cost wise compared to the rest of the advice market and then it's just keeping an eye on it and pruning if another Middle Eastern conflict kicks off or another Eastern European conflict kicks off or the price of oil does something, there's going to be wobbles in your portfolio that's just global markets and our clients if we do enough of the planning with them enough of the education, they get that and we say don't panic, you know this is what happened with COVID, bounce back this is what happened with a Ukraine Russian war, you know things return, if you've got faith that humanity is slowly but surely going in the right direction and that splits the room sometimes but over time things do go up and it's just, all we're actually having a conversation about is your staying power for time frame and if you need that money in the next year two years, don't invest, sit on it some cash products, interest rate products, whatever, past that investing is the only way to outpace inflation because otherwise your cash I mean you probably the way I see it is the cost of a pint in the pub, right I went out for a drink with Jay last week and it was the first time I've been to a very standard pub and it's been north of £8 £8.15 for a pint and I thought, well I wasn't quite through I was on my tenth came very easy after and you worry about it the next day but that's inflation at work you know, two years ago it was £6.95, £7.50 you know, it's just so money in the bank's great but just staring at it is doing yourself a disservice and that is half the battle for a lot of our clients it's like, come on, if you keep enough then let's start yeah quick question on that, and I know this is going to be dependent on what their needs are but you're going to get the first financial advice disclaimer from me, go on disclaimer, for the majority of people, is there an easy way for somebody to calculate what is enough to hold yeah, oh yeah, that's an easy one three to six months worth of living expenses, whatever you feel comfortable with, and that is a different amount for different people, if you've got high rent or you've got kids and dependents to look after, it could be anything from a couple of thousand to five, six thousand whatever suits the individual whatever you need, the work stop tomorrow keeps you for three to six months just to roll back a second, I think you kind of started to mention your process and I quite like that where I kind of started to visualise it as building blocks and you're kind of building a house and you get the foundations in first which is kind of your emergency fund, which I guess kind of Dave started with, could we dig into a little bit more in terms of your process, in terms of building that financial house I guess for the listeners to, I guess you just had a question there, for the listeners to get an understanding of like, I've got an emergency fund, so what's the next brick I need to be laying? It's really simple people typically come to us about stage two or three, but let me start with stage one, stage one is your budgeting, you know it's really boring it's really simple, whether you do it on a spreadsheet or a piece of paper, work out what income is coming into the household, if it's two people working, one whatever, what's coming in and then what's going out Do you look at daily budgeting as well, kind of like go through your bank accounts? Monthly is fine, like literally, what are you fixed, what are you non-fixed get the non-fixable part, you know you just go shopping, whatever, but most things can be, you know, you have a regular direct debit what's coming in versus what's coming out, if the going out is higher than the going in, you need to make some changes because it's simply unsustainable if the going out, if the coming in is higher than the going out, there's a difference there to begin building with so you've done your budgeting, next step is your debt, so if you've got any kind of consumer, ugly debt or whatever focus on perhaps squirrelling that down, you know, consolidate credit cards and personal finance loans shift them from, you know, 0% interest things until they're gone if you get yourself there, you're already winning, you know, you're ahead of a lot of the population. Would you usually go just on the debt side, because I know there's a few different kind of ways of dealing with debt is some people think about consolidating it on one place and then start paying it down, some people go for the highest interest first or go for the smallest debt and then work your way up, do you have any kind of preference or is it? It's what works for the individual, if you've got 10 different cards, consolidation just from a mindset point of view, you know, psychologically it's much easier to take bites out of one thing in front of you than it is to worry about because people bury their head in the sand, sometimes overwhelming in your job, in your relationship whatever, you bury your head in the sand, finances you know, it's never more true than when you're hiding from debt, you know we see that all the time, so just getting it front and centre typically is the first big win for a lot of people, but really it's how ugly is the interest you're paying on these things, how flexible are your options, so just avoid paying high interest at all costs because ultimately that's someone else making money off your efforts, you know, so budgeting first, just so that you understand what your household looks like focus then I'd say maybe focus on that three months worth of rainy day fund second, maybe put that ahead of the debt then your debt, then focus on perhaps a comfortable savings buffer if we're saying three months is minimum what's optimal, six months nine months, after that you're into investing territory, you're into the territory where you've done yourself a real solid, you and your family you know your finances month to month you're tackling debt which is going to be a journey, you've got your rainy day fund tucked away, ready for cars breaking down, boilers breaking down, holidays that need to happen and then it's all proactive from there, and the sad thing is most people come to us here, they've already kind of gone through all the pain and they've got themselves into positions like now I need a financial advisor and for a lot of the time that's true because we're charging people when there's not funds to invest for them on just out of time, and again we're not a charity we can only be so altruistic it's, you know, I'm going to pay to get your house in order with you, most people don't like the sound of that, but if they did they could recognise that the strength in spending 500 quid in a couple of sessions with an advisor could map out that the 1, 2, 3 first milestones then I think more people would do it but anyway, people come to us at this stage where it's like right I'm ready to invest whether it's £1000 a month £50 because of an inheritance or a windfall whatever, big bonus and that's when our job really starts, it's what's the most tax efficient way and what's the most appropriate way to invest this now for the medium to long term and obviously I know you can't give any advice on this, so full disclaimer there what kind of tax efficient vehicles are actually like open to people to use I can speak generically, absolutely so the obvious, obvious ones for most people out there, it's just licenses and pensions in the UK it's a boring, when you say pension people gossip, especially people our age because yeah, they really do and then you speak and you speak to people kind of probably our parents' age and they think pensions are a wobble in X decade I don't like the sound of them it's a misunderstanding, pensions are literally just a wrapper, a type of account what you then invest via the pension is what's important so when you're our age and you need the money be it 5 years, 10 years ICE is the most flexible vehicle invest, great, tax free you know, CPT free, income tax free after that anything that's genuinely surplus if you can afford £250 a month £500, whatever, pension planning most people do that for their jobs anyway by default, but if you can kind of like, you know, throw petrol on that fire, it just is the best kind of long term, compounded investing and I've got, again pension, it's an interesting period where it's probably the first time in history that we, our generation and potentially generations just before us are going through where we have to look after ourselves there's no, we went from a DB pension scheme where you'd be working for a company and they would, essentially you'd get, your pension would pay out until you die, right, and it would increase so everyone would be very comfortable switched over to the DC model where it's essentially look after yourself, right, and I think spend your lump sum wisely, yeah and it's very much like, people aren't saving enough for their retirement, you don't really know how much you need, and you don't know how long you're going to live for, so I think in the next 30 years when we all start retiring, everyone's going to be like, shit, I didn't save enough yeah, yeah, and then it's our job as the kind of, not the fear mongers or whatever, but just be poking as many people as we can until then, to be like, no one wants to work to their 70, 75, so start doing something about now. And what would be the benefit from because everyone's got, all have a workplace pension, what's the benefit of using an advisor to kind of manage their pension for them, would you say as opposed to the workplace, or would you typically, most people are generation and we already know it to be true about all three of us you hop from job to job so we would normally say leave the pension where you're currently working, doing its thing, because there's an employer there adding to it it's money for nothing really, they're obligated to, and if they're a generous employer they'll go above and beyond their obligation, leave that building up, once it gets to a sizable amount, enlist us and we can come in underneath it, steer the investments a little bit, but really the strength is, you've been in three other workplaces in the last 10 years, 15 years let's see what they're doing, because a lot of the time they're just left trundling along very passive, you know not invested with any real aim so a lot of the work we do is like consolidating, bringing sort of the two, three, four previous workplace pensions over, building a lump that again the whole front and centre thing really is powerful, you and the client can look at, you've got this personal pension now, yes your workplace wants you to build enough, but why don't we invest both in a strategy that suits you, because you're the age you are, because it's all of your net worth or it's half, because you've got property from whatever and that is part of the gig, so the advice is if it's a sizable enough part an advisor just throws petrol on what it would be doing it helps direct it appropriately, but if you've got two or three wayward pots somewhere and it's just to get in front and centre for you and really start working on it. Perfect what's the time by the way, I know you're looking at your watch two minutes, let's start wrapping up more inviting questions I know yeah I mean yeah we're not stopping I thought I'd just check I've got a question, go on my whole job is financial habits financial health checks and whatever fitness and health I know yours is the physio angle but what do you say to people with the ailments, they come in with bits hanging off of them and sore bits and everything I've always been a very all or nothing with my exercise I'll do six months on, I'll have three months where it's just the gym and all that, it's like a distant memory, how do you keep consistent what do you see with people that do fitness well, health well for the long term I think that's a really good question, I think you probably know the answer, that boom and bust that kind of boom and bust cycle of approach to fitness and health is never that helpful consistency as you'll know with the financial stuff, consistency is key and I think I think try and reframe it of like there is a general baseline of what you are going to do and it's almost non-negotiable, so it's like look, if I haven't in a week a little bit of something is always better than nothing and I always think that I know that we are especially at our age and especially if you're building business, you're time poor and I understand that but I think an energy poor but I think trying to reframe that actually, number one there's enough studies out there but doing any kind of health and fitness, getting your cardiovascular engine going a little bit will give you more energy as long as it's not look, don't go and run for two hours and don't try and smash a high rock style gym session if you're in those busy periods but I think the thing for me is I will always keep ticking over, let's get a run let's just put my shorts and t-shirts on get out for 15 minutes without that overthinking of what am I going to do in the gym today just get out and go and you will normally find as you'll find with most things in life the starting is the hardest part and you go okay I'll do my 10 minute run and you get into it and you go okay I'll go for 20 minutes or another one that I use really frequently is I don't actually massively love the idea of yoga but actually wake up in the morning brush my teeth, I'll do a little bit of stretching suddenly my body feels better then I might feel like I'm doing a little bit of exercise, we then have those periods in life where if you've got that kind of solid baseline where you're doing a little bit of something and a little bit of movement you start to become a bit more aware of what things might be sore and you might, okay this hip's actually quite sore and I hadn't noticed it and now I can start working on it a little bit more or go and see somebody reassure myself and those kind of points you're making and then look when you've got those times where time is a bit more dead and you have got a bit more free time okay now I'm going to ramp up my fitness because you've got that baseline you've kind of got that, everything ticks over and I just get my stuff done I'm not going to be in the best possible shape but I think people do it in nutrition and people do it in health and fitness, I've got one mate I'm not going to call him out, I've got one mate one mate who's the worst at this, he goes through these periods of like eating really really poorly, drinking all the time super busy with work, no gym time and then I'll get a text can you design me a plan, can you design me a plan for the next two months and I've got to the point where I go no, to be honest mate just start doing a little bit consistently because otherwise we're in this period where you go I'm eating naff, I'm eating donuts every day I'm doing no fitness to the absolute unsustainable training, you know he said to me the other day I'm training twice a day and I'm eating chicken and broccoli and it's like that's going to be sustainable for two weeks but and if you could do that all day every day great but that's cool being a professional athlete and you certainly aren't one of those so do a little bit of something I guess similar to what you guys are doing I asked the question because I wanted a better answer I wish there was but I think not over not overdoing the consistency doesn't need to be mad to just stay ticking over it's so easy to be better than the average person with the stuff you do it blows my mind if I'm honest that the average person struggles to get like 8-10,000 steps in a day as a bare minimum that's just walking that's the modern world isn't it if we can get doing that 5-10 minutes of yoga I think there is this habit formation of you start to build those healthy habits we could spend a whole hour on this but the habit psychology values led I'm someone who works out, I'm someone who exercises 10-15 minutes a day as a minimum that's half the battle seeing yourself as someone where the pull of that is more attractive than the push of the bad health habits I was genuinely hoping for a better answer an easier one I think everyone is same with you how do I become rich it is the same thing consistency Tom, thank you very much thank you for coming didn't think it would go where it went we had some questions prepared we touched on a few completely open conversations usually the best ones now it's time to sign out as we usually do welcome to join in on this one disclaimer everything we said in this podcast is our opinion only if you do need extra help, remember to seek professional help and talk money with Tom thank you for coming in Tom if you want to go and check him out how do we check you out just pop it in Instagram or Google if my marketing team have done their job right I should be page 5 or 6 cheers guys