LGBTQ+ Finances: The Hidden Challenges (And How to Take Back Control of Your Money)

Now, why is this important? I see this all the time with friends, with family members.

They just don't think about investing.

Now, the point is, is actually if anyone's ever worked and been in employment and not opted out of auto enrolment.

They will be an investor because they're investing in via their pension, that little place that has that money going out saying pension contributions.

That's a form of investing.

It's just going into the type of wrapper that's called a pension.

So you don't necessarily have to be thinking about investing of trying to figure out who, you know, Is it good to invest in meta or should I be investing in AI? Should I be investing in Bitcoin or should I be buying gold? It's not about that.

That is, I think, for me, a bit of a red flag and can send people off onto tangents.

And one example is that I had a client who had invested in Bitcoin and I said to them, what like you need to be doing some of the basics and we need to focus in back on your pension.

And she'd used a pension and her tax free lump sum to get out of debt.

She wasn't able to get back into a job.

She went for a bit of a career bump.

And it meant that there was bills going out.

She had a lot of debt and she had to use her pension.

She was 57 and she had to use her pension.

It wasn't a massive pension either.

So she took some of the tax free lump sum and cleared her debts, which is not really what we would advise people to do.

But those in financial difficulty and her circumstances, there was no real option.

she eventually did get another another job and she's doing incredibly well and she's got a great pension coming through from there and but she because of that they had to move out of the area and they wasn't renting and i was always encouraging them to find a way to save to put into their investments so that they could then buy a house so when they were going into their 60s and late 70s that they weren't then renting and relying on a landlord keeping a roof over their head And she saved and they also invested into their, carried on paying into their pensions.

And I managed the small pension where they had previously drawn from.

And she and her partner, which was a female couple, had very joint finances.

And when they were ready to buy, they wanted to then use their Bitcoin investments that they had grown separately.

And unfortunately, they had tanked and they were doing so, so, so, so badly because they're so volatile.

And what does she come back to? She came back to her pension.

And the difference that she was able to take out about 5% of the pension and that then meant that she could buy this renovation house that now means going into early 60s, the landlord when they left said, recently had actually then put the rent up and it's around the same amount the mortgage to what their rent would be and it means now that over the next 12 years that mortgage will be paid off and then they actually have a family home that they can stay in in the long term into their later years all because of her pension.

Now, why is this important? I see this all the time with friends, with family members.

They just don't think about investing.

Now, the point is, is actually if anyone's ever worked and been in employment and not opted out of auto enrolment.

They will be an investor because they're investing in via their pension, that little place that has that money going out saying pension contributions.

That's a form of investing.

It's just going into the type of wrapper that's called a pension.

So you don't necessarily have to be thinking about investing of trying to figure out who, you know, Is it good to invest in meta or should I be investing in AI? Should I be investing in Bitcoin or should I be buying gold? It's not about that.

That is, I think, for me, a bit of a red flag and can send people off onto tangents.

And one example is that I had a client who had invested in Bitcoin and I said to them, what like you need to be doing some of the basics and we need to focus in back on your pension.

And she'd used a pension and her tax free lump sum to get out of debt.

She wasn't able to get back into a job.

She went for a bit of a career bump.

And it meant that there was bills going out.

She had a lot of debt and she had to use her pension.

She was 57 and she had to use her pension.

It wasn't a massive pension either.

So she took some of the tax free lump sum and cleared her debts, which is not really what we would advise people to do.

But those in financial difficulty and her circumstances, there was no real option.

she eventually did get another another job and she's doing incredibly well and she's got a great pension coming through from there and but she because of that they had to move out of the area and they wasn't renting and i was always encouraging them to find a way to save to put into their investments so that they could then buy a house so when they were going into their 60s and late 70s that they weren't then renting and relying on a landlord keeping a roof over their head And she saved and they also invested into their, carried on paying into their pensions.

And I managed the small pension where they had previously drawn from.

And she and her partner, which was a female couple, had very joint finances.

And when they were ready to buy, they wanted to then use their Bitcoin investments that they had grown separately.

And unfortunately, they had tanked and they were doing so, so, so, so badly because they're so volatile.

And what does she come back to? She came back to her pension.

And the difference that she was able to take out about 5% of the pension and that then meant that she could buy this renovation house that now means going into early 60s, the landlord when they left said, recently had actually then put the rent up and it's around the same amount the mortgage to what their rent would be and it means now that over the next 12 years that mortgage will be paid off and then they actually have a family home that they can stay in in the long term into their later years all because of her pension.