Coaching Call 44 – 23 November 2021

BUSINESS PARTNERSHIP OR SOLE TRADER?

Ahmed Khan

Several months back I set up a limited company with a close friend/business partner, this was set up as a 50/50 partnership. Since then I’ve been reading a lot about how this might not have been a good/practical idea for the fact that neither of us has a controlling share in the business which could stop us moving forward if we can’t agree on something.

CAR MAINTENANCE

Ahmed Khan

Have you got any practical tips, trips or hacks that can help with the cost of running a car. With maintenance, insurance, tax, repairs and MOT – this can all add up to a substantial amount.

PENSION INVESTMENT

Deborah

My question is about the LGPS (Local Government Pension Scheme) Defined benefit pension. I learnt the other day there are rules in place which might prevent investing the tax free lump sum into a pension or purchasing ETF’s, (preventing 2 x tax free benefits.) I want to draw down and invest the lump sum and regular amount to avoid inflation & maximise the drawdown, say over the next 10 years. 

1. What to do?!?

link shared during coaching call:

https://www.swanseapensionfund.org.uk/member-guide-a-short-guide-to-the-local-government-pension-scheme-lgps/#htoc-what-are-my-lgps-retirement-benefits 

Adil Haneef

What would be the best way of generating significant revenue through stocks & shares? I have made some profit with ETFs, individual shares & dividend shares … but none of this has been significant. Is it time for me to move onto other forms of investments ? Also, Mary you stated in a previous video that 40k of your income each year comes from dividends. Can I ask how you made that happen?

INVESTING

Adil Haneef

Apologies if I’ve missed the deadline date for submitting questions. What would we the best way of generating significant revenue through stocks & shares. I have made some profit with ETFS, individual, shares & dividend shares … but none of this has been significant. Is it time for me to move onto other forms of investments? Also, Mary you stated in a previous video that 40k of your income each year comes from dividends. Can I ask how you made that happen? Thank you. Adil

WORK PENSION

00:02:04:24 Adil Haneef

Pension schemes through work are normally invested in a mixture of stocks & bonds. I have recently moved my funds from the default scheme to 100% equity to get better returns. 

1. Is this something you would advise for or against? (Ps. Admin charges for 100% US equity has a lower than the charge for the default scheme.)

WORK LIFE BALANCE

00:04:10:11 Veronia

I’ve had a few changes recently and it’s starting to become quite overwhelming; I had my wedding, I quit my job with my last day ending in a few weeks, plus I’m about to launch my coaching programme. It’s been quite stressful and I’ve found it difficult to juggle being a wife, employee and new CEO of my business. 

1. I just wondered if you had any advice and it would be great to talk about your personal experiences particularly when you still had this as a side hustle.

MONEY INVESTMENT

00:21:47:17 Foluke

Assuming I have around £14,000 to invest right now and every effort to get a £60,000 – £70,000 property is proving difficult, 

1. what would you recommend I invest the money on? REIT, index fund, ETFs, or keep searching? Please advice.

LIFE GOALS

00:24:56:06 Adil Haneef

Hi Ken & Mary, I don’t have a North Star goal. There are many things I’d like to achieve but no one big, ultimate ambition. 

1. Is this a bad thing? 
2. If ambition with any one thing is too great can’t that cause one to be blinded & create an imbalance in other aspects of life ? Thank you

STAMP DUTY

00:31:18:18 Adil Haneef

Hi Ken & Mary. This is not an easy question but I’ll give it a try. I’m purchasing a second property which will be my main residence. I have been staying in rented accommodation for the past three years & this is not a good utilisation of my finances. My two children live in the first home & I pay the full mortgage on it. 

1. Is there a lawful way of avoiding the higher rate stamp duty which will cost me £7,250 instead of around £1,250? The higher rate stamp duty was brought in to prevent wealthy landlords from monopolising the housing market but it unfairly discriminates against people in my circumstances who are trying to do the right thing. I don’t generate any income from the existing property, I have (proudly) paid taxes all my working life & have never taken welfare. I’m aware I can claim the additional stamp duty back if I sell the family home in <3 years but this may not be a viable option. Thank you

Link provided during Coaching Call:

https://hoa.org.uk/advice/guides-for-homeowners/bank-mum-dad-help-children-buy-home/ 

00:36:54:21 – advice to Adil from Mortgage Advisor Manda

00:38:36:18 Live Q&A

00:39:16:08 Eunice – I would like to create a talking service for the lonely. How can i do this in a simple way that i can manage. E.g online calendar and payments? Also how can I promote it for the Christmas period?

Link provided during Coaching Call: https://calendly.com/

00:49:37:13 Foluke – Do I have to launch my blog before starting a membership site?

00:51:22:12 Afua – work have offered me to buy individual stocks at a discount. I have an ISA and i am saving for my emergency fund. I don’t want to buy for the sake of it. How would you assess whether it is a good idea or not?

00:57:12:00 – Miranda –  Property Tax – I am a higher rate taxpayer but with my new rental property i am inching towards the 45%. What can I legally include as part of my expenses?  

Coaching Call 38 – 18 August 2021

Welcome, Small wins, and community catchup:

WORD PRESS PLUGIN

00:17:56:02 – Mark Lobban

Designing the website wanted to know the best plug-in do use that my customers can pay me.

MAXIMISE POSITION AND MINIMIZE RISE

00:21:19 Ahmed Khan

Thank you for reading and considering my question, it was actually something I was hoping to chat to Ken & Mary about during the meet up but unfortunately I didn’t get a chance.

I have taken the decision to resign from my job this autumn after 15 years working in the fashion retail industry (all I’ve ever done), this is to facilitate a career transition into youth work to pursue a passion project as my job.

It is my hope that this move will have great benefits for my work-life balance, job fulfilment and give me more time to spend on myself, my relationships and side hustles etc however this will come at a price of significantly reduced income (-55% in monthly take home).

I have a loose idea of how I can make it work financially (just about in the short term) but I am worried about this impact on my journey to financial freedom – 

•  the short term (next 6 monthsWould you have any general advice around how I can strengthen my position in) to help minimise the risks in making this move.

I have two rental properties that currently make a small net loss per month of -£6, however when I make the career change and drop down a tax bracket that should generate me a net profit of £213 pm for the two rental properties combined.

I should also add that I have 3 months of living expenses in an emergency fund but have no other income streams currently.

BUSINESS INSURANCE

00:32:59: Fiona Muzee

In your recent blog post titled ‘Turned My Side Hustle To Full Time Business In 2 Years’, you mention taking out insurance for the business. I am a Sole Trader and not earning any money yet and would like to know if you would recommend taking out insurance? Thanks, Fiona

00:35:59:12 – COMMUNITY Q&A

00:37:18 Youtube progress update from Nelly

00:48:26:10 – Ama – Mic recommendations for filming Youtube Videos

00:54:48:21 – Cat  – It is confidence holding me back, not knowing what to talk about. Not sure people will be interested in what I have to say. 

00:58:25:19 – Tasha Hill – When you’re doing YouTube Videos, do you have thorough scripted notes or bullet points? 

Coaching Call 37 – 3 August 2021

00:04:12:12:

Small wins

PENSION VS STOCKS AND SHARES

00:08:04:24 Ama Dwaah

I am not a permanent member of staff, I’m a freelancer and therefore do not get any company benefits for contributing to my pension. To be help build a picture, I am 29 and earn around 5k per month. My expenses are around 3.5k per month.

1. should I still open up a private pensions account or just focus on building up my stocks & shares ISA?

NEXT STEPS AFTER QUIT JOB

00:10:46:13: Nelly

This past week has been so significant, I have QUIT my corporate 9-5 and will depart from my position in October 2021. I have 6 months of living expenses and will be moving to contracting to live a more flexible lifestyle and invest more time in growing my coaching business, Youtube channel and blog.

What best practices did you adopt when transitioning from a full-time job to full-time solo/entrepreneurship (ie; how did you structure your time effectively throughout the day, and how did you keep your energy up etc. to grow your business)? 

1. If you have top 3 tips or pearls of wisdom from your own experience, that’ll be most welcome. Thank you for sharing, very excited for this new chapter.

Open Q&A

PENSIONS AND STOCK AND SHARES ISAs

00:23:35:21: Muripo – I’m an agency nurse and my income is 4k, left with £1,300 to invest every month, no pension, only started last month with Pension Bee and started over paying with my mortgage, which I got in 2019. What is the best places for me to invest as a 53 year old who is late to the game. 

00:33:06:17 – Babatunde – I have an ISA account. As a self employed and as an employee, do you need to tell the tax man that you have that investment even though it is tax free? 

PROPERTY

00:39:11:23 – Eunice – Where might be the best place to shop for a mortgage in terms of interest and getting the best rate of interest, perhaps on a fixed term rate first. 

00:40:22:14 – Eunice   – I have a property with no mortgage on it. If I want to take some funds out to invest it into another property, is that a mortgage or a loan I’d be looking for? 

Book mentioned in video: https://amzn.to/3DbrGZD

00:50:58:07 – Naomi –  My husband and I piloted our first client at the moment which is going well. Tips on launching a Finance Coaching Business?

00:57:39:07 – Michelle –  question to Naomi – How did you go about pricing your services?

Coaching Call 36 – 21 July 2021

PAY BACK OR INVEST OR SAVE FOR PENSION

00:02:16:08 Muripo Reed

I am a 53 year old agency nurse. In 2019 I bought a house on a help to buy scheme with 5 years fixed interest of 1.99% I also have savings of about £30,000. I currently make about £4000 a month . But have no pension  I need help to decide on the following: 

1. Should I start off by paying back the government help to buy Equity Loan? Or 
2. Put money in a SIPP for my pension ? Or
3. Overpay my mortgage, Or
4. Invest in funds/etfs and which are the best in my case?  Or
5. All of the above

As you can see I am in a bit of a pickle.

Babatunde

I have a tenant in my residential property for personal reasons. The tenant’s rent is in arrears for 2 months now and refusing to leave my property; claiming they are waiting for the council to sort out a house for them. I can’t start an eviction process because I didn’t hand over the safety check to the tenant at the start of the tenancy.

What steps would you suggest I take please ?

Abolaji

Can you guide me how to set up an ETF trading account, taking into consideration cash ISA with a recommended broker?

Please note that I do not have a cash ISA account.

00:23:52:05: Chabala Musonda

I am planning to relocate to another part of London from the Docklands. What advice would you have around converting a residential apartment (3 bed, 2 bath, close to Crossrail station) to HMO status vs selling and buying an investment property elsewhere?

00:33:22:10 Q&A

00:42:37:07: Babatunde – Is it worth investing in Property training?

​​00:48:42:14: Nemi – Tips and advice to set your children up for the future, e.g. pensions, money literacy

00:02:53:01 – Kay 

I am about to launch my podcast and have created a landing page for this to capture emails in order to send information to the podcast subscribers ahead of time, bonuses etc. I already have an email list for my blog which I send a newsletter to weekly but am now wondering as people begin to subscribe to the podcast do I include them on the weekly newsletter or do I need to have two different newsletters a podcast one and a general one?

00:09:51:10 – Michelle 

Referring to your point, ‘Jab jab jab hook’, what do you do if you don’t currently have anything to sell?

00:14:37:24 – Link https://www.tryinteract.com/ quiz platform

00:18:16:22 – Philippine – How do you manage to balance your corporate job, side hustle and children?

00:33:31:21 – Nadeem – Been going through some personal issues which have taken an emotional toll. It can zap your energy, motivation and creativity. I appreciate everyone has their own challenges but I think it gets to a point where it’s a bit more than normal. Has anyone got any thoughts on how to best handle that and stop it taking over everything else?

Babs: I am new to FJA and you have mentioned things on this call that i am not familiar with. What do you suggest i do to catch up and get up to date and get to the same stage as the other Dream Makers?

00:53:05: Foluke: Advice on using work laptop to watch lessons, will my workplace know?

00:54:34: Bongiwe: How do you combine different pension pots? I remember you mentioning this 

Link provided in video: https://thehumblepenny.com/pensionbee 

.

Coaching Call 34  – 23 June 2021

NEXT STEPS FOR INCOME GENERATION

00:02:04:21 Veronia Spaine 

In the last coaching call I had a question about balancing my time with a potential new promotion my manager had encouraged me to go for. Unfortunately I was told that they think the timing isn’t right, so I now feel a bit lost. The real reason I wanted to go for it was to increase my income, now that the situation has changed I need to think about next steps.

As I originally wanted to leave my job in the first place; my question is how do I figure out whether to:

1. Leave this job and try to work on my business full time (knowing that we can live on my husbands income comfortably as we have very low expenses)
2. Leave this job and find something part time so I’ve got more time to work on my business
3. Apply for another full time job (my current job doesn’t pay me enough – they supplemented higher pay by paying for my HR qualification and now want to get me a mentor)

It would seem to us that your biggest issue is the need for free time to focus on your business. All roads seem to point to this.

WEBSITE FEEDBACK

00:14:08:22 Louis Kakhu

Hello, I would be most grateful for feedback on my tutoring website so far, In particular if 

1. it is clear the tutoring services I am offering 
2. is anything I can improve regarding the layout and design of the website, website link is http://www.firstplacetutors.com

OPEN Q&A

Eladio – I have an interview on Friday. Excited, but worried too. Tips and techniques for the interview?

00:33:15:00 – Nelly – Veronia’s response really resonated with me. My own FJA has been very amazing but also awakening. I’ve been working while growing my Coaching business but I feel work is getting in my way. I am now ready to jump and go full time with my business. I am ready for my exit and have a financial plan. I want to be out in the next 3 months. 

1. I’ve noticed my colleagues are nosy, people are talking and there is hating. Workload has increased, so working later and have to do my side hustle at night. When you started out with THP, how did you manage your energy while you were exiting out and decided to do THP full time?
2. What advice would you give for Exit to be Full Time entrepreneur? I want to do contracting in the short term just to supplement my income as side hustle has not yet replaced my salary.  

00:45:40:07 Nemi – Tips for people working from home – I feel closed in. I sometimes feel tired and uninspired. What advice would you give to keep my energy up?

00:52:46:20 Michelle – I have Mummy PHD Blog and also have the Children’s Doodle Dozen book also. I have struggled to get it noticed. Would you recommend using a publicist to get word out for that or just do it organically and email and contact people directly?

00:56:50:00 Ama 

01:07:52:17 – Donna 

.

SIDE HUSTLE

KL Gordon: 00:01:57:17

https://www.facebook.com/groups/FinancialJoyAcademy/permalink/699021707473134/

I want a new side hustle, but advertise covertly because I don’t want my jewellery clients to know I have a side hustle. Although I was thinking of social media management already.

1) I was wondering if you can advise me on my new side hustle? 

I am not sure where to post/promote in an authentic way- I don’t want to go on a platform site Fivver and Upwork etc. I rather do it in an informal way on Facebook.

2) Where to promote informally for serious enquiries?

1) We’d suggest specific Facebook Groups.

Side Hustle Nation

https://www.facebook.com/groups/sidehustlenation/ 

Happy Side Hustle Community

https://www.facebook.com/groups/happysidehustlecommunity/ 

Side Hustle Pro

https://www.facebook.com/groups/SideHustleProCommunity/ 

FJA Community (only on PROMO DAYS)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/FinancialJoyAcademy 

SITE TRAFFIC

Tony Daniels 00:13:14:09

We have a holiday let property that we recently purchased and I am interested in exploring how I could potentially create my own web page for bookings. I see opportunity here to potentially create wealth and am hoping the ongoing costs of doing this are an awful lot less than the fees charged by holiday let companies.

1. how do I get the traffic to my page?

See our Facebook Ads for Beginners Course within FJA as a good starting point. 

https://members.financialjoyacademy.com/courses/master-facebook-ads-beginner 

MINDSET

Agustin 00:15:31:24

My question is about Mindset. Yesterday I was listening to the Choose FI podcast in which they were interviewing the founder of MadFientist. 

He said a sentence that resonated a lot with me, he said “Focusing on your goals sometimes makes you unhappy because you are always thinking into the future and you forget to enjoy the present moment”. 

This is something that has been happening to me intermittently since I started the blog last year. Every now and then I need to adjust, meaning that I have to slightly reduce the time invested in my side hustle slightly in order to reduce the anxiety of dwelling too much into the future.

1. Is this something you experienced too in your path to FI?

PROFITABLE BUSINESS

Romanah Malcolm 00:24:10:12

1. How do you make a service based business very profitable?

BUSINESS TAX

Atarah Green: 00:27:48:15

Within the next six months, I would like to scale my business so that I am making between £2,000-£3,000 each month. I am not yet ready to register my business. 

1. However I am seeking clarification on whether or not I will be required to pay tax once I reach such income (£2,000-£3,000 each month).

THIS WAS ANSWERED ON COACHING CALL ON 19TH DECEMBER.  

Here is an article that shares more on that topic if you need to learn more.

https://smallbusiness.co.uk/how-much-tax-will-i-pay-1610377/ done!

Here is some more information to learn more about the differences between Soletrader vs Limited Company, etc https://smallbusiness.co.uk/should-i-go-sole-trader-partnership-or-limited-company-2452737/ done!

HOME OWNERSHIP

Cat: 00:29:29:21

1. Do you ‘need’ to own your own house when seeking financial freedom. We in the UK are obsessed with ownership. Is there an argument to forever rent? Thoughts from the group. Thank you Cat

BLOGGING

Cedric: 00:37:10:08

1. When it comes to tracking traffic for your blog, could you please share the different types of metric you are looking at specifically (i.e. sessions, click throughs etc…)?

I mainly track Sessions as that is what matters for Paid Ads (MediaVine). 

I also look at Page Views as it’s important for marketing our services to brands via our media kit.

2. what tool you use to track these? 

Google Analytics and WordPress app.

3. More generally, what are the KPIs of a professional blog?

Answers given in call:

• Finding and optimising the top 20% of blog posts that bring you around 80% of your traffic.

• Monthly Unique visitors/users

• Bounce Rate

• Time On Page

• Number of Sessions / Page Views

• Traffic Split – Organic vs Social vs Direct.

• Number of email subscribers

RETIREMENT

Keda: 00:42:16:03

As a 55+ lady of three, I realised that my husband was making plans for retirement that did not include me.

I have become quite frantic and have started three businesses but neither is making money. I tried investments and have been scammed a few times.

I am so thankful I have found your YouTube channel and have joined Financial Joy Academy for guidance.

1. Question: Vanguard ISA 80% stocks 20% bonds is my preferable choice at the moment, what is your suggestion

Link given during the call:

FTSE Developed World ex-U.K. Equity Index Fund – Accumulation

https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/investments/vanguard-ftse-developed-world-ex-uk-equity-index-fund-gbp-acc 

INVESTMENT

Charity Okoro: 00:47:28:10

I thought about Investment ISA with either Hargreaves Lansdown and Vanguards. 

1. After watching your videos I still do not know which one to choose. Please help

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