In this week’s episode of The Deal Maker Podcast, I’m thrilled to be joined by Stephen Pitcher, a seasoned financial advisor with four decades of expertise. Are you feeling stuck in your 9-5 and dreaming of financial freedom? Or perhaps you’re a new investor curious about property investment? Stephen breaks down the “three M’s” of financial success: Making, Managing, and Multiplying your money.
Learn about the power of consistent financial planning and get practical tips like the “penny challenge” to kickstart your savings. Whether you’re a young adult just starting out or an experienced investor looking to diversify, this episode will equip you with the tools to take control of your financial destiny.
Tune in as we explore actionable strategies to enhance your financial portfolio across various investment vehicles like property and stocks and why it’s crucial to start your financial journey early. Don’t miss these invaluable insights to elevate your financial game!
Follow Stephen: stephenpitchersjpp
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Consistency and having a financial plan are crucial for achieving financial success. Problems will always arise, but a solid plan can help you navigate through them.
- Financial education is lacking, and there is a need to teach people, especially children, about money management skills like budgeting, saving, and investing.
- Starting small with regular contributions, even as little as a penny a day, can lead to significant savings and investments over time due to the power of compounding.
- Diversifying investments across different asset classes, such as property, stocks, and bonds, can help manage risk and maximize long-term growth, rather than relying on a single investment or get-rich-quick schemes.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
The most successful clients I know and have had and seen are those that are consistent. They have a plan. There are going to be problems. There are always problems. When you do maths. A lot of people think, what relevance is this? Well, when you start to plan properly financially, those techniques in maths can be amazing, because they can show you how to compound, how to project forward with modern technology and with AI and all the software that’s available, there is almost no excuse for not having some plan. And when you say to someone, oh, show me your plan, it’s not written down. Oh, how do you know you’re achieving it? If you think of the UK population as an onion, there’s a top section that are, no matter what happens, they are doing yourself injustice. They love that, okay? They love the intricacy and the involvement, etc. The problem with doing that, first of it’s extremely complicated, but they typically, they go to cash too late, and they come back into the market too late. So they’ve missed the cycles that are there.
I am here today with Mr. Steven pitcher, an appointed representative of St James’s place, and we are going to go behind the scenes, and we are going to do a deep dive on the circle of wealth, which is the three M’s, how to make money, how to manage money, and how to multiply money. So if you are somebody that wants more money, if you want a better life and you would like to know how to get there fast. This is definitely the podcast for you, Steven. Welcome into the studio. Hello. It’s good to have you here. So how long have you been in this field?
I’ve been a financial advisor for 40 years before that, I was a financial analyst at BP. It was very corporate, and I really enjoy working with people and individuals rather than the big corporate entity. And I’ve really enjoyed my career, because I’ve worked with literally 1000 business owners to to help them, move them along the track. And some of the things I’ve seen, and in many ways, not the mistakes but the struggles people have had, can often be cleared up so simply if they would just sit down with a regulated financial advisor and a chartered accountant and possibly a solicitor to say, This is my plan. But so many people don’t have a plan that they literally have this vision that they’ll just copy somebody else’s model and within a weekend, they’re going to be millionaires. Yeah, it doesn’t happen. Yeah, yeah. So I would, I would say that the most successful clients I know and have had and seen are those that are consistent. They have a plan. There are going to be problems. There are always problems. And it’s a bit like, I call it sat nav, financial planning. What I mean by that is, when you turn a sat nav on, whether it’s in your phone or your car, the first thing it does is look for a signal, yeah. And it looks for a signal to say, Where Am I Now, the number of people who do not know where they really are. And by that, I mean they don’t really know what debts there are, what they owe. They have little idea of their current mortgage payment. Their savings are all haphazard. They don’t know where their money goes. They just don’t know where they are right now. So that’s usually the first thing.
Why do you think people get like that? And why is, why do you feel there’s this lack of education and understanding around money? Because society say, go to school, get good grades, go to university, go to a levels, go to university, like most of the people that do not have education around their finances, they’re not silly people. They’re very intelligent people, some of these people. So how come everyone’s in a mess? Stephen, right, this is something St James’s place is trying to change, and that we have a Schools program that we can go in and we can, we can go through the basics with the students, the children, and give them ideas of things they could do. I remember thinking or seeing when you do maths, a lot of people think, what relevance is this? Well, when you start to plan properly financially, those techniques in maths can be amazing. Because they can show you how to compound, how to project forward that sort of thing. So I think it’s a real failing on the school system not to relate to some of the things they’re teaching to money, spend what is left after saving, not the other way around, because too many people they see things on, whether it’s Instagram or adverts, and they go and buy the latest items. And often, when I go and see a client, if there are financial problems, it’s usually reflected in the fact they’ve got the biggest TV the world’s ever seen. They’ve got expenses that are totally out of control. I was with a client not so long ago, and we did a similar exercise, and they said, I just don’t have that much money left at the end of the month. And I’m like, Well, go back to your bank statement, print off 90 days, and start to highlight all of the things that you are spending money on that is not serving you. Yeah? And they were doing something like 600 pounds a month in cost of coffee. Yeah? Like, it’s madness. Yep, absolute, mad. Yeah. So, yeah, completely, completely. So when you take that away and you start thinking, Okay, what could I do with that money? Providing you’ve got the goal written down, it has to be written down in your head’s no good, and you need to look at it regularly, reflect on it will change, but like a sat nav, once you know where you are, you then have to tell it where what you want to go. Now, providing you don’t change that direction, there are 10,000 ways of getting there, whether it’s property, whether it’s investing in stocks and bonds all sorts of different vehicles, but you literally can move towards that goal and change it at will, and you’ve got a vehicle that does it. Yeah, and let’s say someone’s listening to this now, and you know, they’re on minimum wage, or, you know, maybe they’re on 20 or 25 grand a year, and they’ve got a lot of outgoings. What could be a starting point for them, Steven too? Because you don’t have to put lots away, yeah, every single month. But my understanding from experience is to put money away every single month over a consistent period of time. Yeah, that’s how it builds up. So what could be some advice to people that are looking to start investing some of their money, but they just don’t have that much available in the demand? Okay?
There’s a thing called the penny challenge, okay? Like this, yeah. And when people say, look, I haven’t got any money, etc. If you do the numbers, and somebody on the first of January puts aside one penny, and the next day, the second of January, puts away 2p then 3p 4p until at the end of the year, they’ve put away three pound 65 representing 365 days. It comes to something like 600 I think it’s 633 pounds. Wow, that they’ve accumulated a figure like that. I can’t remember the exact number, but it it’s quite substantial. So it’s really about putting that money away and feeling good about it. Okay, if someone does that, one of the things you were saying there a huge mistake. And it was a secretary of mine that that bought this up years ago when you could get this stuff. We had a member. I was a mortgage broker, and we did, we did a mailing to people with poor credit. You could buy the list legitimately, people with county court judgments, and this particular offer was amazing. It would change their lives. It was phenomenal. And we sent out 5000 of them, and nothing happened. Now that was impossible, because this was the best deal I’d ever seen in my career. Wow. This, this, this lender was willing to take on all the debt refinance. It really low rate. It was brilliant. So I said, send it again. Let’s do it again. Something’s gone wrong. No response again. And I, and I, I’m sitting there, and I said, I remember saying, Why? Why isn’t this producing a response? And the Secretary said, maybe they don’t open the envelopes. And I thought, That’s it. They’re in trouble because they don’t open the envelopes. They just let it build up and they feel bad. But sometimes, when you do open the envelopes and you lay it all out, and you organize it, and you know exactly what the problem is, then you can go to work. Then you can say, Okay, I want to get out of this. It’s not going to happen overnight, but you have a plan and talk to people who know how to get out of it. Sit down with whether it’s a regulated financial advisor or an accountant, people like yourself, often people they consider successful. We. Gotta do is say, Look, can I buy you lunch? Yeah, big lunch.
What’s his sandwich? Yeah, I said lunch. But often that can be the the stepping stone to get you
forward. Great. Okay, what? What could be some other tips to people? I love the idea of putting a penny away, then 2p then 3p I think that’s an incredible place for anyone to start. Actually, what could be some other tips for people on how to manage their money better? You know, maybe there’s a certain type of budget people can do. Maybe there’s things that they need to do with their utility companies. But what can people do out there to to just have a much better handle on the money that’s actually coming into their bank account when you get a grip on your finances. And this really became amazing since we’ve had online banking, because you then become almost your own bank manager. You know exactly what’s going in and what’s going out, etc. Look at every direct debit. Okay, it’s only 10 pounds a month. No, hang on a minute. It’s 120 pounds a year. And you can often sit there and do that exercise, and it might take you a couple of hours, but you might save yourself 500 to 1000 pounds a year for the sake of two hours. Yeah, well, that’s 500 pounds an hour. You’re being effectively paying yourself. So I would say, look at every bill. Make sure you’re getting value, but then look at how much you could legitimately set aside for your long term goals. Okay, great. One of the things a lot of people aren’t aware of, they think, well, that’s not going to make a lot of difference. When you invest money, even if it’s only a small amount, if we’re talking a level contribution, the same amount, consistently not in index linked. When you do that, the first five years accounts for half the fund. Okay? Now that whether it’s 10 years or 40 years, okay, because of the effect of compounding. So the earlier you start. For example, My grandson has got 150 pound a month. Junior ISO. He’s only two and a half. He doesn’t actually quiz me on how it’s doing and why are we allocated in that way, Grandad. But I no doubt he will, yeah, because if I can, if I can get him to 18 and build that fund up, it’s like a snowball rolling down the hill. It’s got growth on growth, and so long as when they’re 18, you can convince them that, yes, take a little bit out for pleasure and excitement experience, but keep that fund for the rest of your life, because that is your house. Deposit your car, your lifestyle. And when, when we think of most people, the financial pressures they’ve gone through, and you know, the last few years, the cost of living crisis, etc, well, millions, 10s of millions of people are on the breadline. You know, people are really suffering. They don’t know a way out. And it’s definitely one of the reasons why I wanted you to come in today to show people that, slowly but surely, if they take action today, and they take on some of the pointers that we’re sharing, that they can become financially independent. For sure, I love what you said there about your grandson. I’ve got four children. I’ve got either who’s 19 now, she’s got boyfriend and all that sort of stuff. I’ve got Charlie, who’s 17. Charlie now works for me full time, so he was at college. Hated it like I did. Either is working in the city. She’s got a great sales job. She’s on a good salary, good bonus. And then I’ve got my two little ones. I’ve got Ivy, who’s seven, and winter, who’s three. And you know, when my two older kids were growing up, I didn’t put money aside for them. I had a really good business, and I had a whole bunch of assets, and then I lost my business, and then those assets didn’t do very well, and I was basically back to square one, yeah, and I didn’t want to make that same mistake. So, yeah, I’ve recently for my two little ones, doing the maximum ISO allowance every year for them, right? You know, which I think is 9000 pounds a year now, which is incredible. You know, you think my little one’s three by the time she gets to 18, what that could be worth? You got the 9000 a year, and then you’ve got your the investment hopefully will go up in value as well, because I’ve been really big into this. Over the last, say, four or five years, I’ve had a big mindset shift around investing. It’s not just about making the money. You got to get the money making it working for you, right? But my older kids, either She’s got her own ISO, right? And every single month she gets paid, and she comes to me with a budget, yeah? And she says, Dad, this is what I’ve got paid. This is for my car, and she’s got a car on lease, yeah? This is for my mobile phone. This is to give mum some keep. And she breaks it down, yeah, but we always make sure. One of the first things she puts away is her Isa, yeah, and she’s putting, you know, two, 300 pounds a month away. I think that’s pretty incredible. For a 19 year old? Yeah, you know, I’m a boy who’s 17. He’s got a junior isa right now, yeah? And, you know, last month, he put in 500 quid. Wow. Next week, he’s put in another 500 quid. Yeah. I think the earlier we can, number one, do it for ourselves, but then pass that down to our I think this is that has that ripple effect. Would you agree? Totally, and the thing that we know for certain is change will happen. Youngsters now talk about high interest rates. They have no idea. I remember when it was 15% in fact, it went to 17% every penny you earned was trying to keep the roof above your head so things will change. But if you’ve got that money set aside, invested that can be drawn upon occasionally, you need to keep a certain amount of cash for emergencies, what you don’t want to be doing is selling long term assets to pay for milk pill. Yeah, that’s ridiculous. I get it, but it’s it’s really about having that plan, thinking about what you want. And I encourage a lot of people who, when you ask them, what, what do you want? I don’t know, and it’s like, well, if you don’t know, how am I supposed to know? Yeah, and it’s almost that, that dream book approach or the or vision boards, what would you like your life to be like? You talk about one thing, oh, we want to go on a world cruise. I’d really like sports car. And they listed these things. They were clearly going to cost a fortune. Yeah, and I’m looking through the fact find, and I say I must have missed something. All I can find is 100 pounds in a cash ISO, yeah.
Do you know what it costs to go on a world cruise? Yeah? No, find out and then work towards it. Yeah. Then, then it works, because then you can look at the different vehicles, and you can see whether or not they’re going to achieve what you want. You’re going to you’re going to know what working capital, you’re going to need, resources, etc, but it’s a feeling of it’s very cathartic to relax and think, Okay, now I’ve got a plan. Yeah, I’m going to work it, yeah, yeah, and demand regular reviews with your financial advisor, with your accountant or whatever. Yeah, but get those people, and they’re not necessarily expensive, yeah, it just, it just amazes me how so many people, including myself, for years, were just blindsided by this. You know, who do we blame is that our parents? Is it society? Is it the government? You know, is it big brother? You know, wanting to keep us the population skin, I don’t know we can go into which I know we’re not going to get. Modern technology and with AI and all the software that’s available, there is almost no excuse for not having some sort of plan. And when you say to someone, oh, show me your plan. Oh, it’s not written down, well, how do you know you’re achieving so I would, I would always encourage people to have that goal setting exercise. Yeah, and there are lots of things on Amazon or whatever you can get very cheaply. But when you’ve got that plan, I promise you, life is a lot easier.
Great. Let’s talk about multiplying. So how come? Let’s talk about some of the different asset classes. So what can people invest into? What’s bad, what’s good, what’s safe, what’s risky. Where should people start? Because that’s really how you multiply your money, is by investing and getting your money working for you. So could you give us some insights into that? And yeah, be great to hear your thoughts. Sure,
if you think of the UK population as an onion, there’s a top section that are, no matter what happens, they are do it yourself. Investors. They love that, okay? They love the intricacy and the involvement, etc. The the problem with doing that first of it’s extremely complicated, but they typically, they go to cash too late, okay, and they come back into the market too late, okay, so they’ve missed the cycles that are there. Now, if you’re using a professional financial money house, investment house, yes, you’re paying fees. You’re paying fractionally more than you would if you did it on your own. But you’ve got a situation where you’ve probably got 10 or 12 world class fund managers, each of which is a specialist in their particular field. So you’ve got diversification. They each have a model in their mind as to where the world is going and where they should invest for a five year period. Personally, we’re not we’re a long term investment hold company. We’re not day traders. We’re not in and out of the market all the time. So we look. To buy value and hold it for as long as possible, to ride the market. When you do that, your life is a lot easier than the stress of thinking. I’m going to manage this myself. I can do better get that and the other thing is the number of people who have no idea where their nest eggs are. By that I mean old pensions, old employers. You know, I often do it, and I’ll find 100,000 pounds for people no worry that they didn’t even know they had, they didn’t even know, and they’d move, they changed their name, they got married, etc. And when we go back, and it’s not a quick process, it takes time, when we go back and we we go right to all those companies, and the records are there, and all of a sudden, there’s a nest egg that they can build from. So it’s not starting with a penny a day, but in terms of different asset classes, you’ve got the situation where you can invest in property, whether it’s residential or commercial. There are ways of doing it, through pension funds with commercial, not with residential. There are various strategies that you’re the expert on. There’s also investment into stocks and bonds through a house like St James’s place. Great. There are, there are things like collectibles, people, oh, I’m going to do this. Well, that is very risky. You need to know what you’re doing there, and I wouldn’t recommend anyone do that. But there are different vehicles. But it’s all about diversification in the same way that you wouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket. Yeah, it’s the same way we work. Great. We would have 12, say, different fund managers who then invest in their sectors. Some will develop in others, but the consistency is what you want, not all or nothing. Great, you wouldn’t bet all your wealth on the black, on roulette. No, no, exactly, literally, would because, oh yeah, but you might double it. Yeah, you might do. You might lose a lot. Well,
a lot of people have done that with Bitcoin, haven’t they, over the years, yeah, they’ve literally put their entire pension pots, yep, their entire life savings, into an altcoin or into Bitcoin or into and then not knowing what they were doing and they didn’t have the right mentors, or the investment advice. And why do people do that? Is it? They’re looking for a quick fix. Steven, is it greed? Is it? What is it?
I think they they’re not sure what they’re doing. They don’t have a plan. They’re desperate. They think this will solve it instantly. It’s a bit like, is the National Lottery really your retirement? Yeah, you know, putting all that money in, but the probability of winning is so small. Yes, played if you wish to, yeah, but have a an almost. There’s never, there’s never any certainty in life. But have something that is consistent as a core, yeah, and then you can play with stuff around it, yeah? You know whether you’re trading in a few shares or you like tech stocks or whatever, but that way you know you’re going to hit what I would recommend for most people, which is trying to aim for a million pound pension fund. Yeah, million pounds, if you got a million pounds based on the the accumulation rate, yeah? You have a nice, comfortable lifestyle,
yeah, yeah, we’re used to it used to be quarter million or half a million. It’s not that anymore. Is it because of the cost of doing I think, I think what’s come out of this, for me is a couple of things to really summarize and and also reference, the lottery. Most people lose it anywhere in the first five years, don’t they? So because they don’t have the mindset, it’s not been built up gradually. Yes, they just make it spend it. Make it spend it. So, yeah, winning the lottery is probably not the best thing for most people. So I think, to summarize it, it’s been a great, great podcast. And really appreciate your insights into this. Number one is the word patience, and number two, long term. Yeah, that’s really the two key words. And start now. So get started now, have a plan. Get some great people around you. Be patient and be in this for the long term. You know, I’ve always had great businesses. I was always a really bad investor, and over the last few years, I’ve still got great businesses, luckily. But now I’m actually, I would consider myself an investor, and I just want to invest as much as I can and deploy as much as I can into great asset classes, yeah, because I know maybe in 10 years or 20 years, I won’t have the energy I’ve got today. And I I want to make sure that if something happened to me, that my kids and my wife are protected, yeah, so they are the words for me. Anyone tuning in, share some other last words of wisdom, or, to summarize, be great. And also, if people want to hook you up, where can they find you? Stephen, my website is Stephen pitcher, S, T, E, P, H, E n, p, i, T, C, H, E r.co.uk, great, and you can make an inquiry on that.
More. Happy to talk to people, give them ideas, certain you know, resources available. Great,
perfect. Well, it’s been lovely having you in. Thanks very much. Thank you.
So there we have it, Mr. Steven pitcher. He’s done some great things for me and my family. It’s great to have Stephen on the show today, and it really is about getting started right now. So it doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from, what your situation is. If you have a drive and a desire to make money, manage money and multiply money, then get started today. Think long term. Be patient, have a plan and get some great, great people around you. I really hope you’ve enjoyed this episode. If you could please share this. I’m a man on a mission. I want to change a billion lives around the world. So if you can share this podcast, if you can leave me a comment, if you can give us a review, I would really appreciate that, and I hope to see you one day at one of my live events. I own the UK leading property, business and wealth training organization. I’ve literally trained 1000s of 1000s of people over the last nine years, and help them get into property, make money, manage money, multiply money. So why don’t you head over to www dot assets for life.co.uk. I have some incredible resources, and I look forward to seeing you at one
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