Money matters. I wish that I moved to when I was at school. I'm an investor, a business owner and a money educator. Understand it better. Compound income, cash flow, budget, investment to recover from debt. No one explained to me, put your money to your money to work. Beth is about normalising the conversation.

You Hey everybody.

Welcome back to The Money Mechanics podcast. It's Sarah here, and today I am very excited to be joined by Tanya ibberson, who is also known as the financial wing woman. Now I've followed Tanya for a number of years, actually, probably about five years, four or five years, I think probably we've been connected online. And I love what she does. She is a trauma informed transformation coach, qualified accountant with I think it's 28 years experience as an accountant, if I remember correctly. And she now helps women to budget and manage debt, but not just that. What she also does is help them to rewrite their story, rewrite their life after things like financial abuse or divorce. So Tanya, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. What is your earliest money memory.

So I do remember this quite distinctly, and I remember the rage hit me with this memory, and it's quite irrational. Think talking about it now, but we're going to show it anyway. So my brother, when my brother was born, I would have been not quite three, two and a half ish. And I remember people coming to visit and putting silver coins in the palm of his hand, like, you know, days old baby. And I remember just sitting there and like, oh, yeah, okay, where's mine. Why is he getting that and I'm not getting that so that that's my very first money memory, and just feeling just the injustice of the situation, so that there's the mind of a of a not quite three year old thinking, Hello, yeah. Isn't that interesting?

The jealousy rivalry is starting. How do you

think that that has formed who you are today in relation with money or impacted it,

but I don't know. I do have a really big sense of things needing to be fair and there needing to be justice in the way that things work, which goes head to head with my accountant role and the career. Because fundamentally, I look at the tax system, I look at the way that the rules work. And I don't agree with a lot of them. You know, they're not fair. So, you know, maybe that was part of the lesson I was meant to learn, was to work through all of that. But yeah, 28 years of B is 28 years, and that just makes me feel so old to be doing that first damn long. Well, you know, why am I still in there? But no, it's well, I believe we're always on the path that we're meant to be and learn the lessons, and I wouldn't be where I am if I hadn't had that first so, yeah, yeah. So Poynton,

so tell me what actually is a trauma informed transformation coach.

So the trauma informed it is, actually is really important, and it the trauma informed Ellen on the training was probably something that I did before I trained with ICF, from it from a coaching point of view, because when you're dealing with people that have had trauma in their life, big trauma, little trauma, and it doesn't have to be parents were made redundant and they lost our house. Mum and dad got divorced. Trauma can be standing in the queue with mum at the checkout, and she can't pay for the shopping, and she's just like panicking that could, you know, it can be big T, little T, but when you're dealing with people, and you're helping them to come to terms with what's happened, or you're trying to help them find a way through and manage it's so, so important not to re traumatise them. So to be trauma informed means that I can come at things from an understanding there's no judgement. I think, from the length of time that I've done, the professional side of what I've done, there isn't anything I haven't seen, pretty much anyway. But then also, when you throw in the personal side as well, and then the training to go with it, you have to go in with your eyes wide open. You don't just go and, Oh, I heard this happen to you. Tell me about that, because you can end up literally opening Pandora's box and leaving someone in a state that they just don't know how to cope with. And that's, that's just really bad form. So it's, I think more people, I think people being trauma informed that should be in every profession, really. Yeah, it was an important part for me to go in that do it in that order, almost some financial coach, the trauma informed, and then on from there. Why was that? I think because I'd attempted to. Have coaching, therapy and counselling through things and bits and pieces in my life, and I know how it feels to be on the receiving end of somebody who does a really bad job, you know, like a cowboy type, trying to, well, we'll just talk through or we'll just do this. And whilst it, it might be true that things often don't feel as bad as when they were happening. That doesn't mean that that's always the case. You know, if you reliving something, or you're trying to run a business, or you're trying to raise a family, and you're constantly feeling on the back for all the time, and you can do a lot more damage. So you've really got to be really careful working with people on that respect.

So being an accountant, you followed the

financial the rules to improve their finance. What Okay, a very short interruption of the episodes. I want you to get back to listening. I just wanted to remind you that the Money Mechanics weekly newsletter is completely free, and we'll send this out to you every week. All you've got to do is find the link in the show notes and get signed up when we send this out to you, this weekly newsletter is going to include things that will help you to become a better money mechanic. It could be things like what's happening in the markets, things like budgets, how that's going to impact you. And I'm also going to share a lot of insight into what I'm doing in my own portfolio and in the portfolios of the guests we've got on the podcast, to really just help you understand what you could do differently to make your money work as best as it can for you make sure you go and find that link and get signed up

on the coaching

side, what interested me more dealing with clients on the accounting side of things was I could tell people you need to do a, you need to do B, you need to budget, you need to plan for your tax bill, you need To do all of these things. But I could see people that were doing it, and rather than taking it personally and thinking, these people just aren't listening to me, I must be really bad at my job, I just got really curious about Yeah, but you know, this bill isn't going away, right? You know that? HMRC, know where you live. Tell me why you're not preparing for this and making life easier for yourself so I can do the rules, I can do the 123, bits, but I was more interested in what people found difficult about running a business and doing all of the things and keeping on the straight and narrow when it came to a tax point of view. So things sort of shifted around five years ago, probably around the time that I met you, was when I sort of had my eyes a little bit more open to just because I've always done that doesn't mean that's what I always need to do.

Okay, so do you think that everybody should want everyone?

Oh, yeah, without a shadow of a doubt, absolutely, one of my biggest, biggest, huge value of mine is that everybody should have the choice, the choice to say they should have the mindset and the means to be able to walk away or to say no, and sometimes you can have the money and still stay so if we were talking about a controlling relationship, for example, if you've got an inherent belief that it's your fault, that you're in that situation, that you know have no other options, then you can, you know, I've got clients that have been very wealthy and have access to funds, but have still stayed in that situation. So the two have to go hand in hand. This is not just about having access to funds. This is about knowing that you can build something else. So the two go really helpfully together, almost the coach and the accounting is. It made sense for me to combine the two, rather than just not want to die on the Hill of being an accountant. It was like, You know what I can do these two together. This is actually a really good mix.

So, Tanya, why do you specialise with working with women?

That I have been asked this a few times, actually, it's not that I don't specifically exclude any particular gender. I work with men as well. I think as a as a gender, typically, looking back culturally, generationally, we are hugely, hugely disadvantaged. We almost have to fall into that stereotype because of what examples that we're following, which just falls into this whole money mindset, this learning type of thing, because we aren't taught this sort of stuff. In schools, we follow what we know because we can't be what we can't see. And quite often, the examples that are set for us are those of mother, grandmother. So as women, we 60 years ago, you couldn't get a mortgage on your own. You needed to have a male person stand guaranteed to borrow any money to. Own any sort of property. So we've got a lot of catching up to do you know, in terms of of where we stand from a financial playing field, and quite apart from anything else, I'm a woman myself, so I can really relate to anybody coming into that situation. I've been in a controlling relationship, in an abusive relationship, so I know how that feels. So I've got empathy for people coming in from from that point of view as well. So it's, it's, I don't want to say that I'm picking a specific but it typically those are like the clients that come to me.

So I totally get where you're coming from, on the women being on the back foot, and I wrote about this in my book, because, actually, you know, we have had less time to play with money. And when I talk to clients about, you know, I talk to a lot of clients, they say, Oh, my husband just does all that for me. And I'm like, you know, I'm married and I have, I have a husband, but we agree that we should both be financially independent, rather than us being collectively independent. I think for us it's really important. And for everybody I speak to clients and on the importance of being independently, financially stable, so that you can come together and be financially like collectively stable. What are your thoughts? Well, I couldn't,

I couldn't agree with you more. I think, I think I said earlier on that every woman should have the means and mindset to say no thank you to a situation. So I think it's really important coming into a relationship that you can be whole if something were to happen. And I'm not advocating for divorce, this is not like a feminist go girls or anything like that, but it is very much. It is very much, or you just don't know what's going to be around the corner. So you know, just in terms of finances, generally, in terms of, unless you're having those really, really open conversations around attitudes to debt and spending and saving and investing and how, how long term is long term and all of those sorts of things. It's important that you've got some, say, some some sway in the direction of things are going as a couple, and where kids are involved as well. I think it's really important to set that example of that being the norm, because, again, it just typically that that certainly wasn't the situation that my parents were in and when they divorced. My mum had nothing, you know, we shopped at Aldi, and we bought 9p tins of beans, and that we lived on that, you know, that that was our reality for quite a while, because my mom didn't work, she didn't earn so we were reliant on the stay, essentially, and then by the time you paid the mortgage and everything, there just wasn't anything left. So it's, I think it's important to set that as an example and to just know that you've got a choice.

Totally agree. And one of the things you said earlier is about we are not being taught this stuff in school. And, you know, I certainly wasn't sat down in school and taught about debt and interest rates and credit cards and how that all works, and I know that, you know, my parents did the best they could with the information they had, but they also weren't really taught about investing, about how to really make money work. So do you think that there is I think I know the answer to this, but do you think there's anything missing from the education system in terms of finances, and if so, what's the biggest thing you think's missing?

I think just recognising that it is part of the everyday so beyond the whole if I give you this, I get that in return. You know, like you've just said about investing and paid debt and understanding what debt is and how you get into it in the first place has, you know, I'm not saying and shouting, debt's a bad thing. It's a dirty word, but you have to go in it, understanding and knowing what it is, and then what happens once you have it, to be able to work that situation back schools teach nothing of this. And I mean my eldest daughter. She's 21 now, so she when she was in the sixth form, they did like a day, one day of this is what this is, and this is what this is. But it was just so, so very, very basic. And she came home and said, You know, I could tell you all about Pythagoras theorem, I could tell you all about quadratic equations. And I am never, for the entire rest of my life ever going to use any of this stuff again? Why haven't I been talked to about mortgages and interest rates and foreign currency and how all of these different things interact? Because it's so much, it's part of such a bigger picture. Having an opinion on politics and what's going on in the economy right now, so many people are just following what they're reading in the papers or what they've overheard someone say in the pub, rather than actually having an informed opinion. We can't lead with our feet if we don't have that knowledge. We're just guessing. And we end up then being stuck. We end up literally being herded collectively as a as a nation, you know, which is, I think that's what's happening now, and it's, it's. Terrifying, frankly,

yeah, and I think you know this definitely isn't the podcast for political debates, but I think everybody is acutely aware that there's a lot happening at a political level. And when you are living life right now, and things are more expensive and interest rates are going up, and to be able to buy a house, it is much harder and all of these things, I think we have to be eyes wide open in the way we approach stuff. And I was having a conversation last weekend about how it's our own responsibility to become educated around these things, and we have to have the desire to want to learn it if we stand a chance of change. Why do you think people are frightened of learning about this stuff? Because they are, and people pull back from getting into the debt, into the trenches with money. Why do you think that is?

I think because we've got too much whether we've got an education or a proper understanding of money is irrelevant. We still have a history with money. We still have those stories. We have experience of how it feels when someone comes home from work and they're in a really bad move because of something that's financially driven. There's a leak in the roof, and we can't play for it. The youngest child's come home with their knees through their school trousers, and that, for Christ's sake, that's the third parent one not even got to Christmas yet. We've all got that. We've all got those experiences and those feelings around money. So whether we want to learn or not, it has to feel safe, because it's one thing to have a desire, and I want to feel financially free, but we're not taught how to work that out yet. So you can't just say, I want financial freedom. You have to be able to say, well, but how much is freedom? How much you know? What does that look like to you? But because we've got this baggage around money quite often that needs dealing with, and that is what will keep people from picking up a textbook, or maybe not a textbook, in these day and age. But, you know, looking online, you know, still sucking that school mentality, but like or knowing who to talk to or ask the question, because quite often we feel stupid asking questions about money. I remember asking my dad how much he earned, and he threatened me with a thick ear like, okay, so a child, I'm asking a question about money, and I'm threatened with violence. Why would I ask that question again? And then I try again at work, and I ask, stupidly, someone how much they earn, because I'm thinking, I wonder how that compares to my salary. And I was told it was a suckable offence, so okay, I'm gonna lose my job if I ask a question about money, it is fundamentally there. I'm learning it's not safe to ask questions. So if someone says, learn about money here, you just thought, Oh my God. But, you know, sick here, P 45 but no thanks. It's all right, I'll go put the kettle on and go and watch

sight instead. Yeah, absolutely. It's just far more easy to do

memory in my mind. I when I was in recruitment, I asked what someone in my office earned, and my boss dragged me into the office and told me, You can't ask what people earn. You're not allowed. And I thought, What do you mean? I'm not allowed. So if they're like you, that's a sackable offence. You can't ask those questions. No, I mean, so, I mean, that was like 2009 sort of time, 2025 I don't think it's a suckable offence now, but I might be. Maybe anyone who's listening to this, if you've been through this conversation recently at work, get in touch, because I'd love

to, I would love to hear that as well. My daughter, can you ask other people that you're working with? Just like I can't ask that mom. I'm like, Have I taught you nothing for God, guess you do in

terms of emotions around money? Because I think we apply a lot of emotion to money in my in my mind, money's neutral. Money's not actually emotional. It's the perception we apply to it. I think a lot of people associate money with fear, guilt, shame, joy, adrenaline, power. There's all these different things. Yeah, in your experience, what emotions have money created in your life?

Oh, oh. Well. So growing up, we we didn't have very much, very much money at all. It's very much working class. My dad went to prison when I was seven, so we had literally had nothing. There was the family members were donating what they could afford just to put some corn flakes in the cupboard. So it was very much shame. Was a huge feeling, because not only did he go to prison, I went to a school in a local police headquarters was in the village where I grew up, so every other child in the school knew what my dad had done, and they didn't have any issues whatsoever throwing that at me in the playground. So it. For me, it was, it was a massive issue, and when it came to choosing secondary schools, and I got the opportunity to sit the entrance exam for a private school, but with me, we had no way of being able to afford to pay, but I jumped at the chance just to get out of that environment. And I got a full scholarship. Thank God I wouldn't have been able to go otherwise, but that was my ticket out of that, of that environment and being surrounded by but that was, that was my, that was my, well, bringing really, you know, just being surrounded by that and just not having enough. And then when I was 17, and my mom and dad separated, we were right back there without the shame, but the feeling was the same because we had nothing. Therefore you those memories. And that's part of learning about trauma. So when you experience something, your body you can't your brain doesn't time stamp it, you remember how it feels. So any other time you feel the same way, you transported back to being 579, years old, and that's what you carry. You know, we're like, we're basically huge human examples of Russian dolls carrying all these different versions of us, and not in they're not integrated, you know, we're herding kids like those crocodiles that you see with the kids in a line outside the school. Well, that's, that's what we're all doing when we don't deal with these things that come up and affect us. So the goal is always to reintegrate, but, and it was only really when I started learning about the impact of money that I understood just how much I was carrying, and then it made more sense. You know, I've always struggled to chase debt in my business. I had always struggled to send a quote in my business, and all of a sudden I understood why I'd always found that really difficult to ask for money from someone else, and once you unlock that, then as a business owner, that is game changing. It's to be able to go, okay, it's okay for me to chase for invoices that have been unpaid because I've provided a service. So all of that guilt just falls away literally overnight when when those things are discovered. But it's like you just said, you unlock the memory around asking what somebody earned. If we don't have awareness and we're not curious around those particular incidents, our brain does not bring it front and centre for us, because it hides it. It just sort of stuffs it down, and we go about all day, exactly? Yeah, it's easier to pour a glass of wine put the telly on instead than face. It feels uncomfortable. Yeah. So if

someone was listening to this now, and they're in debt, and they've got those emotions around money, which are shame or guilt or fear, or, you know, any of that. How? How does someone go from having that in their life like you did, to now being somebody who's confident talking about it, experiencing it like, what does that shift look like? Like? How do you physically go and do that? If someone was listening, what would you say would be the first steps to start moving from there to there?

It needs to be baby steps, so in the same way as like, if you wanted to lose weight. So I'm attempting off and on, off again, off and then on, again, off again. With that, like weight and fitness and everything else, you can't wake up one morning and go, right? I want to drop two stone. And to do that, I'm going to work out five days a week. I'm going to do 10,000 steps every day. I'm going to eat this, I'm going to drink this, because we immediately set ourselves up to veil, and we can't wake up on day two and expect to have lost all of that weight. And it's the same with this sort of a journey. You know, it takes years for debt to build up, typically, so it can take a bit of time to work it back. So having an awareness of where you sound first of all is a great place to start and starting chipping away, you know, just even if it is just starting with opening the bank statements and the credit card statements to begin with, rather than just stuffing them in a drawer or turning off the notifications for things to be sent to the house and just not looking online. Because, you know, that's just, and that's exactly why I did just, you know, I've been in debt as well, and that was just the easiest thing. Just easiest thing. Just shred the safest. Don't even open, yeah, and it's not there, but at the same time, there needs to be a safe way of accessing, I don't feel comfortable facing this. It might be a shame thing, it might be an embarrassment thing, but that's not the first time you felt that around money. So being able to talk, sort of take a step back and think, okay, when, when have I first started to feel this? And it will be that one memory at a time, like you've just had, you know, it will be like, oh god, yeah, remember that now, because then you can process it most of the time. Those opinions and feelings, they're not yours at all. They're the way you've you've been taught to act, or the way you've been taught to deal with the situation. So it's a bit, it's a combination of the practical. I'm not getting away from this. Nobody's coming to save me with this. I do need to pull my pants up a little bit, but you also don't need to do it on your own. You know, sometimes just having somebody like body. Doubling, if you've got ADHD, it just, you just need to stop, and the momentum then builds on its own.

So would you say one of the things, on a practical level, one of the things that can help people, is budgeting. Budgeting. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Talk us through that.

So budgeting is a great one, because I think there was one of my clients once said to me, and I said, you know, what's, what's a budget so that I don't need to budget, you know, I want to get to a point where I don't need to think about money or worry about the budget, and I'm just the example I gave to her was okay, but Elon Musk has a budget. You might have a big bank account. It is still something that is really useful to do, just so that you've got an awareness of what's going where and what you're then wanting it to have, what to happen to it in the in the future. And but debt is a big one, so from a budgeting point of view, if you have debt that's costing you money, which it invariably does, and if you've got debt that's on loads of naught percent credit cards, well then you have been dealing with it because that takes some management. That takes some shuffling around and moving and finding the deals, which is amazing, then that's great, but it's about reducing the cost on things that you don't need to be spending money on. And it's not necessarily about cutting back, although that usually helps to be honest, you know, but having an awareness of what you've got where, and then a proper honest review of what you've got coming in and where it goes, because then with awareness and with a little bit of planning, we can start to divert and redirect, rather than just being carried on along on a roller coaster or the inertia of, well, that's just the way I am. With money, you can actually rewrite that story. You can show your brain it's safe to save, even if it's 20 quid a month or something. You know, you can start or putting a coin in a jar. You know, a client once came to me and said, just money literally flows through my fingers like water. I just can't hold on to it. So I said, we're just going to get a jar and we're going to put on the windowsill in the kitchen. And every time you think that you're going to put a coin in the jar, even if it's 2p A two pence coin, because you want your brain to see that you've got something to contradict that story and that constant script that you've got going on. So the key is just starting, and it can just be something so simple saving about paying a bit more off of debt.

I love the idea of having a job, because if you've convinced yourself that money flows through your fingers like liquid and there's something that then catches it, it proves so the evidence your brain is looking for to get to prove that it does flow through your hands is contradicted completely in a really visual way. I love that

exactly, because it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, and then you just accept it. Oh, well, yeah. Oh, no. How bad Am I look at this, but just so sip and it doesn't, you know, if you've not got change in the house, tiddlywinks, you know, anything, just tangible that you can put in a jar and just, you know, it's just, it is a it's just a trick, like a signing,

isn't it? Retraining,

rewiring, people who

are in debt? What's your opinion on whether they should tackle debt or start investing first?

Well, it's a tricky one, and I know that there's lots of different advice out there, which is sometimes part of the problem. You've got some people that are you have to be investing now invest in it's that whole Chinese proverb of the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is today. So the sooner you can start with investing, it's just it's never going to be something you're going to regret doing. And the more you put in from an earlier point, obviously, the more is going to be there at the end. And then you get that magic compound in effect. However, if you've got something that's debilitating because of the interest that's been charged on debt, or you're not keeping up with repayments, so you've got penalties and stuff that's been added on, it's almost there needs to be a bit of a balancing act. But it really does depend on the individual. Sometimes it's too much to think, well, I've got to deal with this debt and but I really, really don't understand the investing. And if I'm doing the two together, my brain's just going to explode and it's going to leak all over myself. So I just want to pick one thing to tackle. So if I'm dealing with someone with a from a coaching perspective, I get to understand what's most important to them, because if the debt is waking them up in the middle of the night, then that's the first thing we give them the power to tackle. And then we start talking about the investing and, you know, or maybe we start saving first, because that feels safer, because they maybe they've got an idea in their head about, well, if I lose it, then I'm going to have nothing. So you just start small with it. But. It. It's almost like a bit nervous system management, depending on where people are. And then over time, you just build up to it, because once you start, you'll know yourself. There is a risk with investing, but you start to see the upside generally, quite quickly. And then it becomes a bit of a bug. So we pay down the debt, because then those repayments can be diverted somewhere else if you've no longer got that debt. So they go side, they go hand in hand, almost really,

I agree completely. And I think the debt, it will depend on what your debts costing you. I think that is a definite trigger. And I also think, like what you said around the savings bit, it's so important to have your emergency fund first, because once you get your emergency fund, then you start getting investing. The emergency fund becomes your safety net,

yeah, otherwise, you put stuff on the credit card when the emergency happens, because there's nothing more certain than uncertainty. If the boiler blows or the car fails its mot, you need money to pay for that. And if you're throwing everything at a credit card and then adding to it each time something goes wrong, you will feel like you're just not getting anywhere. So that's the emergency fund is super, super important. Yeah, 100%

so someone who deals with people who are in these really early stages with money, so debt savings, starting to invest. If I was somebody who had 1000 pounds, and I've cleared my debt now, I've worked on that, we've done that, I've got my emergency fund. I've got 1000 pounds. How do I make choices to start investing that in a way that aligns with my risk profile as a person, like, how would you recommend someone starts that process?

But first of all, I'm not an IFA, so I would not advise, or I wouldn't specifically say to someone, well, between you and me, I put my money here. Yeah, it needs to feel you need to feel safe for that individual in the first place. But as a starting point from investing, my favourite place to suggest is like a stocks and shares ISA, because it's something that you can still potentially get your money back, although there's risks and although it's going to cost you and you're not going to get that gain. It's a great place to start for people to see what then happens when you leave that money there, that you can then add to it. But understanding the risk is super important. It's why there is never, ever going to be a cookie cutter off the shelf. This is how you get yourself out of debt. This is how you manage your money, because we just don't know where people are coming from, and that's kind of the trauma informed side. You have to have an understanding that everybody has got a different starting point. But equally, nobody should be punished or penalised or, you know, we can't, we can't take the mickey out of someone because of what that starting point is either so coming with absolutely zero judgement is super important to be able to show someone it's, you know, if you want to ask a question and you feel this stupid question, I promise you it isn't. But here's the place,

everyone will have asked it. Anybody who's more successful than me has probably asked the same questions I'm asking now at some point in their careers, and we say it's clients all the time, there's never a stupid question, and people still get embarrassed to ask, but there's never a stupid question,

I think, because of the way that we do talk about money, and it is about the small, incremental, consistent, little steps that you take. Sometimes you sit with people and they go, it can't be that easy. They're waiting or looking for their magic bean or a key to like, oh, that's what I've been missing my whole life. This is the reason I'm not loaded, and it isn't. There isn't any huge secret at all. It is about those little steps so that, in itself can be quite embarrassing. And people go, Oh, my God. I actually have no idea I knew how to do this all along, but I assumed there was more to it. No, no, that there really isn't. It is just about making a start and getting on with it. I think that's a massive desire. I think, yeah, the desire is one thing. But I think anybody listening to this, what Tanya's just said so important,

there actually isn't a secret people that are investing money consistently. Who are, you know, working in a low risk we're not talking about traders here. We're not talking about crypto. We're not talking about any of the high volatility stuff. What we're talking about here is the low risk, like levels of investment that really anybody can understand if you have the desire to want to just scratch the surface on it, there isn't a magic button to press. There isn't a magic bean to use your words. You don't need to buy an online course for it. You don't need to invest 30 grand in a mentor for it. You can start investment with 10 pounds from your mobile phone today, absolutely, yeah, very low risk, very simple. Now, as you want to evolve your skill set, as you want to evolve your exploration into different types of investments, then maybe paying for education is something you want to do. Maybe courses, events, etc, you know, and I run events, and I run courses, so, like, I obviously understand the importance of it. But to start, you don't need that to start. You can literally get your phone open a free trade, or Hargreaves, lambs down, or trading 212, or one of these platforms, put 10 pounds in, and just see what it does.

Exactly that. And those are the two. I've got whole grease lines down, and I have a money box where I manage my ice as I've got my pensions and stuff in there and so and they're quite pretty. They're nice and easy to use. They've got, like, the time machine functions, especially in the money box app. So not a recommendation specifically, but I it works for me. And, you know, my kids have got them, and it's, it's just a great way of dipping your toe in the water. And that money box in particular for me, was really good in terms of explaining risk when I was trying to explain it to my oldest. She's 21 now, but the way it gives different people different caricatures within the app was it was a great way for her to be like, Oh, okay. And what if my risk attitude changes? Well, absolutely it will, you know, as we get older, things feel like they're more they're more risky, or there's, there's more at stake if things go wrong. So absolutely great, you know. And then you can shift as you, as you transition, and work your way through that. But again, just asking that question, so many people think that they can't, because we're all we all assume everybody knows what they're doing, and we're the only ones that don't. You know what most people absolutely don't, and so they bury

their heads, winging it a little bit. Yeah, of course we are.

So what do you think is the biggest lie that we are told about money,

biggest life, oh God, well, it's probably just to work hard to earn more is the biggest one. He keep exchanging time for money is the surefire way to just end up in an early grave, to be honest, and be absolutely thoroughly bored, literally to death, if you get to that point. But sort of, and I am coming at that very much from my background, because that was, that was how we learned as we were kids. You know, if my dad, we were going on holiday, my dad was a window cleaner. He couldn't get employed when he when he came out of prison, and so we started a window cleaner round. And if we were going on holiday, you've got the whole if I'm not working, I'm not earning, yeah, so he would do a few extra hours before we went away, he would do some weekend cleaning and build up that way so that we could then take time off. So it's very much a logically. It makes sense, and I can see that that's how my dad did it. So that's what I need to do. And it's very easy to fall into that hustle mentality of, well, I just need to put in a few more hours, right? Because then that will, you know, be able to fill the coffers up a little bit more. But then you get a lifestyle creep that then, well, I've got more, so I'm going to have more, and I want to keep up. And that's then what happens. You just sort of everything. So it goes down. Do about

that, though, like so if, if you're somebody who doesn't want to start a business, not everybody's entrepreneurial, right? Some people actually want to have a job and switch off at five o'clock and be done with their with with go home and not be worried about business, which is great. And for those people, obviously entrepreneurs. We know as an entrepreneurial person that we kind of become in control of our working patterns. A lot of people still trade time for money, even though they're self employed, but I guess the principle of starting a business most people believe that it will give them the freedom that they want, that they can't get from having a job, because there's an opportunity to earn more rather than an employed salary level. But someone doesn't want to be an entrepreneur, someone wants to be employed. How can they stop relying on trading time for money?

Well, that then falls down to if you've got a fixed income or semi fixed income, then you you work with what you've got, so not allowing that lifestyle creep to come in. If you're already in that situation, then it's going to take a little bit of rewinding and reworking. But if someone was to come to me from a coaching point of view, the starting point will be to look at someone's values and what's important to them. Because if you don't know what you want, or you don't know where you don't know where you will be when you get where you want to be, you could literally just be going around in circles, around the point that you are, without actually knowing that you started to take that trajectory in the right direction. So it takes real conscious effort, rather than what your parents expect for you or what all of your friends are doing and expecting to keep. Do people use that term anymore, keeping up with the Joneses. You know, it's, I think it's very easy to fall into that trap, and it's hard to go Do you know what? Actually, my car might be five years old, but I see no need to change it, because it does what I needed to do. Why would I? I mean, I changed my car myself over the summer, and I just couldn't get over how expensive cars were, because I had my last one for 12 years, just standing in the car, going, this is door my budget. Just saying, is insane. Then you look at people, I caught myself looking at, how have they afforded that? How have they afforded and the truth probably is, they don't. They don't afford it. They make the car payments, because it's really important that they look a certain way. So not falling into that trap will be the biggest advice, and that is exactly what I talked to. My youngest is 13, so less of a less of an issue. But then again, I don't think you can be too young to start talking about money and sharing. You know what we're doing, and people kids see what you spend, but kids don't see what you save unless you talk to them about it, because it is done on your app or it's done online, on the laptop. It's not something that we shout about. But they see what you're bringing here. They see the car you're driving, the holidays that you're going on, you know, the new stuff, the clothes that are coming into that, or whatever that might be, and they obviously see the lack of it, but it's the sensible stuff that's not sexy, that people don't talk about, that kids don't see, if we're not sharing that with them. So do you think

the magic trick to changing the way the financial world sits with the majority is

to just talk about it more. I think

it's a brilliant starting point, short of changing the education system and being the Jamie Oliver for finances in schools, as he what he did for school lunches, it has to start at home. It has to become part of the everyday. And it has to start with not shying away from those conversations about money and how much does that cost, and not threatening your child with a thick ear, I mean, for God's sake, but that just says more about more about him than anything else. But you know, if we shine a light on everything, it becomes less of an issue. But people would rather talk about their sex life and talk about money and earnings. I was at a talk a couple of weeks ago at a military base, and that was my opening my opening question was, I want you to turn to the person sitting next to you and ask them how much they earned. And you know the Oh, the shock in the room, and oh, my god, I can't ask that question. But it immediately got people laughing and then talking, because nobody was sharing that information.

That's so fascinating. That's such a good opening question, Tanya, for a room of people

in my back pocket. So

listen, I could chat to you about this for a really long time. Obviously, we don't have an unlimited amount of time, so at the end of every episode, we always ask our guest, a question that's been left by our last guest. So I'm going to ask you the question we were left by a chap called Dylan, who was my last interview. What is a money cycle that you've worked really hard to break

money cycle? I guess for me, there's been a few

not wanting to repeat the cycle that my mum was in when my dad left. So not wanting to be in a relationship where I was relying on a man, and hey, I ended up in that situation anyway. But have now got out of it, I suppose, but the one I work the hardest on now is sharing that money journey with my girls, my two girls, I don't want them to ever be in a situation that I was in. I would want them to be able to, first of all, walk away of their own merit, but also, second of all, be able to pick the phone up and say, Mom, I need some help. Or can I talk to you about something? Because I didn't feel I have that either. So for me, it's quite personal, I suppose, amazing.

Thank you for sharing that. And then we always with the very last question. Has asked you to leave a question for our next guest. So what is your question?

Now, my question would be on a strictly professional level, because I think this could be misread or misanswered otherwise. What what was too much for the money in your experience? Well, what have you done in your life, which retrospectively, you felt was too much for the money you got paid?

Interesting question. Really good question.

That's why it needs to

be professional. This podcast takes a slight detour, brilliant. Thank you, Tanya, so much for that. I really appreciate it. How can people get in touch with you if they want to follow in listening to this podcast?

So the best way to find me My website is financial wing woman.com I've got my own little podcast. I've only started it a couple months ago that's called breaking financial chains, or looking for financial wing woman or Tanya Robison on the socials. You find me there, right?

We'll make sure all of those links are in the show notes so that people get hold of you. Thank you so much for your time. Tanya, I really appreciate it.

It's been great. It's been and to you, it's been great to catch up as well.

Thank you so much for getting to the end of the podcast episode. I really hope that you enjoyed it. I just wanted to take this opportunity to remind you that the weekly Money Mechanics newsletter is available to you completely free. This is a newsletter I'm going to send out every week to just give you some ideas around what's happening in the markets, what's happening at a global level, what's happening at a lot more local level, so that you can better understand what you can do with your money to make it work for you for the future. I'm also gonna share in the newsletter what I'm doing in my own portfolio, just to give you some insights into what my ideas are, why I'm making the decisions that I'm making, in the hope that it will help you to make those decisions in your own portfolios as well. All you've got to do is find the link that's with this episode, hit the link and subscribe, and that newsletter will start to come out to you every single week. I'd also really love to take this opportunity to invite you to drop me a review. I love the opportunity of getting to share these podcast episodes with you. It really helps me to better understand how we can do the best job that we can here at Money Mechanics. If you tell us your feedback, so drop us a review, tell us the sort of guest that you want. Talk to me and connect with me on Instagram, you know, talk to us on YouTube, wherever you are hanging out, tell us how you're finding it, and we can make this the very best podcast it can be. Thank you again for being such a valued listener. I appreciate you all, and I'll speak to you soon. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai