On A Mission To Disrupt The Financial Services Profession. #57

Catherine Morgan is a multi-award-winning qualified financial planner who's on a mission to reduce financial anxiety. In this episode, we discuss how creatives (musicians, opera singers, instrumentalists) can make sure they have a healthy attitude to money.

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Transcript

Understanding how we interact with money can take us a lifetime to comprehend vowing, to break out of the debt cycle. But somehow you've still overspent on shopping coffees and Uber eats. There's so many things that we can buy. Our behavior around money is not something we can simplify, but Katherine Morgan, a multi award-winning qualified financial planner is here today to dig deep into these issues on a mission to reduce financial anxiety.

She has her own podcast called in her financial shoes. So sit back, relax and enjoy another Wednesday episodes. This time next week, I'll be sieving through podcast reviews by the bucket load. You've tuned. Get into the art of money-saving dot com podcast. My name is Josh, and this is the place where creative people come to learn a little bit more about managing their personal finances.

Catherine is a certified financial planner. She gives some really interesting. Insights into our behavior around money. So I'm not sure about you. Sometimes my own behavior is a little bit erratic or very emotional. So we're going to unpick that today. Enjoy this episode. Very good. So, Catherine, thank you, you so much for coming on the art of money, saving podcast, real pleasure to speak to you and to, to have a chance to ask you some, some deep and meaningful questions when it comes to money.

But first for the listeners, can you tell. A little bit about yourself, where you're from and why. Yeah. Sure. Thank you so much for having me on the podcast today, Josh. I really appreciate it, uh, from one podcast to another. Um, so my name's Catherine I'm founder of the money panel. Um, I founded the business five years ago, really.

Out of frustration that I, my background is a financial advisor, so I've been a financial advisor since day dot since I came out of college. Um, so I had all the financial knowledge about, you know, how to manage money, how to invest it, how to grow your wealth, but I wasn't doing it myself. And so I actually lived all the way through my twenties in debt cycles, reoccurring debt cycles, um, because my relationship with money.

Was really, really poor. I was stuck in this mindset of not enoughness. Um, and so whenever I received money, I would just find any possible excuse to get rid of it as quickly as possible because having money for me meant that I. Was confident, like attracting money, having money and actually keeping it meant that I was worthy of receiving and worthy of having money.

And I didn't feel worthy of that. I felt I just had to get rid of it as quickly as possible. It was very unfamiliar to me. Um, and actually what happened for me through my own personal story was that when my son Thomas was just five weeks old, We almost lost him to bacterial meningitis and the whole, um, challenge really of managing postnatal, depression, anxiety, mental health concerns led me into this continued spiral of.

Trying to use money as a tool to make me feel better about something that I was out of control with. So I, I couldn't control how my son was when he was poorly in hospital. And so I used money as a way to make me feel better about myself. And it really wasn't until after that period, when I was diagnosed with PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder that I recognized and realized that the reason I wasn't managing my money well, Was because I was ignoring it.

I wasn't treating it well. And that led me into a whole kind of discovery of, um, my relationship with money and healing, my relationship with money. And, you know, now I'm in a much better significant, you know, significantly better financial position with a multi six figure business. And I now teach people how to.

Receive money comfortably know how to charge our worth, how to particularly the creative space. We find it difficult to know how much we should be charging and charging enough in our businesses actually then holding on to that money. So helping people get out of debt cycles, helping people get out of emotional spending habits, um, and then how to grow their wealth.

So, but very much focusing on the behavioral sides of why is it? We make certain decisions around. Absolutely really fast. Thank you so much for giving us some, some context. There's so much to dive into a writing. My gosh. So what are the things that stood out to me there is when you hear the. This word, financial advisor, financial planner.

We, we assume from the outset as novices, that of course everyone has to, if they're a financial advisor, they have it all together. They're there because they won't be in debt and they wouldn't be living beyond their means. Is that more commonplace than we perhaps realized. Absolutely. I mean, the fact that we're financial professionals doesn't mean that we automatically have a good relationship with money because actually every single individual on the planet has their own unique blueprint, their own relationship with money.

And the way I kind of describe it. Yeah. You know, and, and just actually on that before I talk about where our beliefs come from, you know, if you think about financial professionals, we have the knowledge, but we don't always follow it. And it's the same in any profession, you know, just because you're good at your work doesn't necessarily mean that you follow it yourself.

And the reason we don't is because of our beliefs. Because it's our beliefs that then go on to infer how we feel the emotional side. And then it's the emotional side that actually drives the habits and the behaviors that we have in anything, not just in money. Um, and, and so with financial professionals, there's a lot of guilt and shame.

Associated with, well, I'm a financial professional, but do I manage money myself very well. And actually we qualify financial professionals like accountants, planners, and advisors to become financial coaches. And one of the really interesting aspects of our certification program is that they transform their own relationship with money in the program so that then they can learn how to lead their own beliefs at the door.

To be able to be free and open, to explore their clients' behaviors with money. Um, but what's really curious about each individual on the planet is that our own relationship with money has been formed by the age of seven. So all of the things that you observed or the things that your parents or main caregivers did with money.

And all the things that you heard growing up around money is what informs your blueprint and that, so that's what your brain believes to be true. So if, for example, like my grandmother, when she used to give us pocket money, she'd always say things like don't spend it all at once. Like when she gave us, you know, 20 P I think it was in those days.

Um, and so when you think about that message, don't spend it all at once. You know, that could infer that money is scarce, that there's not enough of it. Look after it, you know, take care of the pennies, they'll take care of the pounds. Um, and so as a child, we believe that to be true. You know, we don't question that.

And particularly before the age of seven, we don't question anything that we, that we hear. And so what happens is that we kind of end up carrying this big belief bag. Over our shoulder, but like father Christmas, you know, like this big sack of beliefs. Um, and it's not really until we get into our adult life, that we start to come up with challenges around money, um, that we then start to question whether those beliefs are actually true and whether those beliefs are actually supporting us.

Yeah, 100%. And one of the things that stands out to me from, from what you've just said is that, that transition from childhood to adulthood. One of the things that I noticed when going to study music at, uh, as a degree was that, that. Nature family nature was very apparent yeah. In the lives of the students.

So there will be some people that came from musical families or creative people, and they were so happy to be there and it was the path that we were on. And then there were some. Students that came from families that maybe from banking or financial planning, but something more slightly traditional and their parents were allowing them to do this degree just to satisfy that curiosity.

And then. They would go on, they would say, oh, once you've done that, then you're going to go on and you're gonna make some money, which is so fascinating for me. And it really makes me appreciate it, actually, my own parents' mentality. That that was the attitude. You go, you do your thing and spread your wings and fly and see where it leads you.

And I thought that was a really. Interesting observation that from the outset, these experiences that we have from childhood really start to affect how we manage our own career. And. Yeah, it's interesting. Isn't it? A lot of the time I can, I'm a, I'm a mom of two boys, so I can really resonate with lots of that.

You know, that we want the best for our children. And often we, we can try and live out the life that we had or didn't have through our children. Um, but what's fascinating about the belief study is that. You know, all of our beliefs are formed by the age of seven and actually your parents' beliefs are formed from their parents.

And when I think about my mum and dad's growing up, um, you know, my mum's dad, for example, he was in there. The shaggy prisoner of war camps in the second world war, he, he survived like came out, waiting five, five and a half stone. And his relationship with his body was really quite negative, um, for obvious reasons.

And so was my mom's and so was mine. So the reason that I was stuck in debt cycles, As a teenager and in my twenties was because I didn't feel good about my body. And so, and I had eating disorders all through my teenage years. And so what I would do is I would use money to buy clothes in the hope that they'd make me feel better about myself.

And I ended up in this kind of constant cycle of shame and guilt, and it kept me stuck in that cycle. And this is the really important part is that a lot of people, when they try and change their financial future, We automatically think that the bit of the puzzle that's missing is the education. You know, so we'll Google like how to, how to get out of debt, how to manage money.

And we focus on all the practical tips and the practical things. But actually if our relationship with money with ourselves is negative, then our relationship with money is going to reflect the same because really the relationship we have with money is a mirror version of the relationship that we have with ourselves.

And I just want to say that again, because I think there's something that's really, really powerful to just reflect on, you know, is that the relationship we have with money is really a reflection of the relationship we have with ourselves. So actually, if you want to change your financial future, it's about going internal and doing more inner work.

That's going to help you to deserve more wealth, you know, create more money, hold on to that money and then feel good about giving money, you know, giving money away, investing in stocks and shares in an ethical environment. For example, sustainability, all the things that we know can help to support our own financial future and the good of the planet at the same time.

Absolutely really fantastic insights there. Thank you so much for sharing now, as you mentioned, my area of expertise is the creative arts and there is not much being talked about at all when it comes to money, there's a lot of, of shame and guilt money is something that we never speak about and totally to, to yourself, to someone that was in financial planner.

I don't know what your experience was with, with clients, but, uh, as a, as an opera singer, often the, the negotiation, the talking about the salary that's discussed with your agent, and it's all very secretive behind closed doors. You don't really talk about that with anyone else, but also it passes the buck onto someone else.

So you don't even have the responsibility of negotiating at all. So it really, everything is very. Enclosed and starting this, this podcast, my websites. I just don't know really, I think how to, how to tap into this in a way that is relative and, and related to people. So is that something that you can, that resonates with you as well?

Yeah, it's really interesting. Isn't it? How you talk there about, you know, money is secret and we don't like talking about it and actually you don't even need to have those conversations because somebody is having it on your behalf. And the word for me that really stuck out there, Joshua was responsibility.

Is, you know, whose responsibility is it to have this conversation about money and, and also the word responsibility. A lot of people can feel so much guilt and shame that they don't want to talk about money because it feels too much of a responsibility. And often people feel like that. If, for example, they've observed their parents, um, who have been irresponsible with money.

You know, and I've worked with clients who, whose parents have gone through bankruptcies and repossessions. And so what it does is it leaves this imprint of fear that, well, I don't want to have any responsibility cause I don't want that to happen to me. Um, and so that's the really interesting part is that we're is.

That maybe if you resonate with that, that you're shouldering that responsibility and that comes out in couples as well. You know, in relationships, it might be that one of you wants to be really responsible for money. And one of you is kind of like, now you can just take care of all of it. And I'm a big believer in it's.

Creating like codependent relationships with money. It's about creating independent relationships with money. So whether it's in a partnership or with your children, it's, it's about having that open conversation about, well, what does money mean to us? What, how can we use money in a way that's going to help us fulfill the life that we want to live?

What's the purpose of money. And one of my golden rules, Joshua, they're a really good place to start with. This is giving every pound of her. So a lot of people don't really, um, have a close, like a close eye on what they're spending and that's okay. Like there's nothing wrong with that, but the way I look at it, it's very different.

I don't agree with budgeting. I think budgeting is very much about restricting money. Like why would we want to restrict money? This is about creating, sitting down really with yourself and creating a spending plan. Where every single pound that comes into your account, you give a job, you give it a purpose.

So, you know, if you're running your own business, it's a, like, you know, you imagine like a team of little minions bopping around your desk on a Monday morning, you know, buffing up and down, go give me a job, give me a job. What do you want me to go and do today? And that's how I think we can have a better relationship and have more responsibility around money is forget the budget plans and create a spending plan in alignment.

With your values and in alignment with what makes you feel good? Not anybody else, because we have a tendency don't we to just compare our lives to everybody else, keeping up with the Joneses, you know, and this is really about us looking internally at ourselves. So if having that conversation about money is difficult often it's not money.

That's the taboo subject. It's absolutely. It's talking about our relationship with ourselves. That is the, is the bit, that's the tobacco. It's not money. That's the, to be really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. You've tapped into something really important there and I'm, I'm so interested in, and I think from this conversation, it makes me want to learn much more about the behavioral side of, of money.

And funnily enough, this, this brings back a story to me. So I had to. A colleague who showed remain unnamed and they put out a post on social media and they said, you know, uh, something about their financial situation and work. And, uh, it was struggling. And th they just, it was one of those statuses where they it's a bit of, a bit of a complain, but yeah.

I think they just wanted to get it off their chest. And I, I said the private message to this person, uh, just when I kind of discovered the personal finance community, I said, this is really fantastic book and I've just read it. And it really spoke to me as a creative person and exactly what you just tapped into.

Moving away from this budgeting mentality and making sure that every pound has a, has a purpose. I think you'd really enjoy it. And I never heard from there's no, they, they saw it and then never replied and that, so interestingly outlines what you're saying. So. I often thought, oh, maybe I didn't write it in the right way.

Or maybe he's so offended that I mentioned the M words and all of these different, stupid thoughts that go through your head. But I love the kind of practical forward thinking. Uh, you know, you're, you're open to talking about money. If someone is open about having a conversation about it, then that's absolutely fine.

If some people aren't that's that's okay, too. Yeah. And I think that question, like, what does money mean to you? So to have the conversation about money means what's like, answer that for yourself to see what comes up. Because if, for example, you think, okay, money means being greedy, like having more money is just for the greedy.

You know, then that's the belief, right? Is that money is greedy. And where does that belief come from? You know? So can you link it back to any stories or experiences that you had growing up around money? Maybe you've just watched too much American news and you know, you're seeing people like, you know, Donald Trump, for example, who is rich, but maybe not very nice, you know, and we're kind of looking for evidence to support that belief.

And, and that's the second stage is it's really thinking about, okay, This is my belief around money, money having money means, you know, that I'm greedy and, um, and I don't want to be that person. Um, so therefore where's the belief. Where's the evidence to support that belief. And where's the evidence to disprove that belief.

You know, what evidence can you see around you, of people that are wealthy and who do good in the world? Um, and think about the qualities that that person represents because actually having money or not having money, doesn't make you a better person, right? It's completely disattached. But what happens is we tell ourselves things like, I am not good with money.

I don't deserve to charge X in my businesses. And when we say. I something.dot, dot. I don't deserve to have money. I'm not very good at managing money. What we're doing is we're attaching our sense of self directly to money. And that's the bit we want to detach. If you imagine like a magnet you want to detach your sense of self with money.

Because otherwise when people say things like charge your worth, well, if your worth isn't very high, then you're never going to charge your worth. Right? So the theory is completely flawed. So that's where I really believe that going internally and doing work with ourselves, improving our self-worth will actually improve our net worth in the long run.

Um, because it's never about the money. This is, you know, my book that's coming out in September. It's not about the money. It, we called it that for that exact reason, because it isn't really about the money. Absolutely. I was just listening to your latest podcast episode this morning. And you tapped into this idea actually about charging, charging your worth.

And then you were talking about, is this something that women struggle with? Is this something that men struggle with and putting my 2 cents in that hat from, from a creative sphere is it tends to be something. Creative struggle with a lot, actually, so that when you do have that rare occasion, so as a singer, it's a little bit different from maybe an instrumentalist, for example, who are more used to negotiating for themselves, but there is that sense of, oh gosh, you know, should I ask for it?

You know, 50 pounds for the, for the train fare, is that pushing it too much. And that, that really is very common. The sense of hesitancy when it comes to offending someone by asking for too much of a fee. Yeah. So that for me is if you think about money as being about three things, how comfortable you feel to ask for money?

So to receive. How comfortable you feel to keep hold of it and how comfortable you feel to invest or give it's those three things. So if you ask yourself the question, if you imagine like your, the conversation you have there around money is about stretching that comfort zone, like an elastic band. If you imagine you were holding an elastic band in front of you, and you're just gently stretching that elastic band, that's really what you're doing by challenging the beliefs that you currently carry.

Which have been inherited through years of generational patterns of beliefs around money, not just from your parents, but your grandparents, your great, great grandparents that goes, you could literally trace your entire family legacy all the way through your family tree. It's a really interesting exercise that we shared actually on our podcast, um, in our last season, which is called the money at home exercise.

To dig more into that, just Google money, atom exercise. Um, and you'll, you'll find a link to the, the exercise there. Um, but really it's about if you don't feel comfortable asking for 50 pounds for travel, then the area to work on there is asking for money. So asking for money means what, what, what does it mean to us?

Ask for that 50 pounds? Why is it that you feel uncomfortable about that? Why is it that you feel somehow, maybe undeserving too? To have that conversation around, you know, that 50 pounds to be able to get that train, because really what you're asking for there is I need help to get from a to B. Um, and you're asking for that 50 pounds so that you can support that journey for yourself.

Um, so really it's not even about the money it's about, I need your help to get from here to here, but what does it feel like to actually receive money? And, and stretching that comfort zone, because the more that you do it, the more comfortable you'll feel to ask for it. Often the fear of asking for it is actually worse.

Then the reality. Um, and, and this is the, this is the, you know, if you think about how the brain works, the brain will always look for evidence to support your belief. So if you're telling yourself, I can't ask for that 50 pounds, because it's wrong in some way, because of your beliefs around money. Then your brain's just going to look for more evidence to tell you, oh, well you can't have that conversation, Joshua, because that feels really uncomfortable.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So let's, let's talk a little bit then about money mindset. So if we. Have this money mindset. That's a little bit full of self-pity and doubt. And it's, it's easy to do that, particularly with a pandemic. Gosh, my income has been stripped away, so I'm self-employed so I don't know where my next paycheck is coming in.

I don't pay into a pension. I don't have many savings. Why would I be interested in personal finance? When someone in another type of job banking or accountancy, they've got it easy. They've got a salary coming in every month. They got pension. Personal finance is not for me. What would your response be?

Tricky question. Sorry, not at all. I think there's like, there's an element of mindset, but also an element of practicality there in that scenario, because, you know, if you have been through a difficult situation through the pandemic, then actually it's more about the practical steps. Like what is it from a practical perspective that you can do?

To change the financial position that you're in and you know, and a lot of the time when we go through trauma like that, and COVID-19 is a trauma, it's a financial trauma that we weren't expecting that no one could really prepare for. And, you know, some people have been significantly impacted. You know, with a loss of income.

So I think actually when it comes to things like those kinds of traumas, we need to put more of a practical hat on rather than a money mindset hat on. Um, and actually look at, well, what are my options? Like it w is one of my options to go and get a three day a week contract or be employed for three days a week, so that then I can continue to run my business and build it back up again.

Or maybe it's an opportunity for you to think about pivoting in your business somehow. Like wait, when COVID hit last year, actually in our community, we actually did quite a lot of work with our community around helping people in those kinds of situations. And we really helped them to look at and explore, you know, is there an opportunity for you to pivot.

And there were lots of people like wedding planners, photographers, people that were really impacted by COVID that then just created completely brand new businesses. Um, but you know, sometimes it is about going back to, again, going back to your spending plan and realigning. Okay. So what's priority here.

What do I need as a basic requirement to make sure that my needs are met? In order that I can start to think about the emotional wellbeing and my financial wellbeing, because financial wellbeing is, you know, it's not just in how much money we have. It's in how we feel about that. You know, that COVID-19 has caused a lot of mental health issues for a lot of business owners.

So I think really the focus is about what are your basic, psychological and basic financial needs? Like what has to happen in order for you to live. And then work up from that point onwards, you know, what, what could be put off for a few months? What could be renegotiated perhaps, you know, could I maybe forfeit my Netflix subscription for something else?

Could I, you know, and it's really a case of just going through a practical exercise as to what could be forfeited in order for me to feel better. You know, in that kind of situation, really ladies and gentlemen, an important announcement to make the art of money saving now has a Patrion account. If you're not familiar with Pedro, John is a place where people can go to support their podcasts, YouTube videos, or other creative endeavors that they enjoy.

And it's a wonderful opportunity for you as a listener to directly support the creator. And that's me. So let's think about it in this way. You be buying me a virtual cup of tea to say, thank you, Joshua, for creating the art of money saving podcast. And with that money from the cup of tea, I then put it back into creating the podcast.

So that goes towards podcast, hosting services, transcription fees, and camera and microphone equipment, all that stuff to WWDB. Patrion.com forward slash the art of money, saving to find out more in description. Now let's get back to the episode. I just want to do, to tie two unrelated thoughts together and do to explore this new topic.

So we were talking about the pandemic and the uncertainty that, that brought you also mentioned earlier on, about earlier on in life with eating disorders and, and identity and, and spending money. That's a really, really interesting thought that we haven't tapped too in, in, in the podcasts at all before.

So if you find yourself wanting to spend money because of other issues in life, where did you, did you and your own journey? When did you begin to start to overcome and, and, and learn a little bit more about that? Yeah. When I was back in. So there was one particular day, actually, that everything changed for me.

And it was when we moved out to the channel islands for five years and we got married over there and I had my first son over there and I walked into the coffee. In Jersey, it was a beautiful summer's day. Walked into the coffee shop, grabs my normal cup of tea on my way to work at the bank. And I picked up a leaflet that was about personal styling.

And I remember picking it up and taking it home that evening and saying to my fiance at the time. Oh, I would love to like, have some. Come and style me and tell me what it should be wearing my body shape. And, you know, because I spent so long looking at everybody else and my husband bought me a gift voucher, and I had this lady come over and she weeded out all my wardrobes.

And that day she left me sitting on this little red couch in Jersey, surrounded by about 15 beanbags worth of clothes. And I literally just cried my eyes out because it was like somebody had given me permission to finally get rid of all the stuff I'd been hoarding, um, in an attempt to make me feel better about myself.

And so when then when anyone's ever in a situation of overspending, the first question to ask yourself is what is the emotion that you feel in that instance when you're spending money? So for me, for example, when I would have my lunch break at work, I would go down the high street and I would buy loads of clothes because I wanted that instant dopamine hits of like, love for myself.

I wanted to feel good about myself. That's what dopamine is. It's, you know, and it's addictive. It's like smoking or alcohol, it's saying chemical reaction in the brain that triggers that Dauphine. Um, and so. The emotion. Think about the emotion behinds. What is it that you want to feel by making that purchase?

And how else could you get that emotional feeling? That maybe doesn't involve overspending. So for example, could you go for a walk? Could you go for a run? Could you go and have a nice hot chocolate in a coffee shop or something like that? What is it that could create the same feeling that doesn't involve the overspends?

That's the first thing, the second thing is thinking about what's the feeling. That you were feeling in the instance before that event. So were you bored? Were you stressed? Were you excited and happy and like rewarding yourself for a good job? What is, what was the behavior that you were feeling in that instance beforehand?

And then it's about thinking about, okay, so this is the emotion I was feeling. This is how I wanted to feel. This is what was going on for me right before that moment. What could you anchor? What could you do differently to create a different result? So for me, for example, one of the first things I did was I was stuck in an overdraft every month.

So I would let you, my money would come in, I'd go into my overdraft. Then the money would come in again, I'd go into my overdraft and just this reoccurring cycle. And it became comfortable. And that sounds really odd to say, like, people. Might be thinking, well, how can you be comfortable living in an overdraft?

It, because it became a reoccurring habit, it became comfortable. And so what I did is I made, uh, an immediate change to switch my bank account. I switched it to Starling bank. I talked about styling all the time and, um, and I, I basically. Reset everything. So I press the reset button and I moved my bank account over.

I then made a payment plan to kind of pay off my overdraft. And then what I do is I gave every pound of purpose. So I sat there and thought, right. Okay. 3000 pounds a month coming into my account. What job and what purpose am I going to give every single pound? And in the, in the likes of starting a Monzo, uh, through the online challenger banks, you can set up these little pots, you can put pictures behind them.

You know, you could automate for money to go into those pots every month. And so I set up a food pot, a contact lens pot, a, um, shopping pot. A dentist pot, a car fund pot, a financial foundations pot. Cause I had no emergency funds. So I wanted to build that financial foundations part for myself. Um, so I gave it a very specific name.

That meant something that, that created that meaning and purpose. And that completely changed everything for me. And it got me into a new, positive habit about managing money that I didn't have before. So it was breaking that negative cycle, understanding the emotions that were triggering it in the first place and dealing with the emotional side and then working on the practical side.

So for me, it's those two things, you know, combining the emotional and the practical support. And that's when the magic happens. If you focus on one over the other, then it doesn't quite work or it might work for a little while, but then it doesn't stick. You know, it's a bit like, you know, on a Sunday night when you're sitting on the couch and you're like, right, my diet is going to start tomorrow.

I'm going to go to the gym five times this week. And then if you're lucky, you probably go once or twice, or you might go for a couple of weeks and then it stops. Um, because we've got to create new habits and we need to anchor them into what we're already doing. And this is something that James clear talks about in his book, atomic habits.

Um, you know, we have to anchor these new habits that we want to create into things that we do every single day. So that what I did with that Joshua is that I gave myself 15 minutes every day to check in with money. So I'd go into my styling app. I top up my parts, you know, just check in on what I was spending, checking on how I was feeling.

And I would journal around that. I would make a note of things that were coming up for me about what I was telling myself about money. So I was supporting myself with the emotional aspect of money, how I was feeling, and then all the practical side. And that's when the magic happens. Fantastic. And I, I'm also a massive fan of Starling bank.

I have Monzo as well, but these, these challenge of banks, they, I think they do a great job of really understanding what, what kind of money tools people enjoy having or seeing. So even with something as simple as a parts, being able to put with that picture, On that goal that you're saving towards, I think made such a huge difference.

So I, yeah, master brain doesn't like uncertainty. So as a millennial, for example, you know, when we tell our kids like, say for a pension, like when you're in your twenties, compound interest, compound growth, you know, put money away in your twenties and, and we're all like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because S you know, our sixties and retirement seems so far away and so uncertain that the brain will force you to think about the present mode.

And so one of the great ways to actually help to bring that financial future into the present moment is through visualization or through using pictures. Um, so that's why creating vision boards, you know, putting pictures behind your money goals are, are really, really successful for people because it's a way for us to visualize that financial future and actually bring it into the present.

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely spot on with that. So we're going to start soon now, drawing the podcast are closed, but I would love to come up with some practical steps then in that case. So if there's a creative person listening to this and they're, they're not, not on this journey of personal finance, let's think about where they can begin.

So I think point number one, it's about finding this. Uh, every pound has a, has a purpose mentality. I think that'd be a really good place to start and that at least will start to inform something actionable they can, they can do of how they approach. Yeah, that would definitely be a good pace to start like giving money, meaning and purpose will enable you to bring your present into, you know, motivating you to think about, well, why is it that I want to have more money?

Why is it I want to keep hold of more money? Why is it that maybe I want to use money to help to grow? The world and the economy, um, you know, through investing for example. Um, so definitely giving a pound giving every pound of purpose is a really good place to start that the other place I would also start alongside that is creating a spending plan.

So if you're sitting here thinking actually I'll, I really should saw my money out. Like it's about time. I need to sort my money out, which a lot of people say to me, um, then, you know, just simply set up a little. Spreadsheet or even a notepad, you know, it doesn't have to be complicated, but just go through your, your current spending and ask yourself, how does it align with your values?

So what is important to you in your life? So for example, if freedom or learning is important to you, then how are you spending money that connects into freedom? Maybe you are a entrepreneur, a creative, and you are hiring veteran assistance to help you in your business. That creates freedom for you.

That's important. Maybe knowledge is really important. You've got a thirst for knowledge. So joining courses or memberships, or working with a mentor, for example, Important to you, but make those decisions based on what's important to you and your own values rather than doing what we think we should do, because that's one of the biggest challenges I see Joshua is that most people think.

I should do this. I should be saving 20% of my income. I should be investing 15% into a pension. I should be, I should be, I should be. And the financial services profession sheds on us a whole lot. You know, I feel like I swear every time I say that it shits on us, you know? And, but that doesn't mean that it's the right thing for you to do it.

There's no cookie cutter approach with this. It's about spending in alignment with your values. It's going to bring you meaning and purpose. So that you can live the life that you want to live. Fantastic. Really, really great. And there's a couple of questions, right? At the end of the podcast that I ask almost every guest, this is quite hard one.

So you might have to think on your feet, can you name an embarrassing financial memory or purchase and embarrassing financial memory? Um, so the one that always comes up for me around and I had to do a lot of work around this is when my partner and I moved to Jersey. We were both in mortgages at the time, both mortgage advisors.

And we bought this new build property, which we massively overstretched ourselves for. You know, I think we even bought, we even took out a personal loan for like the stamp duty and the solicitor fees. Like we were so desperate to have this house, which we didn't actually really need. And, and that was it.

So the important lesser than there was about needs and wants. So what's the difference between needs and wants. And we were just trying to keep up with the Joneses. And so the embarrassing thing about that was that when we came back from Jersey, the markets crashed like 2007, 2008. So when we sold the house, we basically sold it for the same, for what we bought it at.

And we held a lot of financial, like regrets and shame around, well, surely we should have known that the market was going to crash. We were both mortgage advisors. Um, so that was probably the most embarrassing thing because actually we held onto that shame for a long time. And we really had to go through a lot of deep internal forgiveness around, you know, around that particular decision.

Yeah. So I think that's probably the worst one. Yeah. That's a really interesting one. Yeah, absolutely. And your podcast rated yourself. So I'm imagining that you quite enjoy listening to podcasts yourself. Is there a particular personal finance podcasts that you would recommend for our listeners to go and check out?

There's so many like personal finance ones? Um, my favorite has gotta be Pete Matthews, meaningful money. Um, pizza, great guy. He's like, he's one of the early podcasters. So he set up meaningful money a long time ago. Um, he's like the king of, of personal finance podcasts in my eyes. So yeah, if you haven't checked out Pete Matthews, meaningful money podcasts, that would definitely be one to do.

Fantastic. And to finish off, just reminds people where can they go and find a little bit more about you? Yeah, sure. So the best place to come and find us is, um, at my website, which is either Catherine morgan.com or the money panel.co.uk. So we have two websites. Um, you can, you can find our podcast on there in her financial shoes.

You can also access our free quiz on those websites. So if you do want to kind of start to think about your relationship with money and you want some practical steps around that, then if you go to Catherine morgan.com forward slash. Then we'll actually give you some, um, three tips around your relationship with money straight into your inbox, um, that you can actually just start to take some practical steps.

Excellent. Catherine, it's been a real pleasure. Thank you for sharing your expertise and very insightful thoughts. And I'm sure that the podcast listeners are really going to enjoy this episode. So that's our Wednesday episode concluded and I have to apologize for the croaky, less of my voice, right? At the beginning of the episode, it was a 9:00 AM start, which turns out is pretty early for me to head to iTunes and leave a podcast review if you're able to.

And I have a new one this week from the dividend experiment, so thankful for this review and it says I never leave reviews on here. So I hope I'm doing it correctly. Ben from the smart finance page, told me about this after he was a guest on the auto money-saving podcast. And I have been hooked ever since.

Host is fantastic. Feels like I'm just listening in on a friendly chat about finances. Guests have been great since I've started listening to recommended wholeheartedly for people interested in UK finance slash saving money. Thank you so much for this very glowing review. And I could think of no higher.

That it just feels on that. Listening to a friendly chat about finances. That's the ethos. That's the feel that we're going for. If you do feel so inclined to leave a review herself, that would mean the world. See you next Wednesday, all the best.