Sarah Poynton (00:01.732)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Money Mechanics podcast. It's Sarah Pointen here and welcome back to those of you that are listening. So I'm really excited about today's episode. I've got Athena Dobson from Girls in Property with us today. I've known Athena for probably three years, four years nearly now on and offline. I've been on her podcast a couple of times, which is an amazing podcast by the way. You should definitely go and check it out. And today we're gonna be talking all things money. So Athena, do you wanna just...

intro yourself, tell us who you are, what you do, et cetera, and then we'll get into it.

Athena Dobson (00:35.308)
Yeah sure, so first of all, hi everyone. I was just saying to Sarah actually how nice it is to actually be a guest on a podcast as opposed to host. think it's really good fun because we don't know the questions that are going to come up so I'm really excited about today. So yeah, so I'm Athena Dobson. So a little bit about me. So my background predominantly was that I was in the travel industry for seven years. So if you ever want to come and talk to me about travel or any travel tips and ideas, I'm literally your girl. Like if you were to cut me in half all the way down the middle, you would just

Sarah Poynton (00:42.242)
Yeah.

Athena Dobson (01:05.262)
see travel spewing out. literally just came back from Dominican Republic like I think like a week ago now. I'm going to Greece this year, Ibiza. I've got five weeks in South America at the end of the year. I just love to travel. That's kind of why I started what I did was that I could become that person that was no longer chained to a desk. So my story basically goes that first of all, my background is in marketing. So at university, I've got a first class degree in marketing. I went straight into a well paid job coming out of it, which was actually becoming a marketing executive for

a forensic accounting firm in Liverpool Street in London. So I was on like straight out of uni. I was on like 35K straight out, right? And I was like, I made it. This is it. This is amazing. And actually it was incredibly boring. It was male dominated. They didn't really take any notice of me in the corner. We were definitely the first to get like our budget cut. It was hilarious. But what was really interesting was, was I did that whole thing where I had to make the decision whether I was going to be buying a house with my partner at the time

Sarah Poynton (01:50.178)
Okay.

Athena Dobson (02:05.072)
or we were going to go travelling and so we decided to go travelling for a year together which literally changed our lives because you learn about culture, learn about people, you learn about so much and when I came back I decided that I wanted to take a pay cut because you do in the travel industry I think I went down to like 22k a year or something ridiculous and literally just worked my way up the ladder within the travel sector so I worked for this premium travel company for seven years and I was literally chained to a desk so I moved between being a travel consultant all the way up to managerial then into

Sarah Poynton (02:12.74)
you

Athena Dobson (02:34.992)
I think I probably would still be, I probably would have become like director of that company. So I was moving at such a rapid pace and I became like the top seller. But what I want to say is, that for seven years of my life, what I didn't realize was, was the desk became like this crutch that I had. So the phone was there, the customers would come in. My identity was a three, six, nine, five. So I literally just, that's how I was referred to, like put me through to three, six, nine, five. And I was like, this is normal. This is what we're supposed to be doing here. And then COVID hit

Sarah Poynton (03:03.49)
Mm-hmm.

Athena Dobson (03:04.912)
hit of course back in I think it was March 2022 and I remember the day I 2020 I'm so sorry oh my god you see bloody hell man 2020 of course was 2020 yes sorry my brain wasn't working then of course it was 2020 and knew that so I was sat at my um I remember I sat on my couch and Boris came on the screen and we all remember that moment where Boris just says stay at home do not right you

Sarah Poynton (03:08.054)
It was, yeah. 2020. Yeah.

Sarah Poynton (03:27.724)
Mm-hmm. I was sitting on my pool table. Yeah, I remember exactly the moment.

Athena Dobson (03:33.568)
the moment right and I obviously work in travel so I sat on the couch going I mean what does that mean like what does that what I've got a commission based job like what does that mean so we then got 30 minutes later about 9 30 at night I got a text from the company or an email sorry from the company saying to me you are furloughed until further notice we'll be back in touch and I was like

Sarah Poynton (03:40.227)
Shit.

Athena Dobson (03:56.952)
Furloughed? Like what is this? what does that even mean? It's a commission based job. What does that mean? So it was absolutely terrifying. So nobody knew what was going on. All flights were grounded. Nobody had seen this. They were calling certain people into the office to repatriate people back to the UK. It was just insane. And so you start to question this whole seven years of your life in this way that you've been like earning like five to six grand and in commissions like a month and suddenly it all just

Sarah Poynton (03:58.392)
What does that mean? Yeah.

Athena Dobson (04:28.356)
evaporates. So you then for about two weeks did what most people did which was just feel really sorry for myself, ate lot of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, I think Disney, I think Disney Plus channel came out which was amazing. So I had a great time but at the same time I was like what are you gonna do with your life? And I was doom scrolling through Facebook one day and

Sarah Poynton (04:35.566)
Yeah.

Athena Dobson (04:47.214)
I saw this advert come up for property education, which was a two day course for 99 pounds. And Sarah, you might be like me, I'm that girl that when I get really, really bored, I have to do something. I have to like learn. have to, yeah, I have to learn. have to do something. So I'm like, all right, 99 quid. Okay, let's learn about property. How hard can it be? It can't be that hard.

Sarah Poynton (05:00.833)
I am like, yeah.

Sarah Poynton (05:10.947)
Is that saying, isn't it? How hard can it be? Boys do it. Sorry to all the boys that are listening. I love you all. It's just a joke. Don't get offended.

Athena Dobson (05:13.802)
Yeah, right. So I'm into the kids.

Yeah.

But exactly, so I went into my kitchen and I sat at my lounge table. I remember my partner at the time, came in and he said, what are you doing? And I said, I'm doing like a property course for two days. And he's like, why? You know nothing about property. And I said, I know, I'm gonna learn. That's why I'm gonna learn, why not? So I did this two day course and literally they taught me how to, very loosely by the way, very loosely taught me how to set up a company and how to effectively, theoretically turn a one bedroom into either a two bed or a three

Sarah Poynton (05:34.916)
That's why I'm doing it, yeah.

Athena Dobson (05:50.178)
bed, refinance, pull your monies out, which is called the bi-refurbished rent refinance strategy. And don't ask me why Sarah, it's just my personality. I went, yes, I can do that. Why not? I've done two days of education. I can definitely do that. So I took the money that I had saved because I was really good at saving. So just to say, because this is Money Mechanics.

When I, my natural being is I didn't go through the whole spending, partying, going out phase. I was born differently. It just wasn't my thing. At uni, I wasn't that girl that spent a load of money and went out and bought clothes and handbags. I, for some reason, told myself at a young age to save for a reason for the future. So by this time, I had saved about, like,

40 grand about 40k so it wasn't bad at all and I thought right I'm gonna do something with this money and I needed a 25 % deposit by a one bedroom flat in Bournemouth so I went out and I I spoke I spoke to estate agents and the estate agents I said to them right I need a one bedroom flat in Bournemouth but what I had learned because I did a lot of listening to podcasts I did a lot of free education so all the free webinars I attended all the audiobooks all everything there and I learned that in order to turn a flat

Sarah Poynton (07:07.684)
Mm-hmm.

Athena Dobson (07:10.752)
It's all I could afford with a 25 % deposit. I couldn't afford a house because it's the south.

It had to be a flat but the tricky thing is with a flat is that it has to be a freehold flat Not at least hold flat because otherwise you have to ask the freeholders permission So I said to the estate agents I need a freehold flat and literally they all either laughed at me Told me that I didn't know what yeah told me that I didn't know what I was doing Refused to call me back like literally said to me you basically said to me like you don't understand this and really made me feel like worthless basically and for some reason I just said to myself

Sarah Poynton (07:29.866)
Yeah, that doesn't exist in this now.

Athena Dobson (07:44.872)
No, I'm gonna hold out for this because this is what I can afford This is what I want to do and this is how I'm gonna do it So I stood firm like really firm with this idea in my head that this was what I was gonna do But in the time that it took for me to basically speak to the agent to actually find something I got called back in to the office not to earn commission not to sell holidays but to repatriate people back to the UK who were stuck abroad and I have never experienced anything like it in my entire life where you are terrified

to pick up a phone because the other person on that phone has probably been waiting for about an hour and a half to get through to you to then cry down the phone at you because they cannot get home and their parents are dying or their parent has died or they're gonna miss a funeral or they're sick or they're a doctor that has to get back to the UK and is stuck in Costa Rica. It was horrendous.

Sarah Poynton (08:36.288)
Mm-hmm. Horrendous, yeah, a bit.

Athena Dobson (08:38.904)
Horrendous and you are you are earning because it was commission based job You were earning literally basic salary in order to do this job. It was literally hell. I'm not gonna lie So whilst that was happening, I still had this dream whilst I'm doing that full-time job I have this dream that I want to buy this flat and I'm saving my pennies and I'm saving them and people are saying to me like you need to save this money in order to actually go and and get a house or you need to save this money in order to go and Find a new thing. Don't be putting it into property. The market's not

Sarah Poynton (08:58.488)
Mm-hmm.

Athena Dobson (09:08.868)
safe at the moment, we don't know what's going on, don't do it. So I was like, okay, and then I was walking down the beach with my friend, funny enough, Sarah one day, her name was Sarah, and I was walking, great name, I was walking down the beach with her because at the time, only people in Bournemouth, that's where I was living, were allowed to walk on the beach in Bournemouth, you had to show an ID to show that you were resident of the area, otherwise they sent you home because of how COVID was. So the beach was empty, like empty, and I was walking down the beach with her one day, she lived in Bournemouth.

Sarah Poynton (09:17.796)
Great name.

Athena Dobson (09:38.838)
with me and I said to her Sarah I've got this I've got this vision I've got this dream don't ask me why but it's there where I'm gonna buy a one-bedroom flat and I'm gonna turn it into a three-bedroom and I'm gonna pull all of my money out I'm gonna buy another one and another one and she said to me my dad knows someone who is selling a one-bedroom flat

And I said, no way. said, you know, I said, you know, if it's a freehold, she goes, girl, I've got no idea what that even means. Like, I don't know. And I was like, right. Okay. I was like, can I, can I talk to your dad? And she goes, yeah. She said she called her dad and her dad picked up the phone and I spoke to him on the beach in Bournemouth. And I went, hi.

Sarah Poynton (10:00.739)
I love this.

Athena Dobson (10:15.938)
And he went, hello. And I said, I hear that you might know someone who's got a one bedroom flat. And he says, yes, I do. I own my own estate agency. She didn't tell me, by the way. And he said, yes, there is a woman who's actually selling a portfolio and she has a one bedroom flat. And I said, do you know if it's freehold? And he said, hold on, I'll call you back. And I said, okay. And then called me back. He says, it's freehold.

And I went, amazing. I said, I think I'm about to buy it. And he went, okay. And then he sent me over all the information for it, everything. I thought I'd struck gold. I thought she's a woman, number one. I just felt an inkling that it was meant to be. It was in a fantastic location in Bournemouth. One bedroom, freehold. Part of a, it's like a house that got split into two flats, essentially. So was the freehold to the whole house. then I was gonna own the ground floor. And so I went through it all.

Sarah Poynton (10:37.784)
Happy days.

Athena Dobson (11:07.312)
What then happened after that was we obviously went through negotiation processes and I put my offer in, my offer got accepted. Then what I then had to do is I had to learn very, very quickly to then set up how to buy. I'd never bought one in my entire life. I quickly learned how to start a company, number one, which was the easy part. Then I had to learn what planning meant because you had to gain all the planning permissions, which by the way, during COVID took nine months. Nine.

Sarah Poynton (11:10.99)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Poynton (11:18.092)
to buy.

Sarah Poynton (11:25.06)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Poynton (11:35.982)
Wowie. I mean, there's lots of areas in the UK where it's taken that now actually, because this is just horrendous.

Athena Dobson (11:37.353)
months for planning.

Athena Dobson (11:41.908)
It was horrendous and because I didn't really understand it, I was just believing what I was being told by the architects and by everything. And actually now what I know, what I know, it was absolutely a load of crap. Like we could have got that done in like four months, five months. yeah, now that I know and understand it, like I think at the time I was so convinced that people were gonna talk me out of it that I didn't tell anyone or ask anyone about it. Yeah, because I thought they were gonna talk me out of it. And so I kind of kept everything to myself.

Sarah Poynton (11:49.091)
Yeah.

Sarah Poynton (11:54.393)
Way quicker. Yeah.

Sarah Poynton (12:04.152)
that you were doing it.

Athena Dobson (12:11.882)
I didn't lean on anyone, I didn't talk to anyone and it's something I deeply regret doing. I should have talked to more people basically. But yes, so in the end and you know, I'll tell you what happened to me. One week before exchange, literally one week before exchange and this is my first property remember, like I'd put my money in, I think I was about like five, five and a half grand deep now at this point so it was important to me, it was good money. And I remember I got a call from Sarah's dad, the estate agent who was buying.

Sarah Poynton (12:35.833)
Yeah.

Athena Dobson (12:41.712)
via and he said we have a problem and I said what do you mean you have a problem? We've got like a week before exchange he said yeah some sewage issues have basically come up at the property and she wants you to pay for them or she's not going to exchange and I was like what?

I much are the sewage issues? And he said, they're about six grand. And I went, what? And she went, what? And I've got to pay for them. He says, yeah. And he says, if I'm honest with you, Athena, she's basically like dead set in this, that she's just not gonna exchange with you. So she became like...

bitch basically. She was horrible. She was hot. She took me for an absolute ride. She found out that I was new to the game. She found out I wanted to turn it into a three bedroom. She found out all the information and thought I'm going to take this girl for a ride. If she wants it that badly, we know that she's five and a half grand deep. We are going to make her pay for this. So I then found out because I got really upset by this. I then found out and called the upstairs who lived on the first floor, the Maisonette. And I said,

Sarah Poynton (13:13.976)
We hate her.

Athena Dobson (13:41.91)
I said, do you know about these sewage issues? And they said, yeah, they said, we've already paid our half of it.

So this six whatever gram that she wanted, the upstairs had already paid half of it because obviously they share the cost. So she was trying to take me for all of the money, whereas the upstairs had already done that. So I called the... Yeah? So I called the estate agent back and said, I've just found this information out. Can you please go back and check this with her? Anyway, comes back sheepish and goes, yeah, sorry about that. That's my error, not hers. you only need to pay the three whatever.

Sarah Poynton (13:58.178)
That is wild.

Athena Dobson (14:15.308)
And I was like, you are joking, like you are joking. And I got the best, best bit of advice from somebody close to me that I've ever, ever got. And I hope I pass this on to somebody else today. And the advice that was given to me as I was crying down the phone to this person and saying, this is unfair, this is unjust, she doesn't deserve it. And they simply said to me in a really calm way, they said, Athena, do the numbers still work?

If you pay her, do the numbers still work? And I said, hold on a second. I've got my laptop out and I put the three, whatever it was, three, two, five, three, whatever it was. I put it in and I went, it still works. And he said, then what's your problem? Just pay her and get it over with.

Sarah Poynton (14:57.026)
Numbers, I love numbers so much because numbers are so unemotional and we are emotional creatures, right? And numbers never lie either, unless you lie and you put the wrong numbers in, in the first place. Numbers, the answer to all things sits inside of the numbers, I think.

Athena Dobson (15:01.033)
Yeah. Yeah.

Athena Dobson (15:10.082)
Mm.

Athena Dobson (15:16.186)
and he was totally right and I was absolutely fuming like the day I saw that number having to go through on the invoice and I saw it that I was raging but he was so right and it's something that I hold to this day it's how I now do all my deals going forward and actually it's how I do life and I say to people take your emotion out of this take it out did the numbers still work

Sarah Poynton (15:31.876)
Mm.

Athena Dobson (15:36.876)
And I feel like he gave me that gift that day to pass on to others. And so that's what I did and I bought it. So I bought it. And what was really interesting is what actually happened afterwards, which was I had, I got all these drawings. So the drawings are ready to go. I was getting quotes for builds. Now we should say, right post COVID, what started off, right at the beginning of what I thought my numbers were going to be at the very beginning when this all started as a year later, it was double. It was double.

Sarah Poynton (16:02.358)
It was more money. Yeah. We had the same thing. We were doing a project right in the middle of COVID and the same thing happened.

Athena Dobson (16:06.8)
So this.

Athena Dobson (16:11.148)
Right, so I bought this property when I was like, yeah, these numbers are great. These numbers work. Then all the building costs, then I go back to them and they go, well, sorry, think like everything's doubled in price basically. And this really lovely builder, I remember it, this really lovely builder took me for coffee because I was so distraught. And he took me for coffee, sat down with me and he looked at my numbers and he just said,

Sarah Poynton (16:16.58)
Yeah.

Athena Dobson (16:31.352)
Do know what? At this moment in time this just isn't gonna work. You cannot do what you want to do, but that's okay because you can hold it, get the appreciation, get your tenant in and then get yourself on the good interest rates at the moment, which they were just about and then later because it's in the south you can get the appreciation and then we can do it again and if the planning stops we'll just get it again. And he was so lovely, he gave me his time and since then I've gone on to do other projects with him which is great. And actually for some reason, I guess it's just the volatility of the

Sarah Poynton (16:41.028)
Mm.

Sarah Poynton (16:48.74)
you

Athena Dobson (17:01.296)
in the way that things are at the moment. It never quite came to fruition that we ended up ever, I ever turned that one bedroom into a three bed. And it's still a one bed and I refinanced. Yeah, but do you know what, like Sarah, after tax, after everything, because it's now on the higher interest rate, because obviously it spiked from like 1.9 to like whatever it did, five something.

Sarah Poynton (17:08.324)
So it's still a one bed now. But cash flowing, right?

Sarah Poynton (17:21.38)
Yeah.

Athena Dobson (17:26.778)
But it's actually coming back down again. So I get to refinance it in like three months. It's gonna come back down again. But on the highest ever one, highest interest, and my profit on it was like... It's like 468 profit, something like that. well, it's not... I'm not saying it's the best deal I've ever done. It's not.

Sarah Poynton (17:28.724)
is

Great.

Sarah Poynton (17:44.342)
I think for your first deal though, again, people that are, a lot of people listening to this are trying to figure out their way, whether they're gonna get into business, into property, into investing, into whatever, because they know they wanna do something with their money or they've got no money and they're trying to improve it. And I think understanding that the first deal isn't gonna make you a gazillionaire, probably the 10th deal is not gonna make you a gazillionaire.

It's that line between like we talked about earlier on cashflow and what that is and why you need it. Wealth creation, what that is and why you need it and how you achieve action with your money that achieves both in like unison with each other. Because you know, yes, your cashflow on that, all right, it's 400 and something pound a month, which is not going to retire you, but you've refinanced, you've pulled money out. Did you pull all of your money back out?

Athena Dobson (18:32.418)
Right.

Athena Dobson (18:41.9)
Hmm. No, no, no, no, no, no, definitely not. No.

Sarah Poynton (18:44.938)
That's also fine because you've money still working and invested, but you've created wealth, you've got equity, you've learned and you're also creating cash flow. So by all counts, that's a win in my brain.

Athena Dobson (18:48.312)
Yeah.

Athena Dobson (18:57.354)
Exactly, but thank you for saying that sorry because this is the thing is why I really want to talk about today which is so important which is this notion of cash flow be wealth generation because

Fast forward just so I get there. So what I then did was I obviously ran out of money because the money went into the house, right? Sorry, the flat and people, you know, I had the whole I told you so I had the whole you shouldn't have done that I I've gone through all of that and people doubting me. I've been there I've done it But why then learn was I said to myself when I know I can't stay in this job and travel Because I no longer trust the job. I don't trust the industry I don't trust like the world to ever go back to the way that it was because of what I was hearing You know speaking to people every day about what was happening in the countries that they were in

Sarah Poynton (19:27.095)
Mm.

Sarah Poynton (19:30.829)
Yeah.

Athena Dobson (19:35.376)
I was like, this is the end, like the end basically. So what I then did was I got educated, so I went and went professionally with an education company and I learned something called rent to rent, which is in very short terms where you would rent a property from a landlord, let's say for £2,000 and it's a five bedroom and rather than just giving it to one family, you would give it to five individual people, you would then basically pay the landlord their rent and you would then take the profits between the two. So you act as like the corporate let company in between them and I did very well from that. So I learned how to do it and I basically built

Sarah Poynton (20:01.892)
Mm-hmm.

Athena Dobson (20:05.296)
up a cash pot over about like 11 months and that enabled me to therefore leave my full-time job as a travel agent and go into property full-time. Each of those properties made me in profit about 500 per calendar month, all the HMOs, and then I picked up some service accommodation along the way. So I ended up on about like 5k, like 5k, 5k a month with all of it going on and I was like right I'm ready to leave the full-time job now. So that was all fine but...

what then happened was, was number one, I started to fall out of love with it. And when you start to fall out of love with something, it no longer becomes aligned with you and you start making, start making mistakes that you really, really should not be doing because you're, you're doing.

Sarah Poynton (20:49.934)
Same exact thing happened to me with Rent-A-Ment. Exactly the same.

Athena Dobson (20:51.478)
You're and you end up doing it for the wrong reasons and your heart and soul is no longer aligned with what you're doing And it's a very dangerous dangerous place to be so I'll just come on to that but so while I was doing my rent-to-rent journey and people asked me lots of questions about it and how I was doing it because It was going well I started to network and I started to go to all these networking events and when I was doing the networking events It was just men. So the first networking event I ever I ever went to I'll never forget it right? I remember I

Sarah Poynton (20:57.636)
same.

Sarah Poynton (21:16.74)
Yep.

Athena Dobson (21:21.652)
walked in it was progressive property network in Bournemouth which funny enough I went back and spoke out and brought all my girls with me which I'll explain

Sarah Poynton (21:28.292)
I've spoken at that as well. It's a great event.

Athena Dobson (21:30.414)
Yeah, Lee Ashby is amazing, I love Lee, but at the time back in 2022 when I started all of this, which is why I had that figure in my head at the beginning, it was just a sea of men. So the numbers were 45 people were in that room on my first ever event and only three were women, including myself. So 45 men, two other women. And I remember I was stood at the door.

Sarah Poynton (21:53.006)
Why do you think that is? Do you think that that's just because I'm assuming this is an evening event, right? Do you think it's because moms are at home putting kids to bed and men are out building their businesses? Or do you think that more men are, I mean, I've definitely seen a shift in the last 11 years, like since starting properties, like now actually there is rooms like yours, which is entirely women. But do you think that there's any other like deeper reason for that?

Athena Dobson (22:02.808)
It was evening.

Athena Dobson (22:16.376)
Mm-hmm.

Athena Dobson (22:23.214)
So I tell you what I think. I think that back in that time in 2022, I'll tell you the conversations I used to have a lot of was I would actually meet certain couples. So I'd meet couples, not at the networking events, just in general in Bournemouth. And then I found out they were in property. then I find that the wife or the girlfriend or the partner, whatever, I'd say, oh, I'm going to this event at 6.30. Why don't you guys come? And the female would always say to the male, oh,

bedtime you go and I'll sort them and it was almost like she would say you go you go I'll sort them and the guy just went okay sounds good I'll see you there and I would say hold on a minute why don't you come and why don't you sort the kids and I remember I said that once to one couple and my god they looked at me they looked at me like no not like I was mad like I was about to start World War three between them like literally because I was I'm really sorry I didn't mean to

Sarah Poynton (23:14.542)
you a math.

Athena Dobson (23:23.098)
like intrude on your personal life but like for me I was just like well hold on a minute what's going on here so to answer your question I think that I think there's definitely been a shift and I tell you the other thing also I believe this is my opinion I believe so back in 2022 when I went into that room I genuinely nearly walked out that room and not walked into it and I like to think Sarah that I'm a semi confident person and I guarantee you I know girls who are my girls in my world within my community

who never ever ever would have stepped in a room that day they'd been terrified because it was a scary room it was scary there was lots of drinking

Sarah Poynton (23:59.124)
Same, when I went to my, exactly that, my first, I went to a pin meeting in 2015, it was, and I walked in and there were two men on the reception thing, like the registration where you walk in, and they said, you're registered, go and get a drink, and then we'll call you through. So I went into the bar and it was loads of groups of men.

Athena Dobson (24:05.506)
Mm-hmm.

Athena Dobson (24:18.222)
Mm-hmm.

Athena Dobson (24:27.022)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Poynton (24:27.052)
all sitting around drinking, which is fine. Like there's no judgment to drink. also drink, but I was like, I just felt really, out of place actually. Like I didn't feel like I had a place in that room. And when they started to talk to me about money, because actually at that point I was 60,000 pound in debt. I felt like I'd failed at life. Like really things weren't good for me. And I was trying to do something differently and trying to be, and I'm

Athena Dobson (24:31.031)
No, no, no, it's fine.

Sarah Poynton (24:54.116)
I'm a fairly confident human being. Like I can walk into a room and be okay. But even me walking into that room then, I was terrified and I sat down. listened to the speaker who was also a man and I finished and then I left. I didn't speak to Assol because I felt like I didn't really have anything to say to that room. And especially about the topic of money and investment because

Athena Dobson (25:17.699)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Poynton (25:22.156)
I felt like they all knew more than me and they all seemed to know each other. And it was like this quite uncomfortable space. So yeah, I know that there's clients of mine now that I work with and I say, I'll get to a networking event and they say, I can't do it. I, know, women, there's a lot more now like 10 years on, there's a lot more women's based events. There's a lot more balance. Yeah, go for it.

Athena Dobson (25:41.058)
Well, let me explain this. If you don't mind, let me explain this. So basically, so I basically was in this room, right, with these guys and they were talking to me about, know, is your dad in this? Is your brother in this? Is your... the best one, the best one, the best one was, is your husband in this? And you're like coming along and I was like, no, no, no, no, no. And they were making jokes about their wives being at home and it was just very, very like, it just didn't sit well with me. So I came away from that event and I got in my car and I did not...

Sarah Poynton (25:53.421)
Yeah.

Athena Dobson (26:10.992)
I just want to be really clear about this. I did not sit in my car and think I'm going to take over the world and I did not sit in my car and think I'm gonna create one of the UK's leading female networks within property. No, those thoughts did not go through my head. What went through my head was a simple, simple term which was that's a shame. Right? I drove home saying that's a shame. And so what I then did was I went and I searched for female property networks. I searched for female podcasts.

female networks, anything, and I searched and I searched and I searched. And back in 2022, I can tell you, because you can go research it yourself, in 2022, there was not one UK podcast, event, network, anything for women in property. And I thought...

Sarah Poynton (26:50.488)
Yeah, yeah.

Sarah Poynton (27:00.45)
No, there wasn't.

Athena Dobson (27:01.698)
That's interesting. Now I'll tell you what there was. There was something called Female Invest, which was two best friends or two friends, the girls. Now they're actually just one now, not two, but there were two at the time. And they're based in New Zealand. They're Kiwi. So I started to tune into their podcasts because I thought, okay, but I thought...

Sarah Poynton (27:07.758)
Yeah, yeah, the girl was in, yeah.

Sarah Poynton (27:17.048)
I think female invest is Scandinavia and girls that invest, friends that invest, Simran and I can't remember her friend, but Simran basically who is the girl that has continued it, she was Kiwi, but there was like female invest and girls that invest and both of them were New Zealand and Scandinavia. And there was nothing here. There was nothing here.

Athena Dobson (27:22.146)
Girls that invest. That's it. Thank you.

Athena Dobson (27:32.824)
Thank you.

Athena Dobson (27:38.412)
Right, so there's Scandinavia and there's Kiwi. So in the UK, there was nothing. So I remember I was sat at lunch one day, was around my birthday, was September 2022, and I sat with one of my very good friends to this day, Sophie Foote, who you know very well, Sophie.

Sarah Poynton (27:45.047)
Yeah, correct.

Sarah Poynton (27:54.156)
I do know Sophia.

Athena Dobson (27:55.296)
And we were at lunch and I told Sophie about what had happened and I said, it was a real shame, Sophie. It's a real shame. Sophie looked me dead in the eye across the table and I'll never forget. She said to me, Athena, I think we should start a podcast and we should become the first female property podcast.

And I looked at her, I paused and I burst out laughing at her. And I said, I said, do not be so stupid. I said, we can't start a podcast. And she said, why not? And I said, who's going to tune into us? No one's going to want to hear from us. No way. And she said, they are all we need to talk about is our stories. All we've got to talk about is what you've just been through. And, and the fact that, for example, I could have told a story that day, right. I had to go do reviewing on a HMO to rent one of the rooms out the guy that

Kane was one of the scariest men I've ever met. I was on my own doing this viewing with him, right? And I remember I was on the staircase and I said to him after you I'd like you to walk in front of me not behind me and he said to me what so that you can stab me and kill me from behind and he said that to me and I'm and I didn't chuck him out in that moment I then decide stupidly to go to the third floor of this of this five bed five bed HMO at the top

Sarah Poynton (28:58.455)
my god.

Sarah Poynton (29:07.394)
It's such an interesting conversation.

Athena Dobson (29:10.252)
And I text Sophie going, literally text her going, if I don't call you in 10 minutes, call the police. Like I text her going, if I don't call you in and she says, okay. And she waited, she waited, and then I didn't get back to her within 10 minutes. so she, well, she didn't call the police, actually. She texted me going, I'm about to call the police in five, call me now. And then I literally called her and I went, I'm okay, I'm okay. But he ended up being very weird, very, very, very weird. But the thing is, those are the stories that we talk about on the podcast, right?

Sarah Poynton (29:27.406)
Are you alive?

Sarah Poynton (29:35.886)
So that story really interestingly, and you know, there'll be people listening to this and thinking, you know, how does this relate to money? And I'm going to tell you how this really important topic relates to money. Yeah.

Athena Dobson (29:47.308)
And I'm also going to talk about money in just two seconds.

Sarah Poynton (29:49.698)
So, and like all of this is so important. And I know there'll be a lot of men listening to this thinking, my God, this is a girl pro episode. And yeah, a little bit is, but I'm a girl, so that's fine. But to the women listening to this, what Avina's just said right there is something I want to kind of pause on and just talk about because I remember very similar situation. I went to a viewing in Luton and I lived in Milton Keynes at the time. And I drove all the way to Luton and I knocked on the door and it was to basically go meet a vendor to look, to talk to them about selling their house.

And I walked to the front door, bearing in mind that at the time I didn't have a team of people. I'd just driven myself to Luton. I hadn't told anyone where I was going because I was building the business on my own. My husband was at work and I didn't think to tell him that because I was, I was running the business and he had a job at the time. That's how we worked. And I didn't tell him when I was going on viewings. I just said, you know, I've got a view in today. I didn't ever share my location or anything like that. Cause it never up to that point occurred to me that I was at risk.

And I had to tell my friends because they're all at work. And so I went and I knocked on the door and this guy opened the door. Fine. I've been on viewings with men before. Not a problem. Like I'm fine in the company of men. And I walked into this house and he shut the door behind me and there were five other men in the house. And I shit my pants because I was like, all of a sudden I'm on my own in a house with six men that I don't know. And nobody knows where I am.

And it was in that moment, I was like, you need to take more care around people knowing where you are. You need to have a process for this. And actually now in the business, we have a, process. If any of the team or any of the girls go on a viewing, because obviously most of my team are female, not all of them, but most of them. If you go on a viewing, I want to know when you're there, who you're meeting, you know, the names, the numbers, all the things that we've got, like a reporting system in the team so that no one's ever in at risk. Because at the time, and it might've been the same for you, Athena.

I was just hustling. was doing what I thought I had to do to be able to earn money because money was the thing I was striving for. And I did put myself into positions where I actually now 10 years later think you absolute Wally. And I did this viewing with these men and to be fair, they were very respectful and they stayed in the living room and the guy that owned it, he walked me around the house and he, you know, it was all very pleasant. They were very lovely men, all of them, but they might not have been.

Sarah Poynton (32:12.867)
And it hadn't occurred to me up until that point as a woman trying to build a business and yet in a very male dominated industry where a lot of the time the people that I was meeting were men selling houses or men, you know, trying to rent me houses because they were the landlords because the men are the people that own assets and all those sorts of things. Actually to earn our money, we have to pay attention to making sure that we're okay. And I think it's a really important detail.

Athena Dobson (32:29.613)
yeah, yeah, yeah.

Athena Dobson (32:38.178)
you know it is Sarah and if I just quickly, by the way I'm really conscious of time because I really want to explain about this whole notion of cash flow v wealth and kind of what I've been able to do so I'm gonna do that but just really quickly on this notion if anyone's listening to this right let's just go to what Sarah just said so yes I was in a point in my life where I was hustling right I was hustling and grinding and you know one thing I did which I I don't recommend anyone ever do this ever and I did this I was at a meal with my mom and my partner at the time I was in an Indian restaurant in Bournemouth

Sarah Poynton (32:45.326)
It's fine, we'll get to that.

Athena Dobson (33:05.32)
I left that meal, I left it mid-meal because somebody said to me and sent me a message saying can you do this viewing I'm 30 minutes away and it was about 9 o'clock at night.

and I was like, my goodness, am I literally about to go and do this viewing at nine o'clock at night? And I went and I did it, and I went and did this viewing and left the meal because I was hustling and grinding. And they still didn't go forward with it, even though I was like, no, they're gonna go, they're gonna go forward with this, and they didn't. And I thought, never, ever, ever do that again, ever, because...

You know, there are so many more important things than just making money and at the time I lost complete sight of sight of me my values my worth who I am as a person and I became I Became somebody that I'm not and I I really regret that so if anyone's listening to this day Please please know that the right things will come at the right time and make sure that you eat and drink water and sleep and be safe always, please Yeah

Sarah Poynton (34:00.477)
yeah, hundred percent, a hundred percent like this. I have had like windows of time in the last 11 years where I've, you know, I'm a business owner. Sometimes cashflow is tight. You've got a hustle. You've got to do the work. And I hate the hustle mentality, but what I accept as an entrepreneur is that actually

I have to work if I want to change something. I have to accept that that's how it is when you are the boss, right? But I've definitely had periods of my life where I've completely forgotten myself in order to balance the financials. And it's with hindsight, it's easy to sit here and say, don't do that.

Athena Dobson (34:39.939)
Mm.

Sarah Poynton (34:44.895)
Don't lose yourself. Don't forget your values. Don't align with people that don't align with you. Make sure you go into the gym and eating well and drinking water and sleeping eight hours a day and all the things that we're counting your calories and making sure you're eating enough broccoli and all the other shit that we're all supposed to do to stay alive. Whilst also earning the money. That balance is really hard and I don't have children, right? So if you chuck children in the mix and a marriage and a dog and all the things that we also have got going on, parents who are poorly, all this stuff.

That is actually a really hard balance to strike. And similar to you, there's been windows of time in the last 11 years where I've gone so far towards earning money because I felt like I had to be in that space at the time that I've forgotten my friendships and I've forgotten my family in some cases and I've not gone to the birthday meal because I was doing the thing. And actually with hindsight, I wish I hadn't done that. I don't regret it because I try not to have regrets, but

In earning your money, trying not to lose yourself is something that I wish more people paid attention to because it's hard to do, but really, really important because making money for the sake of making money at the detriment of yourself and your life and your relationships isn't worth making the money. The money just becomes empty in the end, in my experience anyway.

Athena Dobson (36:05.314)
Yeah.

Totally agree. Totally agree. So just coming back to this story then so I can then lead on to the bit. So basically I then, we then started the podcast, right? So we started the podcast, which by the way, now I think I looked at it the other day. I think we're sitting on like 160 episodes, 75,000 downloads starting on the 15th of January, 2023, right? I release every single Monday. I get various guests on. Sarah's obviously been on, had loads of guests and it's just fantastic. But what I then learned was basically that there was a need for this in this

Sarah Poynton (36:26.433)
amazing.

Sarah Poynton (36:30.335)
Mm-hmm.

Athena Dobson (36:37.122)
industry. We needed a female podcast and we needed a community and we needed events. So I therefore then did events. So the first event me and Sophie ever put on, was without even incorporating a business, it's called Girls and Property, right? That's the name of it. But we essentially just put our hands in our own pockets and put on the event so that we could bring women together. And we managed to sell out 60 tickets for these women. So we didn't make any money out of it. In fact, I think we made like a loss from this event of our first one, but we just want

to show that there are other women in this industry that coming together and funny enough Sophie then after this event happened actually looked at me and said, Athena I don't want to do this anymore there's no money in it there's nothing to be made from it I've got two kids I want to go and do all these other things and I said you know what Sophie I said that's completely fair you know I totally get it and she said that we had a good run with girls and property like it's okay like you know we set out we achieved and it's fine and I said well actually I don't think that that's true I think that there's girls and property

Sarah Poynton (37:09.503)
Mmm.

Athena Dobson (37:36.912)
is just starting and I think we have a mission and I think that we need to do this and Sophie said well do you know what take it Athena run with it make it yours make it what you want it to be so I incorporated it on October 2023 I incorporated Girls and Property so it's not even that old bless it and since then I've trademarked it so trademarked Girls and Property I've turned it into a paid membership community I've turned it into events I've literally just announced today that I've just sold out of my retreat which

Sarah Poynton (37:37.003)
More to do.

Athena Dobson (38:06.832)
60 days in advance with 80 women coming from there and let's just say there is definitely profit within that part of the business now which is great there is definitely profit there I can tell you that so you know it's amazing and it's incredible that actually I've managed to you know people often say to me Athena how do you create a community how do you create a sellout event two months in advance and I'm like every single time the truth comes back to one thing which is you

Sarah Poynton (38:14.529)
Yeah, I

Athena Dobson (38:36.853)
become the essence of what it is that you are creating so there is no

Athena over here and girls and property over here. I Become one I become the center of it So you become like a magnet of it and one thing I always love talking about is actually how to build a community first before you sell anything It's one of my favorite conversations because I'm like if you actually want to sell well You build a community first and then you create wealth creation from there So to bring this back to money mechanics, I then created right girls and property now girls and property is my cast generator It's how I make

Sarah Poynton (39:07.254)
Mm-hmm.

Athena Dobson (39:13.968)
money. I've got rid of my rent to rents, my rent to rents I've got rid of, I don't love them, they're gone. But I've created and I've kept all of my buy-to-lets. So I've got my buy-to-lets that I've got that basically just, you know, is wealth, it's a little bit over here, girls and property over here. Now what I've now learned to do, right, because I started to generate profit within girls and property, which is cash flow, is I started to learn how to be tax efficient and how to start moving money into pensions. Like you can contribute, I think it's up to 60,000 into your pensions.

Sarah Poynton (39:23.201)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Poynton (39:40.139)
Mm-hmm.

Athena Dobson (39:43.888)
You can do Isis, you can do stocks now, you can do shares, know, I, sorry, you're be very proud of me. I have now officially started moving into 212 Trading App and I put money into some stocks. I've done some index funds, I've done some single stocks, I've done, I've worked with financial advisor, so I've actually put some money into a pension, I've done like a SIP. So my money is now spread across lots of different places and people keep saying to me, Athena, what's next, what's next? Because, know, property,

Sarah Poynton (39:54.432)
Right

Well done.

Athena Dobson (40:13.888)
is an interesting game at the moment, interest rates are a bit interesting at the moment, I'm struggling actually to sell some like some flips in my own residential and so now my attention, now that I'm beginning to learn about diversification and money and how money works, I'm now moving into buying businesses and I'm now talking to the girls in my community going, who else is interested in buying a business? Who else is interested in investing? And they're like me me me me me. Everyone and do know what's interesting Sarah?

Sarah Poynton (40:38.941)
Everyone. I imagine. Yeah.

Athena Dobson (40:42.222)
The general most interesting bit is right and I've learned this is most interesting bit right there will be people out there like yourself and other people that you get on money mechanics podcasts who have got decades of experience in investing decades of experience in this that's not me and I'm damn proud of it I've got about four years experience and actually developing a business growing a business You know six figures now plus which we'll talk about in a second about what that actually means and they're going on from there And I'm saying well hold on I'm gonna learn how to do this Why don't I learn and as I show you?

my journey and I document it, I'll bring you along with me and we'll learn together. It's brilliant.

Sarah Poynton (41:13.281)
Bring you along.

That's how I started my education company. That's exactly where Kijio wealth came from, which I know this is the Money Mechanics podcast, but most people know that my property and investment education business is Kijio wealth. That started because I started to document what I was doing in property. And then people would say, how are you doing that? What is that thing that you were telling me about? And I started a community and then we started a mastermind and then we closed the mastermind cause when COVID hit, cause we had like an in-person one.

Athena Dobson (41:27.618)
Mmm.

Athena Dobson (41:35.212)
Yeah.

Athena Dobson (41:38.904)
Yeah.

Sarah Poynton (41:45.557)
took it into an online community, built that. That's been incredible over the last few years. I kind of took a year off last year, actually. I'm very privileged, I suppose, now that I got to a point where I didn't need to grow anything last year. I wasn't very well, so I took the time to just get better. And now we've launched a new mastermind. But that education business...

was born very similarly to Girls in Property. It was born by accident actually. Never really anticipated that I'd have an education business. That wasn't really what I wanted to do. If you'd have told my teachers that I'd become a teacher one day, they'd have laughed for sure, because I was just the naughty girl at school. community and female community in the property space, I think is incredible. And you know, there are like shoot up groups and the space itself.

anyone who's thinking about doing it, do it. Find a community like Girls & Property, like Kajito, like whichever, obviously, Athena and I are biased, obviously, but like, find a community that will help you understand these core things, like buying businesses, investing in stocks and shares, having property and assets that cashflow, like these are such important, basic, in my opinion, basic financial things that we need to know about.

Athena Dobson (42:50.328)
Ha ha.

Sarah Poynton (43:10.003)
And I didn't learn it until I was well into my 30s. Similar to you, right? Like it's so important that you guys know about this. And if you're listening to this and you're thinking, Sarah, I don't even understand what these words mean, get in touch with me, get in touch with Athena, like talk to us because we can help you to understand it and then do it as well, which is the most important thing. Understanding is one thing, but doing it's another.

Athena Dobson (43:22.008)
Yeah.

Athena Dobson (43:31.788)
And it's so important for women to do this. basically what I've actually spoken to a lot of people about this. So I'm going to be speaking about it for the first time in your podcast. I'm very much moving into kind of more of a girls and prosperity angle here because I want to extend beyond property, right? Property kind of like got me to the dance and got others to the dance, but I'm actually like, well, hold on. Why shouldn't we be learning about investing? Why shouldn't we be learning about buying businesses? Why shouldn't we be like, do you know the amount of women that come to me who have just been through a divorce, for example, who go Athena?

Sarah Poynton (43:47.178)
Yep.

Sarah Poynton (44:01.333)
Mm-hmm.

Athena Dobson (44:01.812)
I've literally just gone through a divorce. I've now got 200k in my bank or 100k or 50k Whatever it may be and they say I need you to help me to learn how to become financially literate I need you to teach me how I can be using my money effectively and my god There are other strategies other than property in order to do that with and this is what I'm learning myself I'm learning that hold on I can either buy property or I can go and buy a nursery or a care home or a construction company or a scaffolding company or or a painting decorating company and

Sarah Poynton (44:14.133)
Yeah.

Sarah Poynton (44:18.298)
Mmm, yeah.

Athena Dobson (44:31.702)
isn't that really interesting? Right, hilarious. Laundress and nail bar is questionable but yes absolutely.

Sarah Poynton (44:32.329)
I really want to buy a laundrette. That's on my vision board. I really, really want to buy a laundrette. They're all cash businesses, right?

Athena Dobson (44:43.97)
They are cash. They are cash. But you know what? This is what interests me and you know the biggest conversation I have with people coming back to the conversation of cash flow via wealth generation is I will have conversations with people where they will come to me and they'll say, Athena, I want to leave my full-time job, right? It's best conversation. Athena, want to leave my full-time job. And I say, how are you going to do that? And they say, I'm going to get into flips.

Sarah Poynton (44:59.04)
Yep.

Athena Dobson (45:05.046)
And I say to them, okay, explain that one to me. Explain that. Because what I want to say to you all, my biggest tip to you all is, if your sole purpose is to leave your full-time job, the first thing you need to do is replace your salary, right? It's not just about trying to get loads of lump sums in and then divvy it out. You need to have recur... It's like getting your foundation, right? You need to have recurring income, recurring sort of build from the bottom and work your way up. Because as soon as you have that, you can then do that. So if you're going to do flips,

need to have a recurring pipeline. You need to have that.

Sarah Poynton (45:37.547)
See, this is quite interesting because I agree with you. I have a slight tweak on this because I think this all depends on your risk profile as a person. So I'm definitely the sort of girl that if my salary was £60,000, let's just say that that was a figure I was earning 60 grand a year in my job. Actually, my take home is probably about 40 grand a year after tax and all the other stuff we have to pay, right? So I'm getting 40 grand.

Athena Dobson (45:44.632)
Yeah, go for it.

Athena Dobson (45:49.1)
Yes, I agree with that.

Sarah Poynton (46:06.185)
If I could do a flip and put 40 grand in the bank and live on that 40 grand and pay myself my wage in my brain, I've replaced my income and I then need to work my ass off to get to a point where in year two, I need to find my recurring income. So I'm probably more of a risk taker than you though. And that's probably based on a few things of

experience because I've just been doing it slightly longer, the size of projects, those sorts of things. In the early days, back in like 2015, I'd have never thought like that. I'd have thought exactly like I need to replace my income first, and then I need to think about the bigger stuff. Whereas now, because my risk profile has changed, and my financial position has changed, like, I am in a privileged position that actually I've, you know, I've got unencumbered houses, I've got all these different things. Your risk profile would dictate it. Athena's right.

Athena Dobson (46:51.757)
Yeah.

Sarah Poynton (46:58.685)
in order to be mortgageable, in order to pay your bills, in order to those things, it's important that you've got an income that you can rely on every single month. And Flips in the early days doesn't do that. That's absolutely true. But, you know, the chunks of money do help with that. But yeah, you're right, I think. Yeah, yeah.

Athena Dobson (47:05.538)
Mm-hmm.

Athena Dobson (47:17.176)
Well, it's both are right both are right it comes down to read Do you know what the word is? Resources like you just you just have to sit there and say what? Resources have I actually got at the moment in order to take my next move and I think that people don't people rush and I'm my advice to you is don't rush sit quietly Don't listen to outsources. Don't don't compare yourself. Don't feel like you're behind Just sit yourself and go back. What have I got even to a spider diagram and say right? What are my assets? What are my things? What is what is my income? What is what have I got and then move from there and then you'll be able to

Sarah Poynton (47:22.081)
100%, yeah, yeah.

Sarah Poynton (47:46.529)
Mm.

Athena Dobson (47:47.12)
So again, talk to Sarah talk to me I can talk to you about this all day long about looking at that in your risk profile Sarah's 100 % correct and then from there you can move and by the way FYI, it doesn't have to be a property strategy It could be that actually you move into let's just go for it the property world in inverted commas But you become like a surveyor or you become an EPC regulator or you get you have your own business Within the property world and then move into the asset. So I just want everyone to really think about cash flow be well

Sarah Poynton (47:59.978)
No.

Athena Dobson (48:17.11)
generation today because it's so different and I just like to give one example here Sarah if I may because I think it might help people and happy to talk to anybody about this so again I'm at the beginning of my tax journey I'm at the beginning of my understanding how tax works journey how to be efficient in tax I'm learning right so I learned this okay so first of all

Sarah Poynton (48:22.954)
You may.

Sarah Poynton (48:31.713)
How to be efficient in tax.

Athena Dobson (48:42.414)
Do not ever ever ever just let your accountant tell you what you should and shouldn't do is my first bit of advice. You should be tax... try to become tax literate and try your best to actually understand how tax works because I tell you this my accountant came to me and she said to me Your tax bill for this year is gonna be eight and a half grand You need to pay eight and a half grand in tax and I looked at it and I went No, don't think so. That doesn't look right to me. And I said, oh, and she says well, this is what it is I said well if I look at this you haven't done this

Sarah Poynton (48:47.425)
Absolutely.

Athena Dobson (49:12.388)
this, this, this, this, right? Which would make me tax efficient. So number one, believe it or not, guys, are you ready to literally like hold the seat of your pants of something that she didn't do? Okay, so do know the first thing she didn't do and you're gonna go, what? How did she not do that?

Sarah Poynton (49:20.597)
This is going to blow your mind because I know what you're about to say.

Athena Dobson (49:29.742)
Obviously did not put through 12,570 in a salary. Number one, she didn't even put through a salary for me. Number two, then didn't even put through some extra of the dividends that I had actually proposed, didn't even do that. And then number three, I said to her, okay, you see the rest of that, which I think was like 24, 24 grand in profit that was actually on the sheet. I was like, well, hold on a minute. I'm just going to put that into a pension. Like I'm going to set up like a SIP and literally move my money into a pension. And therefore my profit is going to be like,

three pounds on girls and property and but but Sarah but hold but hold but can I make a point this is really important really important bit of advice guys please do not do what I did please do not do what I did I made one mistake I've been one really really big mistake and in my counsel's defense I I agree with her with this

Sarah Poynton (50:01.279)
Yeah, this is such an important thing, especially when you start to make money.

Athena Dobson (50:21.666)
I was so busy making money and I was so busy focused on marketing and selling that I forgot to actually do my books. I forgot to reconcile, I forgot to keep up to date and all of this. And so what ended up happening was, was I reconciled within like a week and within that week we both, me and accountant both went, shit, you actually made some decent money, right? And I went, crap, okay. And I had one week, one week to speak.

Sarah Poynton (50:48.641)
So get rid of it all.

Athena Dobson (50:49.55)
to speak to my financial advisor who is God's gift, he's amazing, Mark shout out to you and he literally said I don't know if we're gonna be able to do this Athena, I don't know if we have the time to do this and I said Mark we are doing this, we are moving this money because I'm not losing this and he went okay and you know we did it so the deadline obviously was the 31st and we managed to do it and the money got transferred over on the 30th and we did it and so the money went

Sarah Poynton (51:15.339)
think the thing with with accountants and again, there'll be accountants listening to this. This is not me being horrible to accountants, but we are responsible whether you're in business or even if you've got a job and you're investing in property or investing stocks and shares, you actually need to do your own self-assessment every year regardless. So if you've got any sort of investments and you are employed, this is relevant to you. So I know some people will be listening thinking, this don't matter to me because I don't run a business. It does matter to you because you've got investments, right? Or you're hoping to have investments.

Athena Dobson (51:32.77)
Definitely.

Sarah Poynton (51:45.043)
Your accountant's job is to file your accounts and to, in most cases, follow your instructions, actually. We think that our accountant's job is to advise us on how to be as tax-efficient as possible, isn't. A tax advisor's job is to be a tax advisor. An accountant's job is to be an accountant, to balance the books, right? So that's the first thing. I, two years ago, fired my accountant's that I'd been with for 10 years because

I asked a question one day and I was given an answer and that answer ended up that I had a six figure tax bill in 2023. So 2023, six figure tax bill again with a week's notice because we'd, we'd left it till the last minute. My fault, hands up my fault, but

It was based on my income that I'd taken in that year because they told me I could take up to a certain level and everything else would kind of, and I thought I was expecting like a 50 K ish tax bill and it wasn't, it was over a hundred. So I sat panicked obviously because where do you pluck 50 grand from without, with a week's notice? Not many people can do that.

Athena Dobson (52:49.507)
Wow.

Sarah Poynton (52:58.059)
But then when I actually went back into all of the, and I sat like for three days, day and night, like every single transaction, like what is this? Where's that gone? What's that? do, do, do, do. Basic accounting literacy, because I'm not good with accounts. And in the end we managed to legitimately, legally, not even gray, just reallocate my DLA because what they'd done is put so much stuff on my DLA, which is a director's loan account for those of you that don't know, which basically meant the company owed me money.

because I'd paid for, I don't know, I'd bought a roller banner with my own money. And actually it should have been the company's money, but I had the wrong card on me or something like that. So what they'd actually done is they'd misallocated my DLA. It was nothing to do with my income. What I'd actually taken out of the business. They'd put things in the wrong place. And because it had gone onto my DLA in the wrong way, it looked like it was a personal expense when in fact it was business expenses. And that year, my tax bill went from

what was six figures on the original document down to around 40 which is what I was expecting. So a 40 grand tax bill is hard enough to swallow right and I'd you know I'm efficient I put all the money where I want to put it and it's you know it's dealt with in the in the way it should be but if you do not challenge things like tax like accounting like these even investments right when a financial advisor is saying consider this do that

You are, it's okay to challenge. It's okay to say, are you sure that's right? It sounds like it's not right. And I'm, I want to check that it's not right. Because actually that ability to challenge has saved me literally hundreds of thousands of pounds over the years in tax, in fees, in advice, in poor advice and putting money in the wrong places. And I think what Athena is saying is absolutely right. We have to be confident enough talking about the money.

talking about the tax, talking about the flow of it all, to be able to confidently sit behind your own challenges when you've got questions to ask, when things are not quite right, it's so important.

Athena Dobson (55:05.774)
you

Exactly that and the thing is, know, if anybody wants to talk to me who, you know, is going through things at the moment or of course to Sarah as well, you know, just DM us, just let us know because we're always happy to just chat, you know, you can find me Girls and Property on Instagram and, you know, Athena Dobson, but it's important, it's important to have these conversations, both men and women, because these conversations aren't being had enough and I, you know, I've gone through, only in my short period of time of four years, I think I've gone through like seven accountants because

Sarah Poynton (55:30.464)
Yeah.

Athena Dobson (55:36.368)
Like you just you be the gel or you don't know

Sarah Poynton (55:38.261)
My account now is incredible by the way, if you need a recommendation, if anyone needs a recommendation to an incredible accountant who are, I've been with them two years and I've not cried once. So that is my measure of, yeah, like no stress. Everything's done in advance. They don't leave anything to the last minute. They're incredible. So if anyone does want a recommendation, Sarah and her team are out of this world. Yep. Another Sarah who's just got an incredible team as well. So.

Athena Dobson (55:49.87)
That's good.

Athena Dobson (56:01.206)
I love it, another Sarah, I love that.

Sarah Poynton (56:07.753)
Okay, we could talk about this for hours and hours and hours, but I think what's important at the end of every episode, what we like to do is to kind of wrap up. So I've got two things to ask you, right? The first one is what's advice or a tip or a hack or something like that around money that you know now, but didn't know when you were carrying debt, figuring out your way, you know, all of the things that like where money's been hard.

Athena Dobson (56:10.36)
I know, I know.

Sarah Poynton (56:37.119)
What's something you know now that you wish you'd know then that you could give as a tip or a hack or a piece of advice to people who are still trying to find their way to make their money make sense?

Athena Dobson (56:46.414)
Mm.

Okay, so this answer is gonna be different for everybody, right? Because it depends again on resources and where you're at with things. So for me, I think that I've always known or I've...

Sarah Poynton (56:53.323)
course.

Athena Dobson (57:02.228)
I've always seen people who are, let's go wealthy with money in a certain way, where I see a lot of them be very clever and using money to work for them. And I think what I did was I became quite lazy with my money and I focused elsewhere on almost trying to make more money rather than focusing on the money that I already had. And I think what I wish I'd have done is focus on the money that I already had. So for example, I had like for the longest time, Sarah, I had 50 grand just sitting in premium bonds doing diddly squat, right? Diddly squat.

Sarah Poynton (57:29.949)
Yeah, safe, but not effective.

Athena Dobson (57:32.428)
Safe, very safe, very safe, but not very effective. So again, it depends on your risked appetite. You have a look at it, you do whatever suits you. Personally for me, I wish that I'd have just taken a bit more time to stop trying to make more money and just look at the money that you already had and to go, how could I use this more effectively to actually work for me? So for example,

Sarah Poynton (57:51.349)
great advice.

Athena Dobson (57:52.398)
I've only just now opened a 212 trading account and I've only just now started investing in my own stocks and you know the S &P 500 and you know, FTSE 100 and all of that and I wish that like people kept saying to me you need to do this you need to do this and I just I just kept making excuses why not and that saying of even if you just put 50 pounds a month away, 100 pounds a month away, 20 pounds a month away compound interest is a

a really really big thing and it really is genuinely really big right and and so and so my advice would be is

Sarah Poynton (58:25.181)
the most magnificent thing, the most, it's the sexiest thing that exists. I truly believe it, like it's great.

Athena Dobson (58:35.886)
It's always important to make more money in life. I get it, right? I've been there. But actually I wish that a year ago, two years ago, I would have actually really started looking at this and just started the process. And actually if I ever have children one day, start the process for them early because it will be the best thing you ever do. And actually that moment where I wasn't going out clubbing when I was 18, 19, and was saving my money in, by the way, a savings account that probably had about what the time, like 1.2, two something.

Sarah Poynton (58:52.139)
Mm.

Sarah Poynton (59:05.195)
something.

Athena Dobson (59:05.84)
If I had just understood and learned how to put that into compound interest like Jesus Christ and actually my mission just to say my mission there for as a result of this is I really want to educate young women but my passion is I want to get into schools with girls in prosperity I want to I want to educate I want to get them to understand how money mechanics as you your podcast says actually works

Sarah Poynton (59:25.921)
Yep. This is why I wrote the book is why I started the podcast for exactly this because Athena, when did you do your interview with me on your podcast? Must've been 18 months ago, maybe 18 months, two years ago. And in that conversation, we had a conversation about stocks and shares, dividends, S and P 500 and investment. And the thing about this is that we can know the information and still not do the doing. And like what Athena just said, she started a two one two account now, but

Athena Dobson (59:36.331)
Literally. Yeah.

Sarah Poynton (59:55.233)
Because of that fear of not understanding the fear of not even necessarily the fear of loss, because if you're an investor anyway, you've got a level of risk appetite that you understand that there's a risk of loss. But it's the actual physical, how do I do it? Like what button do I click? Where do I go? What's the safest route? Like I understand there's risk associated, but what's the safest route to do it? And that is why I wrote the book, because I was the same. I knew that I should invest in the stock market.

I knew that I should buy crypto because that was inside of my risk appetite. I knew that I should look at dividend pay in stocks for probably about five years before I ever did it. And once I started to do it and realized just how simple it is and how accessible it is and how low risk it can be if you're not stupid in your choices and you actually think about what you're choosing.

I feel pissed off that I missed out on that five years. And I feel pissed off that when I left school at 18, no one said to me, put 10 pound a week away and lay a compound over the next 60 years. Because right now, if I'd done that when I was 18, I'd be retired now and I'd be retired a very wealthy woman. And whilst I am a wealthy woman, I still work. I still have to work because my cash flow, my wealth creation, we've done well.

but I still have to live on my money every single month without withdrawing it from my wealth. you know, I'm annoyed that no one ever taught me that. And that's the mission of Money Mechanics, the same as you with Girls in Prosperity is we have to have these conversations more. We have to be able to open it up, talk to kids about it, talk to older people about it, talk to parents about it, talk to everyone about it, because it's so important. So.

Athena Dobson (01:01:40.11)
Exactly that.

Sarah Poynton (01:01:42.357)
The last question I have for you, as everybody knows, at the end of every episode, we have a question that was left for you by our last guest, and then we will ask you for a question for our next guest. So the question that was left by our last guest was, if you had a thousand pounds and you were to give it to a teenager today, in today's market, 2026, you were to give a teenager a thousand pounds, what would you tell them to do with it?

Athena Dobson (01:01:49.518)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Sarah Poynton (01:02:13.481)
Again, this is not investment advice, ladies and gentlemen listening. This is just Athena's ideas.

Athena Dobson (01:02:18.584)
thousand pounds what would you do with it? Interesting.

Sarah Poynton (01:02:24.043)
for a young person, someone who's like 18, 19, 20.

Athena Dobson (01:02:29.088)
So, okay, here's my idea. This is my idea. First of all,

Okay, let's be risky. Let's be risky. Let's be risky. Let's let's be risky. Okay, I'm gonna say let's tell them to Okay, here we go. Let's tell them to take

Sarah Poynton (01:02:41.633)
She's coming in swinging.

Athena Dobson (01:02:54.126)
500 pounds of that money and let's tell them to put it between the two indexes or the compounds. So let's put it in the SMP and let's put it in the FTSE 100. So let's put the 500 in there, 250 in each and let's just watch that accumulate for them over a period of time. So let's do that as number one and then what I want them to do is I want them to then use the other money, 500 pounds, to create some sort of a campaign, letter campaign, leaflet campaign,

marketing campaign, advert campaign, something around that. And I want them to go and reach out to all of these CEOs that they know who are running startup companies, so startups. And I want them to go and I want them to offer their services to shadow them and work alongside them for a year. You know, if they're 18, maybe we could get them some sort of a...

Sarah Poynton (01:03:29.055)
Yep.

Sarah Poynton (01:03:37.003)
Yeah.

Athena Dobson (01:03:48.802)
discounted minimum wage potentially, or if not just for free, even just for six months for free, to learn all of the ins and outs of that business. And I want to deliberately do this with a startup because when you have a startup, the startup CEO has their hands in every single element. They have them in the marketing, operations, whatever it may be. So if this person is shadowing them, they're gonna quickly learn what to do, what not to do as it were. And I'm thinking that we could either use that 500 to then use it for those paid ads and things to get a really good one.

and kind of do it in that way. And if they shadow them for six months, or if they shadow them for a year, they are going to naturally become entrepreneurial, because they are going to learn what it takes, whether it's good or bad, to run a successful startup business. And then from there, what they can do is they can then go from there and meet other people and go for dinners and take even keep a bit of the money back, keep a bit of this, let's put 100 back to 400 in marketing 100 back to pay for coffees, to take people out for coffees and offer coffees and meetings and that type of thing.

Sarah Poynton (01:04:33.141)
love this.

Sarah Poynton (01:04:46.141)
and stuff.

Athena Dobson (01:04:48.656)
So I'm to do a 500 for investment. I'm going to do 400 for marketing and 100 for meetings.

Sarah Poynton (01:04:54.785)
amazing. I think if it was me, I would probably do a split again. And I think I'd probably do a half and half split the same I'd put 500 pound into, I'd probably put into dividend paying funds as opposed to the S &P because whilst the S &P is great, FTSE is great, really diversified, quite low risk. There are funds that also pay dividends. So I would probably choose a dividend paying fund, but for the same reasons as what Athena's just said. And I think now today in 2026, I would say to them similar to what you've just said is to take the rest.

and turn it into some sort of marketing campaign or leaflets, whatever, to go and approach small businesses to find out how they need help introducing and implementing AI into their businesses. And actually, this is a conversation I had with one of my mentors not that long ago. And I asked him, like, what would he do if he was starting a business now? And he said that and I was like, that's funny, because we'd had the conversation in the office about it. How can a mechanics business implement AI? How can a nail bar implement AI? How can a pancake

Athena Dobson (01:05:34.222)
Mmm.

Sarah Poynton (01:05:54.185)
house implement AI because right now in 2026 that actually is one of the biggest markets and if you've got your money invested over here and you can then use some cash to create a business that would allow again young people are going to understand this tech stuff way better than the older people that are running these businesses to create a services based business that creates cash that you can reinvest I think that's what I would tell a teenager to do nowadays that's I think my yeah okay so very last question

Athena Dobson (01:06:19.256)
Perfect, there you go. I love that.

Sarah Poynton (01:06:23.903)
What is your question for our next guest?

Athena Dobson (01:06:27.074)
Okay, so I'm gonna do something which, I'm gonna do something a bit different because I want to know more about the person when you ask this question. So it's more of a personal question more than anything else. I want you to ask them what scares you. I want you to ask that question to them. What scares you? Because you're gonna get really under the hood with that person.

Sarah Poynton (01:06:34.625)
Okay.

Sarah Poynton (01:06:42.72)
Great question

Sarah Poynton (01:06:49.267)
So we have a couple of minutes, but what scares you?

Athena Dobson (01:06:54.199)
God, what scares... Actually no, Sarah, what scares you? Let's let people actually know. You, the Money Mechanics podcast host, what scares you, Sarah?

Sarah Poynton (01:06:58.164)
Hahaha!

What scares Sarah? So it's a really interesting question. I'm really honest about this with most people. one of my great, other than like losing my family and you know, those things, they scare the shit out of me. But in terms of like my, in a professional sense and in a personal sense, one of my biggest fears is going back to being in the debt that I was in. And I remember like even saying it, my stomach.

tenses, I remember it, it was horrendous, I hated it. And I've worked so hard to get out of that space so that that never happens to me again. But genuinely still, there's a fire in me and it's part of what drives me definitely. There's a fear in me that, and I'm scared that I do not want to go back to that place. So that definitely scares me for sure. I'm not bothered about the reputational stuff. Like if I fucked up my business to a level that I lost everything,

I'd say, okay, well, I made some bad choices, but I learned a lot along the way. The thing that would be like that I would be scared of is waking up with that feeling again, and how heavy that was for me at the time. Because I would hate I would hate it. So I and that's what ultimately what drives me forwards. And it's what drives me getting out of bed every day. When you know,

I have got a wealthy position in my life. I probably don't need to work as hard as I do, but that scaredness of going back to feeling like that keeps me motivated and energized every single day because I'm not ever going back there ever. So yeah, that's a bit about me.

Athena Dobson (01:08:35.578)
See? But this is the thing, and then you learn about the person underneath the hood. I think that's so important. just really quickly, when I got asked this question once on a podcast, they said to me, what scares you, Athena? I sat there and I thought, what actually scares me? And for me, it might be similar to you, Sarah, I don't know. I'm 34 years old without, I've just broken up for my partner of five and a half years. I don't know if the whole, oh.

Sarah Poynton (01:08:39.489)
100 % yeah.

Sarah Poynton (01:08:57.281)
Sorry.

Athena Dobson (01:08:58.83)
I don't know if the whole child thing is gonna happen for me for example. I don't know if I'm gonna become a mum. I don't know what my future holds and for me that really scares me because I almost have this feeling like you know what you feel like you're failing like as a woman like what a woman is meant to want what a woman is meant to desire and for me that scares me

Sarah Poynton (01:09:14.622)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Poynton (01:09:19.361)
I remember that when I was 35. I for a really similar thing. I'm 42 now and I don't have children. But I remember being 35 to 38. I, funnily enough, had this conversation on phone call with my best friend this morning. We were talking about this very thing. Around the age of 35, I started to think...

Athena Dobson (01:09:22.913)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Athena Dobson (01:09:29.613)
Yeah.

you

Sarah Poynton (01:09:42.337)
I've fucked it all up because that's not happened for me. And what if that's the point? Like what if that's the point of everything? What if that's what we're supposed to do? And yeah, I remember being in that head space. But what I can also say is that the world and the universe will give you what is absolutely meant to be in my experience and stuff will work out exactly as it's meant to. So try not to be scared about that.

Athena Dobson (01:09:45.496)
Mm-hmm.

Athena Dobson (01:09:51.405)
Mm-hmm.

Athena Dobson (01:10:07.168)
Nah, all good. Amen. I love that. But thank you for inviting me on the podcast.

Sarah Poynton (01:10:09.089)
Pleasure, thank you for being here. It's been an amazing conversation. I'll obviously make sure that the links and everything, if anyone wants to get hold of Athena, you can Google her, Girls in Property, you'll find her, she's everywhere. It's been an absolute pleasure having you. Thank you so much. And yeah, I will speak to you soon. No worries, bye.

Athena Dobson (01:10:26.498)
Thank you, thanks for having me. Thanks guys.