"I always score at the riskiest end of the scale in the pensions quiz!"

+ affirmations, assumptions and otters 🦦

Hi and welcome to The Ladybird Purse, my weekly newsletter about women and money. I’m not a financial advisor and am in no way qualified to give financial advice. I’m a day late (because yesterday was a Bank Holiday) and a dollar short (because Copenhagen).

Bit of a catch-up post today, because my things to write about Notes list is getting a bit unwieldy.

So first we have a couple of money affirmations I heard that made me happy:

The money I spend will always be replaced with more.

I am about to receive more money than I could ever imagine.¹

Both by Gemma Nice on Insight Timer.

I started reading another money book since I hadn’t read one for a while and fairly swiftly realised I’d already read it. Because I’d highlighted this passage:

Looking back now, I wish someone had told me early on what I’m about to tell you. The choices you make with your money and career should be based on just one assumption: That you—and only you—are ultimately responsible for your future. They should be based on what you want for your life and what it will take to get there financially. On. Your. Own.

From Think Like a Breadwinner by Jennifer Barrett

Much of this post by Allegra Chapman strongly resonated with me:

Why I'm not planning for my retirement

And finally, I said ages ago that I was going to write about death and I keep putting it off. But I’ve had this question on my list for ages, so I’m just going to ask it.

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An interview with… Jo Middleton

Jo Middleton is a freelance writer and marketer, creator of the award-winning blog Slummy Single Mummy and author of Playgroups and Prosecco. She lives in Somerset with her youngest daughter Belle, 21, and a small menagerie of pets. You can follow Jo's adventures and see if her dog was really worth the money at instagram.com/slummysinglemummy

What is your relationship with money currently? 

I have a good relationship with money now, but it hasn't always been the case. My mum had a fairly irresponsible attitude to money while we were growing up and it took me a while to realise that wasn't how everybody did it and to find my own way. I had a lot of debt in my late teens and early twenties, mainly from doing a degree as a single parent with a toddler. 

I've been self-employed now for 15 years and so you have to have a pretty robust attitude to money and trust that while it might ebb and flow, it will all work out in the end. I try and think of money as an energy, if that doesn't sound too silly - I let it flow out to give it the confidence to flow back in.

I'm definitely a risk taker when it comes to money - I always score at the riskiest end of the scale in the pensions quiz! I have all of my emergency savings (about £13,000) in a mix of stocks and shares that I manage through an app called Freetrade because I love the excitement of seeing them go up and down the having the possibility of something interesting happening.

What’s your earliest money memory?

My parents struggled with money, so I have the cliched memories of looking down the back of the sofa trying to find money to put into the electricity meter. I remember having the electricity and phone cut off. I remember being evicted more than once. I remember my mum, although she was so strange about money in many ways, being very precise about adding things up on bits of envelope and making statements like 'we have £3.94 to last until next Tuesday.' 

What advice would you give your younger self about money? 

Don't be afraid of it. The debt I got myself into was made worse by the fact that I tried to ignore it. The money isn't the scary thing, a debt can't actually hurt you. The best thing to do is just to be honest with yourself, get everything out on the table and figure it out.

What’s the biggest money mistake you’ve made?

My Gran, who was brilliant with money, wanted to give me money as a house deposit when I was in my 20s but I didn't want to buy a house. I hadn't quite grown out of my mum's influence as that point and she had me sold on this myth that owning a home was a burden and that renting was brilliant because someone else had all the responsibility. I wish I had known better or been braver or whatever it was really about. 

I finally bought my own house when I was nearly 40, about six years ago now, scraping together a 5% deposit and buying a small 1970s semi for £180,000. I am so grateful every day that I did, as I would have been priced out of the market by now and the way rents have gone, I'd be screwed honestly.

What’s the best thing you’ve ever spent money on? 

Oooh, so many things! Definitely experiences rather than things. I'm not that bothered about stuff, so I don't spend money on cars or clothes or perfume or anything like that. I love doing things though - eating out, travelling and visiting new places.

As I wrote that though I looked down at me feet and saw my dog!! She cost £2,400 - she's a golden retriever - and for about six months afterwards I would have said she was the WORST thing I had ever spent money on as I found dog ownership generally and her in particular terrifying, but now I am obsessed with her. 

Do you have a pension? If not, do you have a plan? 

I do and I'm always banging on at my kids to get them - they are both in their twenties. My graduate job was training to be an actuary and that had a great final salary pension scheme, so even though I was only there a couple of years, that was a really good start as I was only 21 years old. When I went on maternity leave with my second daughter when I was 24 I set up a personal stakeholder pension. I didn't pay loads into it, but the thought was there and that made it a habit. 

I collected a total of seven pensions from random jobs over the next 7 or 8 years and then when I was in my 30s I combined them all into one personal pension. I pay into that every month - normally between £50 and £500, depending on my circumstances. I just looked it up and it's currently worth £136,000. It's never going to be enough to retire in luxury unless something dramatic happens but it's probably a lot more than a lot of single women (and mothers) have, so I feel okay about it. 

What would you do with £10,000?

I think I would probably split it down the middle. I would use half to take a chunk off my mortgage as I currently have three years left on a fixed rate deal at 1.49% and am keen to get it down before I have to renew! Then I'd spend the other half on a trip - my daughter Belle and I really want to do a US west coast road trip.

If you were me, what would you want to ask women about money?   

I'd love to hear more about women and investments. I think traditionally all the 'big' finance stuff has been marketed by men, to men, so I'd be interested in how women feel about longer-term investments. 

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Also I realised that I haven’t shared my author substack for a while. I write about writing, share extracts of various works in progress and wail about workfright.

1. Because my brain is crammed with pop culture refs, this immediately made me think of this bit of Cabin Pressure. If you’ve never listened to Cabin Pressure, please go and do it now - total joy.