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Full podcast episode transcript
[0:09] Susannah Streeter: Hello and welcome to the Switch Your Money On Podcast, with me, Susannah Streeter – Head of Money and Markets here at Hargreaves Lansdown.
[0:15] Sarah Coles: And me, Sarah Coles – Head of Personal Finance.
[0:17] Susannah Streeter: And I’m very pleased to say we are going to be joined on the podcast today with Bradley Clark – who’s a Financial Advisor with Hargreaves Lansdown.
Hello, Bradley.
[0:27] Bradley Clark: Hello – thanks for having me on again.
[0:28] Susannah Streeter: Great you can be with us.
Now, we’ve had a fair amount of uncertainty around on financial markets recently – and also in terms of what’s going to be happening to economic growth. There’s been this volatility – that’s calmed down – but now the focus is on what governments are doing to try and propel growth – and we’ve had the latest snapshot from the United States.
Now, all of this can be extremely worrying – just on a broader picture – but it can feed into money anxiety on the micro-level as well – can’t it, Sarah?
[1:02] Sarah Coles: Yes – the bigger world is one of the things people worry about – but money, in general, does inspire quite a lot of anxiety. It’s one of those areas that people either feel that they don’t know enough about – or that they do know enough about, but they don’t feel in control of. And so, there’s all sorts of reasons why people might be worried about money, in general – and, obviously, when the world is a bit unpredictable about that, in particular.
[1:23] Susannah Streeter: And you’ve had a bit of an unpredictable weekend as well, haven’t you? – because you’ve been moving house – and I know... anybody knows – who’s actually gone through this process – how unpredictable it can be – and just how worrisome as well.
[1:34] Sarah Coles: Yes – it’s not just the whole, ‘Have you got all the boxes – and have you left any children at the other house?’ – it’s the whole, ‘Can I afford it – and have I paid everybody?’ That is very stressful – in every way.
[1:43] Susannah Streeter: The only stress I had was trying to work out whether the camper van would go up this really steep slope – in Gloucestershire, at the weekend – or whether I was gonna burn the sausages! So, for me, it was a pretty chilled weekend, ...
[1:53] Sarah Coles: Cuh!
[1:53] Susannah Streeter: ...but I’m thinking, the end of the weekend, you’re a lot more relaxed as well.
[1:57] Sarah Coles: Yes – as soon as you’ve unpacked the beds, you’re largely there! – ...
[1:59] Susannah Streeter: [Laughs]
[1:59] Sarah Coles: ...I think that’s the main thing.
[2:00] Susannah Streeter: Okay – so we are gonna be focusing on money anxiety in this episode – and we’re gonna get all of the expert views from everybody assembled here – including Helen Morrissey – Head of Retirement Analysis.
But let’s just touch on what’s been happening on financial markets – what’s been driving some of this anxiety – and, of course, we did get a bit of a snapshot of the US economy. It showed that, on an annualised basis, it shrank in the first three months of the year – which did come as a bit of a shock – partly due to the effect of lots of companies stockpiling because they were getting anxious about the tariffs looming – and what they could mean, going forward.
We’ve also had hopes from the British Government that they would be, soon, able to strike a deal with the United States – to try and alleviate the worst of the tariffs – to try and alleviate some of those worries – but that hasn’t happened. They’re not at quite the back of the queue – which they seemed to be around the time of the Brexit Referendum. Joe Biden famously said the UK was at the back of the queue. They’re certainly not at the front of the queue – they may have jumped forward a few paces, but it’s not really great shakes, given the fact that the US-noise coming from the White House are that the UK will be in the second order of things when it comes to striking a trade deal.
[3:23] Sarah Coles: And, I suppose the other thing – with the noises coming out of the White House – is that level of uncertainty. So, those each individual different industry... it could be under different sorts of pressure that we don’t even know about just yet.
[3:33] Susannah Streeter: No.
[3:33] Sarah Coles: So, this, ‘A new day – a new announcement’ – and who knows where we’re gonna be tomorrow!
[3:37] Susannah Streeter: So, quite a lot of worries – of course, threat of tariffs has loomed really large in terms of politics as well. We had Mark Carney, in Canada – the Liberal leader... he seemed to be really on the back foot, but then he turned it around in a stunning victory during the General Election, didn’t he? Then, we had Australia’s result – and it seemed as though this feeling that their Liberal leader was a bit too much like Trump on the election campaign – that put off voters.
I mean, the tariffs are looming large wherever you look – and it’s obviously concerning for the UK Government as well. We’ve talked about the fact that they won’t necessarily be at the front of the queue in terms of trade – but we’ve also just had the May election results – and Reform really did gain a lot of ground – and that certainly would be worrying.
We’ve got the Budget, of course, coming up later this year. It seems that there are a lot of unhappy people around, and the prospects for the UK economy don’t look super-bright either because the economy is forecast to slow down in terms of growth. So, there is certainly a lot going on.
[4:47] Sarah Coles: There’s so much uncertainty – and it’s right across the board – but, from an investor’s point of view... I mean, there are some things that, typically, people look to do at times of uncertainty. And I wanted to ask you a bit about this idea of ‘Safe havens’ – that people might be looking at if they’re thinking, ‘Ooh, everything’s a bit worrying – maybe I’ll move into something with the word ‘Safe’ attached to it.’
[5:05] Susannah Streeter: Yeah – that’s why you’ve seen gold really jump up to record levels. It seemed to fall back a little bit and then reach fresh ground. And gold is historically seen as a safe haven, but it isn’t without risk – because, actually, the return on gold doesn’t always beat inflation – but gold has also, historically, been pretty volatile.
So, you shouldn’t put all your eggs in a golden basket – you’ve gotta still make sure that you are very well-diversified – because what goes up quite rapidly can also come down quite rapidly as well. So, it’s really important you’ve got your eyes on that really diversified portfolio.
[5:45] Sarah Coles: And, just because people use the word ‘Safe haven,’ it’s really important to know that it’s not safe – it’s just a word people use! [Laughs]
[5:52] Susannah Streeter: Yeah – I mean, obviously, as a part of a diversified portfolio, it can... and some investors have found that, over time, it can really help bolster that. The problem is, of course, when you have seen these really sharp rises, people are still piling in, expecting it to continue to rise – that’s where it can be more dangerous and risky.
[6:12] Sarah Coles: And one of the things that’s traditionally seen as being a slightly less volatile asset than shares is government bonds – and, of course, what we’ve seen with government bonds is that they’re not a sure thing either – especially in the US.
[6:24] Susannah Streeter: The bond market can also be volatile, depending on the economic and political temperature of the time. So, that’s why it’s very important – in the words of Warren Buffett – that it’s time in the market – making sure you’re going after quality – and also making sure you are very well-diversified.
And we’ve heard recently that he is retiring from his position as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway after many years – and he’s 94. Helen, that is a ripe old age to be retiring, isn’t it?!
[7:00] Helen Morrissey: It’s an incredible story, isn’t it? – the whole idea that, by and large, many of us look to retire early – and the fact that Warren Buffett has chosen to keep working until he’s well into his 90s. It’s a real sense of someone showing real purpose in their work – and getting real joy out of it as well.
[7:19] Susannah Streeter: Yes, you’re right, Helen. As Warren Buffett shows, some people work because they love it – but, unfortunately, others still work because they’re simply too worried to give it up. That’s right – isn’t it, Sarah?
[7:28] Sarah Coles: Yes – so it’s people worried that they don’t have enough money set aside – so I know Helen’s gonna talk about that in more detail. I just want to talk a bit about the way that we think about money as we’re going through our lives – and the anxiety that can be around money – particularly if people either don’t feel that they don’t understand enough about money, or that they don’t feel that they’re in control of it.
So, we actually do a piece of research – it’s the HL Savings & Resilience Barometer – and one of the things we look at is the impact of anxiety. So, it measures all sorts of things – it measures how much you’ve got in savings, whether you’re on track with your pension, whether you’re on track to own your own home – whether you’ve got enough money left at the end of the month. And what you can see from that is that the people who have high anxiety suffer on every single measure – so it affects every corner of their finances.
And, of course, it’s not just that, if you’re anxious, then your finances will suffer – it’s also, you become anxious about your finances – and so it’s this horrible, vicious cycle – that people get more and more concerned – and feel almost trapped and not able to act.
In some cases, anxiety’s part of a bigger picture – and it’s worth saying, of course, if you’re suffering from some sort of anxiety disorder, then the place to go is your GP and to get some support with it. But, if it’s more to do with your just being anxious around money, then the answer really lies in that financial education – because the more you understand, then the more straightforward things are – and the easier it is to see where the answers lie.
So, it can be a question of listening to podcasts like this! – or reading articles – or looking at guides. There’s all sorts of different things you can do – you can watch videos. Depends how you like to learn, but it’s just worth picking it up. You don’t need to know everything tomorrow – just have a little listen to something – have a little watch of something – and the more information that you pick up, the less stress that you’re going to feel about feeling that something’s going on out there and you don’t understand it.
[9:08] Susannah Streeter: And I suppose, Bradley, this is something that you have to deal with all the time – people saying, ‘Oh, should I really make that investment?’ – ‘Are you sure about that?’ – you know, telling you about their money worries before they’re willing, necessarily, to take a leap into doing some pretty sensible steps!
[9:23] Bradley Clark: Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the main reasons clients will come for advice in the first place is because something has triggered that – and that could well be money anxieties or money worries. But there are lots of different reasons – and, depending on your life stage, it depends on the kind of thing you might be worrying about at that time.
So, younger people might be worrying about student loans, for example, or starting a career. As you get slightly older, it might be starting a family – or, Sarah, moving house – as you were – and you’re maybe starting to think about retirement and wanting to make sure you’ve got something in place for the future. And then, when you get older, those worries are going to change – and it might be more getting to retirement – actually being able to stop work and starting to retire. It might be health worries – and paying for healthcare in the future – or even passing wealth on to the next generation.
[10:09] Susannah Streeter: What should people then be doing?
[10:12] Bradley Clark: So, even though money concerns will vary significantly from an 18-year-old to an 80-year-old... actually, the solution is fairly similar across the board – and that is to have a plan. And I know that’s quite a broad statement – but, when you’re building a plan, the fundamentals are largely the same. And one thing I would encourage anybody to do – whatever age you are – whatever your concerns might be... a good starting point is to pick up a pen and a piece of paper and just write down your goals. Just write down your objectives and what it is you want to achieve. And they can be really basic things – like going on holiday this year – or they could be longer-term things, such as retiring and living that sort of lifestyle. But, once you’ve written those goals down, that’s when you can start putting in place a strategy and a plan to achieve those goals – and that could be a really good starting point when it comes to addressing those anxieties you may be feeling.
[11:02] Sarah Coles: So, d’you have any strategies that you use with clients who are particularly stressed about money?
[11:07] Bradley Clark: I think one of the first things is understanding where it is you want to go – and understanding where you are at the moment – and then, understanding, from that, ‘Okay, this is what you want – and this is what you’ve currently got’ – and then you know, at least, what the problem is – and you can start putting in place some sort of plan to address that problem.
I think a really good starting point... once you’ve written down your objectives and your goals, is to understand your budget – and perhaps just to write down a budget. Once you’ve got a budget in place, you can then start allocating money, and allocating resources to the various goals that you’ve got – and you then know that you’ve got a plan starting to formulate.
[11:42] Sarah Coles: And, presumably, you’re dealing with particularly clients who are stressed about all this volatility – so how are you helping them with that?
[11:48] Bradley Clark: Yes – volatility... I think, sitting here and listening to the two of you talk, it’s just shown how many things are going on at the moment – and the things that people have to bear in mind. But I think, if you’ve got that plan in place – and you know what your goals are – and you know the strategy that you’ve got to achieve that – then there are things you can do with volatility.
I think there are some key fundamentals you need to have in place – for example, always making sure you’ve got a cash reserve that’s available.
So, we would typically say three to six months of your normal expenditure... have that as an accessible cash reserve – so that, if the boiler goes or the car breaks down, you’re not having to dip into your investments at what may not be a great time to do so.
From a protection point of view, I won’t go into huge detail on protection, but making sure that you’ve got income protection in place. So, if you’re unable to work from illness, you’ve got some income coming in. The same with Critical Illness cover – if you were to be diagnosed with some sort of critical illness, that can be a major worry for people – but, if you’ve got that kind of cover in place, it can really alleviate those concerns.
When I’m talking to clients about this, I always describe the cash emergency fund and your protection policies – including life insurance, if you’ve got others relying on you. They’re like the foundations to your house – and then, the investment and the pensions... that’s the house, itself – which is on top. So, the foundations... they’re a little bit underwhelming – they’re not that exciting – particularly when compared to building an investment portfolio – but they’re key to have – you need to have them in place.
[13:10] Sarah Coles: So, when clients come to you... I imagine some of them are quite keen to tell you what they’re worried about – but how d’you talk to people about their concerns if it’s not immediately obvious what they’re worried about?
[13:19] Bradley Clark: It’s a really good question. With advice, the key thing – when you first develop that relationship with a client – is trust. Once you’ve built that trust, you can then start asking the right questions to draw out those concerns. And the concerns can be a lot of the things that we’ve been talking about in this podcast – external events and volatility – and tariffs. But I think, for individuals who I’m working with, it’s actually more about the individual concerns. Concerns about having enough to retire, or the health – or it might be you’re worrying about a family member – or something like that – or it could even be concerns around not living your life to the full. Particularly with younger people, it might be, ‘I’ve got one eye on saving for the future, but also I wanna enjoy myself now – I don’t wanna miss out on my youth by saving for the future!’
So, as an advisor, it’s about getting that trust, firstly, and then asking the right questions – and then, once you know what those concerns are, that’s when you can start putting a plan in place to try and alleviate those concerns.
It’s gonna change – and I think one of the key things is not being afraid to go back to the plan – and reviewing it – and adapting and changing as things do change – and the sooner you’re able to do that, the better you can plan.
So, with university, for example, that is quite a big outlay. If you are a parent – and you’ve got children – and you’re going to want to help them towards university... particularly, with what we’ve talked about around volatility in mind, it would make sense to start that thinking early on – typically around five years before you might need to actually access that money to pay for university.
This could be relevant if you’ve got a child who’s got money inside of a Junior ISA, for example. As they approach 13 or 14, you might want to start thinking about de-risking that portfolio in anticipation of money being used at age 18 for university costs.
So, you’re absolutely right – things can change, and you have to adapt the plan – but the sooner you can do that – and the more open the dialogue – I think the better.
[15:10] Sarah Coles: And, presumably, one of those times that everything changes is when
you retire. So, it’s great to talk to you about lots of things, but we should talk to Helen about people’s plans around retirement – and their anxiety.
[15:21] Susannah Streeter: Yeah – and, Helen, Bradley talked there about de-risking when it comes to a certain age. That is crucial – isn’t it? – certainly in terms of when you’re looking at retirement – but it’s also getting that plan in place right at the beginning?
[15:36] Helen Morrissey: Absolutely. It’s really important to have a sense of what it is that you want out of your retirement – and, ‘How are going to get there?’
I think, with regards to the pension anxieties that people have, you’ve touched on quite a lot of them already – but the first one is... obviously, you’ve just come through a period of real investment volatility – and that always does tend to spike people’s anxieties – they’re seeing their pension portfolios go down in value, and there’s a real risk there of knee-jerk reactions.
Obviously, what we’ve been saying – and saying it in previous podcasts as well is... it’s really important to keep calm – keep that long-tern view going. Making these knee-jerk reactions, stopping contributions, changing investment strategies... you do risk crystalising losses – and that can make your situation more difficult to recover from.
I think – looking more broadly – people do tend to worry that they just haven’t done enough for their retirement. Our last opinion survey showed that people’s biggest retirement regrets centre around not doing enough. So, not saving enough – not contributing enough – and then assuming that they would be okay.
Now, I would say that there’s a lot that you can do to set your mind at rest here – and improve your retirement outlook. The key is to not put your head in the sand, first of all. What I would say is... check in on your pensions every so often to see how much you’ve got. You can make use of so many different tools out there – online pension calculators, for instance. They can tell you what you’re on track to receive – and then you can start thinking about whether that is enough for the retirement that you want.
Using these calculators, you can even model the impact of increasing your contributions over time, for instance – and it can give you the real sense of calmness – that you’re on track – that you’re doing enough – and, if you aren’t, it gives you time to do something about it. So, it’s really important to have that plan in place and to check in every so often – whether that’s using advice or doing it yourself – just to make sure that you are on track for what you want.
I think, if we follow through into retirement, the anxieties really don’t change there. The key thing is people worrying that they’re gonna run out of money – and that can mean they don’t take enough out of maybe a drawdown portfolio, for instance – and this could be known as ‘Reckless conservatism’ – where people underspend through fear – and that could be a major problem for them as well. The counterbalance to that is people maybe taking too much out of their pensions too early. It’s quite common when people first retire – they might wanna go travelling – they might want to help out family, for instance – and they might, potentially, take more out of their pensions than they think. It’s just really important to keep on track, ‘What is your spending?’ – ‘Is that sustainable over time?’ – and, ‘Is there any risk there of running out of money?’ I think, as long as you’re keeping on track of that, that will do a lot to quell your money anxieties.
[18:42] Susannah Streeter: Thank you very much, Helen – sound tips, as usual – so really do appreciate your time. It’s amazing how you can go pretty quickly from reckless spending to reckless conservatism, isn’t it?!
[18:55] Sarah Coles: Yes – I should ask you, Bradley – is that something that you have to talk to people about – and try and encourage them to be spending their money a bit more?
[19:01] Bradley Clark: It absolutely is. I find that, if you’ve been working for 30, 40 years – and you’ve built up a real savings attitude – and your mindset is very much, ‘I need to scrimp and save away, so that I can afford to retire.’ So, when you do actually retire, switching your mindset from saving to spending is not as easy as it might sound.
I’m sure, for some, it does come very easily – I think, for me, it perhaps would – but, for others, it certainly doesn’t – and it can lead to, over the longer-term, concerns more about inheritance tax – if you haven’t spent enough of your money and you end up having to give some of it away to the Chancellor.
[19:37] Sarah Coles: So, now we’re talking about pensions, we should say that, when you put money away in a pension, you can’t access it ‘til the age of 55 – and that is changing to the age of 57.
It’s also worth saying that the Government offers a free, impartial service called Pensions Wise – to help you understand your retirement options.
[19:52] Susannah Streeter: Yeah – very useful resources to get your head round.
Well, that’s almost all from us for now, but we do have time for the fact of the week. And I’m pleased to say that Sarah has been crunching the data – and crunching the facts for this week – and you’ve come up with something rather unusual, haven’t you?
[20:12] Sarah Coles: Yeah – so I was thinking about upbeat, fabulous fun fact about worry – which is quite hard! But I did track down ‘Emotional Support Animals’ as being a great topic.
These aren’t recognised in the UK, sadly – but they are in the US – and, if you need one, you can apply with them. So, my big question is... which of the following did an airline draw the line at? So, they did apparently just say one thing was too many.
Was it a turkey – was it a miniature horse – or was it a peacock?
[20:37] Susannah Streeter: Well, I think, even though a miniature horse does sound quite small, you can’t really take a miniature horse into the cabin, can you? – ...
[20:46] Sarah Coles: [Laughs]
[20:46] Susannah Streeter: ...it can’t sit down next to you on the seat! Whereas, you could take in a turkey or a peacock – they could strap it in, strut down the aisle.
I think it must be the miniature horse – ‘cause it’d have to go at the back, so wouldn’t really be a comfort animal – so it’d be back in ‘Animal Class.’
[21:02] Sarah Coles: So, what d’you think, Bradley – what would you go with?
[21:04] Bradley Clark: I can’t quite get my head around the fact that it’s somebody’s job to work out what animals are...
[21:09] Susannah Streeter: [Laughs]
[21:09] Bradley Clark: ...acceptable and what animals aren’t acceptable! [Laughs] But I’m gonna say, ‘No’ to the turkey.
[21:14] Sarah Coles: And, Helen, what do you think?
[21:16] Helen Morrissey: I love peacocks – I think they’re absolutely beautiful, but those massive tail feathers have got to take up a lot of space – and I think they can be quite noisy as well – so I think that they might annoy the fellow travellers. So, I’m gonna go with my lovely peacock.
[21:34] Sarah Coles: So, Helen is right – it is actually...
[21:36] Susannah Streeter: Really?!
[21:36] Sarah Coles: ...peacocks. They do have quite an attitude on them, peacocks – and, obviously, if they want to impress other peacocks, they’ll...
[21:41] Susannah Streeter: So you can...?
[21:41] Sarah Coles: ...be putting their feathers out. So, miniature horses can be as small as dogs – ...
[21:45] Susannah Streeter: Can they, really – ...
[21:46] Sarah Coles: So, there you go – ...
[21:46] Susannah Streeter: ...that small?
[21:46] Sarah Coles: ...top-fact. Yeah, very – miniature.
[21:48] Susannah Streeter: Okay – ...
[21:49] Sarah Coles: So, yeah.
[21:49] Susannah Streeter: ...fine.
[21:50] Sarah Coles: Super-small. Things you didn’t know that you didn’t know.
[21:53] Susannah Streeter: I’m sure that Warren Buffett wouldn’t have taken a peacock – or tried to take a peacock on a flight. He was famously conservative – and very...
[22:00] Sarah Coles: Wouldn’t pay the extra fare! [Laughs]
[22:02] Susannah Streeter: No – ...
[22:02] Sarah Coles: [Laughs]
[22:04] Susannah Streeter: ...certainly wouldn’t! He certainly isn’t flashy!
Thank you so much to everybody on the podcast today – but, before we go, we do need to say this was recorded on 6th May 2025 – and all information was correct at the time of recording.
[22:17] Sarah Coles: Nothing in this podcast is personal advice – you should seek advice if you’re not sure what’s right for you. Investments and any income they produce can rise and fall in value, so you could get back less than you invest – and past performance is not a guide to the future. Tax rules can change and benefits depend on individual circumstances.
[22:32] Susannah Streeter: Yes – this is not advice or a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any investment – so all that’s left for us is to thank our guests: Helen, Bradley, here in the studio – and our Producer, Elizabeth Hotson.
Thank you so much for listening. We will be back again soon – won’t we? Goodbye!
[22:48] Sarah Coles: Goodbye.
[22:48] Bradley Clark: Goodbye.
[22:49] Helen Morrissey: Goodbye!