Carla Hoppe: Why High Earners Struggle With Debt Too

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

[0:00] Sammie Ellard-King: 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 Carla from Wealthbrite. Now, Wealthbrite are doing some wicked work. I absolutely love what Carla is doing, and they are going into the workplace, specifically at the moment, in law firms, to deliver financial education and coaching to people that really need it most. Now we had a really interesting conversation about how lawyers and some of the most highest paying people in society actually are still struggling with their finances, and it’s a really good conversation. We unpack a lot about how the workplace could do better. And it’s something that you know is very close to my heart, too. So if you’re listening on YouTube, please do whack that subscribe button. And if you’re listening on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, whack that follow button, tell a friend, it really does help the show. But for now, let’s get started on the Money Gains podcast.

[0:57] Carla Hoppe: The Money Gains Podcast. Let’s make some bread. So Carla, welcome to the Money Gains Podcast. How are you doing today? Are you well? Hi Sammie, I’m great. Thanks. Thanks so much for having me on. Absolute pleasure. Yeah, I’m really looking forward to digging into this. I’ve been following you guys for a while on LinkedIn and um seeing all the amazing stuff you guys have been doing with Wealthbrite. It’s it’s uh super inspirational. So yeah, really looking forward to unpacking that today. But um, whereabouts are you joining us in the world from today? So I live just outside of London uh in uh Hertfordshire, so yeah, not too far from you, I don’t think.

[1:46] Sammie Ellard-King: I um I grew up in Hertfordshire, I grew up in St. Albans. So yeah, well we’re just around the corner, kind of Broxbourne area, so yeah, not too far. Oh, Broxbourne. Yeah, I know it well. Yeah, had a few friends over that way. I used to cycle there on my bikes when I was a teenager as well. Well, exactly. Lots of green outside the windows. So if you hear a few noises from the local geese, sorry about that. I I you know, I it was the same. I moved into the city and then moved back out because it uh having that kind of like ability to get into London, but that greenery around you when you want it was a you know, I I I could have had to get back to it. Yeah, definitely. I think I had the same thing growing up in Northern Ireland, you kind of didn’t quite appreciate um what you had on your doorstep. So, you know, I’m what 20 plus years living in London now, so I had to find a bit of green space eventually.

[2:41] Sammie Ellard-King: Yeah, it it draws you back one way or the other, you know. But um, yeah, really looking forward to unpacking um your journey today to where you’ve come to because it’s quite an interesting one. You know, you’ve had um is it you you you study f English and French law and then you’ve been into other journeys from there. What was your you know, that’s quite a that’s quite a brilliant uh degree. Like what made you go into that? Were you were you a kind of money saver when you were growing up? Uh oh gosh. Um well I guess if I wind back, what made me go into law was uh I guess a bit about my upbringing. Um my grandfather was actually an academic lawyer, so uh wasn’t a practicing lawyer like the mighty you might think about on suits or something like that. Uh he was uh writing uh legal textbooks on really complicated areas of law that I’m not sure too many people have read his books, but hey, there you go. Um but I always kind of enjoyed talking to him about what his kind of studies were. Um he came to London, he was he’s Indian, um, so he came to London and studied at the LSE. Um so he used to tell me stories about going to law school in London. Um so I kind of guess he set out this um idea for me, and that’s kind of what got me interested. But my particular degree, I did it because I loved French whenever I was studying at school, and I wanted to try and find a way of combining my love for languages with my desire to be a lawyer. Um, and yes, in my my English and French law degree um sounds super glamorous. I got to spend two years in London and two years in Paris, but um, for anybody who has studied that degree or knows anyone who did, they’ll probably tell you that it’s um not quite as glamorous as it sounds because certainly, anyway, in Paris, uh they like to start uh lectures for three hours long and they used to start at 8 a.m. and sometimes go on till nine or ten in the evening. So yeah, very different way of studying than you might expect in like English universities.

[4:50] Sammie Ellard-King: So you’ve got time for a quick cross-on and a coffee on the way in, and that’s about it. Something like that, yeah, yeah. But no, I can’t complain. I was super lucky to be able to live abroad and study abroad whenever I was at university. But yeah, I mean, gosh, when I think about what I was, kind of my my idea of where my career would go whenever I was starting out in law and where I am today, I would not have predicted in a million years that here I am sitting to you talking about my own company and my entrepreneurial journey. So yeah, uh definitely a few few uh few curly paths of my career along the way. That’s why I asked this question because it’s so interesting. You know, we’ve we we’ve both probably come very different ways, but I am exactly like you. I never knew I would be sitting here talking to you today about entrepreneurship and finance. Who knew?

[5:42] Carla Hoppe: Yeah, exactly. Sorry, I was just gonna say you’ve gone from law and then you moved into a different area, is that right? What what what was that? Yeah, so I started off. I qualified as a corporate solicitor. So um I guess, yeah, you know, in my mind I was gonna be, you know, big hitter, city law firm lawyer. Um I ended up, you know, I did actually deliver on that dream to a certain extent. I was working as a corporate solicitor, but then I hadn’t the opportunity to go and live in America. And um, and so when I moved there, I couldn’t practice as a lawyer because I hadn’t hadn’t been in my career long enough for them to kind of just automatically accept my uh experience. So I kind of was faced with a choice about what would I do differently. And um, I worked at the time for PWC, which I guess is a global accounting and consulting practice, and then somebody mentioned or um that there were some opportunities in tax. Um, and for anybody who does doesn’t know what tax advisory is, it’s kind of everything from you could be doing nitty-gritty calculations through to complex consulting on transactions, you can work with individuals, your companies, all kinds of things. Um, and so the area of tax that I went into was um working with large international organizations and helping them when they were kind of like expanding overseas or entering into transactions. And um, to be honest, I in practice it’s you know a lot of skills that were very similar to being a lawyer. Um, there’s a lot of laws that you have to be aware of, a lot of case law um and client facts. So I I guess I was kind of a bit um, I think it’s something about being in your early 20s whenever I was doing this. I was like, huh, how hard can it be? It’s basically the same thing. So I took a punt on myself. Um, but it was interesting because I moved abroad. Um, and even though I took a punt on myself and I was really lucky I had to go through the interview process for that job in America, uh, what it did mean was I had to go right back to the beginning of the career ladder. So I um I had obviously qualified as a lawyer in England, and you know, I was earning good money at the time in London. Um, you know what? It’s kind of crazy when we think about, we’ll come back to this, I’m sure, but some of the curiosities of my life growing up compared to kind of saying my family background was when I qualified as a corporate solicitor in London on my first year salary, I earned more than my father ever had when we were growing up. So it was kind of a bit insane, a bit insane. Um and then when I went to America, um my salary, I took quite a big cut in my salary because um, yeah, they were like, Yeah, sure, definitely you can come and work in tax. Um, but you need to start, you know, back down being an associate and work your way up. So I had to then adjust to the fact that, you know, I had taken a pay cut, but then I was also living in the Midwest of America. So my cost of living was much lower than it might have been had I been living in New York or anywhere on the East or West Coast. So yeah, I just had to adjust my expectations for what I could achieve and do. But I had a great time, I loved it. Um, but yeah, and then I came back to the UK and I stayed in tax because I actually really enjoyed it. Uh, and I kind of ended up practicing tax um as in my career um for about 10 years before I then ultimately left and then started this new uh journey on kind of building Wealthbrite.

[10:06] Sammie Ellard-King: So, you know, these are good, these are you know, the top the top-end jobs in the city. Um obviously you mentioned, you know, you’re getting paid very well for your age. How are you like with with money during this time? Yeah, great question. And this is a lot of, I guess, like if you think about the founder story behind Welfright, um, a lot of you know my whys for setting up Welfright kind of relate back to some of my personal experiences, particularly at the early stages of my career. So I guess, you know, I I came, I I grew up in a family, I’m the eldest of four children. Um we grew up mostly in Northern Ireland, hence the accent, although I wasn’t actually born in Northern Ireland. Um, my family traveled around the world a bit before we sort of settled in Northern Ireland. Um, and yeah, I guess, you know, uh at for a long time we had single parent income. Um, my mum did work part-time from time to time. Um but yeah, it meant that money wasn’t always flush. We weren’t always flush with cash. We definitely I used to hear of things growing up, the sort of stories I used to hear at home were we can’t afford that. Money doesn’t grow on trees. Those are some of my favourites. Um, but also it’s just acutely aware a lot of the time of the fact that we didn’t have the money to do things. Um and actually what that did for me in terms of my money mindset uh was very much react against it when I was in my sort of early uh early career. So I hated the fact that growing up we often had to buy uniform or clothes from secondhand shops. Um and so for me, one of the things that I liked to spend money and still like to spend money on today is clothes. Uh, because for me that was something that allowed me to just like feel like, yeah, I bought this new and I bought it at a really nice shop and I felt good about myself. And I it was some something for me that kind of rejected my prior experience. Um, but how that manifested itself in my time at university and and certainly at the early stages of my career was uh a bit of recklessness. Um, so I you know I vividly remember my first day of university. And so I went to King’s College London, and I remember standing in the queue uh to collect your, you know, get your photo taken and collect your student pass. Um and it was like Freshers Week, and they had a whole bunch of people kind of coming along to talk to students about, you know, life in London and what you were going to do. And I remember all pretty much a lot of the High Street banks were there at the time. Um and uh someone had said to me, you know, I had to get a new bank in England because I had a bank in Northern Ireland, but at that time when I was at university, which somebody reminded me the other day was 20 years ago now when I started, um Northern Irish, Northern banks they didn’t have like branches here, so I needed to get a new bank in England, and um so very well known High Street Bank, they said, Yeah, no problem, we can set you up with the bank account. And by the way, um you’ll get £2,000 on overdraft straight off the bat. No questions asked.

[13:24] Sammie Ellard-King: Yeah. Um, and I spent that pretty quickly because I had no awareness of you know, I wasn’t I wasn’t taught at school or really at home about uh what that meant in practice. Obviously, I knew that an overdraft was money that was being kind of made available to me, but the kind of consequences of having to pay it back and what that would mean for me and the effort it was going to take for me later in life to be able to get out from under that debt, I don’t really have a strong sense of like just how difficult that would be. Um, and also the impact it might have on my credit score or anything like that. So I was living very much in the moment. I just wanted to enjoy myself. I’d spent, you know, I kind of had this feeling that I’d spent enough time hearing like from my family and my parents that we couldn’t do things or we, you know, and don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all no at home. I did get plenty of stuff and we did have great experiences growing up. But I, when I arrived in London, I felt very like I’m independent now and I’m gonna live like I’m just having fun all the time. Um, and I guess that kind of followed me into the early stages of my career. Um, so when I did suddenly find myself earning a lot of money and I was in this great job, and you know, law has its um has some perceptions around it, right? You know, you’ve got to dress a certain way, you gotta go to the right places to eat and drink. Um, yeah, I kind of I lived that life, right? Um, and I was having a great time. I don’t give, you know, really, I was having a lot of fun. I was living in London, eating out in all the great restaurants, going out, you know, every night of the week with my friends, having a lot of fun. Um, was I thinking about my future? Not one bit. Um and uh unfortunately, you know, that caught up with me, right? It did, it did. And so it meant that by the time it caught up with me, um I had to work extremely hard to get out from under quite a lot of consumer debt that I had managed to back up. And I actually also had a lot of student debt because my degree was a four-year degree. Um, at that time, student loans were means tested, and I got sort of the top end of the student loan allowance, which was great for me going into university, but of course it meant that I came out with a significant amount of debt, and then um I didn’t actually get a training contract um straight out of university. So a lot of people, when you study law, your expectation is you’ll get a law firm. If you want to become a solicitor, a law firm will offer you a job, and as part of the deal, they pay to pay for you to go through your law exams. And I didn’t get a training contract, so I actually had to self-fund my law exams, um, which was quite scary at the time in terms of the amount of debt that I took on to do that. Um, because not only did I have to pay for the exams themselves and the year of study, but I also had to bring myself back to London, and so I have to pay for rent and everything else. So it was it was a lot. So I think that’s a a long answer to your question, but when I reflect on your experience, I think the thing that strikes me about my early career is that on the one hand, I was carrying a huge amount of debt. I I had struggled, and you know, I remember whenever I was studying for my law exams and I was on the LPC, um, you know, I did not have a lot of money to go around. I remember at times, you know, working out that I had £50 to spend in the week. Um, and that was it. That was what I had left over by the time I paid bills, and I picked up a part-time job and did as many shifts as I could, but it still was, you know, really difficult. Um, just paying rent in London and you know, just living.

[17:27] Sammie Ellard-King: Um It’s wild though, because you you you I was just gonna say, like you had everything like you had the law degree, everything going for you essentially, and you’re you know, the work ethics there, you you’ve done the exams, you’ve self-funded, and you’re still at the end of the day having to struggle to get through those times. Yeah, I mean, I guess there’s some parallels with how I think a lot of students might be living today. So when I um I finished university in 2007, I um came out of a year of working uh in Northern. So I had to go home and get a job. I I worked first worked as a legal secretary for six months to get some work experience, and then I became a paralegal. And um when I came back to London to do my law exams, of course, what had happened in the meantime, we’d had the 2008 financial crash. Um, so it was really hard to find a job. It was really hard to get credit, um, and you know, just everything felt expensive, right? Um, so there’s a I feel like right now, this sort of stuff that people are going through with like extremely high levels of student debt, really difficult economic situations, I can relate to that because that was kind of how I came up into my career. Um, but I think you know, there’s a more fundamental point I think that’s important to make here is it wasn’t just my external environment that was impacting, I think too often there’s this perception or an assumption that just because you have a good degree or you might be smart and hardworking, that you’re automatically gonna find yourself in this like path. And unfortunately it’s just not the case. Um and even if you are earning good money, like I was, you know, I I I I when I qualified, I I think my qualification salary, I jumped to about 60,000 pounds, which was a lot of money. Um, and is still money, um, especially so when you’re in your mid-20s, right?

[20:49] Sammie Ellard-King: Um but and in 2008 as well, so that’s considerably higher. That would have been a little a bit later. So that would have been so that would have been maybe 2010, 11, 12, actually. So it was a bit later. Okay. Um, but when I look back at what I was dealing with, I think, you know, at least 20, 25% of my take-home pay was going on repaying debt. And that was after my student loan repayments, right? Because I’d taken on a bank loan to self-fund my LPC. So my my gross pay, I was getting student loan deductions taken off that, which I I remember like just being horrified at the amount that was taking out every month. But hey, you know, in the long run, it was a great investment in me. So um, you know, that’s that’s the other side of the the mindset there. But then take home pay, you know, London rents, they were expensive then, they’re even crazier now. Um you know, just and then, you know, and then paying off my debt. And then the problems I was then still dealing with at that stage in my life was not having really sat down and thought about, well, what are my financial goals? Um, I wasn’t really living with intention when it came to money. So, you know, I was doing the bare minimum. I was paying, paying the debt that I had to pay. I was covering my rent and my bills, my my required expenditure. But with what was left over, I was not at that stage of my life being in any way intentional with my money. So what that meant was sometimes I was just, you know, throwing it away to some extent, you know, not always, but I I wasn’t necessarily living uh with a mindset that said, you can have fun and you can budget for fun, but you also should think about budgeting for an emergency fund and budgeting for other things that, you know, might happen over the course of the next five, 10 years where you’re gonna need to think about having some savings built up. And that just at that stage of my early career just had not entered my mind mindset at all. And I wasn’t I also wasn’t being given any guidance or opportunities to learn about that stuff. So you know, part of why I set up Wealthbrite is because I believe that the workplace has a really important role to play in this conversation. You know, and I absolutely when I look back at my employment status, I was earning a really good wage from my employer. I was being offered great benefits, you know, financial benefits like medical health care, insurance, pension, all kinds of discounts and perks and other opportunities that were given to me. But the truth of the matter was I really didn’t understand the value of those things that were kind of on my on my plate, right? And so I made mistakes and I and I I look back now and I I kick myself, right? You know, the big mistake I made coming up was I was earning good money, but I really wasn’t maximizing my workplace pension. So I could have put more into my pension and my employer would have matched me up beyond what I was actually putting in. But I I I did not understand how those things worked. And you know, it’s not a criticism of my former employers, but at the time, you know, uh lots of information was given to us. So there was a benefits portal, I could log in, I could read loads of stuff. But for me, with my background and my upbringing and my family kind of dynamic, I wasn’t familiar with financial language. Um I had never, you know, I have a good friend of mine, she’s American, she and uh she went to Harvard Business School and she told me a story that her dad sat her down when she went to university and taught and set up a Vanguard um uh an IRA, which is basically the American equivalent of the um individual savings account, and he taught her how to invest for her future. And I was like, wow, you know, and again, I’m not angry or annoyed at my parents for not doing that. That just wasn’t within our exit experience. Our lived experience did not include conversations about investments to the extent they included conversations about money. The conversations I was hearing at home was really more about making ends meet and paying off debt. Those were my lived experiences. It wasn’t in a sort of positive um sense. And so I walked into this very privileged environment where you know I’d I’d worked hard at my studies and got a good job. I was all of a sudden presented with some fantastic financial benefits and opportunities, and I just wasn’t, I wasn’t making the most of them. And I wasn’t setting myself up for future financial success. Um, and I look back now and I realise, you know, when I look at my own personal pension, I’m one of those women that’s walking around with a big pension gap because I didn’t maximize it whenever I was younger. Um, and so now I’m having to play catch-up, right? Um, and that’s that’s something I feel really passionately about. So, you know, when I think about what Wealthbrite can do to kind of, I don’t know, close some of those gaps, it’s about saying, look, uh, particularly within the legal profession and other, this goes for all professions, but we’re we’re really looking at the legal profession quite closely. And we’re saying to them, look, the diversity of candidates that are walking through the doors of these organizations has improved drastically over the last 20 years. But I am not convinced that organizations have caught up to the diversity of lived experiences that that brings with it. And so when you talk about money, you’ve got to understand that, you know, yes, people previously, maybe historically, there was a bias towards people from a particular class within uh the UK working in some of these professions. That is not true anymore, which is a great thing for the profession, but it means that we have to be really mindful of how people will deal and respond to the financial uh environment that they will all of a sudden find themselves in. And of course, since I qualified, uh wages and salaries and benefits have gone way up. So, you know, I was talking last week with some friends, and they were telling me that uh, you know, it’s kind of crazy money out there. Some of the big US law firms now are offering, you know, new young qualified solicitors some, you know, they’re edging closer and closer to the $200,000 mark. And you think, like, wow, you’re like in your 20s and that’s how much money you’re earning? Like, what are you doing with it? How do you know where to begin?

[28:02] Sammie Ellard-King: It’s wild, isn’t it? Yeah, and I I guess it’s like this again, a wealth, we’re very much not in the business of telling people that you can’t have fun and you shouldn’t go out and treat yourself and reward yourself. But you work hard for your money, you deserve to enjoy it. But I just think, you know, gosh, there are some basics that if you could set yourself up, and this isn’t about having like a daily habit with money or even a weekly or sometimes not even a monthly, right? There’s some basic financial foundations that if we were all given access to as part of our work experience, like when you onboard, hey, this is your onboarding experience, here are all the great benefits you get. Wouldn’t it be great if somebody sat down with you and explained how they actually work in practice? And like, here’s some pros and cons and things that you should think about for your future so that you could make a more informed decision about how you want to use the money you’re being given. And that’s kind of what we’re all about. Yeah.

[29:00] Sammie Ellard-King: That was that is there’s a lot to unpack there. What you just said. That was uh that was incredible. I can really relate to you there because when I came out of university, I hit that gas pedal, but I hit it too hard because I didn’t have that that that foundation. I mean the money gas pedal, probably also the party gas pedal as well, but um was but because I didn’t have that foundation, I was almost like let loose, and it was you know, I remember that moment too. I signed up for my bank account, and it was like, here’s two grand, and also would you like a credit card too? Yeah. It’s like, yes, please, absolutely, and that was gone in three months, and then suddenly I was doing it again and again and again, and then pa working to pay that off and paying back that one to pay off that one, opening a zero percent balance transfer to do that, and I was gone, and that’s so easily done. Um, and we’re not given these things. I think sometimes as well, it does, it certainly comes from the workplace, you’re a hundred percent right. Um, but I also believe it should come in university and schools and and in the workplace almost as like a fundamental basis as you’re right, like day one, here you go. This is what you need to know about the some of the most basic products out there on the market that aren’t scary, they’re not scary guys, like just do these things and you’ll be fine. Um and it’s wild.

[30:31] Carla Hoppe: That point about being scared of it, I can really relate to because uh, I was telling a story to a friend the other day that there is a guy I used to work with, um, and I was probably one or two years into my career at this stage, and he joined, he was younger than me, and you know, uh he um he he used to read the Financial Times every morning and he’d come into work and he’d carry a paper copy of the Financial Times, and I was really intimidated by him. I I you know obviously I would never have told him or never have like mentioned this, but I felt really ashamed of the fact that I didn’t feel comfortable in the world of finance. And you know, here I was, I was smart, you know, I was smart, I was a you know, I was a lawyer, um, very, you know, Type A personality, you know, wanted to be seen as super successful. You know, I was successful. I was super successful for where I was in my career, but I felt very ashamed of my, you know, if if anybody had queried me about my personal, if anyone had had an open, honest conversation with me about, you know, really how was I dealing day to day with money, I would have been really ashamed to admit that I was. And because of that, I used to watch this guy and he’d he’d talk about stuff, and it just was like gobbledygook, right, for me. I just like it and and and you know, the funny thing is I I didn’t feel encouraged at that time in my life to learn. I didn’t feel encouraged to ask questions or be curious. And so the I think the the the problem was that my my my reaction from a place of shame and and fear um was to bury my head in the sand.

[32:27] Sammie Ellard-King: Yeah, exactly. Ignore it. Um and that actually did me more damage in the long run. Um yeah, it’s um I think this shame of not knowing can really limit people. Um and I guess when I think about again, like what we’re trying to do with Wealthbrite and where I come from when I talk to organizations is despite coming coming at these conversations from a place of compassion as much as it is compulsion. So we we should feel compulsion to act because as a nation, we are struggling. We we are not a nation of savers, there’s a lot of financial vulnerability in our system, despite the fact that we’ve got you know good rates of employment. We’re, you know, yes, there are problems with wages and keeping up with inflation at the minute, but by and large, as a nation, we earn good money, right? If you look at globally where we sit. And yet there’s so much financial vulnerability in the system. You know, like we do a survey on people that we work with, um, but but we use a metric that the Office for National Statistics uses, which is a question that says, could you expect, could you afford to pay an unexpected cost of £850 without relying on credit or borrowing from family and friends? And actually in the UK, the average person, 42% of people could not afford to pay that, right? Which tells you nearly half of our population has less than a thousand pounds in saving. Um, and you know, the curious thing was when we asked that same question to a bunch of lawyers lately, um, we came out with exactly the same result. 42% of them couldn’t could not afford that.

[34:10] Sammie Ellard-King: It’s lifestyle inflation, man, at the end of the day. Paid more, you spend more. Well, absolutely. There’s there’s an element of that going on, but also it comes back to this is why I mentioned this shame and needing to lead with compassion on these stories, is because we we we unfortunately have not been given these skills as part of our like baseline level of education, right? We we don’t we don’t learn about saving and investing, we don’t learn what a pension is or what credit is or what insurance is as part of our upbringing in our schooling system. I 100% agree with you. We definitely should. I think we could be very creative about how these topics are taught. It doesn’t have to be a mathematical and numerical exercise, it could be in a little bit of a it’s not maths until you’re 18.

[35:00] Sammie Ellard-King: Yeah. Exactly. 100%. Um, but you know, I we should be taught this at school. The reality is we’re not at the moment, so we’ve got to find another way of giving people access to the information they need in a trusted environment, right? And um, that’s why I think like we need to kind of lean into the workplace as a way to deliver some of this education, but do it in a way that’s really understanding and judgment-free, assumption-free, because we should not assume that just because somebody is earning a certain amount of money that they feel confident or comfortable operating in a conversation around their money. Um, because I definitely wasn’t, and I think on the outside, people would have assumed, oh, well, you’re a, you know, you’re on big lawyer money, so you must be sorted. Actually, the truth is very different, right? Um, so I think we really need to look at this conversation from a place of really, yeah, putting ourselves in other people’s shoes, thinking about um the diversity of lived experiences that people may have come into their profession with, and then just like being really open and um yeah, just really compassionate to the fact that, you know, it’s okay if you don’t know because you weren’t taught. So here’s here’s a framework that can help.

[36:17] Sammie Ellard-King: I absolutely love what you’re doing. I think it’s admirable because even if you go and fix the educational system today and you start teaching kids in school that are under 16, how much of the population are above that age right now and are struggling with exactly these things and feel that shame and feel that lack of knowledge with them on a daily basis? Finance is one of those industries, it’s like, where on earth do you start? And um a lot of people are very successful in this world, but they’re extremely unrelatable to the working classes of of the UK. Um, you know, often people look up uh at them and just go, they just think, oh, uh a suit, or um you know, or someone that is doesn’t understand me. And that’s very un and that’s totally understandable because they’re fed this kind of mantra from you know the politicians in daily life as well, and so they they get their back up when these kind of conversations start getting opened up. Um and if you approached it, as you were saying, with with compassion and understanding where they’re coming from and and and their backgrounds and and their struggles in life, then actually you start opening so many different doors, um and you can start actually making real value and change in these people’s lives from the ground up, and that and that is what we’re all doing here, I think. And it’s it’s so hats off to you for this. It’s a brilliant, brilliant thing. So let’s let’s talk about Wealth Bright a bit then. So you you started the business how long now?

[37:54] Carla Hoppe: Gotcha. Um so we’ve been going for about a year, about 16, 18 months now. So yeah, properly going for a year or so. So yeah, they’re still early. I think I started following you about the same time I set up Up The Gains, which is the same as time as you, so 18 months a really long time ago. I think I was like one of the first purple. Yeah, I remember you putting out a post saying, hey, we’ve just launched the website, and I went on and I like did a little quiz that you had off at the time as well. Many personality quiz. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so that was a while back. So I’m loving seeing the journey of you guys, and you had your your was it your first event that you did big one last week? Yeah, we did a big live event last week. So yeah, so I guess Wealthbrite has kind of uh developed quite a bit in the last 18 months. We kind of started out just with a real passion to kind of take this workplace uh well-being culture a step further and say, okay, so workplaces have done a lot of good stuff on physical well-being, a lot of good stuff on mental well-being, but financial well-being hadn’t really entered the sort of general conversation space within work, right? And it sort of did as part of COVID. So when we saw COVID and lots of people getting uh put on furlough, people struggling, you know, all of a sudden there was a lot of news out there that said lot um firms generally were paying people one-off bonuses or giving them a pay rise, right? And so uh, and I sort of saw this interesting trend, right? Because all of a sudden people were just talking about financial well-being. And what they were really talking about was making a one-time bonus, or there’s a lot of products being offered in the workplace around like early access to salaries or loans or some other financial product. And so we kind of really set out with a mission at Wealthbrite to say, well, we’re we’re product, um, we’re completely independent of products, right? So we don’t sell a product. What we what we are doing is delivering a service that helps your people uh get less stressed about money and feel more confident. And uh yeah, we’ve been working with the legal industry now for a while because of my background and my sort of real passion to talk to that sector. Um, partly because I have so much you know personal um connection to that industry, but also because I think it tells a really compelling story, right? People have perceptions about what the legal profession looks like, and I feel like it’s a very um is a really good way of busting a lot of myths when it comes to money about you know the these these these narratives people tell themselves, but also tell each other about what good looks like with money. Um, and so using the legal industry as a way to kind of showcase actually, you know, lawyers are humans too. They they deal with all the same struggles as everyone else. Um, yeah. Uh and that was kind of where we ended up. That was that was basically the the event last that was last week or the week before now. Um we kind of brought everybody together to kind of showcase a lot of the work that we’ve been doing. So we’ve been doing a bit research project over the last few months where we’ve surveyed lawyers and we’ve brought them together in focus groups to kind of really get under the skin of like what is going on with them when it comes to money, how are they feeling, how are they dealing with money? And you know, um, it was really powerful. Um, you know, when we looked specifically, so we asked uh lawyers of all grades to respond to our survey, and then we took some junior lawyers together and did a focus group with them. And what what we found was that you know, junior lawyers are worried about money all the time. 80% are worrying about money every day or often, you know. Um, here are people who are earning good money, but yet, you know, their environment in which they are living in is causing them stress and anxiety. And that’s that shouldn’t be news because actually we know that money is the leading cause of stress and anxiety in the UK. But again, it’s about busting some of the myths that exist out there that says, oh, well, if you are a certain person or if you’re in a certain job or if you live in a certain place, then you must be sorted and therefore you don’t have these issues. And that isn’t reality, right? Um, and then we also kind of spent some time unpicking like what is it that they want to learn more about? What is it that they’re looking for? Um, so it’s interesting you mentioned relatability earlier. Um, that was such a strong message that came out of the work that we’re doing with lawyers that is there they really feel the relatability gap between junior lawyers who are entering the profession now and people who are maybe at the at the upper ends of their career. And you know, there’s lots of good reasons for that. You know, when when somebody who is now sort of the senior associate slash partner in a law firm entered the profession, it was 20, 30 plus years ago. You know, your environment was totally different. The challenges they were facing were totally different.

[42:56] Sammie Ellard-King: Um we didn’t have mobile phones or computers barely back then, you know. It’s like it’s pretty wild, isn’t it? Yeah, exactly. I mean, it’s just like you’re you’re absolutely right. And that that is a good point because actually something of what we found, so we asked uh people to tell us like where do they go for their information when it comes to uh money? Um who do they trust? What are their trusted resources? And what we heard was the three most common resources are friends, family, and social media. And that tells me social media, wow. Yeah. Friends, family, and social media. So okay, obviously you’ve picked up on social media. Let’s talk about that. Exactly like you just said, you made a kind of a sigh. And and I think you know, social media has some, there are some fantastic resources out there, right? But the problem is how do you find them? How do you how do you know what is reputable and what is not? How do you distinguish between? I mean, I have so many friends who, you know, have really great social media presences and they’re getting scammers impersonating their accounts all the time, sending their followers like, oh, you know, hey, I’ve I’ve got some crypto or trying to push some like dodgy investment opportunity on them. And they’re constantly having to put out messages going, this account isn’t me. Don’t follow, don’t respond to these messages. And that’s the reality of the sort of social media space, right? You’ve got to have a very analytical mind to be able to navigate what is good quality information and what is where do you need to be a little bit more skeptical about what you’re reading? Um, so I think there’s some problems that can arise if you solely reliant on social media as your space to find that information. And then friends and family space, well, that’s great if you have it. But if you don’t know it, where do you go? Um and that’s it. So so we’re kind of looking at it.

[44:52] Sammie Ellard-King: If they’re just as bad as money as you, then you’re in trouble, you know. And and even people who grew up in friends in family environments with a lot of money doesn’t necessarily mean that, you know, kids learn all kinds of stuff from the environment they grow up in, right? You know, there’s lots of research that often gets quoted in this space about how kids learn their money habits by the age of seven, and or at least some of their early behaviours are kind of kind of influenced by those really early years. And so, you know, just because you have a lot of money doesn’t necessarily mean the behaviours you’re seeing are ones that are gonna set you on a positive path. So you can’t make assumptions about people’s upbringings, and therefore you can’t, I think there is a question mark in my mind about like, well, you know, if I was sitting in a in the role as like a managing partner of a law firm, and I was to look at this data and go, well, You know, people are relying on friends and family, they’re relying on the internet and you know what’s out there in the world. Would I would I kind of go, and I know that school isn’t teaching people, I guess my question would be how much how comfortable would I be going, well, this is your personal responsibility, right? This is I’m gonna wash my hands clean of this because personal finance is personal and therefore it’s up to you as an individual to go and sort yourself out. Or would I sit there and say, Well, yeah, there’s some personal responsibility involved. But, you know, increasingly the workplace is occupying a really important role in people’s overall well-being. You know, we only have to look at what happened with the pandemic to kind of see just how important it was for organizations to step up and do things differently to support people during a very different thing.

[46:48] Sammie Ellard-King: Well, we we kind of expect it now, don’t we? We kind of really expect it from a lot of firms. We want to see that as a kind of reason for actually going to work there. It’s now got to have open policies about what it does, not just around paying you the money and the work that you do, but the culture that they provide. And you know, that we’ve woken up to that now, I feel like a lot as a as a society, especially in the UK. Um, so it’s interesting to hear you say that. Yeah, you’re spot on. And that’s the message we heard as well from a lot of junior lawyers. Like, they they want open, honest, transparent conversations. That’s what they’re looking for. And look, you know, the really great thing about this, and I think about this from the perspective of the employer, they don’t necessarily feel like you have to give them all the answers, right? This isn’t about solutionizing. This is about holding space for conversations that are difficult, providing safe spaces for people to have conversations about money and for them to learn from their peers. So we’re launching at Wealthbrite a new series called Money Talks. Uh, we’ve got a newsletter, um, first one’s coming out next week, but we’re also sharing on social media um directly in response to what we heard from junior lawyers. So they said, we want to see more role models and we want to learn from people who are further ahead the career trajectory than we are. So we’ve got a whole great lineup of uh senior lawyers um in different parts of the legal profession who are going to open up and share their money story. And our first uh our first interview is with uh Stephanie Boyce, who was just stepped down as the president of the Law Society for England and Wales. She’s a fantastic personal story. So she she broke records um in terms of becoming the uh first uh black fem woman of colour um to become president of the law society. Um and her personal money story. I mean, again, talk about perceptions. I wonder what you think when you hear that. This is the woman who occupied like the top role for the regulator within the profession. And yeah, she opens up in our interview and she told us afterwards, she was like, I’ve never spoken publicly about some of that stuff. It’s like, wow, that’s amazing, you know. She talks about what she had to deal with growing up and what that taught her and what kind of money habits she formed. And she also, you know, talks a bit about like what was she, what does she wish she’d learn earlier? What would she pass on to people at earlier stages of their careers? And that’s what we need more of. We need more of these sort of um yeah, role models, but also um authenticity and vulnerability in the system. Um, because we all have a money story, you know? Yeah, exactly. Everyone’s different. We all have something that’s influenced who we are today and how we behave and deal with money. And it’s it’s emotional, it’s um it’s psychological, it’s it’s not a logical set of steps that have gone, okay. Well, someone told me to do this, so I did this, and then this happened, right? There’s stuff that happens in your life, and that’s impacted how you have grown up and where you are today. So we’re really delighted to be able to like shine a light on leaders in this way, to be able to kind of start to break the taboo within the legal profession. But I think I’d love to see other people do this as well.

[50:09] Sammie Ellard-King: Do you think that there’s you know, you’re focusing heavily on law? Do you think for uh maybe the next stage of Wealthbrite there is a way to go into multiple industries here? Because then the message is succinct across absolutely any format, really anyone. You could go into any business and give these talks and it would make a real difference. So yeah, I think you’re spot on. I mean, I think law is uh where my heart lies right now, but you’re absolutely right. I think you know, I didn’t just work uh and I didn’t work in a traditional law firm, I worked in uh two of the large um accounting sea practices. Um I think you know there’s a very easy read across with what we’re exploring and seeing in law to professional services full stop. Um I do think they have a particular set of circumstances that maybe are distinct from some other industries, not least because their pay levels are a lot higher than other industries, but also that they put so much emphasis on um, you know, you think about the type of businesses that we’re talking to. These are people who win awards year on year for being the best graduate recruiter in the country, right? That’s great. It’s great that you’re the best graduate recruiter. So, how do we help those graduates thrive as much as they can when they get into your workplace?

[51:30] Sammie Ellard-King: As humans, yeah. How do exactly as humans, that’s exactly right. It’s like helping people to be the best of their fullest self in that environment, you know, saying, sure, you gotta be good at the day job, absolutely. That goes without saying. But you know, who you are in your life, in your family, your hobbies, your what you’re experiencing, you can’t not bring that into work. And I’m really happy that in some ways the pandemic has kind of changed the conversation in that space, right? People have really woken up to the fact that who you are at work, you’re gonna bring everything that you’re dealing with outside of work into that environment. So employers have to be set up to help their people manage with whatever stuff that they’re going through, right? And that doesn’t mean like it absolves the individual of having personal responsibility in this space, but it’s about bringing support systems into the workplace that are gonna make sure that people feel, you know, that they feel they have something they can rely on, something they can turn to. When you’re asking for so much of your people in some of these jobs, right, that they’re hardworking, difficult, long hours, stressful work environments. Um, you know, I think a lot of these employers are looking for ways to improve their employees’ experience on a day-to-day basis, and well-being is part of that equation. Well, if you’re having a well-being conversation and you’re not talking about financial well-being, you’re missing a massive part of what is actually impacting your people day to day. You know, we asked businesses when was the last time you talked to your people about the cost of living crisis and how they’re coping with it? And you sort of get blank faced.

[53:18] Sammie Ellard-King: That is crazy. And as you as you said as well, it’s like 80% of stress in the UK is money related. So if you’re talking about the well-being of that person, surely 80% of that conversation should be about their finances. If you were to do the same maths, it should be, right? But unfortunately not. I just think that you’ve got something here that could be transmitted across multiple mediums. And you uh but uh yeah, you you’ve done the right thing, you’ve not gone too like wild net. Let’s focus on one thing first and nail it, right? You need to prove out the model, right? You know, yeah, exactly. I mean if you go too scatter-gun, there’s a risk that you spread yourself too thin. So let’s prove out the model, which which we’re doing, and I’m very happy to say we’re doing in law, um, and then build from there. But you’re you’re right. I mean, this stuff is a very good thing.

[54:09] Sammie Ellard-King: I’m just thinking of purely selfish, like like for me, like hospitality is a massive one, right? One of the biggest industries in the UK, and these guys go in there and then barely given anything. But I’ve seen that change quite a lot recently, and there’s been you know, well-being has become a massive part of it. I’m uh you know, I spent 15 years in the hospitality industry, and it I’ve seen it change somewhat, and so I feel like there’s a lot of power in that conversation in that industry too. Um, and yeah, so I yeah, you know, that’s why I was asking what’s the plans because I I’ve got some businesses got some business to send your way for sure. Um it’s been an absolute pleasure. I’ve love this conversation because it you know it’s something that I talk with my friends, my colleagues about all the time. Um and it’s partially well, actually, in fact, it’s majority of the reason why I started what I do because I want to make a change from the ground up. And how do we do that? So I feel like anyone that is doing that, um, you know, whether it be from workplace, school system, or just posting great content that helps people is an absolute superhero in my eyes. Um so yeah, absolutely hats off to you, Carla. I love I love the business idea. And uh yeah, hopefully, um hopefully you do make it into other industries too, so we can um we can share some of that Wealthbrite knowledge.

[55:37] Carla Hoppe: Absolutely. Uh listen, Sammie, it’s been an absolute pleasure to shop to you. Thanks for having me on and uh yeah, thanks, thanks so much for thoughtful questions as well. No, you’re welcome. If people want to find you, what’s the best place is? Yeah, so um we’re on Instagram, on Twitter, and on LinkedIn um with the handle at Wealthbrite, B-R-I-T-E. Um, or you can head over to the website which is wealthbrite.co.uk. So yeah, plenty of places to spot us. Awesome, awesome. Well, yeah, thank you very much for coming on and um I hope to catch up with you again soon. Brilliant. Thank you so much, and chat to you later, okay.