Serious Money Podcast

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Half of YouTube will tell you financial advisers are a rip-off. What it doesn’t mention is that most people who actually have one are happy with it, and that only around 9% of the country ever gets to find out either way.

Gareth and Chris dig into the advice gap. Far more people would benefit from advice than can get it, and the gap is getting wider.

In this episode:

• Why advice costs what it does: regulation, insurance, levies, and taking on the legal responsibility for your decisions
• Financial advice vs fund management: why people keep mixing them up
• The personal trainer test: you know how to do a press-up, so why pay someone?
• Vanguard’s Adviser’s Alpha research and where the value of advice really comes from (hint: behaviour, not fund picking)
• How one innocent pension withdrawal capped someone’s pension contributions for life
• 31,000 advisers for 54 million adults, an ageing profession and few young or female advisers coming through
• The FCA’s three-part fix: targeted support, simplified advice and a clearer line between guidance and advice
• The bigger problem: an education gap, not just an advice gap
• Could AI fill the gap?

Plus: why only 4% of people in Wales have a financial adviser, compared with 16% in the South East.

Our takeaway: advice isn’t for everyone, and plenty of people can do a lot themselves. But you can’t judge something you’ve never tried. Start by knowing where you are, where you want to get to, and having a plan to bridge the two.

Listen on all apps: https://podfollow.com/serious-money-podcast
Got a question for the show? Message us on Instagram @seriousmoneypodcast or email [email protected].

Serious Money is for general information and education only and is not financial advice or a personal recommendation. The value of investments can go down as well as up, and you may get back less than you invest. Tax rules can change and depend on your circumstances. Please seek regulated financial advice before making decisions.

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Andy Burnham has been Prime Minister for about 80 days, and his first Budget lands on 28 October. Chris and Gareth go through what’s been announced so far, what’s being floated, and what they actually expect on the day.

In this episode:

• The “flood the zone” approach: lots of small announcements, from the energy bill cut and £2 bus fares to business rate cuts for pubs, clubs and music venues
• Your First Home: the new low-deposit equity loan scheme, how it works, and whether it helps the people who need it or just pushes prices up
• Why the Chancellor has lost around half the headroom he inherited, and what higher borrowing costs mean for the Budget
• The ideas being floated: a higher personal allowance, a property tax to replace council tax and stamp duty, a flat 10% inheritance tax, and bringing capital gains tax in line with income tax
• The £90k VAT threshold and the £100k income “cliff edge”, and why they hold people back
• Should the country be run more like a business?
• Our predictions for the day

The big takeaway: don’t act on anything you read in the papers before the Budget. Wait for the detail, because even confirmed changes often go through consultation and come with a lead-in period.

We’ll be recording a special episode as the Budget is announced on 28 October, so make sure you’re subscribed.

Got a question for the show? Email [email protected] or find us on Instagram @seriousmoneypodcast.

This podcast is for general information only and isn’t financial advice. Speak to a qualified adviser about your own situation.

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Pull up your pension. If you hold an S&P 500 fund, around a third of it sits in just seven companies, and even a "global" tracker has roughly a fifth in those same names. Those seven drove about three-quarters of the market's gains from 2022 to 2025. So are we in an AI bubble, and is it about to pop?

Gareth and Chris won't pretend to call it. Instead, they look at what history does to a portfolio this concentrated and how to protect yourself either way.

In this episode:

• The difference between a correction, a crash and a bubble bursting
• Why dot-com took 15 years to recover, and why today's tech giants look different
• Nvidia's paradox: a $5tn company that's getting cheaper as it grows
• The SpaceX IPO, and why you might own it within a week (or never)
• The data centre spending boom and the "capex air pocket" risk
• Is AI actually taking jobs yet?
• Gareth vs Chris: is the S&P right to keep unprofitable giants out?

The real lesson? The danger isn't "AI". It's concentration.

Listen on all apps: https://podfollow.com/serious-money-podcast
Instagram: @seriousmoneypodcast
Questions for the show: [email protected]

Serious Money is for education only and is not financial advice. Investments can go down as well as up.

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From April 2027, most unused pensions will count towards your estate for inheritance tax. For many families, that turns the pension from the best place to leave money into one of the worst.

In this episode, Chris and Gareth work through the numbers. If you die after 75, your beneficiaries could face 40% inheritance tax and then income tax on what they withdraw. That can add up to a combined 67% for additional-rate taxpayers.

We cover:

• What's changing on 6 April 2027, and what's excluded (death-in-service, spouse and charity transfers)
• Why age 75 is still the cliff-edge
• The 52%, 64% and 67% double-tax scenarios
• Why executors, not pension schemes, have to report and pay, and the liquidity trap that creates
• Why defined benefit savers largely escape while defined contribution savers pay
• The 2029 National Insurance cap on salary sacrifice
• Two decades of moving goalposts, and why you shouldn't drain your pension in a panic

Is the pension dead as a way to pass on wealth? And how do you plan when the rules keep changing?

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 ✉️ Questions for the show: [email protected]

Serious Money is for education only and is not financial advice. Tax rules can change, and the treatment depends on your individual circumstances. Please seek regulated advice before making any decisions.

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Most people with real money are optimising the wrong thing.

The industry shows you how: how to be tax efficient, how to invest, which product to buy. Influencers give you rules of thumb. But almost nobody asks the most important question first: what is the money actually for?

In this first full episode, Chris and Gareth start with an old story about a fisherman and a businessman, then get into:

• The destination problem: why "more money" isn't a goal
• Why the financial industry often focuses on products before purpose
• Why generic online advice can be right in general and wrong for you
• What a real, joined-up plan actually looks like
• What each of us would actually do, and what Gareth would tell his 35-year-old self

Plus three real listener situations in the Q&A:
1. A large lump sum from a business sale, and everyone's saying something different
2. Significant savings, but stopped working because of worries about tax
3. Probably able to retire, but can't bring themselves to stop

Our takeaway: if you can't say what your life looks like at 60, what you own now, and what you're trading off to get there, you don't have a plan yet. You have assets.

Got a question for the show? Send us a voice note or message on Instagram @seriousmoneypodcast, or email [email protected]. The best questions go straight into the Q&A.


Serious Money is for general information and discussion only and does not constitute financial advice. Nothing in this podcast is a personal recommendation. Your circumstances are unique, so please seek regulated advice before making financial decisions. Tax rules can change and their effect depends on your individual circumstances. The value of investments and pensions can go down as well as up, and you may get back less than you invest.

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Buy to let isn't dead. But it's not what it was, and many landlords have never run the real post-tax numbers.

Gareth has owned buy to let through two full market cycles and sold out both times. Chris comes at it from the maths, which are unforgiving. Together they get into:

• Why so many landlords are selling up, and why it's more structural shift than panic
• Gross yield vs net yield: the gap that catches most landlords out
• Section 24, capital gains tax and stamp duty: how the costs of getting in, staying in and getting out have changed
• Where buy to let can still work: location, value-add, limited companies and HMOs
• The honest question: £100,000, buy to let or invest? What each of us would actually do

Plus three real listener questions:
1. Two buy to lets. The accountant says wait, the planner says sell. Who's right?
2. 42, never owned property. Buy to let or stocks and shares?
3. Inheriting a parent's buy to let portfolio: gift or burden?

Our takeaways: work out your true net yield this week. And before buying, ask yourself whether you want the return, or the job of being a landlord. Because it's both.

Got a property question? Send us a voice note or message on Instagram @seriousmoneypodcast, or email [email protected]. The best questions go straight into the Q&A.

Serious Money is for general information and discussion only and does not constitute financial advice, tax advice or a personal recommendation. Tax treatment depends on your individual circumstances and may change. Buy to let property and most buy to let mortgages are not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The value of investments and property can go down as well as up, and you may get back less than you invest. Please seek regulated financial and tax advice before making decisions.

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There are loads of money podcasts. None of them are built for people who've already got money.

Serious Money is for business owners, higher earners, people approaching retirement, and anyone whose finances have moved well past budgeting and basic saving. If your money has real complexity and real decisions attached, this show is for you.

Hosted by Gareth Shears, who has spent over 20 years in financial planning, and Chris Exley, who has spent a decade in financial services working with clients in exactly this situation. Both from Newport, Wales.

What you'll get:

• One topic per episode, properly explored. No surface-level stuff.
• Real questions from real listeners, answered honestly.
• Real (anonymised) situations, not hypotheticals.
• Two people who'll disagree when they genuinely disagree.
• The occasional guest who adds something we can't.

Episode 1 is out now: why having money isn't the same as having a plan.

Got a question for the show? Send us a voice note or message on Instagram @seriousmoneypodcast, or email [email protected]. The best questions go straight into the Q&A.


Serious Money is for general information and discussion only and does not constitute financial advice. Nothing in this podcast is a personal recommendation. Your circumstances are unique, so please seek regulated advice before making financial decisions. The value of investments can go down as well as up, and you may get back less than you invest.