Work It Like A Mum
Work It Like A Mum
Smart Money Moves: Financial Planning Tips Every Woman Needs
In this episode of Work It Like a Mum, we chat with Olivia Shipstone, a Chartered Financial Planner and founder of OCS Financial Planning. Olivia shares her expert insights on financial planning, saving, investing, and how mums (and everyone!) can take control of their money to achieve financial freedom.
What We Cover:
- Olivia’s journey from big banks to running her own financial planning business
- Common financial mistakes and why starting early matters
- How to set meaningful financial and life goals
- Saving vs. investing: what you need to know
- Tax-free childcare, funded hours, and child benefit tips
- Supporting your child through education, from nursery to university
- How financial planning is for everyone, not just the “rich”
Key Takeaways:
- Start early: Even small steps matter—know where you are now.
- Set goals with purpose: Focus on lifestyle outcomes, not just numbers.
- Automate savings: Make it out of sight, out of mind.
- Plan around life stages: Childcare, career changes, and family needs shift over time.
- Financial advice is for everyone: Tailored planning helps anyone achieve their version of financial security.
Why Listen:
Whether juggling kids, a career, or both, this episode gives practical strategies for building wealth, reducing financial stress, and making your money work for your life, no matter your starting point.
Show Links:
Connect With Our Host, Elizabeth Willetts Here
Connect With Olivia on LinkedIn Here
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Hey, I'm Elizabeth Willits and I'm obsessed with helping as many women as possible achieve their boldest dreams after kids and helping you to navigate this messy and magical season of life. I'm a working mum with over 17 years of recruitment experience and I'm the founder of the Investing in Women job board and community. In this show, I'm honoured to be chatting with remarkable women redefining our working world across all areas of business. They'll share their secrets on how they've achieved extraordinary success after children, set boundaries and balance, the challenges they've faced and how they've overcome them to define their own versions of success. Shy away from the real talk? No way. Money struggles, growth, loss, boundaries and balance we cover it all. Think of this as coffee with your mates, mixed with an inspiring TED Talk sprinkled with the career advice you wish you'd really had at school. So grab a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, make sure you're cosy and get ready to get inspired and chase your boldest dreams, or just survive Mondays. This is the Work it Like A Mum podcast. This episode is brought to you by Investing in Women. Investing in Women is a job board and recruitment agency helping you find your dream part-time or flexible job with the UK's most family-friendly and forward-thinking employers. Their site can help you find a professional and rewarding job that works for you. They're proud to partner with the UK's most family-friendly employers across a range of professional industries. Ready to find your perfect job? Search their website at investinginwomencouk to find your next part-time or flexible job opportunity. Now back to the show.
Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Work it Like A Mum podcast. Today I am chatting with Olivia Shipstone, and Olivia is a financial planner. She owns her own company, ocs Financial Planning, and I'm delighted to have her on the podcast today. We're going to be talking all about financial planning and how you can get more financially fit financial freedom, which I know is something that she's really passionate about, particularly, um, giving financial freedom and ownership to women as well.
Speaker 1:Um, and you know, only 16 of financial advisors are women. So I think we're really lucky to have olivia today sharing her wisdom, particularly from that female lens as well, because olivia's mom, she gets it, she understands it, so she's going to be giving us loads of tips today. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. No, thank you what? So, yeah, only 16 of financial advisors are women. Um, you put that on your podcast and on your form um, do you've got any final and you know what brought took you into that field? Do you've got any financial advisors in your family? What inspired you to become one? No, it's a short answer.
Speaker 2:So, um, I come from a family of teachers. So both my parents and actually my twin sister are all teachers. Um, so I did, uh, business with French at university and I was actually very fortunate that my university degree was had a year in placement. So, um, there was a year and I worked at HSBC in Paris so just a big bank basically and then so I was like, oh, I didn't really enjoy the job, because in big corporations you're just kind of like another number, but I still had a real passion for, like maths. That was kind of what I enjoyed the most.
Speaker 2:Um, so I came home and I said to my mum I want to be a maths teacher and my mom was like Olivia, no, it's not for you. Like, obviously she loved teaching, but she just knew my personality and probably lack of patience maybe with kids and particularly maths. Obviously I loved, I love it, and I loved it at the time as well. But obviously she was like 90% of the kids you teach won't love it. So it's clear that way I'll get frustrated.
Speaker 2:So I was like, okay, and actually, um, one of her chair of governors because she was a head teacher at the time was a financial advisor and she said I'll speak to Simon, the chair of governors, and say, um, see if you can do some work experience there, because his children wanted to be teachers, so she'd helped him out. So she was like, okay, and see, I went to work there and I was like, oh my gosh, I love it. Um, I didn't work in his team because I wanted to really kind of understand whether I liked it or not. So I worked for his um, his business partner, and worked under his team. Um, before I went back to do my final year, and he was like, do you have to go back to uni?
Speaker 2:I was like, yes, I've not done three years for nothing and also, um, I still want to have a good final year and stuff, um, but yeah, he offered me a full-time job there and then before I finished uni, um, so it was just administration, but I knew that I wanted to be a financial advisor so they put me through a course. Yeah, that's kind of how I landed into the industry, um, and yeah, and I've loved it and I just knew straight away because I get that blend of enjoying and using my maths. But what I love and what, what excites me the most just getting to know people and relationship building and every individual story. Everyone's so unique, um, and getting to know them and helping them more than anything can really give it. Helping them on their plan, um, achieve where they want to achieve, and seeing them throughout their lifetime and do different things and different milestones um, it's really rewarding yeah, oh, it does sound it.
Speaker 1:So you worked for his company. And then, what prompted you to then branch out on your own?
Speaker 2:yeah, so I worked for him and went through training with their company, which took like over a year to get all my qualifications and be, yeah, a diploma qualification you need in the UK to be a regulated financial advisor. And then I was there for about 18 months and lovely like the two guys owned it, lovely like I can't fault them in that sense. Um, but we just have very different visions. Um, I think generally the industry is very male, pale and stale, um, and I just had different ideas and obviously respected it was his, their business, and they had different ideas. So therefore they were progressing with their ideas and their kind of growth plans rather than what I was coming with.
Speaker 2:And I was like I was, how old was I at the time? I think I was 23, 24 at the time and I was like, what a better time to take this risk and try it on my own. And I had no, no responsibilities in the fact of children. Um, I had, I had a mortgage, but I'd actually rented mine out because I met my husband well, my now husband at that time. So I lived with him and rented my place out, so and my outgoings were really low, um, and I was like, if I'm going to take this risk, I'll take it now. I'm still only 23, um, I can then obviously, um, if always, find a job, hopefully, obviously, if it didn't work out. But I thought, if I don't do it now, when will I do it? Um, because I I think obviously taking that leap can be more daunting when you've got other things to consider. Whereas I could be quite selfish with the decision, and it was only me I had to worry about, um, so, yeah, so that's that's what made me set up my own.
Speaker 1:I thought let's just go for it what was the first few years like um.
Speaker 2:I worked from the dining table and the printer was in the air and covered oh my god, yeah honestly, I think back now we've got like a full office, like 14 members, four desks and all this lot, and I'm'm just like this is how it started and it was like that for the first. Well, I was on my own for the first three and a bit years, completely doing everything from start to finish on my own, and now I can't. I wouldn't even know how to do it because my team are amazing and they're so good at what they do. But yeah, and obviously there were.
Speaker 1:How did you find your first clients when you were so?
Speaker 2:I was quite lucky because I'd worked previously in the business for 18 months and all the clients, the guys when I left, it was very amicable and stuff, and all the clients had the option to follow me.
Speaker 2:So actually I had some of my clients from the past 18 months because, again, like, yes, we're building a financial plan and any financial, any regulated, authorized financial advisor will be able to obviously advise them going forward. But it's really like I said at the beginning about those relationships that you build up. So actually they all decided to follow me, which was lovely to follow me, which was lovely, um, but then I just I just kind of like yes, just started to ask, like for referrals and networking, all of that kind of thing. And I actually tapped into the teaching sector which is ironic, going back to that and kind of understand, specializing that area for a while, just kind of offering seminars, which just allowed me to get in front of a group of people and show them what I know and what I can do and how I could help them, and in turn, that also, um, gave me leads there as well. So, yeah, that's where it was, that how it kind of all started to develop.
Speaker 1:I love that. I loved my business also started from my dining room table. Yeah, minimal capital, there wasn't much investment, and I just I quite like that. You just sort of start going and then see where it takes you and then you look back and think, wow, that's amazing yeah, exactly, exactly, I was, yeah, it was.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, I just can't, I just can't imagine it now, but did you work long hours, if you were doing everything um because obviously, when you're starting you're not at from a, because we're a service provider, effectively we're not at capacity.
Speaker 2:So we've got obviously downtime when, um, when we, when I obviously you can only do so much on one client, for example um, however, I probably didn't. I worked really sporadic hours. I'd work whatever class um hours suited the client more than anything. So there wouldn't be days where, well, there could have been, but it wasn't like I was working like 7am to 7pm or 9pm every single day. But there'll be like, obviously again, clients, because a lot of it is meetings and at the time they're all face to face as well, which has massive changed since COVID.
Speaker 2:Um, obviously I was in the car a lot and then people also, sometimes their preference, particularly if they're still working, is an evening appointment. So I did a lot more evening appointments, whereas now one having children and two, obviously, being that bit more established, I'm a bit more, um yeah, strict with my time and obviously my family time. So I only offer like one um one evening a week where I do evening appointments and they'll all be hold on zoom anyway and stuff like that. So I'd probably say, yeah, if you count up the hours, it's probably a lot, but not kind of like. It's just just trying to find ways and trial and error of things when you're starting out, isn't it? It's all kind of like seeing where it goes and hoping that something just clicks yeah, so what's the biggest financial mistake you see people making?
Speaker 2:um, not starting early enough?
Speaker 1:okay, what do you mean? Not starting what early enough?
Speaker 2:just starting considering their position, because I completely appreciate that, um, sometimes life throws things whereby we might might have disposable income at some point in our life and then it will slow down kids and then we might pick back up when they're back, when they go into school and less in child care and stuff like that. But I think it's just kind of understanding what position you are at any given point and people, what we do, just naturally kind of dig our head in the sand, right, and just think, well, I've got, I've got no disposable income, there's no point me even looking at it, whereas at least if you look at it and understand what that position is, then you, you know what you're working towards and also you can really help visualize where you want to be in the future as well. And because if we don't know where the starting place is, we don't know where the, how big the gap is either. Um, so I think just just kind of like starting start to have conversations, even just kind of really, um, and, like I said, understanding what you have.
Speaker 2:Now, when I have an initial call with a client, I ask them to pre-complete a questionnaire which I call a financial snapshot, and effectively it's a two-pager which makes the client go and look at all different areas of their finances and seeing what they have, and they're surprised about what they find they're like oh, I had this piece of paper. I didn't realize I had this pension anymore. And it's just having that all in one place, first of all, to know what's best with those, what you've already got, but, like I said, then also how we build on that as well. And I think engaging whether it's with a financial planner or just starting your own financial journey is so daunting, like we're not taught it at school. There's so much noise out there now. There's a lot of what I call influencers and I think it's great the education side of it but it can be really dangerous as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because a lot of them probably don't have your diploma yeah, well, I'm actually a chartered financial planner and a fellow, which is the highest qualification you can get now as well. So like two, three above the diploma anyway. But yeah, it's diploma is a minimum. But even if you have a diploma some people can you can do the exams. You need to be regulated as well to be receive it, to be given financial advice and obviously, for the safety of the client as well, they want a regulated um diploma, minimum diploma, qualified financial advisor as well. So I think it's good the concepts that they deliver through their social media. I think that is all great, but I just think it's really important that people don't view that as advice.
Speaker 2:Um yeah, and even that I'd always, like, said, personalize it to yourself and make sure you seek your own personal flat plan and stuff. So that's, that's the other thing that it's good to kind of educate yourself but also be mindful of If they were like. I always think that it's one of those things if it's too good to be true, maybe it is kind of thing yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, when you see people selling, oh, I've made this and I'm selling this at like £10. You see people selling, um, oh, I've made this and I'm selling this at like 10 pounds. Well, if you made that much money like millions, we're talking about that. I see people saying like, oh, I've made millions in trading, or whatever it is, by the way, trading is different to investing but, um, I've made millions in this way. Um, then it's like if you've made that much, why do you need to sell a 10 pound product?
Speaker 1:yes, I just think go and enjoy your life I'll be sitting on the beach sipping a cocktail yeah, yeah, that is a really good point.
Speaker 1:So you find out where you're at, obviously either through you, or maybe you just look at all. You find all your pots. Yeah, you could do that in your own time, absolutely yeah, and add it all up and then, and then how do you? I guess you know it's like I suppose this is where you're, you come, but like thinking about where you want to go, you know what would be good goals do you think for people to have in life generally?
Speaker 2:Yeah, great question Again. This is on my financial snapshot. We ask all of our clients at the beginning and actually it's the first question before we even go into what they've got because their goals is what motivates you, it's what's going to where you want to get to, why you work effectively. Are you like, what's your why and all of that stuff. I think it's really good to dissect them into different timescales. So we always do short terms, the less than five years, medium terms of five to 15, and then longer term, 15 years plus Because you're not going to have one goal that fits all kind of different strategies, going to have one goal that fits all kind of different strategies. So it's really important to dissect it and because obviously you have different plans or different pots of money effectively for each different goal and outcome.
Speaker 2:And then when I talk about goals, people always think, oh, I need a monetary amount. Next like, oh, I need a pension of 500,000 pounds, or I want to buy a house worth 400,000 pounds, whatever that looks like. And really, the monetary amount, yes, obviously, if there's a house value that might work, but a pot of a pension of 500, what does that mean? Because it's really about the lifestyle that's going to give you the income that needs to be generated, not really the pot value. And people focus too much on the pot value and, rather than reverse engineering it about, if you had 500 000000 pounds, what could that give you as an income? Is that enough for you in your circumstances? Because everyone is different, everyone's going to have different expenditure and stuff like that there.
Speaker 2:So I think, and also again, we call them financial goals, but actually, if you think about life, they're just our general life goals Because unfortunately, most things in this day and age has a monetary thing attached to it. So, whether that's kind of like have financial freedom or retire, you're going to need money to retire on and live on and stuff like that. So, again, like I said, people think that I need like specific monetary amounts. But that's really how I work with individuals to really kind of nail into that and kind of drill down into what that means and what that looks like and then kind of build the actual monetary amounts, how much you could be doing to get you there, etc. And whether you're on track or um or not currently, and stuff like that do you need?
Speaker 1:because obviously I know there's certain times um, particularly when children are small, like you said where money feels really tight and you think I cannot afford to save or, you know, invest or whatever. Are there certain people that can't afford to save or invest, or should everybody be trying to save a little bit?
Speaker 2:So you're absolutely right. So you're absolutely right. I think there's probably a few key principles that I would that are ideally to have in place before you start looking to invest or save. But if you're saving, it should be for the shorter term. If you're investing, it's for the medium or longer term, because of inflation effectively is the main reason and also making your money work harder for you. So the first thing is you want to make sure that you have a level of emergency funds, um, just that rainy day fund, if something was to happen, probably not in a hot day like today, but if your boiler was to break in the middle of winter. You don't want to have to wait for your next pay packet to be able to fix it, particularly if you have a young family and you want to have that in reserves to be able to obviously get that sorted um straight away. And so your emergency funds. Again, it's going to be personal to you, but as a rule of thumb we tend to say three times your monthly expenditure is a minimum you want to have in emergency funds. Then also, you'd want to make sure that all your um there's no kind of really high interest short term debt. You want to pay that down because, again, um, if you've got an interest, if you're paying debt, um an interest of over like 10% or something, then you you'll pay. There's no point investing because you'll pay more interest on that than what you'll get in a year with investing in a medium risk or on average, something like that. And then the other concept is if you need it in the short term, so if you need it in less than five years, you don't really want to be investing because you're exposed to volatility and you want to give it time to grow and see the benefits of that and therefore you might want to look at something more cash based, so a savings account with your bank, a cash isos, premium bonds, those kind of things. Um, if you, if you know the goal for that money is in the short term. So I think that's really important, um, to consider, make sure you've got kind of those covered up before you consider like investing and making your money work harder for you there.
Speaker 2:But on the flip side of that, actually a common thing where people don't realize they're already investing is if they're employed in, then a workplace pension, and so if you have a workplace pension through auto moment, which, again, if you're an employee um and you, then you have to have one offered. That isn't a pension. A pension is what we call the tax wrapper, so the surrounding of it, really, and then inside are your investing. It's in funds, normally a default fund that the um, that the scheme has chosen because they've got a duty of care to to give everyone a medium risk, because they don't know your personal circumstances, whether you want to take higher or lower, so something to be aware of. You've probably gone into a default fund, um, but you're still investing. So you still because of this auto enrollment that came in um quite a few years ago. Now most people are investing without even realizing as well.
Speaker 2:But it's about if you want to do anything on top of that um, if you have disposable income at any point. It's also not being too harsh on yourself and just thinking that's just a time and that's just my season in my chapter right now, and I know I'm paying, I whatever. It is like 800 pounds a month towards child care at the moment, but I know that my son is going to school in September. Then, okay, I'll probably still have to use about 400 for wraparound care and stuff like that. But then I've got 400 pounds a month that I've been paying for the last four or five years and now I'm not paying.
Speaker 2:Instead of that just being sunk into your personal expenditure again, because if it's there, we'll spend it, how about setting up again with advice, what's best for you, but setting up something where you could redirect that money so that 400 pounds then starts to be your investment and you start from there, so you're not actually spending any more monthly than you have been previously? Obviously you're just saving it for your future self now, instead of it going on nursery fees or something like that. Um, so it's just. It's just again. Just different seasons, different things will happen, and it's just about reviewing what what's best for you and to make sure you can maintain your lifestyle at all stages as well obviously child care is a big expenditure for lots of people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's the support available and who's eligible, and I think there is obviously some cutoffs and is there a way to get yourself eligible if you're not eligible, and things like that yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think here we're talking about tax-free child care and funded hours, um. So the eligibility in the um in England, so it's slightly different in Wales as well, so we'll just talk about in England. Um, in England you have to be earning over a certain amount, which I think, of the top of my head, is roughly about £9,000 and under £100,000. So your net adjusted income is just what they call. It has to be above between those two markers and that's per an individual as well. So you can have a household where two people are on £99,000 and they still qualify for it, um, but if someone's on, if someone's on 90 000 and the other person isn't working, they won't qualify for it, which again, it's not my decision but doesn't, doesn't make sense, but anyway it is what it is currently um, and so that's the eligibility.
Speaker 2:And the most conversation that I have with individuals is when they are breaching that hundred thousand pounds um, because they might be earning more than that. Now I mentioned a moment ago they, they, um, they say it's called net adjusted income, and net adjusted income is kind of like your total earning. So it's not just what you get with, not your gross, like annual pay, but we have to include bonuses, um interest, any dividends you get. We also have to include if you've got any rental properties, so all kind of earnings that you declare on your self-assessment, effectively minus some bits where you can adjust it, and the biggest one is pensions. So pensions or salary sacrifice options through work, which salary sacrifice often used for pension, but it can also be used for other things, such as car schemes, some even child care schemes can use salary sacrifice etc what about dividends?
Speaker 1:I remember when I used to work for hayes you could buy the shares like shares in the company your company that you worked for yeah, so that will be.
Speaker 2:Well, it depends on how you buy them or how they're gifted to you. It will be the classed as income, or, yeah, that would just be coming out of your disposable income anyway so yeah or but dividends, that those shares produce a dividend, so an income for you.
Speaker 2:Those dividends will be added to your total income. So the shares are kind of like what you're buying. The dividends is the income that is providing effectively. Um, so yeah, so anything we need to bring your net adjusted income and a hundred,000. And, like I said, the most common way of doing it is through pensions.
Speaker 2:Now, again, someone might automatically be under £100,000 through work and just don't realise because of the calculations that they need to do. So that might be the case. Or I have clients who again then therefore make other financial plans and decisions to to put more into a pension, to bring them underneath it, because obviously it depending on how much over the hundred thousand pounds they are. Again, we have allowances we can put into pensions. So that's again some of the clarification that you'll need on your circumstances. But, um, but they are. Yes, there's still money going out, but that money's going out to save for their future self rather than going out just to go to the nursery fee. And they're getting the extra funded hours which in September, for everyone over nine months, will be a full 30 hours if they qualify for it so it is massive it's gonna be like from.
Speaker 2:If you qualify it, it can give you a lot of extra child care and it's probably costing you near 800 pounds or so. Now, um, obviously it depends on where you are in the country. So it, yeah, it is drastic change, um, but therefore, obviously it's even more important why people want to kind of make sure that they still um, yeah, still eligible effectively and stay under that £100,000 mark within the tax year as well. You have to confirm every three months as well, so we need to make sure that every three months, we still remain under that really as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've heard of people refusing pay rise and things to stay under that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's a tricky one really because, again, being an advocate for uh, for women and gender gaps all over the place, it's frustrating because I don't want you to decline a pay rise. We've worked so hard for this and we're trying to still reduce the gap even with this pay rise. So I think definitely, if that's where you're sitting is definitely seek advice to see if you could accept that pay rise but still obviously benefit from it. Obviously it's a fine line and sometimes, yeah, if, if that pay rise is x amount and we've not got the wiggle room to bring it back down under 100, it's a conversation.
Speaker 2:But then there's other things that when people decline pay rises, I always speak to individuals about what else can the employer give you instead of it being a set pay rise? Can they offer any other employee benefits? Can they just put more into your pension for you rather than it being in your pay, so an employer contribution? Can they offer you, um, some extra life insurance, some extra, some extra pay, some extra holiday like? I'd much rather next year when my son starts school, rather than a pay rise, I might say I can have an extra five days holiday a year because it will help me over the summer holidays. Like just think about how that remuneration can be converted in other ways as well, rather than just um shooting yourself in the foot and letting potentially a male counterpart take that place instead.
Speaker 1:Yeah, really, really good advice. What about self-employed people? Are they eligible? Are there different rules for them? Yeah, they are.
Speaker 2:So it's still the same um basis with regards to income, but if they've just set up, they have a bit of a year grace period, um.
Speaker 2:So again, particularly with the lower um income threshold, so I think it's like roughly about nine thousand pounds and the lower threshold because obviously it's so sporadic we know we're very self-employed and it can start really slow because that's just how it's not your business um.
Speaker 2:So they have a years they, when you reconfirm every three months, as long as you're on track to achieve that throughout the year. If you've not achieved that within the three months, then um, you've got a bit more grace in your first year. So, self-employed, yeah, work is actually the same with regards to that um and that. That applies for obviously tax-free child care and funded hours um. And then I guess the other child benefit you can have is child benefit um. But you have to be well, to get the full child benefit, each parent has to be below 60 000 pounds um. So that's just your kind of old school it's been around for ages child benefit um. But again, there's another reason why if and so it's 60 000 um. If you earn anything between 60 000 80 000, it'd be proportionately kind of like given to you, or you'll get all of it and you proportionally have to give it back through tax. Um, after 80 000 you've lost all of your child benefit.
Speaker 2:However, again, there's some scenarios where it might be and again, looking at your personal situation, it's really important to get advice, might be beneficial. If one person in the household is earning over £80,000, you still request for the child benefit and you can request to receive the child benefit but no monetary amount. And what I mean by that is when you are, when you're receiving child benefit, you get a tick. Effectively, whoever's in receipt of it or claiming it is what they call it is whoever's claiming that child benefit gets a tick in their box from National Insurance that year. So if there is a parent who is a stay at home parent and maybe because the children are young and the partner is working, whatever that looks like, and and they wouldn't qualify for child benefit, they might still want to claim it, like I said, without monetary amount, because then they have a tip from the national insurance which will affect their state pension eligibility later on. Um, so again, that's also to be mindful of. But the person that needs that national insurance check needs to be the person that is claiming it so effectively, the person that's not working, or something like that.
Speaker 2:And then there's another little gem about that If you, even if you are both working, but your grandparents so your parents, the child's grandparents are helping out, do you still again want to do the same thing claim it but either pay it back in full or just ask for no monetary amount? Because if you're working, you're obviously already ticking your national insurance as long as you're earning over that threshold. But you've also got another tick in the box which you can't double your national insurance in one day. So you've got a spare tick effectively to give away, and you can give that to a grand, well, to your parent, to the child's grandparent, if they're helping out with care. Um, up until top of my head, I think it's 12, might be eight, I think it's 12 anyway, up until a certain age, uh, which is normally when they help out the most. Isn't they young when the child's the young, younger?
Speaker 1:and they'll get it if they've got an incomplete national insurance record, Correct yeah, so I'm actually doing that for my mum.
Speaker 2:She's been working for over 35 years, but to get your full state pension you need 35 qualifying years. Again, people that are coming towards state pension might want to check what their state pension and qualification is. So it's about the qualifying years, not just how many years you've been working. And she was short, effectively. Um, so yeah, I'm. It's called a specified adult credit or something along those lines.
Speaker 1:I bet there was a lot of women that are short, that maybe didn't work. You know, back in the 80s, 90s, when I was growing up and exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, or, as also there's been a lot of change with the state pension. So the reason why my mum's short is because she was in the teacher's pension scheme. Like I said, she was a teacher and they actually something called SERPs and STP is where effectively opted out the state pension qualifying bit for a period of time and the teacher's pension automatically did that for a period of time. So again, even though she wasn't aware, really, um, she's sure, even though she has been working. So, yeah, it's just.
Speaker 2:And it's just nice, because grandparents quite often don't ask for any remuneration for looking after their grandchildren, um, but it's nice to know because every year, every year extra, that you can gift them into their state pension. It's pretty much about I think it's over that now, it's about over five pounds a week that you add into their state pension amount, um, for the rest of their life as well. So it could be quite a nice remuneration by the end. It's not cost anyone anything. You're eligible for it anyway, um, so, yeah, it's just. That's just a kind of extra little trick that some of my clients are made aware of, depending on their circumstances and what they're doing for their so just before you go, I just wanted to ask the other end of the childhood.
Speaker 1:You know, in a way I always think, actually, you think my children are at school now and you think, oh, it's going to get cheaper when they start schooling. But I notice all the extracurricular stuff gets more and more expensive. And you hear about the trips at school. I'm on my own at high school yet, but they, um, there's a trip to high school which is like 2000 pounds. I'm like god, I don't know who affords that. Um, but obviously then they get even bigger and um, you know, hopefully a lot of them will go to university and that is a massive expense. You know how, if you're a parent, what ways can you support your child through university?
Speaker 2:Great, question um, it's a mixture really. Most of my clients, if they're in that situation and again it now it's now a lot more means tested than it once was, um, but they allow their child to get whatever grants and loans are out there are available because, yes, they have to repay it back, um, and yes, there is interest, but it's all proportionate to the income they earn after when they start in employment and only starts paying back after a certain amount. And but also, again, people are quite mindful of this quite early on and so they might do some of their own personal financial planning is with, is a pot of money earmarked for higher education effectively and to support them? Or it might just be that then at that point, their income sorry, their expenditure every single month they're like, oh, we're helping our child out with 200 pounds per month towards x, y and z, and so that's now one of our expenses each month. And again, as your children get older, you also get older and therefore developing your career. So you might have progressed through your career and had pay rises and increased pay over that time as well. So again, that's another reason why people are mindful yes, they've got a higher expenditure or expenditure like they had at the early stages again, but also that they're earning a lot more than what they were 10, 15 years ago, whenever um, whenever it might have been originally started or something like that. And and then the other thing is actually investing directly for that child straight away from birth.
Speaker 2:So have quite a few children that utilize um, something called a junior isa um, so you can put up to nine thousand pounds in any tax year for you for a child um, and it's in that child's name, but they don't have access into it until they're 18. That's the caveat, though, because once they're 18, it's technically theirs um. So it really depends on, obviously, your, your, anyway, your relationship with money, your views. But if you start it early on, you can start kind of pre-warning them about we've got this money for you, but it's not just to blow on like a car or some things, yeah, yeah, or education, or, quite often as well, um, house deposits as well. That's the other kind of consideration, um. So, yeah, I definitely think it's. It's again personal to what that individual circumstances look like, um, but again, particularly as they start secondary school as well, maybe not when they start, but more towards year year nine, which is what's that like?
Speaker 1:14 four years out to university.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, they know what their child's like and whether that is going to be a route that they they explore or not. Um, and then they just just start kind of considering that now and whether that's for those four years, save whatever they want to give them in the future. So they've got a pot of money to start off with. But also then again they're used to putting 200 pounds a month aside and so that when they do start university, instead of saving that 200 pounds, they're giving it to that directly to them and stuff like that really. So it's just about. It's just about kind of like understanding, obviously, each individual working with what you've got, and then I guess the bottom line is automizing where you can as well.
Speaker 2:So it's out of sight, out of mind. You've started early, it becomes a habit and you'll get used to it, you. You obviously then don't see that as your income because it's goes. We normally set direct debits out for the day after someone gets paid. So it's quickly out of sight, out of mind and because if we always wait to what's left at the end of the month, well, guess what, there's nothing ever left at the end of the month, because that's just how we all are as natural humans. Oh, we've got this, we can spend this blah, blah blah, and so I guess that's another kind of fundamental to um making it work for you, just trying to optimize where you, where you can, there as well oh, this has been such a good episode.
Speaker 1:I feel like I've got so much, so many ideas. Thank you so much for joining us is it only rich people? That's why I want to know is it only rich people that come and see a financial advisor?
Speaker 2:no, this is my, this is my pet peeve and, like the biggest myth, um, like I said right at the beginning, I think everyone needs to know where they stand and and also define rich like what's your rich? My rich is the fact that I can see my children grow up and spend hours with them. So I guess that's one of the one of my points, um, but no, I just think you work within your means and it's really important you know what that means to you. Everyone.
Speaker 2:Everyone deserves, obviously, a financial plan. Everyone deserves to know where their future is heading, irrelevant to what that monetary amount looks like, um, it works for you and that's why financial planning is completely tailored to you. So I think it is, uh is important to start on the journey, whatever your position, because it's relative to you and it's personal to you, and so on. I've got clients that need 20 000 pounds a year to live off. I've got clients that need 100 000 pounds a year to live off and obviously that that just changes need £100,000 a year to live off, and obviously that just changes each of their plans, but they're both very, they're all very happy and obviously comfortable and happy with what they've got and that's what's most important.
Speaker 1:Brilliant. So how can people find you, connect with you, maybe book an appointment? Sure, so.
Speaker 2:I am well. I'm on LinkedIn, but I've been a bit quiet for the last six months because it's been a bit hectic, which is always good, I can't complain. We've got a new training advisor as well, starting in the practice, which is really good. So I'm on LinkedIn. We're on Instagram under financial underscore advisor, um, and my website's just ocsfinancialplanningcouk or wwwocsfinancialplanningcouk, and there's a bit more about me, um, and what we do and how we work, and then there's also a contact us option on the website as well brilliant well.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, olivia, for joining us today. It's been a real pleasure to chat. Thank you so much. Bye-bye. Thank you for listening to another episode of the work. It like a mum podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, and don't forget to share the link with a friend. If you're on linkedin, please send me a connection request at elizabeth willett and let me know your thoughts on this week's episode. You can also follow my recruitment site, investing in Women on LinkedIn, facebook and Instagram. Until next time, keep on chasing your biggest dreams.