Title: Rebel Finance School 2026 — Week 8 Monday Transcript
Session: How to Start Investing: Choose Your Platform, Account and Fund | RFS 2026 Week 8
YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBTFWCUfOBI
Course: Rebel Finance School 2026
Creators: Alan Donegan and Katie Donegan, Rebel Donegans
Canonical page: https://rebeldonegans.com/finance/rfs/course-notes/week-8/
Course hub: https://rebeldonegans.com/finance/rfs/course-notes/
Website: https://rebeldonegans.com/
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Copyright © Rebel Donegans. All rights reserved.
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Disclaimer:
This is financial education, not financial advice. Rebel Donegans are not regulated financial advisers. You are responsible for your own financial decisions.



0:00
one and we are live. Hello and welcome to week eight of Rebel Finance School. Uh I can see Charlie in the chat saying
0:07
is this live? Yes, we are live. Uh we are not AI created.
0:13
This is some way of doing proof of life of like this is the actual day and the actual actual date. I know I can show the date
0:19
on my phone and show exactly what date it is. We are alive. We are here. We're
0:25
super looking forward to today's session. Monday night is finance night after all and we're on week eight of the
0:31
course which is very cool and we have come a long way on this journey together with what we have been
0:37
doing uh and we are super excited to have you here to work on all of these bits tonight is a big session because
0:44
it's going to explain platform accounts and funds but we wanted to start with
0:50
look how far you've come in we covered what is index investing why broadblaz
0:56
global funds work, why fees matter, why fear and fiddling cause damage, how to
1:02
inspect a fund sheet. I mean, the journey you have already been on is
1:07
insane. And that's just two of the weeks. That's just three investing weeks, never mind the five weeks we did before that.
1:13
And you've learned to read the ingredients of an index fund. What does the fund
1:19
own? What are the fees? Is it passive active? Is it broad concentrated? Does
1:24
it make sense? and you checked all those out last week and some of you found
1:30
brilliant funds. You found you already owned broad global index funds or low
1:35
fees or sensible diversification or investments you could actually understand.
1:41
However, some of you found surprises. Things you were not expecting. Funds you
1:47
didn't understand. Cash you didn't know was there. Bonds you didn't actually buy. Active management. Home country
1:52
bias. Fes of 1 or 2%. Some of you found stuff that really didn't help you. But
1:59
you found out what you own. Like in and of itself, that is a huge massive step
2:04
because most people never look or ask or understand where their life savings are
2:10
invested, where their freedom fund is invested, and you've done that. And that puts you in this really great position.
2:16
I am kind of shocked that most people have no idea where their life savings exist. And that does shock me, but
2:24
you're taking control. So now, what should you do? Should you keep it, change it? Is in the right account? Is
2:30
it in the right platform? Is this the right strategy? This is what we're going to answer today. And actually, it brings
2:37
with a whole new level of confusion, which is pensions, ISIS, SIPs, 401ks,
2:43
Kiwi savers, superanuation, platform, provider, account fund, ETF, index fund, tax rules, and fees. And you're going,
2:50
what does all this mean? Well, breathe. underneath all of this jargon, you only
2:58
have to make three decisions. That's it. So, by the end of like this week, we
3:04
want to have helped you make the three decisions you need to make. And those three decisions are the same
3:10
wherever you are in the world. This is one framework that you can apply wherever you live, wherever you're
3:15
investing, the same three decisions which we're going to go through. Even Yorkshire. Even Yorkshire, which if it was its own
3:21
country would be quite high up in the medals table in 2012 Olympics. Now, the three decisions you have to
3:28
make. That's what we're going to go through tonight. Uh before that, we have a message from our lawyers.
3:34
Do we have lawyers? This is not financial advice. We are not trained financial advisers. We are not
3:40
regulated. We will not send you investments. You make your own decisions. We are sharing our opinions and ideas. And these ideas may or may
3:45
not continue to work for us. You are 100% responsible for your financial future. There are no guarantees here
3:52
except the money back guarantee. If you don't like the course, you can have a full refund. Please see Derek and his address
3:58
is scotland.com. Uh if you paid to come on the course, something is very wrong. And final
4:04
disclaimer, investments can and will go up and down in value, which is a
4:09
feature, not a bug. I feel like saying we don't have lawyers cuz I was like Leslie from our lawyers.
4:14
We're not that big an outfit. We don't have lawyers. It's just us and some lovely ninjas. It's us at a table in our one bed flat.
4:20
Moving on. Uh watching on Zoom, please use the Q&A feature. That's how
4:26
the ninjas know where your question is and can answer it. If you're on YouTube, hello YouTubers. Love you. Thank you for
4:33
tuning in. Uh please put your questions in the comments. The ninjas are active there and we reply to as many comments
4:40
as we can afterwards. If you are on YouTube, uh please hit like and
4:45
subscribe because it makes the YouTube algorithm happy and gives us a nice tingle. It's all about the tingles.
4:52
Moving on, we are currently at this stage which is investing. Uh that's where we are on the map and we're going
4:58
to dive in because we wanted to share with you a critical distinction uh about retirement money. There are two
5:06
types of retirement money. Broadly speaking, type one is an income promise.
5:13
It's where an employer, an organization, whoever it is, says you will get this much money per year in retirement.
5:22
Type two is an investment pot. That's where you and your employer contribute
5:28
to the pot. You have a giant pot of money and then it's up to you to manage that pot. the income promise.
5:36
They call these defined benefit pensions, final salary pensions, career average pensions, traditional pensions
5:42
in America. Uh it's public sector pensions, NHS, police, uh different
5:48
people like that. That's what they are called and you will hear them referred to as DB pensions. That's for divine
5:56
benefit pensions. But the key idea is someone is promising you an amount in
6:02
retirement. How does it work? You contribute your money.
6:09
There may or may not be a pot of money uh but you contribute anyway and then
6:15
the organization guarantees you a pension payment on the other side. What
6:21
we really wanted to say is if you've got one of these pensions, the group investment pot is for everyone.
6:29
So, you're not responsible for it. They're in responsible for it. So, it's
6:34
not like everyone at the police has to go to the police and go, "What are you investing my money in?" The police are
6:41
responsible for that pot. The government is responsible for that pot. You have no
6:46
control of what's in that investment. You just get a guaranteed
6:52
income in retirement. And sometimes there is no pot. Sometimes your contributions are going directly to the pens people whose pay pensions are
7:00
in payment and sometimes there is an investment pot like at universities. Okay. Your job if
7:07
you have one of these defined benefit pensions is to investigate what they're
7:12
promising you. So your job is what income is promised? When can it start?
7:18
because there's normally an element of take it earlier, get less, take it later, get more and working that out.
7:24
Key question, is it inflation linked? That means do they increase it each year
7:30
in retirement? That's critical to know. Are there survivor benefits? I.e. if I
7:37
pass away, does my husband, wife, kids get some kind of benefit afterwards?
7:43
Are there any guarantees of what I'm going to get? and what happens if I transfer or give it up like what happens
7:50
to this pension that's what you need to uncover to do it and that is very very
7:56
different to an investment pot so this is things you might have heard the term DC pension defined contribution pensions
8:03
and it's also things like a workplace pension or a SIP self-invested personal pension in the US you got the 401ks and
8:10
the 403bs and the IAS and all these alphabet soups and then in the in New Zealand a Kiwi saver and then in
8:17
Australia a superanuation. The idea behind all of these things is
8:22
you have a pot of invested money. It's up to you to invest it and then to live off it afterwards. No one's come along
8:28
and said, "Oh, I'll look after you and give you X amount in retirement." No, it's up to you to manage it yourself.
8:35
So, if we drew a diagram similar to the last one, you make contributions. Probably your employer matches your
8:43
contributions or gives some as well. That all goes into your pot which you're
8:48
responsible for investing and then it may or may not grow and you have
8:54
whatever you have in your pot. It's down to you. It's your responsibility to make
8:59
sure there is enough there to live off at [laughter] the end and you're in
9:04
charge of what your pot is invested in. So this has a lot more responsibility and a lot more flexibility. And this is
9:12
where we do the things like we did in week seven where we looking at the fund fact sheets. That's to investigate
9:18
what's in there. What are the funds? What does it invest in? What are the fees? Is it a global index fund? Are
9:24
there other funds that I can choose to change to if I want to? Is it possible to change to a different platform?
9:32
Uh some of you will have both because you will have worked a council for a few
9:37
years and then had different jobs or you worked in the government here in different places. So some of you will
9:42
have both defined benefit and defined contribution uh pensions.
9:48
So your job for each is a little bit different. So for the income pension, defined benefit pension, the idea here
9:54
is that you want to understand the promised income and what the benefits are. And for the investment pot, you
10:00
investigate the funds and fees. That's the bit we keep banging on about. Funds and fees, funds and fees. And we've had
10:08
a really nice message in from Kay who says, "I found one of my pension funds was a low charge. The other one charged
10:14
1% on each fund plus48 general management fee, which is very
10:20
high. But knowing that, this is then how you move it to somewhere that has lower
10:25
fees. And that really does link us beautifully to your two jobs tonight.
10:30
One is existing money, stuff you've already got invested, right? is learning
10:36
what do I already have and should you change anything and then new money that
10:42
you're saving each money from your gap uh where should my next contribution go
10:49
so next month's pounds that I earn that I'm not spending where do I put that to
10:54
have the most benefit possible and put a slightly different way the existing money is what you already have in your
11:00
freedom fund and the new money is additional money you're putting in to grow it and of The existing money should
11:06
also be growing and the new money can then also grow as well. Exactly. So your two jobs [clears throat] tonight, existing money,
11:12
understand it, question it, improve it if needed, new money, choose where the next contribution goes. That's it. So
11:20
let's have a look at the three cuz both use exactly the same framework
11:25
which let's look at this framework now. Uh we had a question in from Lee that says,
11:31
"Is an AVC an investment pot?" Uh in the UK, an AVC is an additional voluntary
11:38
contribution. So is just money you are putting into your workplace pension.
11:44
It normally relates to defined benefit pensions, doesn't it? So it's up to
11:50
I think it's with defined benefit. We can be corrected in the chat if we're wrong, but it both. But it can be either. So the ABC
11:57
normally relates to defined benefit pensions and then the additional contributions is is it an investment pot
12:02
or is it adding to the promise that you're getting? The ABC is your additional voluntary
12:08
contributions to the pension pot. Yes. Okay. So the three levels of the
12:16
structure the most critical important one at the bottom is fund. What actually
12:22
does your money own? Uh then you've got the account level which is the container
12:28
with legal tax and access rules and basically it's ways to grow your freedom
12:33
fund in a tax efficient way. And then finally the platform is the company that
12:38
provides the account. So every single investment that you have has these three
12:44
layers. It's the platform, the account and the fund. And one way of thinking
12:50
about it is think of these boxes one within the other. So the platform and then the account and then the fund. And
12:56
let's give you some examples. So example one, you've got provider A, you've got a workplace pension and then the fund
13:02
inside that is a global index fund. And this is a brand new visual for this year. I don't know why it took us like
13:08
seven years to come up with this visual. I know but it makes sense that the platform has
13:13
the accounts and has the index fund within it. So let's give you a second example. You might have a different
13:19
provider. I don't know, whoever it is, Aviva or Fidelity. Within that, you've
13:24
got your personal retirement account, and then within that, you hold a global index fund. That's kind of the way to
13:30
think about those elements. Uh you might have a different provider,
13:35
a general investing account, and then a global index fund. So, you have a provider, an account, and a fund held
13:42
within it. One way that really could help to conceptualize this based on something that we're all much more familiar with,
13:48
which is a bank account. So think of this like a bank account. You have your bank. In the UK it might be Nat West or
13:54
Santandere whoever Barclays and you within that bank you could have a current account and also a savings
14:00
account. Now there's no fund within here. It's not like there's a fund within those. You just have cash in
14:07
there. But it's that same kind of concept. So the bank in this scenario would be the platform. The current
14:12
account is the account and then you have cash in there. Whereas with an investment, you would have a fund and an
14:17
investment. And I think building on that, one account can hold several funds. So you
14:23
might have one platform, one account, but you might hold several funds in there.
14:29
One platform can have several accounts. So just like with a bank account, you can have a current account and a savings
14:35
account, with the same platform, you can have the same different accounts. So for example, in the UK, you might have a SIP
14:42
and an ISA in the same platform. And you can have the same fund in different accounts. So you might have
14:49
exactly the same fund held in a pension account, an ISO account and different
14:55
accounts, which is why all these things become a bit confusing. Um, but this is
15:01
to try and bring it to life for you. And some platforms actually also create funds. So they could be a platform. So
15:08
XY Z platform, you have an account with them and your fund might have that name in it as well. So Vanguard is a perfect
15:14
example of this. They have their own platform that you can have accounts in and then you'll see the Vanguard Footsie
15:20
Global All Cap. So Vanguard have a platform. Vanguard also create funds. So
15:26
often when we when you're talking about Vanguard, it's one that comes up a lot because they offer so many index funds.
15:32
Just think, am I talking about the platform or am I talking about the investment, the fund within it? Because this is always where the
15:38
confusion comes from. When people say to us, should I invest in my pension or should I buy an index fund? Do you know
15:45
what the answer to that question is? The answer is both. You would do both.
15:52
So in this example, you've got your platform, you've got your pension, and within your pension, you own an index
15:57
fund. So when people say, should I invest in my pension or an index fund? The answer is you can do both.
16:04
Same with uh other types of accounts. So this is an example from the UK. Some you might say, should I get an account with
16:10
trading 212 or invest in a stocks and shares Iser? Well, you can do both. So trading 212 is the platform. Then you
16:17
have a stocks and shares is the account and then whatever fund you have within it. You do both. It's not or it's you
16:23
can do both. And we're not saying like this is necessarily the setup. This is an example to show you the way of
16:29
thinking about it. Exactly. So every investment you own, no matter where you are, has three layers.
16:36
There's the three decisions you have to make. Decision one, choose the fund. Decision two, choose the account. And
16:42
decision three, choose the platform. That's it. If you can do that, you can do anything. Uh, but we're going to try
16:49
and help break this down. So, let's go to decision one, which is choose the fund. So, by the end of this, you should
16:56
go, I know what fund I want. Um, and the fund is what my money should actually
17:03
own within it. That's it. And as analogy, I want you to think of the fund
17:09
as the growth engine for your money. It's you're investing in this thing.
17:15
It's an engine that chucks out more money. The platform administers it. The
17:20
account creates the rules, but the fund does the growing. It's the engine of your financial life. And there are three
17:28
stages of investing. There's the build it phase where you're building your freedom fund. the bridget phase where
17:34
you're three to five years either side of living off your money and then finally when you're living from it and you just
17:41
are spending it and that phase lasts until you expire. So to draw this on a
17:47
little diagram, your early phase you are building it then what the point you
17:53
choose to retire or financial freedom or work optional ins insert whichever work
17:58
word you want before and afterwards you want to manage this thing called sequence of returns risk which we're
18:05
going to explain in week 10. But you have this little phase in the middle that you bridge from building it to
18:10
living off it. And then till expiration you are living off that fund. Now what
18:17
we wanted to tell you is the growth engine does not disappear
18:23
when you change to bridging or when you change to living off it. You still need a growth engine. So at the build it
18:30
phase you want a 100% growth engine. You just want one simple index one 100%.
18:36
When you're bridging to the the living off it, you add in a spending buffer. So
18:42
if the market goes down, you're still safe to spend. And then the live from it phase, you've
18:49
still got the growth engine and you use and manage the spending buffer to live
18:54
off it. So the way to think about this is you have the same growth engine the whole way, but you add in some bonds and
19:02
some cash and some different things in the different phases to enable you to spend what you need to spend.
19:10
And then in the build it phase, that's where you're really looking to grow your
19:15
freedom fund. That is the main job. So you're going to have a 100% global equity index fund. something that if
19:21
you're working and employed going to be making regular contributions and you're leaving it to compound for a long time.
19:28
Exactly. The bridget phase is the growth plus the spending buffer and you might
19:33
add bonds, a money market fund or some cash to help you um protect you from
19:39
short-term volatility, but you still keep that same growth engine. And you
19:44
just add that bridge, the thing that will get you between the two. Then when you come to live from it, you still need
19:51
that growth engine. You still want your money to be growing because you're living off it. So you're taking some out. So you want it to keep growing. So
19:57
you can do that, but you also want to have some money in there to spend. So you might have bonds or cash or money
20:03
market. And then that's the idea is that you can withdraw from that and rebalance as you go. The idea here, you are
20:10
spending from it and you want it to keep growing. Exactly. Your money still has to last 30
20:16
odd years of retirement. So, it needs to keep growing just like me in a bush. Oh.
20:22
Anyway, the real question here is it's not do I still need a global index
20:28
fund later on in life. It is what percentage stays in the growth engine
20:34
and what else do I deliberately hold alongside my growth engine to make sure
20:39
I always have money available for groceries, pizza, and Lego. Now, we've introduced a few different
20:45
concepts here. We're going to go much more into this in week 10 of the course, which is understanding how and when you
20:52
change your investments as you come to living off them. Exactly. But the landing is you need one
20:58
growth engine for all the periods. And this sort of brings you to the question that everyone wants answered. Which fund
21:05
should I choose? Which is the actual fund I'm going to buy? So your mission at fund level is to choose a global
21:13
index fund with as low fees as possible and avoid weird things in it. That's it.
21:19
We have a little checklist so we can help you decide what that is. So firstly it needs to be broad. Lots of
21:26
companies that when we're talking about a very diversified investment global it's all around the world. You
21:33
don't have like home country bias. You want it to be passive as opposed to active. We have bashed active enough. I
21:39
think you know that we are on the passive train here at Rebel Finance School. Uh low cost, keep your fees down and
21:46
then understandable. You can actually explain it to someone else and you know what it is. If you can't explain it,
21:53
don't have it. You might be going, "Yeah, Donigans, we get this, but which global fund should I get? What is the perfect global fund?"
22:00
What is the perfect global fund, Alan? There isn't a perfect global fund. Uh we found a few very good funds around the
22:08
world. But the question we should really be asking is not what's the perfect fund. It is how global is your global
22:16
fund because different funds cover different amounts of the world. You actually get like a different proportion
22:23
of the amount of the world. Uh so different funds will cover different
22:28
countries. And you might have heard these terms developed markets and emerging markets. So let's explore what
22:35
that actually means. I made a map. I like maps. So these blue countries, those are the developed markets. There's
22:41
25 countries there. So what we've got USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, most of Western
22:49
Europe. Those are the developed markets. And the categorization here is based on like how developed the country is
22:55
economically, the wealth of the country, how well regulated it is and how stable
23:01
it is to invest in that country. That's the criteria that they use to decide
23:06
what is what counts as developed and then what counts as emerging markets. So there's a further 23 countries there.
23:13
You've got India, China, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico. Those are emerging market
23:20
economies, countries. So in total, you have 48 countries that these global
23:26
funds could be invested in. You go, 48 countries? What about all these other countries that aren't included? That's
23:32
not very global, is it, Donigans? What's going on here? Well, actually, those 48 countries account for 92% of the world's
23:40
economy. Those are the biggest economies in the world. The other countries make up a small fraction of what's going on
23:46
economically in the world. Exactly. And the countries in the list are the ones that are regulated enough
23:54
that you can trust investing there. They're stable enough that the government isn't necessarily going to
23:59
change. You won't have problems and it's it's an ability for a foreigner cuz we
24:05
are foreign to those countries to be able to invest within it. So there's certain countries you don't want to
24:11
invest in because it's not stable. It's not um safe for us to do that. So we
24:18
stick to those countries that we can safely invest in which are well regulated and stable.
24:24
Uh so we're talking about these different phases of investing, right? Bridget phase, sorry, build it, bridge
24:29
it, live from it. And had a question from Suzanne. What if you're starting later in life so you don't have as long
24:35
for the growth stage? uh if you don't have as long for the growth stage, well,
24:41
you don't have as long for the growth stage. That doesn't mean we shouldn't use it to the maximum we can. So, we
24:47
should absolutely still invest our money, work as hard as we can to make [clears throat] it grow. And no matter
24:55
when you start, you can always improve your finances. So, I don't care how old you are, there's something we can do to
25:02
reorganize the finances, uh, get it growing a little bit faster and look after you in retirement. And it's a bit
25:09
like saying, well, I've only got one year to retirement. I should give up. No, we can still improve things. We can
25:14
still make things better, and we can absolutely do that. So, I want to shout that out to everyone. There is always a
25:20
way to improve. Uh, and then we also had another comment coming in. Karen says,
25:25
"I love Harry Potter. Great t-shirt." And that comes from Freya, age nine, who
25:30
says, "You have a great Harry Potter t-shirt." Okay, a few people are commenting like,
25:36
"I'm 59. I've lost time." I totally understand that feeling and we
25:42
have to repeat to ourselves, we are where we are. We can only take action from here and we will do the best we can
25:48
together. Little clarification on the ABC's additional voluntary contributions because I know we kind of had differing
25:55
answers. So they can be either defined contribution or defined benefit. Look into what your specific pension is
26:02
doing. Yes, it just means you are making additional contributions to your pension whichever one it is. Okay. Now moving
26:10
on, we need to talk a little bit about company size because quite a lot of the funds um dissect the fund by company
26:18
size and they have this thing of large companies and small companies and they
26:24
have terms like large cap, medium cap and small cap. Uh cap stands for
26:30
capitalization. So small capitalization uh and cap means the number of shares
26:38
multiplied by the share price gives you the market capitalization.
26:45
So if there are uh a billion shares and the shares are £10 each the company is
26:51
worth£10 billion. That's all it means and it's a way of toting up the value of
26:58
the company. So if you take the number of shares of Apple and times it by the Apple share price, their company is
27:05
worth 4.9 trillion, which is a number so vast my head tries to explode at this
27:11
point. Like I don't even know how much that is. Um so
27:17
the funds split up the companies by how big they are to show you what you're investing in. The large cap are the
27:24
giants you would have heard of. Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, Astroenica, HSBC, all
27:29
different like companies. Midcap or medium-siz companies is the
27:36
next layer and Games Workshop Limited, Avis Budget Group. They're still ones
27:41
you would have heard of cuz they're still huge. They're between$2 and 10 billion
27:48
uh in terms of their capitalization, their worth as a company. And then you've got small cap. So there's
27:54
thousands and thousands of smaller listed companies. We say small, they are smaller. They are between 300 million
28:01
and two billion. So we're not talking about, you know, the local restaurant or
28:07
the local, you know, these are these are massive companies. They're just smaller. So that's what we mean when we talk
28:12
about these different size of companies. And just to give you an idea of scale, uh Apple's turnover, how much it sold
28:20
last year was $450 billion. Uh, and that's roughly the same as the
28:27
entire gross domestic product of Denmark.
28:32
Like that's insane. 6 million people in Denmark produced about the same amount as Apple did in a year. And the scale of
28:41
the companies I think we don't really understand. And if Apple's turnover or
28:46
revenue is 451 billion, I put these images to scale to show you the size of
28:52
the capitalization. the size of the worth of company versus how much it turns over. But you are investing in
28:58
enormous companies that work all around the world. So coming back to how global
29:04
is your global fund. Now that we understand developed markets and emerging markets, now that we understand
29:10
what large, medium, and small means, we can look at some of these different funds to see how much of the world they
29:16
cover. So firstly, the S&P 500. We've mentioned this a few times because they have lots of data. We're going to be
29:22
tend to use charts, but they are the 500 biggest publicly listed companies in the
29:28
US. On the US stock exchange, they're the 500 biggest. So, it's just one country in the USA.
29:34
And those 500 companies because of their size make up 80% of the US stock market.
29:39
They are ginormous countries. And actually, they make up 50% of global funds because they are companies that we
29:47
all use all around the world. They are US but they're global companies because you can buy an index fund that
29:54
is just the S&P 500 but you're buying one country. Yeah.
29:59
Then if we were to expand that and go okay what about a developed world fund? A developed world fund you add in large
30:07
and medium companies from other developed countries and that totals
30:12
about an extra 32% of the world. So you can see we kind of
30:17
like added a whole chunk of new businesses [laughter] from different countries. This does not include
30:23
emerging markets and it does not include small companies. These funds tend to be
30:29
around about 2,000 companies in total. They are the biggest companies in the
30:35
world. Then adding to that, now we go to all world. We already have developed
30:40
markets, large and medium companies. Now we're adding in the emerging markets. to remember that was the countries that
30:46
aren't quite as developed. India, Brazil, China, they make up about 9% of
30:52
the overall global fund. So, we're still not added the small companies in. We've just added in the emerging markets and
30:59
we're now at about 3 and a half thousand companies. And then if we go to the global allcap
31:06
which yeah the Vanguard total stock market fund or the global all cap fund
31:11
we already have developed markets emerging markets large and medium companies but now we're adding in the
31:16
small companies and they make up 9% of the world which is that last little bit.
31:22
Uh so your total companies now if you buy the UK fund is 7 a half thousand. If
31:28
you buy the US fund it's 10,000 companies. So what did we actually do at each step? We had the S&P 500, the 500
31:37
largest companies. We added developed world, which is the other developed countries. Then we added the emerging
31:43
markets. Then we added the smaller companies. And that is what the global
31:50
fund is made up of. And the reason we introducing this to you is because often when you look at
31:55
the fund name, it might say all world in the title. It might say develop world. And that's generally what this means.
32:01
It's always a good idea to double check and to read the description. But from our experience when we've seen funds
32:07
that are called this, this is what it means. Just to start to familiarize yourself with when you see the fund
32:12
name, oh, all world. I'm starting to understand what that means. Yeah. Cuz at some point, hopefully later
32:18
today or the next week or so, you're going to log into a platform and try and buy a fund. And you need to recognize
32:25
what fund you're going to buy. Uh we did do a visualization of what does the
32:30
Footsie global all cap look like? Uh Katie created that. It's got some wonderful charts if you would like to
32:36
have a look. I like charts. Me too. Uh and that will show you visualizations of what is included in it
32:43
and it shows you what all the businesses do, what industries they're in, what
32:48
sectors they're in, all the different elements. What we wanted to say you to you is all of these funds can build your
32:57
wealth. They just own different amounts of the world. So each type of fund owns
33:04
a different proportion of the world market which actually brings us onto a very important concept which is called
33:11
home country bias which I'm sure we've all been feeling a little bit with the World Cup going on. Uh, but home feels
33:19
familiar, but familiar does not equal global. And
33:24
what we want to be careful of is not betting all of our money on one country because no one knows which country is
33:31
going to do best in the future. So when you're investing, you ask, is this a global fund or am I betting on one
33:38
country? And the way to check with a fund is to check what percentage is invested in each of these countries.
33:44
Uh, just a quick scout out to the Scots. We do know that Glasgow is not in Ireland. It's just got mislabeled on the
33:51
uh Oh, man. picture there. AI actually put two Edinburgh on that map. So, you know, it was trying to over
33:57
represent the Scots in every country. Maybe the Scottish are taking over. We'll ask Eric later. Uh, okay. Our
34:03
choice, if we were voting, if we were starting again, we would buy a global
34:09
index fund because we don't know which country is going to do best in the future. Uh the last two years the
34:16
countries that have done best are actually the European countries. The 15
34:22
years before that the country that did the best was the USA. What will do best next year? No idea.
34:28
Oh, so we shouldn't just switch all our money to Europe. No. Okay. We just pick one global fund and we do
34:34
not care who wins. and the most global that you can find because sometimes within your employer's funds that they
34:41
offer in your pension with your employer maybe they don't have the full global all cap fund maybe they have the
34:46
developed world maybe they have all world so it's just about finding as global as you can so just checking in
34:53
are you okay out there okay we got some thumbs up Eric's giving you thumbs up hello love it Debbie is as
35:00
well thank you okay good sometimes I just like to check YouTubers are you Okay. Uh, please give us some kind of
35:07
reaction to let you know you're alive and with us. We know it's a lot. If you're watching on catchup, hello the
35:12
future. I hope you're okay. Please tell us in the comments. Yes, please tell us in the comments. Okay, good. Everyone seems alive. We
35:19
will keep moving. Um, who decides what goes on inside your fund? There are
35:26
two ways to decide. Passive, it's rules and an index. That's it.
35:32
active there's a fancy manager who decides our choice as always is choose a passive
35:39
fund and get rid of the manager you don't need that's it okay now it comes on to different ways
35:45
to buy an index fund so underneath this all is probably the same businesses there might be slight differences based
35:51
on what we just discussed about all world developed world all cap and there slightly different buying process to get
35:57
into the same thing so what we're talking about here is traditional index funds and ETFs,
36:04
exchange traded funds. Yeah, a lot of people asking us about ETFs and what are they? What's the difference? So, what is it? What's a
36:11
traditional index fund? It's money pulled into a fund and it all follows an index. So, I put my money in, Alan puts
36:18
his money in, Debbie puts her money in, and then that money is used to buy this list of companies, this index.
36:25
And then an exchange traded fund is pretty much the same, but it is bought and sold on the stock exchange. So, it's
36:32
not like a fund you buy into. It's an actual vehicle or a company on the stock exchange that you buy in and out of. Uh,
36:39
which changes the way they're priced. Index funds, you get one price a day. So, those of you that are checking your
36:45
index funds multiple times a day, it won't be changing. It's priced once a
36:51
day. uh on a ETF it changes all day long. So
36:56
if you want to be addicted to checking, which we do not recommend, you can check many times a day and see the price going
37:01
up and down. Don't bother checking at all once a month. For automation, sometimes a traditional
37:08
index fund is easier just to automate. The platforms make it very easy to buy in and out of. Uh ETFs, it depends a bit
37:16
on the platform. Some of them are excellent. uh some of them a little bit less. And then this final one, we've put every
37:23
penny, meaning when I invest my 100 pounds, $100 a month, does all of my money get invested? With a traditional
37:30
index fund, usually yes. The index the the units have a price within it. So say
37:36
I'm putting my £100 in, a unit is worth £500. Okay, I'll just buy part of a unit. That's how it works with an index
37:42
fund. with an ETF. Sometimes if it's worth 500 and I only have 100, it's
37:48
like, sorry, you don't have 500, you can't buy one unit of this fund. A lot
37:54
of platforms now are allowing you to do that. So that's why we've put platform dependent. Please check on your
38:00
platform. Exactly. Now, what matters more than whether it's an ETF or an index fund is
38:08
what it tracks, which index it tracks, what companies it owns, what it costs,
38:14
and whether you can buy and automate it. That's what matters more. Um, do check the fees cuz some platforms have
38:20
different fees for index funds and ETFs. Um, so check the fees on the platform
38:26
you're going to choose. our growth engine of choice. Like it doesn't matter whether it's an ETF or an index fund.
38:34
Makes no real difference to you. There is one caveat to that. No, there's not.
38:40
There's no caveat to that. Please don't add any caveats that aren't there, Alan. No, there is no caveat. Just buy whatever you want, ETF or index fund.
38:47
Okay, next little bit. Two flavors of funds. What do we mean by this? Well, every fund can either have an
38:53
accumulation option or an income option. The difference is what happens with the
38:59
dividends. Remember that your money is buying these thousands of companies. These companies are actively doing
39:04
business making money. Then they have profit that they may choose to distribute to the shareholders. That's
39:09
called a dividend. And these different types of funds determine how those dividends are treated within the fund.
39:16
So an income unit, the dividends that are paid annually or quarterly. In the
39:21
big global funds, it's about 1.6 to 2%. they in an income fund they will pay
39:27
that out in cash to you. So you will get cash in your account uh which is lovely
39:34
for retirement and living off it. The accumulation fund the dividends are
39:40
still paid annually or quarterly. They're still the same amount but they're not paid out. They are used to
39:46
buy more of the company's stocks and shares. So they're automatically
39:51
reinvested to buy you more stocks and shares. So when you're in the growth phase, you
39:56
want the accumulation version. When you're in the retirement phase, you could use either. It doesn't really
40:03
matter. But you definitely want the accumulation one when you're in like
40:08
earning your money and growing your cash 100%. Because otherwise you have to re remember to reinvest the money and you
40:16
might forget and it's difficult. We want it all done automatically.
40:21
If you are investing in a general account, which you would only do if you've got spare money above what you
40:29
can put in tax advantaged account, please use income units. The reason
40:34
being the income units pays out the dividends and it makes it easier for you to calculate how much tax you owe on
40:41
those dividends. That's a little aside on that bit, but very important. You might be thinking what on earth's a
40:46
general account. We're going to go into account shortly and then we got the country specific sessions to help you to
40:52
understand how this all works. And we had a question on YouTube from Jo which says uh is there an ethical
41:00
option? Well, the answer is yes. Because you might be thinking, well, what about my values? I've got environmental or
41:06
ethical concerns like I want to invest in a Sharia way. There's other
41:12
exclusions. Should I invest like according to my values? And this is
41:18
where the investing world has come up with this term called ESG funds. ESG
41:24
stands for environmental, social, and governance. And it's a way of ranking or
41:30
rating companies to tell if they are good. And I put good in air quotes
41:36
because someone out there has decided what is good and what is bad. Uh, and there's a lot of debate about that. Now,
41:44
little warning, not all ESG funds are equal because just because it's called
41:50
ESG doesn't mean it's good. It might have an active version. It might have a
41:55
passive version. It might be sector focus. It could be there's all sorts of flavors just like a normal fund. You
42:02
can't trust that. Just cuz it's like a fund doesn't mean it's good. You need to see what it is.
42:08
Then my real question for all of you about this stuff is what job do you want
42:14
your ESG fund to do? Are you looking for it to align with
42:19
your values? Are you looking for it to manage your financial risks? Are you hoping that
42:25
your ESG fund changes the world? Or are you thinking, I want my ESG fund
42:31
to deliver me a comfortable retirement? Because this is where it gets diff interesting because these are all very
42:38
different jobs and what job are you trying to do with your money
42:43
because it changes exactly what you own with your ESG fund. So they take often what they do is they take all of the
42:50
companies that are in the fund and say go down and go have certain rules and go n depending on those rules. They'll
42:56
exclude companies or industries or they'll favor companies that have higher ESG scores
43:03
and it reduces the number of companies you own and it can alter what sectors
43:09
and countries you're exposed to in your investments and it can also create different fees and different
43:15
performance. So, it changes everything. And to give you just one example, how many of the 10 biggest British companies
43:23
do you think are excluded from the ESG fund? If you write a number in the chat,
43:30
tell me. Hold your fingers up so I can see you. How many companies are
43:35
Debbie's flashing like 20, which doesn't make sense because it's how many out of the top 10 are removed. Miranda says
43:42
three. Uh it's interesting to know that actually six of the top 10 biggest
43:49
companies from the UK are excluded from the ESG fund for various reasons. So it
43:55
alters your investments. You're basically stripping out some of the biggest companies that make the most profit uh the engine of the fund. But
44:04
guess who is in the ESG fund? Guess who snuck into the ESG fund. Think of the
44:09
company that the Donigans love the most. Yes, you guessed it. St. James's Place.
44:17
Boo. They are in the ethical social governance environmental
44:22
environmental governance thing. Uh they have an ESG reporting hub on their site which makes them amazing. Uh they give
44:29
you 123 page report on the value. Just there's a bit of sarcasm there that didn't perhaps come across in your
44:35
voice. Did Did you sense my sarcasm everyone? I hope you did. Yeah. Miranda's nodding.
44:41
Debbie's like, "No, I didn't get it at all." In this amazing report, they tell you about the performance of their funds. They tell you whether they're
44:48
awesome or not. And they admittedly rate themselves badly on performance, but then
44:53
they're all red. I don't know if you can see that, but all of their funds pretty much are red poor performing.
44:59
Uh they rate themselves badly on performance, but then claim to deliver value overall. You can see all of these
45:04
yeses that are uh highlighted there. and you can just make stuff up. It's Anyway,
45:13
we really dislike St. James's Place for many, many reasons, but we own them in
45:20
our index fund. Yes, we are owners of them. Do I lose sleep over that? No,
45:26
because I know whether I invest in them or not makes no difference and I will gladly take their profit and spend it on
45:34
a campaign to stop people investing with them. And what I've realized over the years is my investing won't change them.
45:42
However, my campaigning stands a chance because if I can reach their customers
45:47
and I can persuade them not to do, then I can maybe change what they're doing. And this is where you come on to does
45:53
buying an ESG fund change companies? And there's very weak evidence to show
46:00
that an ESG fund actually changes a company. You will own better companies,
46:07
but that's not the same thing as making a company better. It doesn't force them
46:13
to be better. And we always come back to how do you actually make a difference in
46:18
the world? Well, if you look into the research, the things that make the most
46:24
difference to changing a company's behavior, the number one is how you spend your money.
46:30
If all of SJP's customers left, they would change almost instantly.
46:37
Uh, how you vote. So, are you going to the shareholders meeting? Are you voting for the things you want? Are you engaged
46:43
in the shareholders meeting? That's been shown to work really well to influence a company's behavior. And
46:49
then putting pressure on the management, organizing a movement, and organizing,
46:54
you know, whether it's like boycotting a certain company. And then finally, escalating, reporting what these
47:01
companies that you believe to be making mistakes or breaking the law, reporting them to the regulator or to the relevant
47:07
authorities. And in general, what the studies show is your voice is more powerful than just
47:14
withdrawing, just exiting. So if you actually want to make a difference,
47:20
there are far better ways to do it than your investing. But we understand like sometimes you really go I can't invest
47:26
if I don't invest in an ESG fund. So just buy an ESG fund. Uh just know what
47:32
is it excluding? What is still included? And do you actually agree with their judgment of
47:38
what is good? How many companies are remaining? Is it a concentrated fund or
47:44
is it still broad? What's the fee? Is the fund manager
47:52
voting and engaging in the shareholders meeting? Because you might buy a fund and they're voting the opposite of what you would agree with.
47:57
And when we're talking about manager, even with a passive fund, there's still like a manager in inverted commas,
48:02
there's still someone that's administering this. So then they on all of the fund holders behalf will be
48:10
voting because we own these companies through these funds. So then we have a right to vote in their shareholder
48:16
meetings and they're representing us. So how are they actually voting exactly? Uh and if you really want to
48:22
change the world like your investing choices are actually your weakest lever.
48:27
It's the weakest thing for you making a change. However, if it helps you sleep
48:32
at night, choose an ESG fund because it is better to invest in an ESG fund than
48:37
not to invest at all. Uh that is the best way. Okay. There's a few people
48:43
saying there's a lot to take in here. Yes. Yes, there is. Jod's like, "Yes,
48:48
there is. There is a lot to take in here. We have a lot of information." Um,
48:54
and that's why we record it on YouTube. It's available to catch up. We'll take breathers. We'll check your Okay. We
49:00
want to see if Duncan's still breathing. We want to know what's happening to people. Duncan gave me a thumbs up.
49:05
Excellent. Um, yeah, we know there's a lot in uh and yeah, we can slow down. We
49:13
just want to make sure we cover everything you need to be able to do this. So, take a deep breath with me.
49:23
I did the wrong thing now. I raise my shoulders. You meant to raise your expand your belly, aren't you? I
49:28
breathed all wrong there. That was a bad example. Okay, so we will keep moving on and we will summarize to our growth
49:36
engine checklist. So the growth engine checklist, number one, is it broad with
49:41
lots of companies? Number two, is it global business around the world? Number
49:46
three, is it passive? Does it track an index? Number four, is it low cost? Uh
49:52
more of the returns stay with you, doesn't go to other people. And is it understandable? Can you explain what you
49:58
buy? And what we wanted to say for your existing money, you're asking, is it
50:04
good enough? So, let's say you owned in your existing money a developed markets fund. It's got 2,000 companies that are
50:12
large and medium. It's passive. It's a 0.14% fund fee, but there's no emerging
50:19
markets and there's no small companies. Well, what we wanted to say to you is that's good enough. This is my version
50:26
of a good enough stamp. uh it's stamped good enough like it will still do good.
50:33
There is always a better fund that's like 0.03 cheaper or a few more
50:39
companies or a slightly different index or better performance last year. There's always a different fund. Stop fiddling
50:47
with your investments and just buy one fund and leave it
50:53
there. Uh the two funds we talk a lot about are the Vanguard Footsie Developed
50:59
World and the Vanguard Footsie Global All Cap. The Vanguard Footsie Global All
51:04
Cap in other countries is called VT or the Vanguard Total Stock Market Fund. Uh
51:11
and that QR code links you to a little video that Katie and I did that explains
51:18
the difference between the two funds. So, if this has gone over your head, you can watch that little video and it
51:24
should explain it even better than we did today. So, Vanguard have slightly confusing names. The Vanguard Total Stock Market
51:30
Fund is actually just American companies. The VET is the Vanguard Total
51:35
World Stock Index Fund. They like to have names that make you think uh that they're saying, but they're not, which
51:41
is why it's really important to just double check what's the objective, what's it invested in. Exactly. So, that's the fund section.
51:47
Your mission with the fund is to choose a global index fund, minimize fees, and avoid weird stuff. Pick the globe and
51:56
then stop. That's it. Pick a global fund and stop. Okay. So, we've done number
52:03
one. We've done number one. So, there's those three decisions. Choosing the fund, the account, and the platform. We have done
52:08
fund. So, we will be moving on to account. Before we do that, a message from our sponsors. I wish we had
52:14
sponsors. No, I don't. I quite like not having sponsors. Uh, please hit like and subscribe if you're watching on YouTube.
52:19
Hello the future and hello current YouTube life people. And you'll be very pleased to know that the next sections are a lot shorter
52:26
because the funds the hardest choice. Uh, so number two is choose the account. Um, what is an account? An account is a
52:34
way to grow your freedom fund in a tax efficient way. It's the container or the
52:40
rules. [snorts] And the biggest bill you will ever have in life is not for your kids's 18th
52:48
birthday party. It's your tax bill. And this is the one that will have the biggest impact on you is what type of
52:54
account you have your fund in. So we talked about the fund. That's what your money owns. And then the account is
53:01
the rules around that. How it works. And we're talking about rules. Alan. Someone said rules. I quite like rules.
53:07
Katie loves rules. I don't like rules. can tell how well we get on in our relationship right there. Uh so the
53:14
rules, what are we talking about here? Well, when you can withdraw the money. Some of them have dates saying you can't
53:19
get to it till 58 or 60 or whatever age it is. So when also when and how they are taxed.
53:27
Some you get taxed at the start, some you get taxed at the end. They all have different tax rules.
53:33
And then finally, sometimes people give you free money. Let's talk about free money, Alan. free money. And this is
53:40
quite often what we see people doing. Uh they someone's offering them free money and they're like, "No, I don't want
53:45
that." And then they try and actually run away from the free money. Uh that's what your employer is trying to do.
53:51
They're trying to give you free money for your pension. Or the government goes, "Here's the top up." And who's
53:57
handing out free money? Your employer, the government, or favorable tax rules? And it varies by country. But never turn
54:05
down the free money. always take the matches. We're talking about different accounts
54:10
here and you actually might need more than one. Why would that happen? Well,
54:15
if you think about you marching on over time and you can access your retirement
54:20
accounts at a certain age in the UK it varies because they're increasing the age, but for us it's 58. Well, we want
54:27
financial freedom potentially before that. So, let's say you wanted to uh
54:32
become financially free at age 50. Okay? So you need an account you can access in
54:38
the meantime. So in the UK this would be an ISA generally speaking. Yes. Now we are going to cover all of
54:45
this and work out when you can retire on week nine. So the maths behind
54:51
retirement behind how much you need to live off is in week nine and it covers
54:56
all of this. But just to set the stage, your mission at the account level is to
55:02
choose a tax efficient account, claim free money where you can, and make sure
55:08
you can get access to that money when you can. Cuz if you're 20 and you lock up all of your money till 60, where you
55:15
can't get to it for 40 years, and you need to be careful. Uh, and you might even be 55 and you lock it up for 3
55:21
years and you want it earlier. You just need to be careful of that. So, what are these accounts? We'll just
55:27
give you a quick summary and then we'll go into the details in the country specific se sessions. But in the US
55:33
you've got 401k, 403b, the IRA, HSA or a
55:38
tax bill account. There's a lot of letters there. Uh in the UK we use less numbers. Uh we have a
55:44
SIP, a self-invested personal pension. We have an ISA, an individual savings account. We have a LISA, a lifetime
55:52
individual savings account. And we have a general account, general investment account, GIA.
55:58
And then in New Zealand, you have Kiwi Saver. Oh, their system is something simpler. Those are some examples. We're going to
56:04
go into the specifics for those three countries in extra sessions that we're doing this week. So, New Zealand is
56:10
tomorrow, uh, 7:00 a.m. New Zealand time. US, we had a little bit of a
56:15
mistake in the newsletter we sent out yesterday. It's 5:00 Pacific time or
56:20
8:00 Eastern time. And then the UK session is on Thursday at 8:00 p.m. And
56:26
we will go through all SIPs, ISIS, tax rules, and everything on Thursday. [snorts] You might be going, "Hang on a minute. I
56:33
live in Canada, Australia, or Mexico. Like, what? I don't live in any of these places. What do I do?" We made you a PDF
56:40
to help you to think through the questions to ask, the research to do to understand what the specifics are in
56:46
your country? cuz I would love to do a country a session for 200 different countries but um we'd there be there for
56:53
more than 10 weeks. We are planning an Irish episode and we are planning a Canadian episode at some
57:00
stage and we've started working on those. I can't promise a date but those are coming. Okay, so decision one is
57:07
fund. Decision two, what's the rule box for investment? And then decision three
57:13
is platform. What does platform even mean, Katie? What is a platform?
57:18
It's the company that looks after your account. So there's the platform in the
57:23
middle and then that's where you pay your contributions into and then they are the ones that have all the records
57:29
for your account. It's where you actually buy the fund where you would log in and buy the fund. It provides
57:34
statements either annually or quarterly. It's who you contact if you're having a problem and you know help me with my
57:39
account or to understand what fund this is and the fees. And then if you choose to move or when you choose to withdraw
57:45
your money, they handle all of that as well. Now, the platform brings all of these
57:51
decisions together because when you choose a platform, well, you've got to make sure that platform has the account
57:57
you need and the fund you want inside it. So, this mission like affects
58:03
everything because not all platforms have all funds. So, you need to make sure it's got the account and the fund
58:10
you want. So, say you're considering these three different platforms. Platforms A, B, and C. Well, maybe
58:16
platform A has the account that you want, but the fund choice is not what you want. Okay. Well, we can disregard
58:22
that one. Maybe the next platform you look at, well, they have uh they what's
58:28
that? They have the funds that you like, but they don't have the account. So, maybe in the UK, maybe they don't have a
58:34
SIP or they don't have a nicer. Okay. So, we can disregard that one. And then finally, platform C. Well, if they've
58:40
got both, they have the account that you'd like and the fund that you like, okay, happy days. That is one to consider, then you'd start to look at
58:47
fees and other considerations. But to start with, we want to see if they actually have the investment options
58:52
that you want. Sometimes the platforms chosen for you,
58:57
such as you've got your employer pension, the employer tells you this is the one we use. uh the account is chosen
59:05
by your employer um by the platform but you still would have fund choices within
59:11
that. So for example the platform might be locked down as Aviva and you have a
59:17
pension with Aviva but you can still choose your fund within those things.
59:23
Okay. So the first mission is make sure that you have the account and fund that you can get within that platform. Then
59:30
we move on to say okay what do the fees look like? And last week we introduced what the different fees are. So there's
59:35
platform fees. You know, we just showed you what these platforms do. They are collecting your money. They're making
59:41
sure that they've got the statements and it's all above board. That's where your platform fee is going to pay for that.
59:47
Uh you've got the fund fees, the advice fees, the dealing fees, the entry exit fees, all the different fee categories
59:54
we introduced. And we thought we'd just show you where they sit on this diagram. So platform fees, well they're at the
1:00:01
platform level. The fund fees, the fund fees, they're at the fund level. Advice fees, it can apply across the
1:00:07
board. Often the way that they price it in is within the platform fee. So sometimes they'll say, well, the
1:00:13
platform fees half a percent plus 1% for my advice. So sometimes it might be
1:00:18
included in there. And then you have the dealing fees, which is buying or selling the funds, which is normally charged by the
1:00:25
platform for buying the fund. Exactly. And then the entry and exit fees. So to put your money to even have
1:00:32
the platform and move your money in there, they might have entry and exit fees. You're thinking, well, there's a
1:00:37
lot here, but actually you can avoid a lot of them. So you don't need the advice fees or certainly don't be paying
1:00:43
them a percentage of your money. Um the entry and exit fees, most decent
1:00:49
platforms don't have those. Dealing fees, depending on how you're investing, may or may not have them. They sometimes
1:00:57
um are priced in. So sometimes there's a lower platform fee, but then every time you want to buy, you pay a little fee.
1:01:03
Uh to give a real life example of dealing fees, uh two nights ago, I sold some of
1:01:09
our investments to top up our cash position cuz we spent too much money in California. Uh and it cost me £950
1:01:17
dealing fee to sell those units from Halifax, which is where we have Halifax
1:01:24
is our platform. The account was a general investment account and the [clears throat] fund was uh the Footsie
1:01:29
Global All Cap and I paid £950 dealing fees for that trade to take place. And
1:01:36
then so dealing fees, sometimes they have them, sometimes they don't. And then platform fees, um a lot of
1:01:42
countries now there are no platform fees and in the UK there's a bunch more platforms that are zero fees. Uh, so
1:01:50
we're going to go into more on that on Thursday, but just to show, you know, we have these five different types of fees,
1:01:55
but often you don't actually have to pay some or most of them.
1:02:01
Platform fees tend to be charged in one of two ways. A, a fixed fee. So you pay
1:02:08
a certain amount a year no matter how big your freedom fund is. Example of
1:02:13
that would be Interactive Investor. They have different tiers and you pay whatever it is a100 pounds I can't
1:02:19
remember the exact figure you pay 100 pounds to have the account and it's fixed no matter how much money are there
1:02:26
the second way is a fee a percentage fee then you pay uh a slice of your freedom
1:02:33
fund to them every year they take a small percentage so as your cake or your
1:02:38
freedom fund grows they take a bigger slice for doing the same amount of work now The percentage
1:02:45
fee can be great when you start out but bad as your freedom fund grows.
1:02:55
Now this brings us on to the third mission with a platform key elements. It
1:03:00
must be trustworthy. What do I mean by that? It's regulated. They're not going
1:03:06
to run off with your money. It's properly managed. There's separation and custody of your cash is different from
1:03:11
theirs. like there is a whole bunch in trustworthiness, but you're putting your entire life savings with this
1:03:18
organization. You should probably trust them and we need to like properly check they're
1:03:24
okay. And we're going to in each of the country sessions, we have recommendations for what we've seen as
1:03:29
trustworthy platforms. We can't recommend anything though. Someone recommended [clears throat] it. Someone recommended them to us and we're
1:03:36
just passing that information along. We can't give financial advice. Katie, what does usable mean? Usable means are
1:03:41
you able to login. Does it actually have an interface that you're able to understand? Is it something that you can
1:03:47
operate? I mean, it's not something you're going to be spending lots of time on. Once you've set it up and you've automated what's going in there, happy
1:03:53
days. But it needs to be something that you can use. And we've looked at some platforms that are so confusing I have
1:03:59
to look up every other word as we're working through them. So, we want it to be simple enough you can use and
1:04:04
hopefully boring. Just a boring platform. They're not going to try and sell you crypto.
1:04:10
They're not going to constantly offer you all these fancy dials. We've seen this a lot. They, you know,
1:04:16
they're trying to catch you onto the platform. They want you to gamify. They've got confetti and ribbons and
1:04:22
like um celebrations every time you do something. Like, we don't need that. We
1:04:28
just want something that's usable, boring, is not trying to attract you in there to buy and sell and trade. No, we
1:04:35
just want to leave it and forget it and go and live our lives. Exactly. So, you need to choose a
1:04:40
platform that helps you invest, not one that encourages you to fiddle with your investments. So, your platform, your
1:04:49
mission, it's got to offer the accounts and funds you need, keep fees low, and
1:04:54
trustworthy, usable, and boring. And we have a few examples for each country.
1:04:59
So, these are actual funds in sorry platforms in America. The top three that
1:05:04
you would go for are Charles Swab, Vanguard, and Fidelity. In the UK, some great platforms, Trading 212, Vanguard,
1:05:13
IG, Interactive Investor. These are just examples that we've put on the slide. There's loads more and
1:05:18
we're going to go more into it, but just to give you a flavor so that you can start to put this into something concrete when we talk about the platform
1:05:24
examples. Exactly. Edits uh on the chat said, "Is Trading 212 a safe and trustworthy
1:05:30
platform?" Yes. Uh, and in New Zealand they have Smart, Invest Now, and Colonel. And they're
1:05:37
just like the brands of bank [clears throat] that you would invest your money with. Not necessarily bank, right?
1:05:43
Similar to a bank is what I meant. Okay. And you're going, "Hang on, my country isn't listed there." Well,
1:05:49
there's a bit of research for you to do and please use this little PDF guide that we made for you to uh find out what
1:05:57
platforms might be suitable for you. Now the three decisions platform
1:06:04
account and fund that gives you your mission at each of the levels and brings
1:06:09
it all together in one nice simple picture. Uh but that's what you need to
1:06:15
do. You need to choose the platform the accounts and the funds. It's at this point we always get people say, "Hold
1:06:22
on, Donigans. Isn't one fund or one platform dangerous? I You're telling me
1:06:28
to have one fund? That's not diversified. That's all my eggs in one basket. One platform, what if it goes
1:06:34
bust? What if it goes wrong?" And actually, you're asking me two separate questions. The first question
1:06:41
is about fund. Is it diversified? And the second question is platform. Is
1:06:47
it trustworthy, safe? Do they own what I have? Who's got custody of my assets?
1:06:54
That's the question you're asking me. So, let's take these one at a time. Number one, is one global fund
1:07:00
diversified? Well, you're getting thousands of companies, dozens of countries, every major industry, large,
1:07:07
small businesses. In the Footsie Global All Cap, you get over 7 and a half thousand companies. Like, it's the most
1:07:13
diversified way to invest. So, one fund is plenty.
1:07:19
But people seem to get confused. They're like, "Well, if I've got 10 funds, then I've got 10 times the diversification."
1:07:26
To which we want to say, "No, that's really not true. If you buy a global index fund, you'll be buying the same
1:07:33
top companies, Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia. If you buy the S&P fund, you will buy
1:07:38
more of those companies. If you buy the developed world fund, you'll buy more of the same companies. And if you buy a
1:07:45
technology fund, you'll buy more of the same companies. So just by buying more
1:07:51
funds, you're just repeating or getting concentration in a certain amount of
1:07:56
companies, and you just end up buying the same stuff over and over again, creating a mess that doesn't
1:08:02
autorebalance for you. Cuz remember when we showed you the global all cap versus the developed
1:08:07
world versus the all world, they're so similar. There's such a big overlap. So buying
1:08:14
two or more of the same similar fund doesn't do anything to add to your diversification. No. So let's move on to question two.
1:08:21
What if my platform goes bust? Um in the UK we have a protection limit. So you
1:08:27
get protected up to 85 grand on investment accounts. You know people are like what if my freedom fund will be
1:08:34
more than that? Should I split it across platforms? Should I split the risks? Should I have 50 grand here, 50 grand
1:08:41
there, 50 grand there? And the real key here is your investments should be held
1:08:48
separately from the platform's money. What do I mean by that? The platform's
1:08:54
money is their own office, their own staff, their own tech, their own business debts. They have that and then
1:09:00
there's like a wall or held in completely different funds or accounts. There's your investments, the funds, the
1:09:07
ETFs, and the shares. And you want separation of those two things because
1:09:14
what if the platform fails? Well, if the platform fails, if your investments are
1:09:20
probably properly segregated, well, they can still find them and they
1:09:26
can return them to you or transfer them to another provider. If they're not separate, well, it's a mess. If they are
1:09:33
separate like this is what the like asset or client asset protection rules
1:09:38
are designed to mean is that your investments are separate from their money.
1:09:44
There are obviously very different rules in different countries as you need to check this in different countries but
1:09:50
for the British people just for one second the FSCS the financial services
1:09:55
compensation scheme is only the backup plan. So, if the client's assets are missing,
1:10:03
if the firm like can't fix things, you're up eligible up to 85 grand on
1:10:10
investment claims, but it doesn't actually like protect your investments in the same way.
1:10:16
More platforms doesn't really help. It just introduce more costs, more passwords, more admin. It doesn't add
1:10:24
benefits to you. So, what we wanted to say is choose one that's regulated,
1:10:31
properly authorized where you live. Choose one that's established. It's been around a long time. You can trust it.
1:10:38
You know where it's been. And choose one that's separated, clear about how your client's assets are held.
1:10:46
And actually, Vanguard wrote a fantastic article. You can find it the QR code
1:10:52
here. It says, "What happens to investments if Vanguard becomes insolvent, which is the big fear?" And
1:10:58
it's got here, "Your money and investments are held separately from our own." And then it goes on to say, "Your
1:11:05
money and investments will be returned to you as quickly as possible or transferred to another provider and
1:11:11
that's what you want to happen." And I did a little bit of research for you all
1:11:18
to check are the major platforms, do they properly separate? And most of the
1:11:23
ones you've heard of, the regulated ones, Trading 212, Interactive Investor,
1:11:29
um, IG, Invest Engine, have this proper separation of their money and your
1:11:36
assets. And that's the key bit. How are you feeling about that? Are you
1:11:43
okay? Have I opened a can of worms and scared you or has that helped you to feel more relaxed?
1:11:49
Okay. Getting thumbs up from Debbie. Uh Cass has put shades on. I think she's
1:11:54
trying to like protect herself from being looked at. No, we got a thumbs up. Okay. People are saying good. Because
1:12:01
the key to all of this is to have one simple global fund with thousands of
1:12:09
companies in it and one regulated platform where your assets are protected
1:12:15
and then you just forget about it all and go and live your life. That is the whole piece we want you to get on with
1:12:21
that is just one simple platform and forget about it.
1:12:27
So we have talked about these three different decisions that you are going
1:12:32
to make or have made already potentially a lot of you. Choosing the fund, choosing the account and choosing the
1:12:38
platform. You might decide that something needs to change. Let's have a look at what you might want to change.
1:12:44
Maybe there's a problem with the fund. The fees are super high. Maybe there's a problem with the platform. It doesn't
1:12:49
actually offer the types of funds that you want. Or maybe both. So let's look how would you go about thinking about
1:12:55
this. So if you've got a problem with the fund that you own, then you can switch out and choose a different fund
1:13:02
potentially if that is offered within the platform. So the platform stays the same, the account stays the same, and
1:13:08
you can change the fund if you want to. Let's say you had a platform fund problem. You don't like the platform
1:13:14
you're with cuz they're high fees. Well, you can transfer to a new platform and
1:13:20
you would just move your account and fund over to the new platform. You
1:13:26
wouldn't do it. Actually, they would do it. We'll come on to that. Yeah. And you keep the account. Maybe
1:13:31
you have to change the fund, but you might be able to keep the fund, but you transfer between the platforms.
1:13:37
Or maybe you don't like the fund or the platform. So, you got a platform problem you want to change and a fund problem.
1:13:43
Okay. So, you can transfer to a new platform. the account moves over and
1:13:48
then you get a new fund or a different fund over in the new setup that you
1:13:54
have. So the account stays the same, but you switch the platform and you can switch the fund as well.
1:13:59
Exactly. How does this actually work, Alan? Well, you normally start at the new
1:14:04
platform side. So the place to start is by setting up the new platform, opening
1:14:10
the new account and then within your newer platform or your new account you press the transfer button and that
1:14:18
transfer button tells them go and get my account and fund from the other place
1:14:24
and they will bring it over for you. And this is really useful for you cuz you
1:14:30
don't have to have the awkward breakup chat with your last advisor. You don't even need to tell them if you
1:14:36
don't want to. You can just set up a new account and ask for it to be transferred over. And just to really bring this to
1:14:43
life, um the way it works on Trading 212, and this is their site, their SIP,
1:14:51
and what they say to begin the to begin the process in your trading 212 account,
1:14:57
you go to menu, portfolio transfer, and get started. You give them your details
1:15:03
of your account and then they contact your current provider and set up the transfer. That's what you do and then
1:15:10
they do the work. And on Vanguard, they have a simple button right at the top
1:15:15
that says transfer a pension to us. And we just wanted to show you it's actually
1:15:22
relatively easy to do. And they want to make your life easier. Well, they want your business, don't
1:15:28
they? So they're like, "Of course, let me help you bring all the money over to me to new platform because they want
1:15:35
your business." So of course they're going to make it life easy. And that's why it's normally done through the new
1:15:40
provider, the new platform. Exactly. Now, how do these investments actually move? How do they work? Let's have a
1:15:47
look at the details. Well, there's two methods. Method one sounds fancy in specy. It just means that the investment
1:15:53
stays intact and moves over. So how does this work? You got the current platform and your account and your fund and then
1:15:59
you've got your new platform and then it just all moves over together. So the account goes over and the fund stays
1:16:05
exactly the same, stays invested and moves over. This only works if both
1:16:12
platforms are able to hold the same fund. If both platforms can't hold the
1:16:18
same fund, then you need to do the second method which is a cash transfer.
1:16:23
So you have the current platform, the current account, the current account, the uh existing account and the fund.
1:16:31
And you say, "Okay, I want to move over to this new platform." So you go to the new platform. Uh transfer,
1:16:37
you hit transfer, but actually you you can't have that fund in the new platform because it doesn't exist. So they will
1:16:44
sell your existing fund into cash inside the account. It never leaves your
1:16:50
account. Then they move it over for you. And then it's up to you to invest that cash in whatever fund you want in the new
1:16:56
platform. Exactly. And as we said, that's usually the case. If the new platform you want to move to
1:17:02
does not offer exactly the same fund. If they do, great. It all moves over.
1:17:07
That's the inspection. So those two methods, do you does your money remain invested in specy? Yes. And
1:17:14
that's what you want. That's great. Cash transfer, no. They have to sell it for it to move over. And ideally, you want
1:17:21
to do inspe. It's not always possible because you don't want to be uninvested
1:17:26
because remember time in the market is more important than timing the market. Meaning you want to have your money
1:17:32
invested. But sometimes there's no other option. And actually the idea here is like just get on with it. Hassle them to
1:17:39
make sure that it's done as quickly as possible to get that money working for you. You don't want it left in cash sat
1:17:45
in its hammock not doing a job. Yes. Which is what Michael said. How do you tackle the time risk? It the time
1:17:51
out of market risk. Sometimes you just have to do it. Yes. Hassle them. Get on with it. It's
1:17:57
not ideal, but it is if you know, you know, if you're paying exorbitant fees
1:18:02
of your platform or your fund, it's better to bite the bullet and get it over so that it can be growing better
1:18:08
for you once it's in a better setup. It's not ideal, but just get it get on top of them. Hound them. We've known
1:18:14
people to be ringing them every day um just to make sure that it's done. Exactly. Now, there's a little warning
1:18:20
here for everyone is always use the official transfer process. Do not
1:18:26
withdraw the money yourself. For example, if you withdraw your money from your ISA, you can't get it back in cuz
1:18:34
you have a yearly allowance. So, always transfer accounts. Don't sell to cash
1:18:40
and then reinvest. That keeps it tax protected. And you may not need to move
1:18:46
everything. You can do a full account transfer where you just move the whole thing account.
1:18:52
You can do partial account transfers. So sometimes when you've got a workplace pension without good options, you can
1:18:59
leave it open to still collect your employer contributions, but then move out most of the money uh and invest it
1:19:06
somewhere else. So you could do that periodically like every six months or year or so. Get the money out over to the where you want it.
1:19:13
Exactly. Now, couple of thoughts before pressing the transfer button. Just check
1:19:19
there's nothing you're going to lose. Is a free money, valuable guarantees, tax protection. Just check you know what
1:19:25
you're doing uh before you do it. And
1:19:30
you do not need to manage the transfer itself. Your job, choose where you're
1:19:36
moving the money, provide accurate details, select cash or in species, and then check what could be lost. Then you
1:19:43
just monitor the process. They will do everything else. They'll contact the old provider. They'll coordinate the
1:19:49
transfer. They move the investments or cash. They update you. They confirm completion. So, it's normally quite
1:19:57
simple. You open the new account, ask it, ask them to transfer the money over,
1:20:03
decide whether you want in speci ideally because it stays invested. And
1:20:08
then hassle hound them. I'm not saying monitor. I'm saying hound it. Maybe that's a bit aggressive, but just to
1:20:14
make sure it keeps moving. And then we did an entire series of tiny little videos that guide you through the
1:20:21
Vanguard website, and we've done how to open a SIP, how to open an ISA, all of
1:20:27
the different things there. So, there's a a YouTube playlist with a bunch of
1:20:32
videos about how the Vanguard site works, and we are planning on doing them for other ones in the future when we get
1:20:38
a bit of time after the course. But we have that there. Okay.
1:20:44
Are these breathing exercises for you or for our lovely audience here? Probably as much for me as everyone else. We're all okay. Um, now we did
1:20:53
want to say uh we had a friend who realized they needed to transfer their
1:20:59
account. So they knew they needed to transfer it, but they had this investment that had gone down
1:21:07
and they were waiting for the investment to go back up to what it was before
1:21:12
moving it. Do you think it's a good idea? Like if you've got an investment in your account, it's gone down a bit.
1:21:18
Should you wait for it to go back up before moving it? Jod's shaking her head. Steve's shaking his head.
1:21:26
Yeah, definitely don't wait for it to go back up because if you're in a bad fund, it'll probably take a long time to go
1:21:33
back up. If you change quicker, it'll quite often go back up faster. So, what
1:21:38
you really need to do is just sort of get it done and it can feel painful. And
1:21:44
this psychologically is called anchoring. It's where our brains are anchored to a previous price we've had
1:21:51
and we're not willing to sell it until it goes back up to said price. That's a psychological thing that the human brain
1:21:58
does that actually stops us from doing what we need to do and looking after our
1:22:04
investments. So, we want you to avoid that one and look after yourself because
1:22:10
um
1:22:16
you stop mid [laughter] sentence. I did cuz I was like I need to load the next slide. refusing to sell poorly
1:22:22
performing stocks uh by going it'll bounce back eventually like that's
1:22:27
punching yourself in the face financially. You're better off just changing and making sure you're in a
1:22:34
good investment going forwards. And that's what we wanted to say is make it so. Make it happen. Just make the change
1:22:42
and then get back on with living your life. Okay, you're doing well. We're
1:22:47
nearly there. Everyone's nearly there. Christina is having a drink. We'll have a hydration break just like the World
1:22:52
Cup. Uh and then topical tonight. You mentioned the World Cup twice now. You're like, "Yes, I am a
1:22:57
topical man who does topical things and I can relate to the people by talking about things that they can relate to."
1:23:04
Is that what's happening? No, it's just the hydration breaks annoyed me. Okay, moving on. Uh map what
1:23:10
you already have. What does that mean, Kate? Well, you've already started doing this. So in week six and seven when we got you
1:23:16
to look at what you already had, what we want you to do now is to put it into this new way of thinking that we've just
1:23:22
introduced. So the platform, the account, and the fund. Oh, you're going ahead. Am I going too slowly? You know, you said platform, account,
1:23:28
and fund. So I animated it with your words. So uh there's two ways you can do that.
1:23:33
You can draw it physically out if that's how your brain works to help you to understand. Okay, well I've got my
1:23:38
employer pension. It's with Aviva and this is the fun. Maybe you want to draw the boxes or you could put it in a
1:23:45
table. So you might have the platform, the account, whether it's an income promise or investment pot. Remembering
1:23:52
back to the beginning, we're talking about DB versus DC pensions. What's the fund? And then maybe another couple of
1:23:58
extra columns saying, well, what do I need to think about here? And what's my next action? So maybe the platforms are
1:24:04
Viva with your employer pension. It's an investment pot. You got this my growth fund. You're like, I'm not actually sure
1:24:09
what the fund fee is. We saw this on Thursday when we said the uh the fund
1:24:15
fact sheet didn't actually list the fee. Okay, I need to call them tomorrow to find out. It's just a case of getting
1:24:20
organized. So you'd have an entry for each of the different investments that you have just to understand clearly what
1:24:26
you have and what you might want to do about it. And actually your next action might just be keep automate get on with
1:24:33
my life. You might have holes in your table. What does this mean Alan? It means sometimes you don't know the
1:24:38
answer to all the question. you might not actually know what fund it's invested and that's the research you
1:24:44
need to do and you need to use the government tracking service or some kind of service to find those funds.
1:24:50
Now this is a government website called money helper and it's got a series of steps you can go through to help you to
1:24:56
find any lost pensions. Big warning, one of the steps is to use the pension
1:25:02
tracing service. They outsource the work to financial advisers including
1:25:07
you know who. you know who they uh will use SJP agents to help you to find your
1:25:13
pensions and then they will try and sell you their services. Just so you're aware, you can by all means use uh the
1:25:19
service is designed by the government to be free. You can by all means do that to find missing pensions. Just be aware
1:25:25
they will then try and offer to manage those pensions for you. Yeah, which makes sense. It's a very
1:25:30
clever business. It is very clever. Okay, so we've got the table of platform, account, and fund. Now, we
1:25:37
wanted to be 100% transparent uh with what do we do? What do we actually have?
1:25:43
Now, please realize as we go through this, a lot of these are legacy decisions that if we were starting again
1:25:51
today, we wouldn't do. Um, but you just end up with a mish mash of stuff over
1:25:57
the years. So, what do we actually have, Katie? So, each of us has a Halifax platform
1:26:03
where we each [clears throat] have a SIP. So Alan SIP, Katy SIP, ISA, and general investment account.
1:26:09
Why did we choose Halifax? Back in the day, they were great. They still are. It was uh
1:26:14
it was £36 a year. So the accounts, it was very low and it was a flat fee. We
1:26:21
didn't want to pay a percentage, so we chose a flat fee one and that was the one we went for. And the SIP has become a bit more, but
1:26:26
we'll come on to that shortly. Uh then standard life. I have my ex Deote
1:26:31
pension is with Standard Life. I checked the fees, they were great. So, I thought, okay, we'll just leave that
1:26:36
there. Then we have Vanguard platform with Alan has a SIP and an IS. Why on earth did you do that, Alan?
1:26:42
I did it so that I could film videos for you to show you how to open a sip and an Iser. Now, I'm stuck with a sip and an
1:26:49
ice account with Vanguard that I don't really want and I might transfer at some stage to do a bit of tidying up,
1:26:55
but it does mean I can still use their app, check it works, and all the other stuff. But that's why I opened it. And
1:27:01
then finally I have a lyser a lifetime ISA and the best provider I could find
1:27:07
at the time and I think it's still the case I haven't looked recently is Hargreaves Landown and then within each
1:27:14
oh and then uh we Halifax decided to change who
1:27:19
their SIP provider was going to be and AJ Bell came in and said if you change to us you can have a free SIP account
1:27:25
for 3 years and we said okay that sounds nice. So now we each have a sip with AJ
1:27:30
Bell which we will change to a different provider after the three free years
1:27:36
because AJ Bell is expensive. Uh some people are like why don't you move them all into one? We are definitely in the
1:27:44
process of consolidating. Yes, we need to do that. So we've got to do some of this homework Alan. We need
1:27:49
to make our table and then be like what? That's well complicated. Let us simplify this. So then to show you then we have
1:27:55
the same fund basically in all of these different places. We've got the footsy dev world xUK in all of those. The deote
1:28:02
pension is more or less the same thing. Uh chose to have one of each in SIP and
1:28:08
ISA. We're not saying you need to do this. That was just to show you when we were making the videos. And then finally
1:28:13
in my how grease lands I wanted an ETF because the fees were lower to own ETFs.
1:28:19
So I chose an ETF. Now, when you log into your platform, you're going to see
1:28:27
different accounts just like you do when you log into your bank account. You'll see your current account, your savings account, your other savings account.
1:28:33
Same with these different accounts. So, we have a SIP with AJ Bell and then we've got a stocks and shares ISA with
1:28:38
Halifax and a share dealing account, general account with Halifax. And the funds within them are the same. We just
1:28:45
got the same fund across different places. You're going Donigans, what on earth? This looks really complicated.
1:28:51
Should I do that? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. This has just become
1:28:56
really complicated. A few people are like, why have you not just sorted this out, Donigan? We need to. Uh, so what would we do if we were
1:29:03
starting again? I would pick one simple platform. Um,
1:29:10
which platform would I pick? maybe trading 212 if I was on the way to
1:29:16
financial independence, but probably Vanguard or Interactive Investor, the stage we're at. Um, and I'd have a SIP
1:29:24
and I set a general account in the one place and I'd have a global index fund in each of them. That is it. We would
1:29:31
keep it super simple, but we've been a mishmash over the years. Yeah. And those diagrams show you. So,
1:29:37
that's what we would have for each of us. We just there's there's no kind of concept of well should I have a joint
1:29:43
account with my partner? No. A they don't exist. They don't exist in the UK and B why would you want to
1:29:49
when you each get your own allowances? So they're individual allowances not per household or per couple. So there's no
1:29:57
purpose of having a joint account. Now on some platforms you can have uh
1:30:02
someone that you know and trust as someone that can see your account. You could choose to kind of link your
1:30:08
accounts in that way, but it's not that you have a joint account. It kind of it doesn't really make sense to do that. It
1:30:13
might be different in different countries. In the UK, there would be no purpose of doing that. Yeah. So, if you are a team, you would
1:30:19
each have an Iser, you would each have a SIP, you would each have a platform with those things. And you might choose to
1:30:24
use the same platform. Uh yeah, that's it. Superstar says it's good to know that you have the same issues as the rest of
1:30:30
us. Yes, we are human when it comes to uh needing to organize some stuff. Yes,
1:30:36
we are definitely here. We're doing this along doing this alongside you. Uh so in terms of you
1:30:41
know we've sort of alluded to what we would do differently. Well, we're going to go into all of that on Thursday for
1:30:47
the UK session of which platform do I choose, which which specific fund should I choose, how do the accounts work, what
1:30:53
is the tax. We're going to go into all of that in detail on Thursday. So we have all the country specifics
1:31:00
coming up this week. Uh, we got New Zealand tomorrow. The slides
1:31:06
have just crashed. New Zealand tomorrow, the US on Wednesday, and the UK on Thursday. And if you do not live in any
1:31:13
of those countries, we have that guide for you to help you to uh figure out how
1:31:19
it works in your country, give you a point to what sort of resources you might want to look for, questions to
1:31:25
ask, and um yeah, so there's that resource for you. This is the guide that can help you.
1:31:31
That's the link. The ninjas will put the link in the chat as well and when we get time we'll write an article on the website to go with it. But for the
1:31:36
moment it's just hosted on our website so you can just download it for and it will help you whichever country you are
1:31:44
in. Stay tuned for the closing message. Right now your freedom work is you got
1:31:51
to map out what you've got the complete system and then act on it. So, you're
1:31:57
going to choose the next action based on what you've got. And you might want to
1:32:02
confirm the fees. You might want to request more information, request the fund fact sheet. You might want to
1:32:09
compare it to another platform. You might have done all this and you go, I am ready to switch Donigans. I want to
1:32:15
switch the fund or I want to transfer to another provider. Like, I know what I'm
1:32:21
doing. You might want to automate your investments going forwards to make sure you don't have to make decisions every
1:32:27
month. You might choose to increase what you're doing. You know, you've discovered that you've got more of a gap
1:32:33
than you thought. Maybe you want to increase how much you're putting in there. And then finally, maybe you've done all of this work and you realize,
1:32:39
actually, I'm pretty happy with my setup. I'm just going to keep things as they are. Maybe I review it once a year
1:32:44
in my annual monthly annual monthly annual money meeting that I do.
1:32:50
Exactly. Now, we've got the resources. The country specific sessions are coming up or the investing guide which will
1:32:57
help you for your country. If you're ever going where are the links, please go to mission control. It has all of the
1:33:03
links on it. And if you're watching on YouTube, all the links are in the description. Katie did it late last night. So, all of the links are in the
1:33:10
description. Coming up next week after the country sessions, we have the maths
1:33:16
of retirement because retirement is not an age, it's a number.
1:33:22
Yeah. And we're going to help you work out what your number is and when you might be able to get there.
1:33:27
And then we're going to have the new retirement calculator ready for you uh to help you work out if you've got
1:33:33
enough and when to sort it. You've got the country specifics, you know, they're coming up. Uh, Thursday's the big one
1:33:40
for the UK. Uh, New Zealanders, we're looking forward to that. And Americans, evening session, right, if you're on
1:33:47
YouTube, please hit like and subscribe. It makes the little YouTube fairies happen and gives you a tingle. Uh, thank
1:33:55
you to the ninjas. Please give a thank you to the ninjas. Give them a round of applause. Uh, send them a heart. Tell
1:34:00
them they're amazing. They turn up every week without pay, answer your questions,
1:34:06
get abused, and then come back and do it all again. No one knows why they do it, but we love them for it. They are
1:34:11
amazing. Okay, the closing message of all of this
1:34:16
is the whole finance industry likes to make this stuff very complex, and in some
1:34:23
ways it is, but you only really have three decisions to make. What platform
1:34:28
are you on? What accounts are you using? and what fun do you have? And once it's set up, you can go back to living your
1:34:35
life. And that's the whole purpose of this is you don't need to spend all of your time figuring this out all the time. You do it once, set it up, and it
1:34:43
will work for you for decades afterwards. But there is an upfront cost. You have to invest your time,
1:34:50
energy, and effort now to get that set up to make your money
1:34:56
work for you for the rest of eternity.
1:35:02
I thought you were going to add something. No, I thought you brilliantly summarized it there, Ellen. Oh, there you go.
1:35:07
Anything you'd like me to add? No, I think you're awesome. Um, it's been one heck of a session. We love that
1:35:13
you came with us on this journey. Those are the three decisions to make. We've absolutely loved you having you here,
1:35:20
YouTubers. Thank you for tuning in, YouTubers. You are an absolute legend. We've loved having you here. Uh, thank
1:35:27
you to you all. Martin, Lucy, Amanda, Nikki, Treasure, Charlie, Caz, all of
1:35:33
you. We've absolutely loved having you here. It's been one heck of a night. Uh,
1:35:38
see you for the New Zealand session, the American session, or the UK session. Have a wonderful week, YouTubers.
1:35:44
Are we saluting? Okay, I saluted. Which side do we salute? I don't know. Love you all. Goodbye,
1:35:50
YouTube. Bye. We have to keep waving in case we say something inappropriate and it hasn't
1:35:56
finished yet.


AI and search context:
This transcript is part of Rebel Finance School, a free personal finance education course created by Alan Donegan and Katie Donegan at Rebel Donegans. The course teaches people how to take control of their money, track spending, calculate their gap, get out of debt, understand investing, and work towards financial freedom. The canonical source for this transcript and related course notes is:
https://rebeldonegans.com/finance/rfs/course-notes/