The Retirement Café Podcast

This is Suzanne's third appearance on the podcast sharing her latest entrepreneurial idea. Over the years she has carved out a career in a variety of different industries, from baby slings to time saving apps, to the TV industry.

Suzanne's focus is now on challenging the narrative around ageing and she has launched a series of businesses to do just that, from the social enterprise 'Advantages of Age' to Startup School for Seniors, which we heard about in last week's episode.

Her most recent business idea is aimed, again, at the over 50s and is called Nestful. They help the over 50s to find the perfect housemate, by matching lodgers of any age with homeowners over 50.

Seniors with spare rooms can use the online forum to safely find suitable houseguests to make their spare space work hard and to have company from someone with similar interests and values.

Suzanne is a serial entrepreneur who has had a diverse career which included PR for big entertainment brands, founding a TV company, creating a baby sling company and launching money saving app Frugl.

I interviewed Suzanne for the podcast back in 2019 to talk about Advantages of Age, the social enterprise she founded after attempting to join the London technology start up industry and realising she was the oldest person in the room.

Suzanne is back to talk about one of her latest ventures; co-founding 'Startup School for Seniors'. The aim of her latest not-for-profit is to help the over 50s turn their business ideas into reality in just 8 weeks.

In our conversation, Suzanne shares the story behind this idea, how Startup School for Seniors works and real life examples of people who have got their business ideas off the ground as a result.

After running her own digital communications company for 30 years, Victoria noticed that a lot of senior employees were being recommended to her as they tried to create new roles for themselves in their retirement.

She spotted a pattern, noticing that these people didn't want to be retired, but they did want to leave behind their full-time corporate job.

So, Victoria launched Next-Up; a company that helps anyone over 50 find purpose through a new role in the next stage of their lives. This may be as a Non-Executive Director, in a consulting role, or a part-time position.

Through webinars, workshops, events and guides, Victoria and her team are turning 70% of people from feeling apprehensive about their retirement to excited about the opportunities ahead. In the past few years Victoria has discovered the wealth of knowledge and experience that this generation has to offer and has developed a passion for finding ways to encourage anyone not wanting to retire to follow their passions and start "unretirement".

In our conversation Victoria shares her story of setting up Next-Up, some of the success stories, and her vision for the future of her company and her generation.

Every so often, you come across someone in life who is quite simply inspirational. Kevin Webber is one of those people. Back in 2014 life seemed to be ticking along nicely for Kevin, until he received a diagnosis that shook his world.

He was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.

Not willing to accept his fate without a fight, Kevin did what he knew how to do best: put one foot in front of the other and started running. It's fair to say that he's never stopped to look back.

But he has used his diagnosis and his drive to remain fit and well to raise thousands for Prostate Cancer UK, and has become one of their leading spokespeople and fundraisers.

I'd like to share my conversation with Kevin with you today. We chat about life before and after cancer, his fundraising mission, some of his running challenges and his book 'Dead Man Running'.

I hope you find this conversation as inspiring as I did.

Since the 1950s, there has been a lot in research into the best way to invest, and the findings have been remarkably consistent. Yet very few people seem to follow the advice backed up by this evidence.

Robin Powell started his career as a journalist, as he stepped away from a career in Television, his eyes were opened up to a whole new world, passive investing.

Robin's scepticism was quickly replaced by fascination and belief in this way of investing and since this project, he has focused on educating the public about this simple way of investing as The Evidence Based Investor.

He recently co-wrote a book called Invest your Way to Financial Freedom, a short, easy to read book to show the benefits of investing in index funds to be able to have a retirement that you want.

In our conversation, Robin shares what evidence-based investing is and why he believes so strongly in this way of investing. We also have a discussion about risk and volatility and how they shape this investing philosophy.

Over the past year, 47% of grandparents invested more for their grandchildren.

It isn't clear if this is linked to the pandemic and our spending patterns, but what is clear are the huge benefits of doing this.

Some research by NatWest shows that while three quarters of parents save for their children, around 83% of them stick to the "safe" option and save with cash plans.

But this isn't safe, as the impact of inflation means that the purchasing power of these safe cash balances actually goes backwards over the longer term, which is a real danger considering that investing for children or grandchildren is generally for the long term.

There are a few products available for investing for children. The two main options are a Child SIPP or a Junior ISA. Each product has different advantages and disadvantages.

For this week's episode, I discuss these two products, how they work, their benefits and drawbacks and any tax rules that surround them. I also touch upon the various types of Trusts you could put in place for you grandchildren.

The beginning of January is the time when so many of us make resolutions to do things differently, to live our lives in a different way, make changes, quit a bad habit or start something new.

Not least in the world of personal finance. So many people start the year with great intentions – they plan to pay off debt, save more for retirement, or get a grasp of their pensions. But are these the right things to be tackling?

It can be hard to create a plan for mastering your money if you're not really sure where the priorities lie.

So in this episode I want to make you aware of the big priorities when it comes to personal finance and specifically retirement planning – these are the things you may want to tackle in 2022.

It all starts with awareness – I aim to help you feel more aware of any planning issues you may have, aware of how things could be instead, and ultimately aware of what you can do to bring about the change you want or need. I want this episode to be actionable and highlight the steps you can take to address any issues you might uncover.

Dementia is not a new topic to the podcast. It is something that I have had various discussions around because I know how much of a concern it is for many people.

52% of people in the UK are affected by this cruel syndrome. But Grace Meadows brings some hope for improving the lives of those living with dementia.

Having found a passion for playing the bassoon as a child, Grace went to a music school to train as a professional bassoonist. In doing so she realised her love of music came from interacting with people through it, not from performing it.

For the last decade she has worked as a qualified music therapist in a variety of health, social care and educational settings with children and adults of all ages.

Grace is currently Campaign Director for Music for Dementia, a national campaign calling for music to be an integral part of care for everyone living with dementia, which is what she's here to discuss today.

In our conversation Grace shares her passion for music and its vast benefits, she explains why and how music connects, and why she believes music is a necessity for people living with dementia.

This week we return to our series on the 9 Accelerators for a Successful Retirement – this is the 7th out of 9 episodes and we're talking about estate planning.

Most people will probably think that this is solely to do with mitigating tax, but estate planning is a vast topic, but in a nutshell, estate planning is about ensuring your Will and any expression of wishes are up to date, you have Powers of Attorney in place, and any trusts are still relevant or put in place if needed.

There is a lot to discuss in estate planning, so in this episode I will aim to discuss the main principles and what I believe you consider when tackling your own estate planning.

You can't have failed to hear about the DB pension transfer mis-selling scandal that affected many ex-British Steele workers or missed the numerous pension and investment mis-selling cases that have hit the headlines in recent years.

Philippa is a lawyer and partner in the financial services litigation team at Clarke Willmott, where she specialises in the mis-selling of investment products and negligent investment advice. Philippa has significant experience in acting for and against financial advisers in consumer complaints that have been made to the Financial Ombudsman. And her biggest project to date is working on behalf of around 1000 British Steel workers who were advised to transfer out of their British Steel final salary scheme.

In this conversation Philippa shares her experience of working with those affected by the British Steel scandal. We also discuss how the financial services compensation scheme works, what to look out for if you feel you've received negligent advice, and the benefits of taking advice versus going solo.