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I'm married something that web editor at large for Bloomberg UK Wealth and.

That joined Stevieck Senior reported at Bloomberg and author of the multi award winning money Distilled newsletter.

Happen You Year, Man, Happen you here?

John.

Now, you're probably having a lovely time because you were so right about silver and knowing you, you probably absolutely piled in and now you're super rich and leaving us any day.

Now, Am I right?

Or am I right?

I mean, obviously yes, I was right a boot so well, I wasn't even right.

But somelf, I've just been gopping at it.

But yes, from the seed lanes, because self is the crypto of the males world.

Yes, I suppose it is.

No, it's not, because it's been going up.

Oh shorts filed already.

It's only the first podcast of the year, starting early to the usual address.

John's listen, I'm feeling quite optimistic about the beginning of this year and partly to do with the Golden Civil Prize, et cetera.

But I'm kind of alone.

Well, this is the time of year to look at Pole's surveys, et cetera.

And one of the first ones that caught my eye this morning was one about despair over the future in the West.

So the majority of people think governments are failing, democracy is weakening, life is going to be harder and harder generation after generation.

There's this kind of miserable stuff, this idea that people genuinely feel that their governments are failing we say are by the way, and that they that there is very little at a high level agency.

Yeah, to be honest about it, it's hard to disagree with the sense of a lack of agency.

I think the one thing that I would the main thing with a disagree is the idea that this is then the lete and inevitable declaim as opposed to a change.

And obviously change is unsettling.

But obviously we're already seeing change.

You just started with Donald Trump demonstrating change very clearly.

Yeah, when he goes for change, he really does go for change.

I don't think that the rest of us can quite go for change in the same way as Donald Trump.

What we are going to talk about today is things that you do have your own agency over that that is not, you know, invading countries and that kind of thing.

It's a little more prosaic really.

So find your resolutions less quite like an idea invades small country.

But let's just correct because as Trump is main clear, there's not an evasion.

No, not an invasion, not invaded Venezuela, not running Venezuela, or they're kind of running Venezuela.

Do we leave that to one of the political podcasts and move on.

Yes, financial resolutions things you should be doing or not doing to be better off.

By the end of twenty twenty six, were aiming for six potential financial resolutions for you.

Now.

One thing to say here is that there is a yet another survey out from you gov.

It says only nineteen percent of Britons say they intend to make New Year's resolutions for twenty twenty six.

We'd like to make that one hundred percent of our listeners.

Young people are the most likely thirty seven percent of them eighteen to twenty four, so they're going to do it.

And health pledges top the list of resolutions.

Now that makes sense health first always, but rather depressingly, only about seven percent of them say that they want to make a financial one.

So no, it's worse than that.

Save more, spend less seven percent of people.

Okay, improve financial management four percent of people.

Reduced levels of debt two percent of people.

Hmmm for centristan, maybe people just don't have any doubt.

We know that household that isn't across the board much for a problem at the moment.

But save more spend less.

Economists wouldn't be down with that.

They would let us just spend more, save less, but improve financial management.

I think that's that's the key.

So why don't we work from that?

Improve financial management is an over arching resolution that, to be honest, really really really, more than a couple of percent of you should be picking up because that is not enough that I should be like one hundred percent.

Okay, So John inside that what would be your number one financial resolution?

Number one?

Yeah, well number one is quite tricky, but I guess the if you won't improve your financial management, then that it's more.

But well, it's making sure that you you your spending is under control within the bones of your monthly income.

And I think that's the most important thing.

God, John, do you think people should be making spending spreads cheets and budgeting spreadsheets and all that kind of thing.

Not unless you have to.

You know, if if your budget is tight, then you want you do want to live within your means.

I think that's that's important.

Obviously, living within your means death us from period to period in your life.

And that's the other thing.

It's like, what you haven't you prioritized at this particular point, So you know, what is your savings goal?

Do you want to you need to buy a house, in which case that dictates how you save or are you more my age and you want to maximize the amount of money you're saving for your retirement?

You know.

So it's all a bit different life stages.

So if you're asking about one thing, then that that is the most boring thing.

It's like, nowhere your money is going and what your what your what you want to do with it?

Yeah?

Do you know this connects nicely with what I would say would be my number one right, which is to actually make time for this.

And one of the things that people never do is set aside an hour a month.

Literally, this is not going to kill you an hour a month to sit down and just go through everything.

That's really important, because yeah, because it's the same any kind of productivity move or or exercise move is.

The first thing you actually need is to budget the tame for it.

Yeah, and take that time and then you can actually sit down.

You can open your bank account, you can look at all your direct debits or if your build, you can look at your insurance utilities.

You can talk to your partner about it, because you've got to do this as a couple.

If you're going to do it, sit down with your partner, do it together.

This one hour maybe once a month is pushing it once every two months, once every two months.

Even once every two months is good.

And also steffin in tames as well, because I mean things like when your insurance comes in, make sure you've got that in a diary so that you know to do the compartison search at some point before it comes in.

Yeah, it's much much easier than it used to be in the old days.

I mean, I still remember when you had to phone around three different car insurance or whatever to try and seek it a new quote.

But there's at least now you can or put any one wave site, so you just you need to put a detain for it and planet.

Ye and I'm going to pick up that one on insurance right.

The other thing, if you've got a mortgage, a remortgage coming up, you really need to be on this probably an advance.

I had of text this morning from a friend who's just about to roll off a five year mortgage deal at one point five percent, and so you need to be on that very quickly to make sure that you do not end up on a standard variable rate.

Yeah.

Yeah, those will come in nasty, very nasty.

They can come in at six plus percent at the moment.

Imagine going from one and a half to six percent on your mortgage.

You do not want this to happen.

So that's something to be absolutely aware of.

If you know your mortgage is coming to an end, and now is the time to put that in your diary, not the actual end of the mortgage, but six months in advance, to make sure that you are not the person, particularly in an environment of falling interest rates at the moment, you are not a person who ends up with the standard variable rate.

Don't be that person.

Yeah, And you can also talk to a mortgage broker doing the boat that team, and if you do find that, you're like, there's a good chance you'll be able to lock that in and then look at it again just before your mortgage is actually up, and if there is a bit of rate at that point, you can switch to that.

Yeah.

And we have, by the way, done several podcasts on this.

Do go back to our property series when you can learn all about mortgages and finding a mortgage broker and how to work on that.

I suppose one thing I might add to that, John, This is not necessarily a resolution, but a reminder, which is that if you are one of the very few people who appear to be buying a house this year, bargainheart.

Bargainheart prices are changing, aren't they.

The market is finally reacting to higher interest rates.

These things move so slowly, but interest rates have gone up a lot.

House prices are reacting to that.

So it is time if you are looking for a house to make sure you really really get the right price.

And I think the further up the ladder you go, the harder it is to find a buyer.

So if you are a buyer, especially at the kind of upper reaches, then, as you say, you should be able to kind of drive a harder bargain than you could have maybe five years ago.

Yeah, and if you're selling.

Well, I guess you're just going to have to accept that you may not get the price that you would have got again sort of like five years ago.

And again it depends on where you are.

The further north year in the country, the more likely it is that actually, you know, your house price probably is roughly what you thought it would be worth, whereas the further south year, particularly in London, prices haven't moved since, you know, in about a decade.

Realistically.

Well, the papers are full at the moment of stories about people who can't sell the houses where dashboards sell, with this, with that, and it's a cruel world out there.

But the answer is that there is no such thing as a house that won't sell.

There is only a house that won't sell because of it's is wrong.

There's always a price, right.

Yeah, And I think a lot of the problem with that is that people have unfortunately something's taken out debt against the home over time, and so they end up with a price that not only they think is worth the kind of a price that they feel they need to get and you can't ankled to that.

As you say, if the house isn't selling or getting viewings, then that's because it's the price is too high.

Yeah.

Yeah, okay, now that's a depressing woman moving on from this, although not depressing for the bias, just the price.

Yeah, it's good.

Right.

The next one, next to the financial resolution is be aware of all the possibilities for tax efficiency and take advantage of them.

Right, So max out your eyes up.

I think pretty much everyone who is able to do so, max out there, I said last year.

Right, Yes, we saw we figured from the Bank of England out the other day showing that five point one billion into cash ices in November twenty twenty five alone.

That's the highest inflow in the year, apart from in April, which is obviously it was the highest INFLOCE.

So yes, max that out.

Remember that it's not that long hammer.

It's another two iSER seasons until you can only put twelve thousand pounds into cash and the rest has to go into equities, of which John and I thoroughly approval that.

We don't understand why the over sixty five is get an exemption from that I spoke for you.

You approve as well, right, John, Oh.

Yeah, I approve, yes, And also yes, I don't know why the over sixty five is get get exempt from that.

Well, I know why, but I think it's a tought reason.

Yeah.

So max out your isis, but also be aware as you do so of the interest rate you might get.

Very often the interest rate on a cash iSER is lower than the rate you might get on an ordinary account.

And it isn't entirely possible that if you have to pay tax on the interest from an ordinary account, you may still end up ahead of what you get on a cash isico.

Who can know?

Check all that stuff out along the way.

By the way, a number from aj Bell three hundred billion pounds is sitting in the posit accounts or current accounts of pay no interest of any kind whatsoever.

Do something about that.

If that's you, do something about that.

It's insane.

And another thing is if you've got cash that is setting out, say the nayser for whatever reason, then if you're married, make sure it's going into the name of the spouse who earns the least, because they all pay the least tax or the interest issuming that you trust your spousting off to stick your assets in their name, which I hope you do.

I hope you do too.

Back to the fact that all your financial decisions should be joined.

There with another survey out the other day saying that a very large number I can't remember the percentage of which of people and couples have money they hide from their partners.

Can tell you much about trust, does it.

Everyone's good different ways of running their financies.

But I think whenever you're haiding money from your partner in a serious way, then that's that's that's just Biden news.

Yeah.

I mean there's having your that's having your own accounts.

Yeah, that's having your own accounts, and there's hiding money.

Anyway, again, that's not our area.

We'll leave that for the self self help podcasts.

We do need to do a divorce episode at some point.

Keep getting getting requests for that for some reason I think than maybe some people in the office who are.

I would like to apologize to all our colleagues for the exsumptions John Nigs.

But anyway, we have past divorce day.

Divorce Day was January the fifth, the day when the more people file for divorce in any other day in the year on average.

But of course the best financial tip when it comes to divorce is don't do not get divorced.

Everyone's standard of living is lower after divorce.

You can run one house on a certain amount of cash trying and two households on the same amount of cash doesn't work so well, particularly right now when you're not going to sell your house to the amount you thought you were going to sell your house for.

So if you can possibly reconcile and again moving into the realms of our self help compare it anyway.

So if you can avoid getting divorced, don't get divorced.

And of course, the the other bit of advice that divorce lawyers always give, particularly to women, is if you are getting divorced, forget the house, go for the pension, and stay out of court to the extent that you possibly can.

That could advice because patients relooked.

Yeah, do we now need a divorce podcast or are we done?

Let the people decay?

Okay, send it in if you want, if you want to know more about how to divorce well financially, at least that's all we can do.

Let us know, right, I'm sticking with tax John, I'm sticking with tax.

The next resolution has got to be to keep an eye on your pension.

Do you know what you've got?

Do you know what types they are?

Do you know how they work?

Do you know all the t's and c's around the edge?

Can you save more?

What if you make a really small additional contribution, if you're young, and you up your contributions by one or two percentage points, which most most schemes will allow you to do, time, that's going to add up to a lot right with doing.

Yeah, and I mean this is a really important one because so many people have got so many pensions or even just one pension that they don't know what's in it.

So if you're if you're an employee, look at your auto enrollment pension, double check the conditions if you get a match from your employer, like if you put more in and they'll put more in, then you should definitely do that.

And also check what it's invested in.

And also if you're older, check that your fund isn't being lifestyled unless you want it to be because a lifestyle and this is the closer you get to retirement, the more that gets put into Technically, less risky assets like bonds.

But that can mean that when you get to retire, maybe you know what, your fund doesn't grow in as much as you wanted it to, or you know, you thought you were invested in one thing and in fact you're invested in another.

So just keep an eye on what's going on with your pensions.

Yep.

Okay, any other tax things we should think about.

I mean, there's you.

I mean, obviously the gains tax allowance is very low now, but it's still three thousand pounds.

And then for some reason you do have you know, investments in outside an outside the pension wrapper.

Then crystallizing some of those gains can be useful to use up betsy your allowance.

But yeah, it has become very very meager in a very short space of time, you know.

So it's going down from like twelve to kind of three and just the space of a few years.

So people who once wouldn't have had to worry about that and do have to worry about it now.

So's what taking a look at and again trying to share that allowance about your books where you can.

Okay, I have one more that I think is really important and that I wrote about at the end of last year, which is taking us back to cash, we talked about making sure you're any interesting cash, making sure that you max out your eyes seraph for what you wanted to have, the cash, stocks and shares, make sure whatever.

We'll do more on ices at a different time, but one of the key things about cash is that you need to have actual, real physical cash.

Hmm.

Thought this was a really interesting point.

You mean, yeah, so you know, what if there's a cyber attack, what if your bank account is locked for some reason, you know, to do with cyber attack, to do some money laundering mistake whatever it is.

I don't mean a mistake on your part, obviously, not our listeners.

I mean a mistake on the bank's part, believing that there may be something wrong with your account when there isn't.

This happens increasingly.

There are all sorts of reasons why you might need to have a couple of weeks worth of cash at home.

Don't forget, of course, possibility of blackout.

All sorts of things can happen.

Yea, and none of none of your accounts are going to work if there isn't any electricity, or if there's a cyber attack.

So having a bit of cash at home in case of emergencies is really worth doing.

And I know people listen to me saying this and they think you're ridiculous.

But look at the cyber attacks we saw last year and the year before, look at the geopolitical tensions ramping up, look at the problems we're having in our electricity market and with our grid.

I mean, why would you not have the insurance of having cash at home.

This obviously happened in Spain last year, and again another colleague was pointing out that she was in Spain at the time and they couldn't get cash out and they couldn't you know, they couldn't buy anything, or they did something like twenty euros to last them for three days, and so yeah, no, I mean I think that's that's a really important useful one.

It's almost like your emergency emergency fund.

Yeah exactly.

I mean we're not talking here about the amount of cash it has armed robbers breaking into your ome.

We're just talking about a couple of days of cash.

If something goes wrong, you can still get some bread and some milk.

Yeah, yeah, no, I think that's a that's a really useful one.

I think it's one that the people don't think about, particularly again younger people, whenever they've just used their phones for everything.

Oh.

Actually, while we're on the subject, John, I just wanted to point to a Bloomberg article on our website about the horrors of people invading your home if you have very got large crypt holdings, to force the passwords out of you really unbelievably unpleasant.

So I just wanted to take this opportunity to let everybody know that while I talk a lot, just to teach John about my crypto holdings, they're worth very very very little, like basically nothing.

Please do not invade my home.

And John, of course, John of course has no cryptoical so definitely do not invade his home.

Yes, that would be a complete waste of time, total waste of time.

Invading either of our houses would be a waste of time.

Don't do it.

Yeah, okay, so that's another New Year's resolution.

If you've got a lot of crypto, don't tell anyone.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Actually, I mean that's interesting because one of the reasons that these people do invade people's homes is because there isn't a central authority that can just stop your crypto.

It's like if somebody steals your credit card, then you phone your bank and it's dead within seconds.

But if somebody kind of like you know, hatch you over the head until you give them your crypto passport, there is nobody stop that from being stolen.

I've got to be fascinating to find out how many people have already forgotten their password.

Oh, I mean that too.

I mean that's the other big issue.

But yeah, you know, that's that's a lot less traumatic than you know, having your hoose violently broken into.

Well, yes, but having your house violently broken into while someone tries to force you to tell them your password, which you forgot five years ago.

Oh yes, yep, that's yeah, ye, your point, I mean, is what happened to me?

Yeah, this is really a cheerful one, isn't it?

To start the new year as we mean to go on?

Clearly right now, listen, we've done we've really we've gone through this.

Hire set time aside to do some kind of financial mot etc.

Make sure you have cash in a deposit account and genuine cash.

Check the interest rate, put it in your diary.

When your insurance and your mortgages are about to run out because that's going to get you in all sorts of trouble about your crypto holdings.

Be tax efficient.

That is five, we promise six.

Give us one more, John.

Get a well, get a well.

If you're if you're married, get well.

If you're mind and you have kids, definitely get a well.

And if you've get anything more complicated beyond that, then you absolutely need to.

You must have a will.

And it doesn't really matter what age you are because obviously unexpected things happen.

Get a well done.

It's not complicated, it's not even particularly expensive, and it's it's really really important both in your own peace of mind and then for your inheritors.

I think that's a really critical one.

I absolutely agree, And crucially you want to get those wills.

If redone, if anything has changed, yes, did you have kids, did you get remarried?

Are you trying to blend a family?

All these things disaster If your will is not written and clear, Yeah, don't leave misery behind you.

That's what we're saying here.

Yeah, And I mean that's that's the most important one.

But then you also need to think about your admin.

So what makes stuff, makes stuff clear?

So like just even of one document that explains to your descendants you know, this is where everything is, so you need because that's the other issue is obviously things can be quite on tidy.

Filing systems can be quite on tidy.

So having a good idea, look, here's what matters, and here's where it is, even as a kind of loose document.

And then you know, if you want to worry about the digital stuff, you know, that's that's another bucket of fish.

But at the end of the day, your iTunes account is one thing.

But you know your cuttnent account.

Yeah, we did a great podcast on this last year, didn't we.

So if you're if your interested mission and by the way, you really should be, we did do a podcast on this last year about you know, how to prepare your finances and everything around you for people after your death, to make life easy for them.

Because of course that's one of the main legacies we'd like to leave behind is lack of admin.

Well not like of adminal part like of admin.

For our air step to deal with something straightforward, something simple, and something that won't cause our families to fight with each other after we're gone.

No one wants that.

No, you might know before you have gone so you can watch it.

John, thanks for listening to this week's Marin Talks Money.

If you like us, show, rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

Also keep sending questions or comments to Merror Money at Bloomberg dot net.

You can follow me and John on Twitter or x I'm at marins w and John is John Underscore Steppech.

This episode was hosted by Me Maren's Unset Web.

It was produced by Zamasadi and Moses and sound designed by Blake Maple's