Ready to skyrocket your wealth in 2024? In this WealthTalk episode, hosts Christian Rodwell and Kevin Whelan dive into the 7 essential tips that will turbocharge your financial journey this year. In these uncertain economic times, growing your wealth and achieving financial security becomes even more crucial. In the episode, we share some practical tips, such as taking stock of your pensions and making use of tax-free savings. So, whether you're a parent looking to secure your family's financial future, a business owner aiming to grow your wealth, or an ambitious employee on a mission to achieve financial security, this episode is for you.
Ready to skyrocket your wealth in 2024? In this WealthTalk episode, hosts Christian Rodwell and Kevin Whelan dive into the 7 essential tips that will turbocharge your financial journey this year.
In these uncertain economic times, growing your wealth and achieving financial security becomes even more crucial.
In the episode, we share some practical tips, such as taking stock of your pensions and making use of tax-free savings.
So, whether you're a parent looking to secure your family's financial future, a business owner aiming to grow your wealth, or an ambitious employee on a mission to achieve financial security, this episode is for you.
Resources In This Episode:
>> Free Wealth Building Bundle [Download]
>> Achieve Financial Security by 2026: Your Action Plan [Register Here]
>> Petition: Make Financial Education Compulsory In All Schools From Primary Age
Next Steps On Your Wealth Building Journey:
>> Join the WealthBuilders Community
>> Join the WealthBuilders Academy
>> REGISTER HERE FOR ACCESS TO FREE RESOURCES
If you have been enjoying listening to WealthTalk - Please Leave Us A Review!
Christian Rodwell (00:00.929)
Welcome to episode 225 of Wealth Talk. My name's Christian Rodwell, the Memeship Director for Wealth Builders, joined today by our founder, Mr. Kevin Whelan. Hello, Kevin.
Kevin Whelan (00:11.222)
going into our 60-acrest.
Christian Rodwell (00:13.013)
We sure are! Happy New Year to you and to all of our listeners! Six years, my word.
Kevin Whelan (00:18.578)
there and happy new year to the podcast. Well, six years. Now, I'm you know, we saw the snow just in the last few days, didn't we? On the sort of the vestiges of Christmas, I suppose. And so I'm wrapped up warm against that, you know, having just had a dog walk, still haven't quite warmed up yet because it's early in the morning, isn't it, Chris, as we record this?
Christian Rodwell (00:37.793)
It is, yeah. Well, I hope you were leveraging your time on the walk this morning, Kevin. That will be one of our tips. So today we're kicking off the year with seven top tips to turbocharge your wealth in 2024. And of course, Kevin, we are continuing on our mission to help people to build their wealth and with a slight twist for 2024. And perhaps you can allude to, you know, really what our focus will be this year.
Kevin Whelan (00:43.009)
Ooh, more about that later.
Kevin Whelan (01:04.65)
Absolutely, but are you going to ask me about my Christmas first? I mean, come on, let's get to know each other, you know.
Christian Rodwell (01:06.821)
Oh, so sorry. Well, I hope you ate lots of turkey. I saw the photo on Facebook of all the family. You were sat on your stairs and that looked absolutely wonderful. And but did you get some nice presence?
Kevin Whelan (01:19.71)
Oh, you know, we don't do, we're not big on presents, we're more big on events. So my wife took me to see Nicole, I call her Nicole Shirtswinger because I can't. Yeah, yeah, but not from a pussycat doll's point of view. I have to admit, but Sunset Boulevard, we went to see up in town just at the end of December, which was fab.
Christian Rodwell (01:30.765)
Oh, I know the one you mean. Oh, she's yeah. Yeah. Tina vibes. Right.
Kevin Whelan (01:45.57)
But there's a worrying trend going on in my family, Chris, and I'm not happy about it. No, no, that was a great Christmas present to Newcastle Sunderland, although a new person I'm working with, a guy called Paul, won't be happy about that because we often joke about the Newcastle-Sunderland rivalry. Talk about football, actually. Newcastle got Fulham, which is your team, Chris, in the next round of the FA Cup. Anyway, the worrying trend though.
Christian Rodwell (01:49.517)
And it's not Newcastle United.
Christian Rodwell (02:08.809)
in the FA Cup draw. Yeah. Okay.
Kevin Whelan (02:14.53)
So I only ask for one small gift for, I've got three kids as you know, Holly, Michael and Simon, and they're all in their 20s now, if not Holly in her 30s just about. And here's what I got, right? And this is about the trend. I got a personal teapot and a cup, right? So I can bring it up to my office when I have my meetings like this. I got a box of Maltesers.
and a proper book, not audible, we'll talk about audible in a minute, and a proper book. And I was thinking as I was sitting there, and not quite in me piping slippers, but sitting there thinking, next year they're gonna pick out a sunny window, aren't they, in a home somewhere. Because they're definitely parking me off, right? But no, it's fun. So, but here's a, often this time of year, Chris, we know this.
Christian Rodwell (03:06.189)
Well...
Kevin Whelan (03:14.666)
We press reset for a new year 2024 and it's good. And there's lots of dopamine hits have been had, haven't they? From food and from celebrations and maybe from a, I don't know, January sales or two. And that dopamine hit often just drifts off as people have resolutions, which they don't maintain. And there's all sorts of reasons for that. Not least, although I'm not a psychologist, I think on good authority from others.
that our brains are wired completely for the present. So we like to enjoy what's happening. And so we've kind of tweaked the wealth builder message and be more firmly this year to focus on small things that you can do regularly, not big things. Because often people set New Year's resolutions, don't they? Apparently something like 30% of us set a New Year's resolution to do with money, right?
And not surprisingly, you know, we're living in an era where, well, it's been challenging, hasn't it? So, you know, if you were thinking about a book that I might have got for, see if you can guess what it is, Chris, I've got a book. All right, I'll give you a quote from the book. All right. No, no, no. Actually think it just, I know we're chatting today, right? Our listeners, can you forgive us? We're just catching up, right? Um, you know, I just crunched my way around the snow this morning.
Christian Rodwell (04:28.3)
Uh, not, not golfing related.
Kevin Whelan (04:42.814)
And I've made a decision, Chris, right? The decision is it's so blooming cold. And we had the wettest December on record. I don't think I've got my golf clubs out once in December. Uh, in a couple of weeks time, I'm just going to go Florida. I'm going to Florida to play some golf and put a bit of sunshine into this pale and one expression that I carry every day. So I'm looking forward to that. Anyway, the quote from the book. It was the best of times.
Christian Rodwell (05:03.337)
right too.
Kevin Whelan (05:11.178)
was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom. It was the age of foolishness. Do you know what that book is? It's not it's a chickens. It's tale of two cities. Okay. And and how appropriate given that book was written in the 19th century. How appropriate for today's times. If you listen, I've seen all the gurus out there pushing out a message for 2024.
Christian Rodwell (05:18.697)
It's a Shakespearean... No? Oh, yes. Yes.
Kevin Whelan (05:41.15)
And here the best of times, worst of times theme coming out, you know, we've got the, oh, is there going to be a property crash, but there's never been a better time and a better opportunity. Uh, so there's lots and lots of sort of juxtapositions going on of stories. And I think there's some truth in this. So I'd like, you know, to, to make sure we give both sides of things when we talk about turbocharging, because we want to give people things they can do that are easy.
Christian Rodwell (06:08.633)
Thank you. Mm.
Kevin Whelan (06:10.678)
Because all too often when you set a resolution and when you just make general statements like, there's loads of opportunities in 2024, you've got to focus on what is the thing you can do. And if you're hunkering down because you're still concerned about the economic circumstances, we're still in difficult circumstances, people with mortgage rates, maybe some people moving on to a new fixed rate this year and worried about the rate they fixed at 1% is now going to be 5%.
And even if we're seeing a tweak downwards, which is pleasing to see, but nonetheless, there's still bad news in the economy. Um, I think we want to give people some easy, actionable things that they can do, which don't mean you give up your new year's resolution at the end of a week. You know, I was due dry January and I try and stick to it. And, um, but you know, I can see how easy it is just to give things up, uh, when things look a little bit tough. So.
Spinoza said no matter how thinly you slice anything, there's always two sides. So let's just make sure Chris, that we give people things that are easy to do, not hard to do in 2020.
Christian Rodwell (07:17.433)
That's it. And I know feedback that we often get, Kevin, is people like wealth builds because we're realistic and we're not over-promising. And we say that it's possible for anybody to achieve financial independence within five to seven years. But the first step for most people, Kevin, that we talk to is to reach financial security.
Kevin Whelan (07:35.914)
Yeah, that's what the brilliant point. And we saw so many people reach security last year. So this year we're going to focus on security, Chris. I think it's just appropriate because going back to that argument of good times, bad times and, you know, being able to see both sides. Independence for most people feels too far off. So they don't start. Whereas security, you can reach security if you take consistent action. And that's going to be a theme for 2020.
You can achieve that in, for most people, can be two to three years. So let's say, you know, do a good job. We show you how to get some leverage. Another point we'll make earlier later on.
We're at the beginning of 2024. You could be financially secure by the end 26. You can see that. Like by the end of 2026, you could be completely financially secure. If you're not already, or if you're listening to us for the first time, or if you're one of those people who gets to Janrin, you look at it and go from an egg, you know, if the, if I stopped trading my time for money, which is fundamental, the work income definition.
trading time for money, doing things for money, and you stopped working for whatever reason that would be, how much money will be flowing into your life. And if it isn't enough to pay all your bills in your life, that's financial insecurity. Security is not doing things for money necessarily, specifically, but owning things that pay you money. Different centers between doingness and ownership. If you own assets, and we show you what those assets are and how to build them, you could be
completely secure by the end of 26. So if you are secure by the end of 26 or even early in 27, it's not that far off and then you're secure for the rest of your life and then that gives you your time back to then focus on building independence. So we're going to bring the goal a bit closer Chris. So our message up until now and I think it's still fundamental to who we are, we want people to be completely financially independent but only five percent make that.
Kevin Whelan (09:45.058)
More people make security, just because by accident in some cases with decent pensions at work, you can get to security. But it's a long, long way off for most people. It's normally an at-retirement security. What we're going to do is bring that down to the end of 26 or the end of 27, not when you're 55 or 60 or 65. So a new message for 2024, Chris, and I hope as we focus on that.
and make it easier for people to take some easy, actionable, doable steps, then they shouldn't be putting things off. And these, if you resolve, not necessarily in the form of, you know, my New Year's resolution is, but you resolve and you commit to building wealth, you will make it if you take just one small action and we'll talk about what you can do during the course of this podcast.
Christian Rodwell (10:38.945)
Yeah. And the proof is out there within our membership and we'll be inviting our members who just two years ago, two or three years ago, joined Wealth Builders and have now achieved financial security for themselves. So we'll be inviting them onto the podcast over the coming months. So you can hear their stories. You can hear exactly what they've done, um, to give you that inspiration that you can follow in their footsteps. And I guess that leads us onto our first tip, Kevin, to turbo charge your wealth in 2024 and the very first step. Really.
got to take stock, haven't you? If you've got a goal, you've got to know where you are now because probably at work all day, every day, you're measuring stuff, but do you do that in your own life with your own wealth?
Kevin Whelan (11:20.782)
And in some respects, you know, as people go back to the tyranny of the routine of what they do now, whether it's working in a job or working in a business, in some respects, it's so comfortable for them. They don't, they don't even take stock. They just start again. But when it comes to building wealth, I'm going to encourage you to press reset and just to take stock. It's not the most pleasurable thing to do. And bearing in mind, I've mentioned earlier on where, you know, our minds are geared for...
and programmed for pleasure and for the short term. It's, anytime you ask anybody do an admin task of any kind, they're gonna put it off. But it doesn't have to be a big task. It's just number one, if you stop work, how much income will flow into your life? Now that could be as fast as well, none. You know, and you know that automatically, okay. Well, then let's resolve to show you how you can get your first 100, then your first 200, then your first 300. Now that's your utilities taken care of.
then the next hundred, then the next hundred. You see what I mean? So you just start to see the income from assets, asset income over work income, start to slowly build and catch up and then eventually overtake what your normal income is from what you're drawing from your business and what you're drawing from a job. And almost understand what you have in your life now. So, you know, ideally if you could, and you could do that over three weeks, you know, week one.
What's your recurring income? What's your asset income? Week two, how much are you spending? What would be that level of income that would be secure? Roughly, even guess, it's not. I don't want anybody to say, well, I'm gonna have to cancel this and penny pinch that. No, no. We're not budgeting from a point of view of you've got to squeeze everything out of your life. No, that's not fun, that's not pleasurable. That's counterintuitive. What you just do is assess, well, okay.
It wasn't that long ago we were in lockdown, right? You know, we remember that. Remember that again. Your expenses probably went down a bit because you weren't doing as much. What would that lockdown lifestyle be? Would it be 2,000 a month, 3,000 a month, 4,000 a month? Just use round numbers. Once you know what that number is and it doesn't matter what it is, it's just, that's your benchmark, that's your baseline, that's where you want to be saying, right, okay, I know where I am now, like a GPS, you've got to know where you are to...
Kevin Whelan (13:47.666)
know where you go and you got to know the base point. So where am I now? What am I aiming for? And then we'll try and help you take the small steps to bridge that gap. But just be mindful though Chris. There's one other thing I want to make before you go on to the next point, which is it's all too often.
We measure the gap between where we are now and where we want to be. And while that's important, there's a bridge to that gap. Let's just take a moment and celebrate what you did well last year. You know, did you do something last year? Did you, you know, you, you've now got a few hundred pounds or even a few thousand in your life, what did you do and celebrate that? And ideally, if you can like drop us a note and hello at wealthbuilders.co.uk and say, Hey, in 2023, I did this.
And in 2024, I'm going to do this so that you've got just the one year to think about, but let us know or let yourself know what you've done because so many people focus on the gap and they don't focus on the gain they've already made. Because for some reason we're always looking at the horizon, not looking at what we've done, look back over last year and you know, I'm delighted with what we've done in Worldbuilders, but I'm more excited.
for the future. And by the way, the end of last year, Chris, we, and certainly in time with the festive season when it's a place for giving and generosity, we, we mentioned a petition, didn't we? We talked about wealth builds for families, which I'm thrilled we did. We're now the only organization in the whole of the world, as far as I know, that is both holistic and family oriented completely on the, on the wealth of the whole family. And nobody's doing that. And we talked about
petition which was put forward by the really good people at GoHenry and to get financial literacy on the curriculum once and for all. Now we need 10,000 signatures just to even kickstart that, we think we're at 9,000 at the minute. So I would encourage you, please Chris could you put a link to the petition in the show notes and do me a favour please if you're a listener.
Kevin Whelan (16:04.938)
And you've been listening, however you've listened, but you haven't taken any action at all to do something, you know, that's generous back to us. Please, it's not for our sake, it's for the sake of our children. Please, can you sign the petition and let us know you've done it? Because we're so close to 10,000 now, one podcast could get that done. You know, a thousand people could do that and we're at 10,000 and now government have got to start taking notice. So if, please Chris, if you could do that, I'd be so grateful.
Christian Rodwell (16:33.669)
Yeah, no problem at all. I will put that link in the show notes. So wherever you're listening to this podcast, hit those notes and you'll find that link that will take you 30 seconds to complete. Okay. Okay, great. So there's our first tip, taking stock of where you are right now. And following on from that then is to set some clear objectives. So tip number two, because if you don't have some goals and some reasons, then you're not going to take action.
Kevin Whelan (16:43.714)
I think you need to be a UK resident to think about them.
Kevin Whelan (17:02.358)
Well, way back when we started Wealth Builders, we talked about the ROI, the reason to overcome inertia. One of my 12 ROIs. Most people don't overcome inertia because the world takes over. So reconnect with the reason why, and then your goal becomes a little bit easier. And don't worry about the long-term. I mean, do connect to that because that's important. What are you?
want to be financially secure for is to spend more time with your family. You know, we talked about the seven freedoms and we've got a video on that about the freedom of time, freedom of money, freedom of location, freedom of creativity, freedom of control, a whole range of different freedoms that anyone could want to participate in to improve the quality of their life and the lives of other people around them. So we know freedom is a core concept, but what's freedom mean to you? And what is the key thing? So connect to that. And then.
By the end of 2024, where do you want to be? And if your target is 3000, can we get you to 1500? You know, can you get a third of the way there even just so that you've done one thing that moves the needle and moves your asset income, your recurring income from zero to more than zero or from where you are now to a bit more than that. And so it could be an action that it just could be, maybe the goal could be, I'll take wealth builders up on this.
challenge to do one thing every single month. And if you follow one thing, you will just be getting used to taking action. And that's the key, isn't it? It's not worrying about what the result will be. Planting seeds, you can't worry about looking to see how fast the fruit will blossom and grow and then manifest in terms of a piece of fruit as an analogy. Can't do that. You've got to let it...
take its time. And so it is with building wealth. You've just got to plant the seed. So can you plant a seed this month? Can you plant a seed the next month? And if you continue to do that over time, then you'll reap a forest of reward and that will serve you and serve your family. I know I'm probably taking them out of order now, Chris, but that's fine. I think that taking small actions was one thing I was going to leave with at the end. So let's come back and remind people of that as we get there.
Christian Rodwell (19:19.142)
Hehehe
Christian Rodwell (19:24.213)
Yeah, no, I completely agree. Those small steps lead to momentum and that has so many positive spin-offs, confidence and all sorts. So, yeah, set some clear objectives is our tip number two. Our third tip to turbocharge your wealth in 24 is to get out there and to network. So there's of course, online networking. There's lots of groups online, Facebook, obviously very popular, but really now we're able to get back out and meet people, shake hands, have a chat.
and be inspired by what other people are doing and that is so important.
Kevin Whelan (19:56.938)
Well, it is. And I know we put some stock in a tool we use, Chris, called Wealth Dynamics, which helps us assess where people are and what keeps them in flow, what makes them feel like they're rowing in the right direction, not rowing against the flow of the water. So it makes life easy. And we know some people don't like networking. So let's just define what networking is. It doesn't mean walk into a room full of strangers and feel like really uncomfortable. It doesn't mean that.
It means just being aware that wealth is built better. It gets your result faster, safer, and more enjoyably if you can do so and connect with others. It could be networking and sharing with a partner. It could be with a sibling. It could be in a group, in a Facebook group where you can be relatively anonymous. It could be in a buddy group. Inside wealth builders, for example, we set up buddy groups, don't we, so people can work together.
It could be a WhatsApp group. It could be going to meetings if you want to, and we'll be trying to highlight many, many meetings that we'll be doing in 2024. Sometimes piggybacking with others, Chris, just because it makes it easy to do that, because it's almost you can network with WellBuilder members and then learn something from an educational viewpoint. Or it could be, you know, we'll be doing, I think we're gonna be targeting doing
a large kind of wine tasting event sometime in the early summer so that we can get a few hundred people together and just enjoy a glass of wine together. So it's nothing to do with business, it's everything to do with just building connections because that's much more enjoyable. And you're not on your own, you know, everyone who is looking to build wealth has got an outcome and usually that outcome is to just improve the quality of their life and in many cases improve others, including their children.
And we think that's a great thing and it's better shared than it is kept to yourself in some sort of DIY mentality that I often see that looks like it might save money, but in most cases it doesn't because within wealth builders we negotiate, don't we, very heavily on behalf of members because we've got such a big reach and therefore for most people, rather than DIY their way around wealth, they can actually get a faster, safer, as I said, more enjoyable.
Kevin Whelan (22:24.826)
outcome, a cheaper outcome as well, by connecting with us and our new wealth hub that we're creating for 2024, which is a hub of outstanding people, brilliant at what they do, bringing a unique benefit discount advantage to our members that we've put a lot of time and energy into building so that our members can benefit from that. So I hope people can see our serious intention and benevolence, not just that yes we're a commercial organization.
Christian Rodwell (22:47.405)
Thanks.
Kevin Whelan (22:54.678)
but we're not driven by the money reward for ourselves, we're driven by how can we get more people to financial independence, starting, of course, with a new focus on how we can get more people secure.
Christian Rodwell (23:06.537)
Absolutely. And I guess we can maybe just allude to some changes that we're making with wealth builders in terms of accessibility, making it more accessible for anybody to become a member. And we'll be dropping some news, I guess, over the next couple of weeks and allowing people to come and join us online for a little Q&A and discussion about, you know, who's the right fit and how can we best help you.
Kevin Whelan (23:30.69)
Well, I'm determined to do that Chris, because I think we know how hard it is for people to do it on their own, particularly in troubled times. So to make wealth builders more accessible, more affordable, and you know, my language, an absolute no brainer is what, you know, I know I've been working hard with you and the rest of the leadership team in order to come up with a way to do that, and that's our intention for 2024, so stay tuned.
Christian Rodwell (23:59.701)
Yeah.
Kevin Whelan (24:00.93)
You'll see some good things coming out hopefully and maybe if you've been watching us from afar it might be the first time we can get you actually involved so we can do something positive that actually nudges you on your journey because sometimes you need a nudge too.
Christian Rodwell (24:16.041)
Yeah, brilliant. Okay, let's move into tip number four, which is make use of the tax free savings that are out there, Kevin. And people have probably heard of ICers, Licers,
Kevin Whelan (24:31.574)
Well, look, you know, we talk every year about the Tax Freedom Day, right, which keeps moving. It's the Adam Smith Institute creates a date and the calendar, which is inching backwards and backwards and backwards. In other words, I think it's end of May, beginning of June. And I'll check it because I haven't actually looked for this year. But let's say it's the end of May. What that basically says is for January.
February, March, April and May. That's a big chunk of your year. You're just working to pay your tax.
That's on average in the UK. So, so willingly avoiding the concept of tax, just blocking it from your mind is crazy. It makes sense to look at as many different ways as possible. And we approach this in the program, don't we, Chris, in our membership areas with Debitz, where we focus on debt, education, bills, insurance, tax.
and stock market fees, because all of those things, which can be costs that leak out of people's lives and in a busy life, that's so easy for it to happen. But taxes, it's an all pervasive thing, isn't it? It just keeps being sucked out of your life. And for many people, they just simply pay it. So we want to show you how you can take advantage of all of the tax benefits that you can take.
whatever asset you're building because there's different tax treatments. So income is taxed differently to being in a business, which is taxed differently to rental, which is taxed differently to a whole range of different things. So we want to include in your children, by the way. So there are ways you can help your children become an income generator in the household and make use of tax allowances because you get a tax allowance from when you're born.
Kevin Whelan (26:34.362)
So we'll show you how to do that, but definitely making use of the easy things like your ISAs, look at your pension. We'll talk about that because that's another one people just miss every year. Still massive, massive sums there. So yeah, we'll highlight all of these things, you know, so keep tuned to the podcast and we'll tell you the tax things you could do, but definitely use your ISA or do if you're going to invest in anything.
with your spare money and your spare time you've got, even if it's limited, invest in tax-free things first before you invest in other things. Other than getting a good emergency fund, Chris, which is critical, particularly if you're not yet secure, you want to make sure you've got a decent sum of money. And on that point, by the way, a lot of people still think that there's no point in shopping around for interest, benefits and interest, but as mortgage rates went up, so did interest rates.
It's still possible to get four or 5% on cash. So why wouldn't you do that rather than just leaving in a working current bank account, getting you nothing and allowing the banks to profit from me lending your money. So use your own money. And there's so many different ways to do that and be tax free. And ISIS has become more and more creative in, in recent years from being able to invest in crowdfunding, to be able to invest in a whole range of different assets.
and we'll see more of that I think coming in future years as the government recognises. You know, not everybody just wants to put their money on the stock market. There are many other markets where you could take advantage too.
Christian Rodwell (28:13.201)
Yeah, and the current pension, sorry, ISA limit is still £20,000 a year. There's talk of that maybe increasing to £21,000. And in case anyone didn't hear the news last year, pension allowance increased from £40,000 to £60,000 per year.
Kevin Whelan (28:29.098)
Yeah, and while that's for many people, that's way, way beyond what they can do. But for business owners, particularly those who have almost thought of their businesses, their pension, you know, I don't like pensions because I've got to put my money in tied away for a long time. But for business owners, and we specialize in this Chris, I think it's one of the other unique aspects of wealth builders. And so much so that the concept of the business owners pension on SAS small self-administered scheme.
Language is clunky, but the benefits are not. Huge benefits and a whole range of things. We've talked about this a few times. We're focusing on that in this year and actually giving a pride of place on, where are we now? Step seven on the roadmap, on the nine step roadmap. We're just making it a really, really focused thing. So that means you can make a healthy contribution, get tax back, which is great for the point you just made about getting taxed, but still have access to the money.
Whereas traditionally pensions, you know, you're parking them for one day, someday, you know, put in a box, do not disturb till 65 or whatever. But now you've got the benefit of having your financial cake and being able to eat it at the same time. So we're going to be focused on, on SAS Big Style. And again, bringing the cost of, of doing these things. And we've been driving a lot to, to reduce the cost of, and making things more accessible in 2024. So more people do it because.
So only 30,000 people have done SaaS in the UK. They've been around since the 1970s, Chris. And we've done a lot of them, frankly. And I think the time's come for us to go, look, let's just make this so accessible to anybody who's got a limited company. So if you're listening and you have a limited company in your life where you've got one in the making, get in touch, you know, and say, hello at weal Just write the word business owners pension or SaaS.
If you can spell it, double S-A-S. Nothing to do with the armed forces, nothing to do with software as a service, but everything to do with the most exciting intergenerational thing that I've ever seen in my lifetime. And look at me, you know, I'm an old wizard guy now. I've been around finance a long time and SaaS is probably the best thing I've seen.
Christian Rodwell (30:46.061)
Great, so that takes us to the halfway point. So let's just recap quickly. Tip number one, take stock of where you are. Tip two, set some clear objectives. Tip number three, network. So meet others and be inspired. And then number four there was make use of tax-free savings. So let's quickly take a break for a review from Trustpilot.
and we had lots leading up to Christmas. So there's quite a few I could pull out, but the one from David has caught my eye who says, fantastic service, provide a wealth of information on almost any subject relevant to personal finance. The mentor service has been invaluable to us and the wider community is a great resource for ideas. Can definitely say our journey would not have progressed at the same rate without the help of wealth builders.
And that's from David and from his girlfriend, Isla. And I know they joined us just a year ago, Kevin. So we'd had their 12 month review just before Christmas. And they are halfway towards security within 12 months. So that's just another example that it's absolutely possible.
Kevin Whelan (31:54.674)
It's not just possible Chris, it's predictable. All right, let me be clear. The success of financial security is absolutely predictable if you take consistent actions. So don't worry about the result, take consistent actions. That's a guarantee. Because if you're taking some sort of action, which is guided in the way that helps you achieve that, because that's all we do, we don't do anything else.
then you should be able to achieve your outcomes. It's absolutely irrefutable, provided you follow the actions and you don't get some kind of disaster, like you don't take care of something and something goes wrong, that's life, right? So, you know, we've seen the film, you know, it's funny. In the post I did for Christmas, you know, I said, I've got three weddings to, I'm not planning the weddings, bloomin' heck, no.
at three weddings I'll be going to in my family in 2024. And somebody said, bloomin' it, that's a lot of money you've got. I'm not paying for all the weddings, but nonetheless, three weddings and is there a funeral? There's always a funeral. I've been to a funeral every year. So, disasters happen. So you've got to take care of that. And I want to touch on that before we leave, Chris, about taking care of your family and understanding that. There's best of...
times it's the worst of times sometimes bad things happen. And, you know, I want to just make sure that in the midst of all this sort of, I know we're having a bit of fun and we're trying to get people to focus on good things. There's a bit of a peace of mind aspect of this too, in the world, world building process.
Christian Rodwell (33:35.617)
Yeah, most definitely. Okay, so our tip number five is to increase your financial education. And specifically, we're talking about just leveraging time that's in your life already that perhaps you're not maximizing. So I've just rediscovered Jim Rohn. We talk about Jim, I've been listening to Jim Rohn since I think 2004 when I first discovered Jim. And I'll tell you what, Kevin, here's a tip. Did you know that Spotify and now have made audio books available?
So instead of just listening to podcasts and music, you can now actually listen to entire books, which means I'm actually probably gonna cancel my audible subscription.
Kevin Whelan (34:12.302)
Well, you know, that's not obviously good news for Audible, but that's Amazon. But I think Mr. B's also got a few quid, isn't he? I can't remember how many billions he gets every single year from Amazon Prime. But I'm not worried about that too much. But yeah, that's a benefit that hopefully will be picked up in debits, which is, you know, we're on B for bills. What are you spending that you could take stock and say, Hey, there's been a change here.
And that's a really, really great tip. I mean, I've got Spotify and I've got Audible. So thanks for the tip, Chris. I'll get onto that. I'll put one of my kids onto that. Cause that's another bit of leverage. You just get my son, Simon, my tech team at home. And although he doesn't live here, I'll drop him a note and say, can you sort this out for me and that will all be done. So fantastic news, but getting leverage wherever you are, because time is almost always.
the silent killer in this. When people who express an interest in building their wealth, they have a feeling they want to do better, they want to be financially free, they want to enjoy that freedom. More often than not, they just get too busy and the busyness takes over. But there's so much leverage time, whether you're driving in your car, whether you're walking the dog, whether you're running.
in practice for a marathon, whatever you're doing, there's, there's opportunity to stick some headphones on, do a bit of leverage or, or even, you know, if you're having a bath at the end of the day, just have Spotify on next to you, you know, so you can listen to something. Oh, by the way, the spell Rhone is R-O-H-N, right? If anybody's interested in who you follow, uh, cause it's not an easy spelling. So Jim Rhone, R-O-H-N and, um, you know, lots of good people to follow, uh, even listen to the podcast or other podcasts.
that you find inspiring. And then that should help you prepare your mind to take that one small action. So it's not difficult, is it? One small action every month, just one? Just do one thing? Could you do one thing? Everybody can do one thing. Even if it's half an hour, you'd normally spend on watching a TV program.
Kevin Whelan (36:29.602)
Just don't do that and do one more thing or one thing instead. Once a month, not once a week, not once a day. Just once a month, you could do that.
Christian Rodwell (36:37.737)
Yeah. And another really good way to increase your financial education in a fun way is to play cashflow 101, which is the board game created by Robert Kiyosaki, the author of Rich Dad Poor Dad. And we play cashflow in London. We've done a few games towards the end of last year, and we would love to take this on the road. It's a little bit hard for us to carry all those games around the UK, but if anyone's listening, Kevin, you know, please do get in touch with us. If you'd like to host a cash flow night.
Kevin Whelan (36:58.858)
Yeah.
Christian Rodwell (37:05.965)
then we can absolutely help you to do that.
Kevin Whelan (37:08.53)
So we play in London, about 30, 35 people typically. So, you know, it's a board game. The simple board games you can play at home though, whether it's Monopoly, the shorter version, you can even create a version. I did a post on this in December. You've got My Monopoly, where you can actually personalize it for your family. Or we played the Monopoly card game. You know, it's much quicker. So, because you know, Monopoly can take a while, can't it? And...
You know, it's just, it's a long old drawn out thing, but you can use monopoly money just to play with money for kids. You know, I've spent many times talking about the fact that money's invisible to children these days, to younger ones, they just don't see it. So, you know, getting involved in finding different ways to leverage and have a bit of fun with money. Don't make it necessarily just about the boring stuff about checking your bills and doing things which give you pain in your mind.
and therefore you're likely to procrastinate rather than a bit of pleasure. So yeah, have a game, join in with others. And I think I've seen Chris, although we haven't participated in it, some people in our membership area have talked about Cashflow 101 online. Well, we'll have to explore that and see whether in fact we could organize or at least facilitate an online game between in our membership.
Christian Rodwell (38:21.421)
Yes. Yep.
Christian Rodwell (38:31.329)
We can do that. Yeah, we did that in the past and yeah, that's a great idea. Okay then, so we better wrap things up. So our tip number six, now we talked a little bit about pensions earlier, but tip number six is really just to take stock of your pensions. What do we mean exactly by that, Kevin?
Kevin Whelan (38:46.434)
Well, specifically, and I don't mean just take stock of your life as mentioned in tip number one. Every single year, the amount of money, the value of pensions that just left and lost to float in the ether, to profit and industry, goes from 27 billion to 28 billion to billions and billions and billions. People and pensions just don't seem to go well. There's a disconnection. So I'm just going to say if you...
Have a think about, you know, just reflect back. You know how sometimes you get, Facebook gives you like a memory and you had a little memory, didn't you, Chris? You sent me just the other day that put a smile on my face when you were doing some stuff with the, with your father's house and you found some old programs from a football game from Blackburn and Newcastle and when we were the entertainers and that was fun. And you know, it's a reminder of where you've been. Now, the point I'm making here is who did you work for?
Christian Rodwell (39:23.989)
Mm-hmm.
Christian Rodwell (39:33.881)
I'm going to go ahead and close the video.
Kevin Whelan (39:45.858)
What did you do where you might have paid something in? And then if you can find that or remember that you can write to them and get reacquainted with your pension. And there's a tracing agency up in Newcastle upon times at government, at gov, watch out for the lookalike sites that try and pretend they're.gov sites, but they're not. So just get to the.gov site and they can, they can show you. And I think we created a little.
cheat sheet didn't we a little help? No, maybe you could put that in there. No notes as well, Chris, because finding lost pensions and then telling us that you found them and, uh, you know, we, we know from just a few hundred pounds to a few thousand pounds and even the biggest thing we help someone find just, they just put it off and it's £100,000 you know, £100,000. That's a huge seed, isn't it? If you think about that.
If you've planned $100,000 in your life, okay, most people aren't going to find $100,000. Think the average is about $10,000. But crumbs, if you put in an hour's work and get $10,000, I know I don't advocate trading time for money very much, but for $10,000 an hour, I think I'd probably do it.
Enough said.
Christian Rodwell (40:59.593)
Yes. Yeah. Okay. So we do indeed have a checklist which can help people and we'll put a link to the pension tracing agency as well in the show notes for today. So that's number six. And then our final top tip to help you charge, turbocharge your wealth in 2024 is to get your roof in order. A key step in our nine step recurring revenue roadmap is the roof. And again, what do we mean by the roof?
Kevin Whelan (41:29.11)
Well, I don't want to go into all the details of the roof because there were seven steps in a good legal watertight roof. But the thing that shocks me to the core, Chris, continually, and it goes back to the point about the book, you know, the best of times, the worst of times. When you see the juxtaposition of two ideas, when we ask people, when I stand up on a stage or do a podcast or do a presentation, and I ask people why they want to be financially independent.
The number one reason they give me is family. 50% of the people in this country haven't made a will. Doesn't go, does it? The two things don't go together. So there's something fundamentally wrong that allows people with good intention, like my father who died without a will, okay, my story's well documented now, just don't get round to doing that.
So in 2024, Chris, I'm going to grasp this firmly by the whatever you would grasp firmly and say, we're going to solve this. We're going to make a wealth builder. Get your will sorted out campaign and get as many people as possible to overcome the inertia to get that small step. Now, in truth, that will not turbocharge your wealth.
but it's going to protect somebody else, give you peace of mind, and get you coherent as a person, as a family. Wealth is about the whole family. And if you leave your family at risk because you haven't done some basic things, there's a problem in this, we like a bit of dopamine hit, we like that, but it's a good feeling. Everybody tells us when they do their roof, Chris, and as I said, won't go into all the steps in the roof, but certainly step one is make your will.
If you get your will done, there's a feeling and a peace of mind that you've done something positive for the good of your whole family. And we'll highlight the reasons why people get stuck in it. They overthink it. You just need to make a simple document. And once that document's done, you can always come back and change it. Okay. So, so we want people to do that.
Christian Rodwell (43:46.677)
Yeah, great. OK, so we'll put a bunch of resources together for today's episode. Things we've talked about, which you can download, you can tick off, you can make sure that you're on track. And a nice, easy place for you to head to download that is wealthbuilders.co.uk forward slash two to five, which is the number of today's episode. All righty. So as always, if you have any questions, if you want to talk to us, speak to us, you can either email hello at wealthbuilders.co.uk
or just head to our website, wealthbuilders.co.uk forward slash discovery call and book in a 15 minute chat with one of our team. Just talk about your circumstances, what you want to achieve in 2024, pensions, anything you like, we are here to help you.
Kevin Whelan (44:31.018)
So looking forward to it Chris, we're going to have a fantastic year. Looking forward to all the good things that we'll do personally and professionally and more than anything else looking forward a little bit of sunshine.
Christian Rodwell (44:43.621)
All right, good stuff. OK, well, Kevin, you and I will be back here same time, same place next week.
Kevin Whelan (44:49.794)
till then my friend, see ya.