Now is the time.

I hope you are well and had a good summer! We’re really happy to be back and launching the second season of the Wallet podcast this week.

Over the past year, we recorded 47 episodes and enjoyed over 75,000 downloads. It was our first ever series, and needless to say, I didn’t know how to launch a podcast, and all I started with was a bit of equipment, moving our production and recording online during the pandemic.

I’m so pleased I did it, and it’s been a truly fantastic experience.

We took a little break over the summer to re-think and recalibrate, as well as to listen to the community. Over emails and social media - especially Instagram - we often get various questions about managing money and personal finance. It can unfortunately sometimes be difficult to reply to you all individually — so we decided to do this in the podcast.

We will keep our interviews with amazing women to keep you inspired. I think it’s fantastic to get to hear from experts, women who’ve done it before, financial educators and entrepreneurs. However, we also want to hear from you.

That’s why I want to start spending some time each month personally answering your questions. I want to address anything and everything from, ‘how do I repay my debt?’ to ‘How do I get a mortgage?’ or ‘What’s the best way to save or invest?’. These episodes will be shorter sessions (15-20 minutes or so), easy to listen to and hopefully, highly practical and helpful. I’ll try to answer the questions as well as give you my top tips, how I would approach the challenge and where you can learn more about tackling it. You can submit your question directly to me: emilie@vestpod.com

As always, we will share these in our weekly newsletter and write a full summary for you here on vestpod.com, so you can come back to these whenever you want.

I can’t wait to see how the community evolves over the next year. We’re getting bigger and have ever-changing needs. We’re all at different stages in our financial lives but this year, with our events, workshops, podcasts and newsletters, and also the new edition of my book You’re Not Broke You’re Pre-Rich - we’re reaching tens of thousands of women.

We know that on average, women hold £100,000 less in their pension pots as compared to men (due to the gender pay gap and childcare commitments). Furthermore, we also have a £15 billion gender investment gap in the UK. This can cause great stress, and we end up procrastinating making good financial decisions and end up feeling vulnerable.

This feeling of powerlessness can be explained by our lack of confidence in our financial knowledge. It’s scary that 47% of the UK adult population don’t feel confident making decisions about financial products and services. 

When we lack financial education, we end up feeling really anxious about money — if that sounds like you, you’re not alone. I personally never learnt about money, so I’ve been there. We don’t talk about it enough, and it can feel very awkward to do so. 

But the time is now. We, women, are getting wealthier, and we will own more than 60% of the UK’s wealth by 2025. It’s not an easy path, and we all have different needs. That’s why at Vestpod, we’re taking a holistic approach and are committed to get you to a position where you can talk about money, make sure you have enough money to live today but also plan for your future and invest in what you believe in.

Because it takes so much time for financial institutions to adapt to these changes, we have an overwhelming responsibility to make this work for us and our families and communities. However, I believe that starting small, opening up the conversation about money and privilege, being comfortable in asking for more, and understanding the ins and outs of managing, saving and investing our money, will help elevate women’s financial status quo.

So join me weekly on The Wallet - with Veronica and Emily - who work with me as well as our sponsors and partners, where we make sure that together, we are at the forefront of change, helping women get richer.

Please send the Wallet to a friend, share it on your social media, subscribe, write a review and send me your questions. The feedback has so far been amazing: the podcast has 124 ratings on Apple podcasts averaging at 5 stars, so thank you!

I am very excited about the second season and can’t wait for you to join us on this journey!

Now is the time.

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