Pennies To Pounds Podcast

107. Maximize Your Paycheck and Financial Well-Being ft Nikkita Tew (Young Spender)

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This episode is with Nikkita Tew, founder of the financial literacy platform Young Spender. We're discussing the ways in which people in their 20s and 30s can maximise their savings for their short—and long-term goals and plan for retirement. She also breaks down your payslip and explains how taxes are deducted and what your tax code means.

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Speaker 1:

Hey guys, welcome back to the Penny Supply's podcast with your host, Kia, and this is a podcast where we aim to dispel your myths, simplify difficult financial jargon and rectify your own personal problems. Happy Monday, everyone. I hope you've had an amazing weekend. I am actually still on a high because I have just well, not long finished a talk in Birmingham. I've actually had a really busy week, did a lot of talks, but I love talking to people in person and I think I'm just feeling that energy. I'm just trying to radiate it. Hopefully everyone at home feels that too.

Speaker 1:

But I've got another amazing episode for you, as I do every single week with an incredible guest. But before we get into the guest, this episode is all about being young. But how can we make sure that you're maximizing your finances? We all know that we're in a cost of living crisis. Previous episode was all know that we're in a cost of living crisis. Previous episode was all about that. How are you feeling? A lot of people having to cut back, but what are the things that you can do to make sure that your money is stretching the way it needs to in your 20s and 30s? To help me explore that further, I have an incredible guest guest. Who are you?

Speaker 2:

hey, my name is nikita. I am the founder of a financial, financial literacy platform as well, called Young Spender. Aside from that, I've got numerous years of experience working in accounting, bookkeeping, finance, so basically I'm well-rounded, whether it's business finance or personal finance.

Speaker 1:

You are our go-to. You're the person that we need to hear from to understand what to do with our finances. Our go-to You're the person that we need to hear from trying to understand what to do with our finances. Before we get into the topic of this episode, tell us a little bit more about Young Spender and why you set it up.

Speaker 2:

I set up Young Spender because when I was young still am but when I was younger, I just found that when it came to navigating my finances, I was essentially doing it all by myself. I did hear, you know, from older people in my family, especially like grandparents, saying you know, save your money, but that's where it stopped. It started and ended there. So there wasn't like save your money for X, this is how you need to do it, this is why you need to do it. This is how much it's going to cost. It was very much. Just save your money, and I would. I would save my money, but then I would also spend it, because you know, back when I was buying air forces, they cost about I think about 40 pounds. So you know I'd save my 40 pounds, go buy my trainers. That's essentially the cycle that I was stuck in. If something's outside of your control, what can you do? You just have to press on and pay for it things outside of your control.

Speaker 1:

What can you do? You just have to press on and pay for it. Absolutely, I think I love the point that you make that when things happen, there are things to fall back on like you said, credit cards, overdrafts but isn't it much better just to know that you've got that pot of money saved you don't have to dip into anything else and that is that money dedicated to covering those things, and the main takeaway is have an emergency fund, try and get that money saved. Yeah, when we talk about saving for other goals, then how should young people approach saving for their short-term goals let's just say, if they want to go traveling or buy a car and approach saving for their longer term goals like saving for a house? I mean, I feel like sometimes it can feel a bit out of reach because let's, let's just imagine for me. I'm trying to think what's the kind of dream holiday I want to go to?

Speaker 2:

I don't know, I want to go to the Maldives right.

Speaker 1:

Imagine that's going to cost me three and a half four grand.

Speaker 2:

Right, that's a lot of money.

Speaker 1:

And if you start from zero, that can feel almost pointless Like why am I going to save up that money?

Speaker 2:

people should approach saving for, like, short-term and long-term goals. We just touched on the emergency fund. If you don't have that in place, don't start saving for your goals yet. You could consider not saving for your goals. Yeah, I can't exactly tell you what to do, but I would suggest you save that emergency fund first. If you have nothing there, save three months of your um, of your expenses. If you've got something there. But you could add more, save up to six months and then start thinking about holidays and cars. And you know, you've, you've gone with a car, without a car for this long. You've gone without a holiday for this long. You know, just make it a little while longer.

Speaker 2:

But you know, some people, for example, they're like, mentally, I need to go on holiday. Okay, cool, let's not deteriorate your mental health anymore by putting you into debt. Please save for that holiday. So you can either save for that holiday. Or there are packages out there where you need to pay in installments each month, um, and usually they're they're 0% interest, so you're not, you're not paying anything additional. So let's say, for example, if you want to go on holiday in the next three months, I think a lot of these package providers, they would want quite a bit of the money soon. So you know you might need to stretch it a bit further, but either way, whatever you want to do, put it into your budget first. So let's put it into your budget, see if you can afford it. If you can't, then we need to go to plan B, which is saving for it. So when you're saving for things, first of all think about what is the most important thing to you, because for some people, the most important thing for them might be going on holiday. For some people they might say do you know what? Forget the holiday. For now I want to buy a house. But just understand that these two goals, they are completely different and they could take, you know, the holiday you might be able to save for it in three months, but the the house you might need a year, you might even need more houses are expensive, very expensive.

Speaker 2:

And then what I was speaking about before, about things outside of our control, it's what lenders have as their criteria. You need to factor that in. So let's say, for example, if you want to buy a house for let's say you know somewhere in lond is reasonably priced for £300,000 and you save your 10% deposit, which is £30,000. Now think about that. That could be more than your year's salary. So if you're saying, I want to save that in a year, how are you going to do that?

Speaker 2:

You have to be realistic about it. You have to be very realistic and you might, you know, say, okay, I'm going to start this side hustle, but then remember, sometimes you need to put some money in to get some money out. So we need to be realistic about our goals. But let's say, for example, you want your savings towards your £30,000 home deposit. That's fine. But then there could be things like stamp duty which you need to pay for, legal fees that you need to pay for. So just understand that you need to save a bit more.

Speaker 2:

And then remember you need to do things like focus on your credit score. So while you're saving for this goal, you need to also remember that you know you need to keep a clean credit score. So when you're saving for your goals, don't just think you're saving. You know it's the money side that you need to focus on. Consider all of the factors, but the main thing when you're saving is, in a nutshell, is considering what is a priority to you, and this, this all consists of writing things down. Don't just think about it in your head. You know, you might just think one day oh yeah, I want to go on holiday but I want to buy a house, but let me buy the house first. Write this down. Write it down so you can go back to it and, you know, hold yourself accountable or be accountable to somebody. So write down what you want to do first, list your goals, which one's a priority to you, and then start thinking about how much you can save so whether it's weekly or monthly, depending on how often you have income coming in and then you need to put this into a budget.

Speaker 2:

Now people hear budgeting all the time. They don't understand how important it is, but at the end of the day, you need to have one. So at the beginning of this year, I just had a lot going on and I didn't do my budget for like two months and then I had a service charge bill come in. I was like, oh, I forgot about that, so it was. I didn't even write it down in the budget, it was. I just had to pay it. So, and to me it was a shock and a surprise. I was like, oh gosh. But if I actually had done my budget, you know I wouldn't. You wouldn't know it was coming, you wouldn't be financially prepared for it. Exactly, exactly. But it's a good thing I had my emergency fund.

Speaker 1:

There we go, there we go.

Speaker 2:

So that I could, so that I put them into your budget and I could go blue in the face telling people to budget and people would be like, yeah, I do it in my head. Um, I think I know how much is coming in and going out. A lot of people know how much they're getting paid.

Speaker 1:

You'll find everyone. Everyone I know can tell me exactly to the last penny, how much they get paid. When you talk about how much do you actually spend, everyone knows. I can approximate and I think we're in this age and culture where there's so many subscriptions like I know, between my dad and I we share a lot of the tv subscriptions and that's just tv alone.

Speaker 1:

Forget about audio, forget about other stuff that you might pay for. If you actually sat down and said okay, so how much you pay in subscriptions, you probably don't know that, and that's not even including your groceries, your other bills. You're so, which is why, like you said, it's so important to know and have that budget. So it's all there in front of you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I could from I can even visualize what my budget looks like now and I pay about 19 pounds in subscriptions.

Speaker 2:

So you know that off the top of your head, exactly Because I've. Every month I'm refreshing it, I've written it down so many times. I I know what's going on there, um, but also with saving as well. So we, we can all say, okay, I know how much I'm earning, and then we're like then you can ask somebody, how much do you save? They're like, oh, I don't know. It shouldn't be an afterthought. You should say first. You should really say first, like, look at all that hard work that you're putting in to make that money, at least save first before you start spending all your money.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, yeah, even when you're doing your budget, do your savings part first and then do all the spending bits after. You know, if you, if you do your savings first and then you realize, oh, it's a bit too much for this month, adjust it. But don't do it the other way around. You know, for example, you might decide, okay, I'm going to save 200 pounds this month, this month. Then you do all of your expenses and you're like, oh, I'm going to be, I'm going to save 200 pounds this month, this month. Then you do all of your expenses and you're like, oh, I'm going to be, I'm going to be left with, you know minus 50 pounds. Then you're like, okay, I'll take 50 pounds out of like my fund fund, for example, or like my going out fund.

Speaker 2:

Or let's say, for example, if you did it the other way around and you've got your going out fund there and then you do the savings, afterwards you're just like, oh yeah, it is what it is like it doesn't doesn't really matter. You might, you might, make your going out fund or like 300 pounds that month, and then you're saving like 50 pounds, like doesn't it sound better to save a bit more? And also, with saving, don't just you know we're talking about saving towards goals, don't just save towards anything. You know, like I was saying earlier, I was told you just save and that's it, like that was the end of the story. Make sure you know what you're saving for, just so that when you then see that money because you'll most likely see your saving sometimes when you see that money, you know that it has a purpose rather than just sitting there waiting to be spent on anything.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely, I completely agree. I think writing it down, knowing where you're at your finances, is always very key. Like I said, that memory recall, you should be able to know. If you know exactly how much you're earning, you should also know how much is going out for different things. And if you don't know, it's okay. But that's why it's so important to have a budget, whether it's pen and paper, spreadsheet, an app, something that tells you where your money's going. So you're really on top of that.

Speaker 1:

Bringing it back to, we mentioned how much you earn then. So I want to kind of talk about pay slips. So most people work. If you don't work now, you probably had a job at some point. So I think everyone's had an experience of seeing a pay slip. Can we just break down, maybe just top level, what a pay slip is and kind of like the key components that you'll see on a pay slip? Because I think I think a lot of people they just say I go straight to the number, how much I'm taking home. The rest of it is gobbledygook to me. I don't know what it all means. I just know how much I'm taking home and the rest are relevant. But can we just break down kind of top level of what you're going to see in your payslip okay.

Speaker 2:

So this episode is focused on people in their 20s and 30s. If you're even in your 30s, please take a listen, because there's many people at any stage in life that just don't look at their payslip. They don't. People don't look at their payslip until they check their bank account. They're saying that number looks a bit dodgy. That's when they'll then decide to look at their payslip. And you know, half the time working in finance, I know that some people don't even look at their payslip. They just come to finance and say you know what? What's going on? What's going on? I'm like have you checked your payslip? Where do I even view that? So first of all, find out how and where you view your payslip, because I don't think that. I don't think any company posts them to you anymore. It will be an online portal.

Speaker 2:

So your payslip consists of how, how many hours, you work that month, or you know your. If you're on a um, it's that salary. It's your salary divided into 12. And then it's got how much you pay in tax and national insurance. When I say tax, I mean income tax, which is also pay as you earn, so that's interchangeable, but national insurance is what it is. And then on your payslip you should have a section that shows you how much tax you're paying in that period, so for that month and then also year to date. So in that year how much tax have you paid?

Speaker 2:

So a lot of people. Their tax code is also on there. So a lot of people's tax code is one, two, five, seven L. That means that you have a tax free allowance of twelve thousand five hundred and seventy pounds a year. That means that you have a tax-free allowance of £12,570 a year. So that means for your first £12,570, you don't pay any tax. Your code can be adjusted if you owe tax or if you've paid too much tax before. It really depends. So if that is not your tax code and you've looked at your payslip and you're wondering why don't run to HR or finance? Because they wouldn't know why. It's only HMRC that know why.

Speaker 1:

So you're going to need to call sit in that queue.

Speaker 2:

And then on there it's got your gross pay, so that's your pay before tax, and then it's got your net pay, which is your pay.

Speaker 2:

Your take home pay, the number that you would run to before checking anything else. So that's essentially what your payslip is Now. We are now in a new financial year. Check your payslip, check your tax code, because it could have changed. If you receive benefits from your workplace, your tax code could have changed. If you didn't pay enough tax in the last financial year or you paid too much tax, it could have changed. And there could be many other reasons why your tax code could have changed. But if it's not 1257L and you're wondering why it's something else, do check with HMRC.

Speaker 1:

I think that's crucial. I remember having a job and something had happened and I remember I got my. You know, like most people, you kind of check the net pay first yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I checked that, so this seems quite low, so now I'm investigating the rest of the payslip, yeah.

Speaker 1:

And the tax code looked odd, called up HMRC. Turned out that I was put in an emergency tax code, which often happens. You know, if it's a new job and they don't know, or if you haven't. What's it called? Is it P? Your P60 from your previous job, this job which I couldn't find, so I hadn't? Yeah, so they don't know what, how much tax you've really paid? Yes, but they tax you so much money. This is like me working part-time as a uni student. I said I need that money, hmrc please. But that was again a lesson to to me to make sure I'm always up to date and checking my payslip. Is everything correct? Are the deductions correct? You know, if you do have a pension, am I paying enough? What? What do those numbers mean? Just so? You're well aware. So I think it is very, very crucial, like you said, pay slips always on top of it.

Speaker 2:

Oh, and what you um just mentioned as well, um, pensions. So your pension contribution will be on your pay slip as well. So with that, you either are contributing, so you and your employer are doing like match contributions well, it's not usually matched like. You could be putting in five percent, they could be putting in three percent, or you could be doing salary sacrifice, which is usually eight percent of your monthly salary before tax. So if you're not sure which scheme you're on, do double check, but also check your your pension contributions as well. And again, there should be a portal for you to log into for your pension provider, just so you can have a look to see you know how much you are paying in. And also, when you log in and have a look, you can actually choose what you invest your pension in.

Speaker 1:

This is okay, let's let's pick up on that thing, cause I love talking about that. So pensions, we know it's important. Just to give a quick rundown to everyone, pensions are obviously that pot of money that's there for retirement to cover us financially, right, you have a state pension which depends on how many qualifying years of financial insurance contributions you've made. You get a state pension. But it's not a lot of money. It's like about 200 or pounds.

Speaker 2:

Not really much.

Speaker 1:

Hence why we turn to workplace pensions. Yes, workplace pensions, yes. Or you get auto enrolled once you are over the age of 22 10 000 pounds a year. So most people get auto enrolled. And I remember mine I remember when that happened to me got auto enrolled and I checked and I was like, okay, cool pensions, fun. And I carried on and a lot of my friends like that and then after about a month or two I said actually, let me go and chat to the provider, yeah, find out what I put my money into. Yeah. And I remember telling my friends that like, oh, have you actually checked your pension? They said no, I just put my money in that seat.

Speaker 1:

But let's talk about actually choosing where your money goes. So talk a little bit more about the workplace pension and basically just having more control over your pension in that way.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so you should actually receive a pension statement every year and it shows you what's happened with your pension. Basically, so it that it could go up or down. They think it just stays the same, but no, your pension is an investment. You are investing. So what you can do is usually pension providers to help you out a bit, because you know they understand that not everybody you know is going to say, okay, can I invest into S&P 500 or you know index funds or you know some sort of global fund, because not everybody's an investor. What they can do sometimes, though index funds or you know some sort of global fund, because not everybody's an investor what they can do sometimes, though, is do low, medium and high risk investments. So, depending on your risk appetite now, depending on you know they should explain it to you and just let you know. You know this could happen, but this could also happen. So remember, it's an investment. It can go up, it can go down, so they'll explain, explain it to you, but you can choose where you want to invest your pension. Just remember that that's your money at the end of the day, that's your money for when you hit the pension age. We'll not even get into that, because that changes all the time. Yeah, so, in addition to your 200 odd pounds a month, god knows how much it's going to be when we actually hit retirement, but you know that would be in addition to that.

Speaker 2:

So really think about how much, um, sort of, when you speak to the pension provider, if, when they give you sort of a projection, it projection is not concrete, it could change. So when they give you the projections on each, just consider which one you want to invest in. You might even leave it at the one it's at now, but at the end of the day, at least you try to find out and, just you know, wanted to consider your options. And also, with a pension there is a lot of chatter about okay, once you've enrolled to your pension, you know, don't opt out. Now I would say don't opt out, you know, just leave it. Just sort of invest into your pension, know which fund you're investing into. But if you had a life change and, for example, you are investing, let's say, 100 pounds a month into your pension, but you needed that money for something very important, not a holiday guys not a holiday.

Speaker 1:

It's actually important. Yeah, you really need it for yeah you can opt out for a bit.

Speaker 2:

I do believe. Off the top of my head I don't think you can enroll back for another couple of months. But do double check that with your pension provider. But if you need to, then by all means do it. But don't just leave it. Don't just leave it and be like you know what I've opted out. I'm enjoying that money now because then remember, when you do hit that retirement age, that's the money that you're banking on, like I know a lot of people are like, yeah, I'll be rich by then. Or you know, I'll have a yacht. I can sell the yacht if I really need to. But come on, let's be for real. Like we need that backup. We really really need that backup like I've had. I've had people tell me before do you know what? I don't even need to save because I'm just gonna.

Speaker 1:

I'm just gonna like blow one day. I'm like, okay, yeah, I'm just gonna own property, which again is not bad. Yeah, why not just have a pension as a supplement as well?

Speaker 2:

well, we've all heard about millionaires going bankrupt so your pension is basically like your retirement emergency fund like. That's why why would you not have that?

Speaker 2:

yeah why would you not? It's a really good way to look at it like. I know that the when you do your um, like your pension calculator, and you know, put in how much you put um, you put in how much you're putting in and they will say you know, by the time you hear retirement age, you'll most likely get this amount of money. Some people will be like, oh, that's not enough, but it's going to be in addition to whatever else, what other plans that you have? So just remember that we're not saying okay, it's going to cover your bills for the rest of your life, but you know, if you're making plans for when you retire, why not have that money there?

Speaker 1:

yeah, absolutely. I did a talk um on saturday and it was part of the talk was about pensions, right, but I was talking to predominantly women, so any men listening you can still listen. But this is more for the women at this point, um, because we know there's a gender pay gap, but there's also, you know, a pensions gap. Yeah, women have significantly less in their pensions and it's a massive thing. Yeah, and if you actually bring it down to stats I remember it off the top of my head the average pension pot size for a woman when she comes to retirement age is 69 000 pounds. Compare that to a man. Men's average pension pot size is 205 000 pounds. That's a massive gap.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, there are reasons for this. Women are more like to take career breaks, you know, to have kids. Um, when they do return to the workforce, they tend to return um part-time, or they may be part-time to begin with. There are many different reasons as to why we have that gap, but it is so important, like you said, if you are going to opt out because you need the money for a time period, yeah, absolutely fine, but it is remembering to opt back in, yes, um, if you do have a partner, your partner can contribute on your behalf. Yes, just looking at the different things that you can do to supplement that, because when you get to that point you know you need to make sure that you've got your own money there it is all about having control.

Speaker 1:

If you're a man, make sure you have your money there, because I also know of men who opted out and just have forgotten about it. Because no one's going to remind you necessarily and say hey yeah, it's been a year do you want to walk back in?

Speaker 2:

no one's going to tell you because it's your money.

Speaker 1:

You need to be in control of it. I think it's so crucial. It's a cost of living crisis. If you need to opt out, don't feel bad about it, like we can't tell you about your financial situation exactly. You need to do what's best for you, but once you're in a better situation and you can afford it again, consider jumping back in yeah you know, consider doing that.

Speaker 1:

If you've got more to save, get another personal pension that you can contribute to. You know, just try and maximize those savings from now, and I think of tobacco.

Speaker 1:

When you mentioned about risk appetite, you know it's low, medium, high yeah if you're in your 20s and 30s, you can go for something and this is not advice, but you can have a look at something that's maybe medium to high risk. Exactly why? Because if you're 20 something and you're going to retire at 60 something, yeah, do you need the money now? If it goes down now, are you going to cry? No, you're still going to have 40 odd years for it to do its thing. And in their 50s you might say, oh, I'm gonna go low risk exactly in the next five, ten years, right exactly but it is just assessing your goals and your financial situation.

Speaker 2:

So I'm I love doing my pensions yeah, it really just brings me alive yeah, because when you're getting your annual statements and if you've gone for like a high risk and you're like, oh, that's not going well, so giving it a year, then you're like, oh, okay, do you know, I'll give it another year, and then in like the fourth year, if you're realizing like, oh, oh, no, my money's just being eaten up, you can just change Exactly. You can just change it Exactly. You probably would have changed jobs by then and all new pension providers. There we go exactly exactly.

Speaker 1:

And I think it's also nice to plug in here anyone who's worked multiple jobs. I love just mentioning here places like Pension Bee. They're pension aggregators that before to go and find the ones and the government also have a free service as well. That can do the same thing. So if you've worked a number of different jobs, contribute at different places and say I don't know how much I've got, do that first, yeah, see where you're at, then use the calculator to figure out where you need to be exactly. Um, to make sure you reach that point so it's really really key, nikita.

Speaker 1:

Before we round off, yeah, what would be your three top tips for anyone listening who want to maximize their finances and just make sure they're in a good place when it comes to their money?

Speaker 2:

okay. So my first one is now you might think this is a bit off topic, but I don't think it is have life insurance, have life insurance, even have critical illness cover, have income protection. You want to maximize your finances. Now, you know, touch wood, something happens. You want to have backup, you want to be protecting yourself. So life insurance, it's for a lot of people it's very morbid, but you know, if there's one thing that's promised in life, so you know we should all have life insurance, that's protecting the finances of our families, for example. That's protecting the finances of our families, for example, a critical illness cover. If, if something was to happen where you was to, um, fall ill, fall critically ill, you could then have cover to be off work and income protection if something was to happen with your job. You are protected for um x amount of time, depending on the provider and how much they pay out. So, yeah, protect your finances, basically, um.

Speaker 2:

Another top tip that I would give is you're probably sick of it, but budget, please, please you. You shouldn't know, you shouldn't be confident to spend. If you don't have a budget, you should not be confident. We all want to be confident in money. We don't want money to be waking us up at night. But have a budget. Please, like, think about. You know all those things that you want to spend money on, but can your salary handle it? Can your salary handle it? And another thing which I love to mention is the internet's not a real place. So when you're seeing people doing you know Lamborghini in Dubai, you know Urus on the Sahara I don't know what people are doing these days, but just understand that you know that's them. That doesn't need to be. It doesn't need to be you.

Speaker 2:

You could, you could live a humble life. You might want to do that at the end of the day, but you know, if you don't have the finances for it now, please don't put yourself into debt to do it like please, please, don't, because don't, because you, you're going to regret it. You know when, the, when the lights are off and nobody's home, you're going to be thinking why did I do that? So there's there's no need to to be conforming when, really and truly, if, if you're putting yourself in a awkward position to be there, just imagine all of the other people that are doing the same. So just live within your means. Basically, live within your means. So please, guys, protect your um, protect your income, protect your life. Uh, protect yourself against, you know um not having an income. If you was to unfortunately fall critically ill. Have a budget in place and also just don't live up to the hype. Do you stay in your lane?

Speaker 1:

Stay in your lane. Love that.

Speaker 2:

Stay in your financial lane.

Speaker 1:

Stay in your financial lane. Only spend what you've got and don't just blow money trying to keep up with the Joneses. Right, nikita? Thank you so much For everyone listening and watching. Where can they find you?

Speaker 2:

So you can find me on instagram, and so it's at young spender underscore. And you can also find me on instagram on my personal page, which is at nikita amina thank you so so much for coming on this episode and to everyone listening and watching.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much, and we're back again next week with another episode. Bye, guys.