Will Rainey: How to Teach Your Kids About Money

This transcript is auto-generated and lightly edited for readability, it may contain errors.

[0:00] Sammie Ellard-King (host): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Money Gains podcast. This is your host, Sammie Ellard-King, and today I’m going to be joined by the legend that is Will Rainey, who is the author of an incredible book called Grandpa’s Fortune Fables. Now, Grandpa’s Fortune Fables is essentially a book that teaches kids about money, but they do it in a really cool and fun way. There’s lots of stories throughout that teaches valuable financial lessons to kids and actually adults too. Now it focuses on things like how to earn money, what is investing, the difference between rich and wealthy. There’s loads in there. I’m really excited to unpack it all with Will today. But if you’re listening on YouTube, please do whack that subscribe button. And if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, give us a follow and tell a friend. Tell a friend this week. I’m gonna say tell a friend. It really does help the show. So for now, let’s get started on the Money Gains podcast. So, Will, welcome to the show. Um, it’s great to have you on. How are you doing, man? You well?

[1:20] Will Rainey (guest): I’m doing very well. It’s a pleasure to be here. I’m looking forward to this. Whereabouts are you in the world right now? So I’m in Northern Thailand at the moment, a place called Chiang Mai. Oh wow, Chiang Mai is supposed to be beautiful. I hear a lot about it from um I listen to a lot of podcasts and in SEO actually, and they they are all they’re all based out there. It seems to be quite a big community of where of website builders out there. Yeah, yeah, no, it’s a lot of uh yeah, digital nomads. Um I don’t I’m a bit south from the main town, but yeah, like I heard there’s a lot of them, and there’s like so many coffee shops here that yeah, it’s a a mecca for them. That’s awesome. How have you been out there long or um so no, I’ve been in Thailand for about six months, um, but we plan to be here long term. But before that, I was three years in Vietnam, a place called Hoian. Um, but I’ve been in Asia. Yeah, and we were five years in Hong Kong. So I’ve not been in the UK for sort of eight and a half years now, which is crazy.

[2:18] Sammie Ellard-King (host): Wow, yeah. Vietnam has a as a real close um pi pi place in my heart because it was my aha moment, which I call it as my money aha moment. I was traveling there with a friend, and um that was when I realised that I was all over the place, deep in debt, and that was my pivotal moment. I came back from my travelling in Vietnam and uh and and and you know the rest is history. So yeah, I love that part of the world, it’s incredible. Yeah, no, no, Vietnam is amazing. The people are so friendly. Um, yeah, we had the best time ever there. It was amazing. I recommend everyone go and visit there once. Yeah, 100%. And the ban me’s uh out of this world and cost 50p. It’s insane.

[3:03] Will Rainey (guest): Exactly. Um, but yeah, no, we’re gonna unpack a little bit more about you guys, um, you know, your your book and your website, which is phenomenal. Um, but I kind of start things off with getting to know our guests a little bit and their journey to get to where they’ve got to. Um, because I really love how you know everyone is different with their money journey. So, what was it like for you growing up? What what was your relationship with money with your parents and and how did that sort of feed into your to your younger years? Yeah, so um I don’t remember having too many conversations about money with my parents. I remember getting some pocket money and I remember getting on a Saturday and then on a Sunday morning, me and my best mate would like cycle to the boot sale and see what we could buy, generally like secondhand computer games, and then come back and play them for like the whole Sunday. But I don’t remember too much. But what was really about my growing up and money was we lived in the same house for my whole childhood. Um, and so I knew my parents were getting pay rises, etc., but we didn’t change houses, they got slightly nicer cars, we went on slightly nicer holidays, but not kind of in line with what I was seeing some of my friends’ parents doing when and I was like, Oh, it’s a bit strange. But then pretty much as I finished university, so I was 21. My parents essentially said, Well, we’re gonna retire now, we’re gonna live in Spain, we’ve kind of done our parenting a bit. And I was like, Wow, that’s amazing! Like they retired a lot younger than most of their peers and just went to had this lifestyle, and I think that had a really big impact on me because essentially I got to observe my parents’ saving as I was growing up. I probably didn’t really appreciate it as I was growing up, but kind of as I became an adult, I was like, all right, that’s changed my perception of money because I’d phone them up, I’d be starting my busy sort of corporate job as a graduate, and I’d be working long hours and I’d phone up my parents, and they’ll be like, Yeah, we had we wandered around this nice little village, we had a coffee, we painted a chair at home, and there was just an in the sun, whereas we’re like freezing in the UK. I was like, All right, I kind of want their life. So that kind of changed how I saw about money. So we my wife and I both were savers and investors uh for the longest time, probably more so than the average, because both of our parents um were savers and investors, so yeah, so that was kind of my biggest kind of money story from my learning from my parents, anyway.

[5:30] Sammie Ellard-King (host): So you had that kind of installed into you from your parents in quite a young age, and that’s really you’ve taken that forward, and obviously now emulating that in some way, living in Thailand, living the dream. You’ve paused on me. Oh, you’re back. Oh, yeah, I lost you there. Don’t worry, I’ll cut that out. So um I’ll I’ll re-ask the question for you. So you you’ve kind of taken that on board now, and you’re kind of you know emulating them in some way and living the dream. Yeah, so I wanted to do that. So in when I was, I think it’s about 2017, so I was in Hong Kong doing a big busy corporate job, and I was talking to one of my clients, and they said to us, Oh, enjoy this time with your young kids. Um, they only grow up once. And it’s an obvious statement, but it had a really big impact on me. And I was like, right, yes, I want to take some time off to spend more time with my kids. So whilst my parents kind of retired, retired young, I was like, I want to take a different approach of maybe having like a mini retirement. And so the fact that we had savings and investments gave us that kind of opportunity. So we took some, so in 2019, my wife and I sort of quit our corporate jobs um and moved to to Vietnam to spend more time with our kids. And yeah, we’re just so, so fortunate to be able to have that opportunity. And it kind of all goes back to the fact that we were savers and investors, like we still had nice holidays and nice things, but we always kind of made sure that we had that. And so, yeah, so in 2019 we left, and then whilst we’re in Vietnam, I was like, right, I’m gonna make sure my kids learn about money so that when they’re older, they get the same opportunities as as we’re having. And so that’s why I started to write uh well, tell my kids stories and then write about those stories uh so other parents and families can have the same conversations and hopefully have the same opportunities uh when they’re older, and hence the sort of birth of Blue Tree Savings, which is my my website, my blog. And then after a while, the the stories got made into the book, which is yeah, Grandpa’s Fortune Fables.

[7:38] Sammie Ellard-King (host): Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. I’ve got some questions around that. We’ll definitely jump into that because what you’re doing is incredible. Um, and as I’m saying to you offline, like it touches a deep place in my heart. So I I you know I I think it’s excellent. But I’m just gonna take you back to something you said there. So you you’re you’re you were saving and investing, and that allowed you to have that mini retirement. But I loved what you said, which was about spending time with your kids, and I think having that opportunity, whether that’s by saving, investing, or I was having this conversation, exact conversation last night with my partner because we were talking about um potentially moving down to the coast so we could be by the seaside and we’re planning for children at the moment. And for us, it’s it it having a lifestyle business, which you know, eventually want to be completely full-time on Up The Gains, being there for my kids was one of the big reasons why I wanted that lifestyle business, which I can be on the school run, be around for those key life moments that you would miss otherwise if you were, you know, in a corporate job and stressed 24-7, getting home tired. So it’s amazing you’ve done that. Yeah.

[8:49] Will Rainey (guest): Yeah, it was also there’s another statistic, and I can’t find it anywhere else, but I can remember hearing it and I thought that sounds realistic. And it’s 90% of the time that you spend with your children is when they’re 12 years or younger. And you’re like, Well, that’s not much time because clearly when they’re 12 or older, they’re starting to put more time with friends and less time with their parents. I’m like, right, I want to make the most of that time whilst they’re young and have those experiences unless they do the school runs uh and all that nice thing. So yeah, I’m very fortunate in that. Just those beautiful moments, and you all miss them otherwise if you’re in an office somewhere in the city. And you know, that it’s unfortunately it’s just the way a lot of people have to live, but um, you know, trying to find ways to spend time with your kids is is is is massively important. And I suppose that kind of leads us into the next segment, really, which is kind of around financial literacy as a whole in the UK. It’s obviously something that you know you are if you’re targeting the young children, that’s certainly something that you’re thinking about. And I read a stat to throw another one in there as well. Was uh it amazed me, 39% of adults at the moment, from a latest study, don’t feel confident managing money, and over 15 million people have under £100 saved. Do you feel like that is coming from the education system that we have right now in the UK?

[10:13] Will Rainey (guest): Um no, I think the biggest reason that happens is that money is a taboo subject. Like people just don’t talk about it, people therefore don’t feel comfortable asking for help. They everyone assumes that everyone else knows about money. So, yeah, so if financial education was on the curriculum, and then hopefully what that would do is start the conversation and get children growing up knowing that it’s all right to money’s clearly not a taboo subject if it’s been taught in schools. Yeah. Whereas at the moment it’s not talked about in schools, it’s not talked about at home. And because children don’t see their parents talking about money, they assume, oh, money must be a bad topic, and therefore they’re not going to think about it themselves. So there’s been generations of generations of now adults who have grown up thinking that money is a taboo subject, we shouldn’t talk about it, therefore, not asking for help, assuming everyone knows more about money than they do, which isn’t true. Um, and this has been so we not only need to get it into schools, but we just generally, even for adults today, we need to kind of find a way of breaking uh that taboo. So it’s nice that we’re starting to see more and more sort of almost like celebrities or influencers starting to talk a bit more about money. So, like people like Marcus Rashford and um stuff like that are starting to do more about kids and money, or but just the whole topic of money needs to change to people feel comfortable. Again, not talking about salaries and stuff like that, but just talking about money management and where to go for help, etc.

[11:43] Sammie Ellard-King (host): Exactly. Like Stephen Butler came out today, he’s launched a new thing called Money Talks, and that’s uh to help um underprivileged children learn about tax and insurance and debt and credit. And these are basic things that we kind of get left alone to pick up ourselves and often make mistakes to actually understand how it works. Um, what do you feel like is a is a kind of present preventative measure for that to kind of happen?

[12:57] Will Rainey (guest): That’s a good question. Um, so I think there’s got to be some stuff at schools, but one of the big bits about schools is that they teach you about knowledge, and again, even some of the bits that you just mentioned there about learning about tax and debt. Whilst that knowledge is good, it’s not really changing much. Because I like worked in the financial services industry for like many years, and in there, people knew about money, they knew about tax, they knew about debt, but yet they were still heavily in debt, um, struggling for money themselves. And it’s all about actions rather than knowledge. And it’s how do we get kids and even adults today to take those first actions? So, some of that’s got we’ve got to try and change the mindset about money. So we need to really shine a light on sort of all the sort of fake people showing off their wealth and saying they got rich really quickly and making money is really easy and you can do it this way, that we need to shine a light and say it’s just not true. That’s like I remember growing up watching like MTV cribs, so that’s like where they go around the houses and show the big houses. Most of that was just all fake. They they rented the house just for the show. Most of them have gone bankrupt since the show. So it’s all built on these kind of lies, but yet no one kind of really understands that facade that was being put on. And if we don’t sort of shine a light more on that, people are just going to aspire to do that and think it’s possible and therefore going to pretend that they’re following that path and sort of overspend using credit, etc. Whereas we really need people sort of growing up with simple actions of saving a little bit every time they get some money and being patient. And if we can get people just taking those simple actions, I think that’s more powerful than dumping loads and loads of knowledge on them and then some people feeling a bit overwhelmed or okay, it’s good I’ve got this knowledge, but how do I use it? So, again, just trying to get not just knowledge, but trying to find ways to get those actions. I think that’s a case of we need like financial advisors to make it very simple for families to open accounts without them trying to sell really complex products, which are clearly got a higher price for them. But trying to get them to say, look, just for kids, just make it super cheap, super easy, get them on the right um platforms. Same thing with with schools, if they do any education, but make sure it’s action-based learning rather than just knowledge-based learning. So it’s got to be all of these little bits from all angles trying to get that taboo, um, but try and get the actions as well. I think that’s so, so important.

[15:28] Sammie Ellard-King (host): Yeah, it’s something you touched upon, which I thought was was was awesome. That you know, it is it is almost like this consumerism, this kind of systemic issue that we face, but where it’s keeping up with the Joneses, and that’s been amplified by social media. You’re now seeing influences, you know, beautiful dinners, lovely vacations, wonderful, wonderful uh cars and houses. And actually, when they turn the camera off, it’s a completely different story. You know, that the um Mike Tyson went bankrupt. He had multi, multi-million says basketball players, these guys earn multi-million pounds a year, footballers, you name it, Jermaine Pennant, big footballer, went bankrupt. If then if they’re not given the right tools and the motivation, it doesn’t matter how much money you’re earning. It it really depends on the the fundamentals that you’re following to uh to sustain or increase that wealth, right?

[16:21] Will Rainey (guest): Yeah, no, exactly. And then there’s the opposite stories of like the um Ronald Read, who’s the secret, I call him the secret janitor millionaire. And so he grew up and yeah, so he for all his life just worked as a janitor in a school, or I think he worked at a petrol station as well. But he didn’t really care about what other people was doing, and he just looked after his money, invested, and then when he when he eventually passed uh like 90 years old or something, he had millions of dollars. Um, and he was a happy man, and he gave donated it to uh hospital and library, etc. And I just like those other stories, and I think we just don’t put enough light on what I call like the wealthy kind of stories where people are looking after their money for themselves, still enjoying their lives, but have no inclination to go off and show it off. And it’s really hard because as they don’t show it off, it’s not very visible, and therefore people don’t know about it and learn about it, and so that’s uh kind of what I try and do with my daughters is trying to portray like those two different types of money. There’s the kind of rich, which is the social media version, and then there’s the kind of wealthy, which is looking after your money and focusing on spending that’s gonna make you and the people you care about happy, um, but having that secure that security. And I think if we don’t sh show much of uh that other option, then most people are just gonna see the one option and want to sort of go down that path.

[17:44] Sammie Ellard-King (host): I completely agree. And obviously, being a children’s book writer, there’s there’s that analogy of the the hare and the and the tortoise, right? Yeah, everybody wants to be the hare before they understand the fundamentals because who want who doesn’t want to go faster, who doesn’t want to get there faster, but actually the tortoise wins the race at the end of the day. And it’s just so simple. Um, but unfortunately, it’s the society that we live in that the you know, the janitor with multi-millions or the the quiet guy that just plods along driving his old battered Ford, but he’s got millions of pounds in the bank, doesn’t get the light he deserves. But um, you know, that’s that’s the world we live in, unfortunately. I’m gonna move on a little bit on to your you know what you’ve been up to because it is incredible, and you know, we’ve been touching on it sort of as a topic as a whole here, but talk to me a little bit about you know the birth of Blue Tree savings, your blog, and you know, you’ve you you you won Best Family um Financial Blog of the Year at the Showmer Awards, which is amazing. Um so yeah, talk to me a little bit about it and and where it’s come from and the goals.

[18:52] Will Rainey (guest): Yeah, so as I mentioned earlier, when we moved from uh Hong Kong to Vietnam and we took this time off to be my kids, yeah, it was kind of a reflection about how lucky we were to be in that position. I really wanted to make sure that my children had that. So, as I mentioned, my wife and I were kind of savers and we we learned to invest. So we’ve been doing that for the longest time. So I thought, right, well, I want my kids to have that. So when I was putting them to bed, I try and teach them about some money topic, but clearly just giving them a bit of a lecture. So my daughters were like four and six at the time. Um, I didn’t want to just well, my easy way of getting them to sleep quicker. I didn’t really want that, I wanted them to learn. So I tried to use like so I tried to use like stories, and some of them were kind of real life stories that I kind of made a bit more child friendly. Um, and they really enjoyed them, and then it the good thing is that they were picking up on these as well. And I started to use some analogies, so even with their own money, um, we got them to think of money like seeds, and so we said you can give those seeds away, um that’s just like spending, but you can keep some of those seeds and you could you could put them under your bed, but they’re not going to grow, or you can plant them, and that means uh saving and investing. And so they started to picture these kind of like seeds growing into these trees, or money trees, or we call them blue trees, growing over time. And so we started to implement this and have conversations about them looking after their trees, and we use that analogy in so many ways, but they would start when we got gave them pocket money, they would put some away, and we’re like, How many gonna give away? How many gonna plant? And then the two sisters, so they’re like, Well, how many, how many blue trees has my sister got around? I’m gonna plant a few more, uh, which is really, really nice. And it was really an easy conversation. They could join in because it was a language and it’s very visual. And so I started to share that with my first of all friends and family, and they really enjoyed it. And what was really good is they sort of fed back that not only did they undo that, but they were taking actions as well. So, like my sister and was started set up an investment account, which she’s never done before. Um, and then I started to write about it. So I put I did a blog, and luckily some of the blogs got picked up by like the Financial Times, uh, so the one about how I taught my daughters about investing in the stock market. Uh yeah, got picked up. So it was it just kind of got went on and uh strength to strength. And as I was used, as I mentioned, as I was using little stories, um, someone said, Oh, can you put that those stories into a book? So I created the book. But my intention was mostly so most of my content on my website is to help parents teach their kids. And it was a little bit of a Trojan horse because I kind of want to teach the parents think about money because most parents have never been taught and they don’t know where to start.

[21:35] Sammie Ellard-King (host): Well, you learn best when you teach, right? Exactly, yeah. So I wanted to have these blogs that were so uh not patronizing, condescending, but trying to go to the basics such that they can read it and then go to their kids and say this is a topic about money in an enjoyable way. And uh yeah, again, I love the feedback when parents have said, We really enjoyed that. We started having a conversation about this around the table, we’ve never thought about this, and now we’re doing this, that, and the other. And so, yeah, again, action-based outcomes, which is fantastic. You’re helping both the parents and the kids, and I’m I’m sure there’s like a lot of parents listening to this. So, how young were you starting this out? And how young do you think that you could start this as well?

[22:20] Will Rainey (guest): Yeah, so my youngest was four when we started, and so she um gets the the sort of analogy. So at that time, she got the analogies about the seeds. She didn’t really understand right what does it mean when I plant? She just wanted to plant some of this and she knew it was linked to money, but didn’t know about why it grows into money. And the same thing with some of the stories I told her, she remembered the stories. And the characters, but couldn’t quite put them with the money lesson. But that’s fine because as she got older, she remembered the story and then she put it all together. And it’s so it’s a bit less why that’s why the book’s called uh fables, because it’s a bit like when we learn Aesop’s fables. We when we were very young, we might not have got uh all the morals from the stories, but we remember the the actual fable story, and then as you kind of get older, you’re like, oh, right, that’s what that’s the sort of message of the story. Yeah, exactly. And that’s the kind of what I wanted. And I again I love hearing from from families who like there’s the stock market went down during COVID, and so one of my stories has this character called Mr. Lazy, who just doesn’t do anything uh and he has the biggest forest. Um but they’re like, Oh, my children kept saying about Mr. Lazy as and it’s just like linking these characters and stories to like real life money situations, and I think that’s hopefully really empowering for both the kids and the parents uh to sort of learn in a sort of fun way.

[24:51] Sammie Ellard-King (host): So let’s get into the book because it is amazing. Like the cover’s great, and I had a quick flick through the chapters as well, and it was I just love what you’re doing, and taking something which is so difficult for so many people to talk about and turning it into something one that kids can learn off, but two, they’re just having a great time doing it as well, and like that is just beautiful. So, you’ve obviously started with the blog, you mentioned it earlier, and then it’s gone into the book. How did the kind of concept evolve as you as you went through? Yeah, yeah. So I think it was about 18 months um of writing blogs that I had these mini stories, and that’s a good thing about that was I kind of got a like pre-screening of which stories were good and what popular. So I had had them all, but they’re all kind of using different characters for those particular stories. So I kind of wanted to have a flow for the book. So whilst it’s it’s like 14 chapters, and each chapter has a different kind of sub-story, which has a different money lesson, but I wanted to have these characters that kind of evolved uh as you kind of go through the book. So the whole premise of the book, you’ve got this uh little girl called Gail, and she meets this boy, and he doesn’t know anything about money, but she’s learnt loads from her grandpa, and so she goes through the book and sort of tells stories about her grandpa’s sort of adventures to this faraway island called Pooch Poochia. But it’s nice because the little kid, the little girl kind of explains the money concept. So she’s like got this fun little story about this grandpa going to this island and sort of growing his own forest, and then she’s like, Oh, because my grandpa told me that story, I now do this with my money. And I’m hoping that from that, then the kids are reading it and go, Oh, I can do the same thing as what she’s done. And again, the other character, the boy that she meets, starts to go, oh, I can do that as well. So again, it’s trying to take the money topic, but also turn it into something that they can do. And so, yeah, it took me about six months to put the book together, even after I’d written the blogs, to get the flow, um, making sure it sort of builds on each story, kind of builds on the next, and there’s kind of these characters that develop as it goes through.

[27:02] Sammie Ellard-King (host): It’s amazing. Like, how did you, you know, were you a writer before this? Did this no? No, this is uh completely taking me back in terms of how well it’s been received because I as growing growing up, I was a numbers. I’m so I’m an actuary by background, so pretty much an accountant who loves numbers more than accountants do. Um, and so I didn’t I’ve people say to me, Well, my favourite book as a kid, and I didn’t really read, I was terrible at spelling, and now I’m like love reading. So the fact that I now have a book um and it’s been well received, is kind of blows my mind. Um, but I’ve just been enjoying like reading books to my kids since they’ve been born, and therefore I’ve kind of enjoyed that level of creativity. But also clearly, when I started writing my first blogs, I it I started to get into practice. I was like, right, I’m gonna write one every single week, and that just helped me develop that kind of creativity and and um uh writing style, etc. So it’s kind of built from practice and uh something else.

[28:06] Sammie Ellard-King (host): Yeah. When I first wrote my first blog, I went back and read it actually last week, and uh I’m like this, head in hands, like going, oh my god, what am I trying to say here? And the journey you go on. I mean, now I’m about 200 blog posts in and an ebook, and it’s like you know, the difference now. I’m just fast, I know exactly what I’m gonna say and when I’m gonna say it, versus trying to like string two sentences together, which was almost impossible for me back then. Um but yeah, so I I completely see where you’re coming from. Yeah, no, I when I first released the website, I had a free e-book, which is kind of train your kids to be financial superheroes, and it was a free download. I had a look at that the other day, and it’s awful, and I’m surprised anyone downloaded it and still stayed a subscriber. Um but again, it was all part of my journey, and I learned probably so much from doing that. Um, that yeah, it’s all yeah, I say part of the journey.

[29:01] Sammie Ellard-King (host): Trial and error, yeah. No, don’t do what I did and write the ebook first and then have to edit it like 60 times before it’s actually acceptable. Um to even read for longer than five minutes, but there we go. So the book’s come out and it’s been out uh a little while now. How how long then? Uh just over a year now. Excellent. And and it’s available for P is it a download? Can you get a physical copy? Yeah, yeah, no, so it’s a physical copy um and Kindle version, so it can be hardback or softback. But yeah, I think it’s definitely a better one physical, I know, from the environment you want, but from just having that because also in there it’s got something called grandpa’s mystery code, and so at the end of each chapter, kids have to kind of um answer a more question, and if they get the question right, they get a letter, and if they get all the letters right, they get a they solve a code, and then they can go onto the website to play some games and get a prize uh from solving that. And and because it it’s so it’s much better in the um the sort of physical one. We’re actually the um audiobooks coming out um soon this later this year, and that’s gonna be great because my wife recorded it and she’s done all the character voices, etc. So I’m super excited about that. So, yeah.

[30:17] Sammie Ellard-King (host): Well, look, it’s gonna be on my reading list for my kids 110%. You know, I I I can’t wait to do that type of stuff. It’s uh it’s a brilliant idea. So, you know, if anyone wants to check it out, it’s grandpa’s fortune fables as well. I’m gonna give you a good old plug there, Will, because I you know it’s awesome what you’re doing. Um but I’m gonna talk a little bit about your personal investments as well, like what you’re actually up to at the moment in terms of investing. So you touched on it quite a bit that you’re a saver and investor. So with this being a money podcast, it’s always good to touch on it as well. So, what kind of investments are you do you do you hold? Are you a long-term trader, a short-term trader? Uh very long term. Uh, so we’re boring in terms of global index funds. Um, have been for the longest time. Uh, we never sell, we just keep investing every month. Um, we sometimes top up if we’ve got some spare cash and the market’s in the headlines, so we see that as an opportunity. And the same thing for our kids as well. So we invest on their behalf every month. Um, and again, we show them what’s going on with their investments, so they kind of learn. But yes, we’ve got that. Plus, we’ve got because we’ve moved overseas, we’ve kept uh properties that we had in the UK, so we get an income from um from our real estate in the UK as well. So, but yeah, no, I’ve never been um a trader in terms of buying companies. I’ve worked so my previous role was to advise large institutions on their investments, and so I got the privilege of meeting some of well, supposedly the world’s best investors, um, and trying to understand their processes and see if they should be managing the money for our clients. And so some of them were incredibly smart um pieces, but again, I liked what they were doing, but I just didn’t know if it was gonna be there for the long term. And whilst they might have some good ideas, I felt if I have tried to replicate that or even buy into their funds, I’d still be okay, I’d have to think about this a lot, and it was a lot of energy and a lot more cost as well. Whereas I felt, right, I’m just gonna do the simple long-term, keep my money uh in the global index fund.

[32:31] Sammie Ellard-King (host): So there you have it. Like someone who’s been with the best investors in the financial services industry knows that index fund investing is the safest and easiest way to make money. And then probably actually the most profitable, you know. Even Warren Buffett did that study, didn’t he? And it it’s take taking on the the other guy, his name escapes me, but he took on the the short-term viewpoint versus the the index one, I think it was over 10 years, and he absolutely smashed it. So you know, yeah. Well, that’s I think it was just that my view is that you can learn about the stock market and you can learn about companies, but there’s there’s so many moving parts that you can become an expert in some of those factors that change companies’ behaviours, but there’s too many others, and they all it have an impact. And so even if you get three of the factors right and you know them inside out, even if they get right, you’re gonna be dominated by these other random factors that are still gonna impact on those particular companies. And uh no one can learn all of the factors in my mind. So, yeah, keep it keep it simple and just have everything.

[33:38] Sammie Ellard-King (host): Oh, exactly. You know, you you hit the nail on the head. Like people getting into investing can be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of different metrics and trading charts and views that you can have on those. Uh you know, I counted 30 on mine the other day, and it’s just you know you just need one. Which way is it going? That’s it. Um and yeah. Yeah, and I think that’s the bit that we really want to try and help families because investing seems so scary because you don’t learn about it at school, and then the first thing that you kind of hear about it is probably on the the news where it’s like the stock market’s crashed or a company’s gone bust, investors have lost millions or lost all their money, or they hear the the sort of financial part of the news program where they’re talking about charts and all this statistics, and it’s just overwhelming, and then they’re like, Yeah, this is this is far too scary, and yeah, it’s great what you’re doing, but and my bit is to try and demystify and show that the stock market is actually just the sheep in wolf’s clothing, so it’s uh scary on the outside. But actually, if you kind of look at what the very basics are, just let’s say plug and play on an index fund, you you’re gonna do fantastic over the long term.

[34:53] Sammie Ellard-King (host): Exactly right. I mean, I couldn’t agree more with you. And that’s why some of these great companies, you know, like the your Moneyfarm and your Wealthify, etc., these these guys that just take out the stress for you with expert managed funds, which most of them are very much mirroring the the index funds that we have today. So you can find ways of easily entering the market and and just having a good stocks and shares ISA, putting in a little bit each month and and benefit from that rather than worrying about charts and day trading and individual stock picking, which can just get away from you if you if you um if you know if you get headfirst into it and with no experience. So yeah, and it’s it’s such a because clearly when we went through the the craze of Bitcoin, etc., I just knew so many people just come up to me and started telling me about their Bitcoin investments and they’re gonna make loads of money from this. And I was just like, right, I you can’t if you want to do that, you can, but just do index investing as well, and just keep doing this, and you’ll see, and luckily some of them did do that, and now they’ve been the the bitcoins and the NFTs, etc., and got carried on with the uh index funds, which is fantastic.

[36:01] Sammie Ellard-King (host): 100%. I was chatting to Sam North from eToro um about this um on the podcast last week, and he is you know, he he works for eToro, they do day trading as well as long-term investing, but even he has a small portion in his play account. Like me, I have five percent in my play account because I enjoy the individual stock picking part of it, it’s fun for me. But if I lost five percent, it’s not wiping out my entire wealth, and my other 95% sits in index funds, so it’s just you know that you you can still do it. I’m not saying don’t do it, um, but um, you know, uh don’t attribute all of your wealth to a Bitcoin fad or or you know and and some other form of cryptocurrency that may or may not go up. You you don’t know what’s going to happen with that, so don’t go all in.

[36:56] Will Rainey (guest): Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, exactly. And what I know, sorry, I’m just gonna link back to the kids and money bit, but I hear people are teaching kids about investing by doing these like investment simulators where they essentially have fake money and then they go and say trade and they have like games against their friends about who can make the most money. And I’m like, this is exactly not what you should teach kids about investing, because they’re either gonna do really well and think that investing is easy and they’re gonna be overconfident and then get really disappointed in the future, or they’re gonna do really badly in the few in the short term and then be completely put off by investing. And it’s just like, oh, just I can understand you want to teach kids about investing, but definitely don’t go down trading routes for teaching kids. We need to teach kids that it’s boring is simple and it’s the best way. And hence my kids we put money away, and hopefully by the time they’re they’re 18, they would have seen the money grow substantially, they’ve done nothing, and they’ve seen loads of ups and downs, so they’ll be ready to go and hopefully do continue uh as adults.

[37:58] Sammie Ellard-King (host): Also, the stress of it with real money. Oh yeah. Exactly. Just don’t do that. Go go and live your life, enjoy yourself, and it stay invested, but but you know, don’t I don’t think it’s uh a wise move. I think four percent of day traders actually make money. So um, you know, that’s uh those statistics are against you before you even started. 100%. Well, it’s been an absolute pleasure. Um, thank you so much for coming on, and uh, you know, I I absolutely love what you’re doing, so I really encourage everyone, uh parents out there to go and get the book um and and and read it with your kids and see the kind of benefits that it can have because it’s had rave reviews and and rightly so. So um hats off to you, man. It’s um yeah, it’s a great achievement. Oh, thank you so much, and yeah, thank you for having me on the show, as I mentioned before. It’s not a topic that’s top of mind for so many families. And I know families are like they want to talk to their kids but don’t know where to start. So thank you for having me on the show. Hopefully, some more conversations will start at home.

[38:57] Sammie Ellard-King (host): Definitely, man. But look, tell people as well where they can find you and the book and and yeah, the best links. Sure. Um, so my website is bluetreesavings.com, and I have uh a new blog pretty much every week covering a different money topic to help parents teach their kids about money. Um, and you can find more details about the book on there, and it’ll have links to Amazon, so the book’s on Amazon, um, in uh Kindle version, softback or hardback, and yeah, it’s in later this year in audio as well. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for your time today, Will. And uh yeah, looking forward to hearing more about the audio book when it comes out, and and yeah, look forward to catch up soon. Perfect. Thank you.