The Power of Budgeting: Strategies for Financial Success with Laura Pomfret

This week we are joined by Female Finance Power House, Laura Pomfret.

Join Simone and Laura, co-founder of Financielle, as we navigate the often-intimidating world of personal finance.

Laura's mission is to dismantle the barriers to financial literacy, offering the tools and insights necessary for women to confidently manage their money.

This episode is overflowing with actionable advice, from the significance of a 'money minute' routine to the art of crafting a realistic budget.

Listen to learn:
🎙️ How to rewrite the narrative of women's financial independence
🎙️ Barriers to financial independence for women
🎙️ How to approach money matters with vulnerability and confidence
🎙️ Ways to effectively manage your money

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:38

The Northern Power Women Podcast for your career and your life, no matter what business you're in. Hello, welcome to the Northern Power Women Podcast. My name is Simone and our podcast is all about highlighting the amazing role models, sharing their stories, whether it be their personal or their professional Hope, to bring you some top tips along the way, whichever way it will be, to help you navigate whichever path that you're on. So, whether it's your life, your business, that's what we're here for. So let us meet. This week's guest. Laura Pomfret, is the co-founder of Financiel. Have I pronounced that right? Yes, financiel, it just sounds so fiancy which is a female focused app helping women take back control of their money. God, I wish I'd have had this years ago. Laura, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. Simone, tell us about Financiel, about the beautiful name, the beautiful pronunciation. So what is the purpose and what's your why?

Speaker 2: 1:38

So we exist to help women take back control of money, but, honestly, we never set out on that journey. I know lots of people want to start a business one day and they've got a vision for it, and actually this was just a problem that we saw no one solving. And so, when we looked into how people manage money and I myself went on a money journey years ago trying to navigate how to be a young mum, how to save for a house, how to save for a pension and how to make sure you've got enough money to check out in Tesco is overwhelming and financial advisors don't really want to help you unless you're a certain wealth. And then also, you know Martin Lewis is great, but he's quite overwhelming as well. So you go on the website to work out what to do in what order. It's really difficult.

Speaker 2: 2:22

And so, yeah, we created a methodology and assistance managing your money, whether you are a CFO or you're on universal credit and struggling. It's kind of a methodology that everyone follows. They feel in control, they feel financially well, they've got a plan, but it's personal to them. And, yeah, we just it's grown legs, but it still is the same as it was back then, which is just helping people feel better about themselves.

Speaker 1: 2:48

And I love it when things have got that purpose behind them. And when you talk about money and talk about gender stereotypes and gender roles, don't they? Pink jobs, blue jobs, you know, but the man taking care of the money and the women taking care of their home and the family. But they still haven't got that. Still haven't got that equality or that parity have way in when it comes to a gleshting. Why, why, Laura?

Speaker 2: 3:12

I mean women are behind in every area of personal finance, whether it's the gender pay gap or whether it's financial literacy even there has been shown to even be a gap there or the gender investment gap. I mean a woman will have last count, I think it was 265,000 less in their pension than a man at retirement and it's just absolutely crazy. And they're all intertwined in impacting each other. And I think we we weren't female focused at first, but we, when we looked at our demographic, it was 90% female. And when we speak to our customers and our users of the app, which we speak to literally two a week it's amazing they fit into that stereotype which is I am learning less at things are going up and things are harder. I've got more decisions to make.

Speaker 2: 3:55

I think this is the biggest English big distinguishable factors between men and women.

Speaker 2: 3:59

Women actually control 85% of the world's spending and that makes sense because if you think about in typical households, who's deciding what food to put on the table, who's buying presents for the mother-in-law, who is picking where you go on holiday, who's buying the school shoes even if it's not all her money, it's the family money she's having to make the decisions and the overwhelm and the life admin that stacks up on the shoulders of women even if they've not managed the household budget before.

Speaker 2: 4:26

To spend and then to be deemed an overspender possibly in some of the cases is really difficult and we try and I guess support a woman with making those decisions lean into the fact that actually we may spend more a bit on beauty and hair and clothes and socializing maybe, maybe not. You know, we're also not going golfing, or you know, and going spending money on different sporting things that were all different, and it could also be that that could be switched between. We've got some great men in our community that love their skin care and some women that are all over the sport, but it's recognizable that actually, mind you, money's overwhelming. If you can have a really simple system to do it, you can enjoy today, enjoy tomorrow and enjoy the future as well.

Speaker 1: 5:05

And you talked about having your own money journey. How did you get interested in this? How did you become the Martin Lewis?

Speaker 2: 5:13

of the North, the Martinina Lewis. So one called me last week and I didn't ring. I didn't understand it until after the call. So my background is Laura.

Speaker 2: 5:23

I was the head of legal travel tech business wonderful business and before that worked in Central Manchester as a lawyer and I'd always liked, I guess, taking something that's inherently complicated and understanding why people try to overcomplicate it. I'm not afraid of being the woman in the room that's saying I don't understand that, and actually usually when you say that, someone else doesn't understand it in the room as well. So it's quite. You know, I'm keen to show vulnerability. I'm very confident in who I am and who I'm not, and I've always been like that.

Speaker 2: 5:50

And so and that's what I used to do in my job and when I was on my own money journey because I became a monk by 23, I was trying to navigate the space and go in that there's just not enough money left, like if I do everything that everyone tells you to do. You know I'd played around with consumer debt. I had some student loans, I wanted to save for a home and I'd stopped investing in my pension because I felt like I didn't have enough money to do it, and so I literally went on a journey to learn all I could about personal finance, all I could about you know what's out there in the world. But no one tended to break it down and say just do one thing at a time, like nail one habit, a bit like atomic habits and habits stacking. What we teach is Don't try and like boil the ocean. Just do a little bit of time and with you, nail a certain bit and you get confident. It becomes like a nature, so it doesn't feel like an effort. And so I think that's where my interest came in, because I suddenly, like, made a bit of progress and suddenly had a budget that made me feel like I was in control, and suddenly I'd started to put money away aside for if my car broke down or for the holiday that I'm going to go on in a year's time Well, the fact that Christmas is the same time every year.

Speaker 2: 6:54

I'd always relied on credit because it's so freely available in the society and it's pushed on us, and so I think I made personal progress. And then people in my life started to go what are you doing, like? Why are you getting a cash envelope out at the dinner table when we're all splitting the bill and why do you never seem to? There's the big topics of conversations with your female friends, and money is a big stress for lots of people, and I probably just suddenly never started to get involved in that conversation and I would be quiet and they'd be like you just don't feel stressed about money.

Speaker 2: 7:22

It's a bit like health and wellness. It's infectious and people ask questions and so it just built from their Simone and we ended up with an Instagram page at first, which was just like a hobby to help people. But what you realize is there's this problem that lots of people have and people need help with it. You need a scalable solution which was content for them at the time to help many rather than like all helping people one at a time. And yeah, and that was back in 2018, the Instagram page was started and we're still here now.

Speaker 1: 7:52

Wow gosh, all from an Instagram page. I love that. Let's talk about education. I did a podcast oh gosh, one of the early ones and I remember having one of the guests on the podcast and she talked about when she was at uni having that credit card and she kept it in her drawer because she was too scared to use it, because she didn't want to use it, and then build up the debt and not being able to handle it. But the PM wants us to do math until the age of 18, but there's no financial education in school. Surely that should be a better thing. We should be doing it surely should.

Speaker 2: 8:29

And when maybe you think about a university student, if anyone is listening, that either is one or has children preparing to go. And that is the first time that you're probably managing a budget where you're paying for more serious things than like a new outfit or geek tickets or something You're having to run, effectively, a household. And the cost of education nowadays alone is staggering. But the fact that these finance brands, I think, prey on that first 18-year-old. Do you want a graduate overdraft? Sorry, an undergraduate overdraft? Free money, of course I will. And then student loans get paid quarterly but bills are monthly. There is no help from any of the universities to say, actually, should we support you in how you manage your money and how you divide it up to make sure it lasts and make sure that you're not kind of living on pot noodles or whatever by the back end of the year or having to kind of take on extra loans and stuff.

Speaker 2: 9:19

And it is scary. I think the more scary thing about the credit card story that you just said, samora, is actually. Now we've seen kids around 17, 18, their first interaction with debt is, by now, pay later. You know the paying for a scrunchie in three with a brand on a shopping site for something that literally has no value isn't an necessity, but they go. Oh my as well, I may as well. And that's the weird thing, because that's now going to be the first bit of chunk of debt that someone's going to hopefully come to us and we'll help them. We'll start paying off you. We would rather get in there early and start them doing the first place.

Speaker 1: 9:54

Absolutely Like anything we talk about, that education has to start early, doesn't it? So it becomes part of what you do, and I know you shared an article recently called the Big Shift, which is all about looking into the next decade, where women are poised to hold greater economic power than ever. Tell us about the Big Shift.

Speaker 2: 10:14

So the big thing there is there's going to be a big transition of wealth. There's a couple of things here. There's a big transition of wealth where people will have wealth passed down through generations and won't know how to manage it. I actually may not trust financial advisors in the typical sense of the world because they've never been welcomed by a financial advisor before and I'm absolutely been sweeping generalization with friends with lots of financial advisors, but they actually tell me they struggle to get their clients to engage with their finances. You also got women working longer, being able to advance through careers, trying to cut the career ladder, setting up businesses. So there is this big shift that we're seeing and I think that what's going to be quite special is women are keen to understand how to manage their wealth, how to manage their assets, how to feel better about all this. We get people coming to us all the time, actually from a different perspective, which is I've just got divorced or my partner's just passed away. Sadly, like this amazing generation of 60 plus, women are coming to our community going help. I've never done this before. So there's that opportunities to kind of help people take control for the first time, probably a long time.

Speaker 2: 11:22

And the other point, action education that you made is really interesting because children are watching, like. My children know what debt is, for example, and they also know my daughter. She's six and she's obsessed with going to the London which is the garage, the car go. She wants London's retreat. And I'm like, and I always said to her, no, no, it's more expensive than like the shop in the village. I will go to that shop.

Speaker 2: 11:42

And she said, when we get more money, can we do that?

Speaker 2: 11:47

And it's like she's obviously thinking, oh, we can't, maybe there's not enough money for that Because you said it's expensive.

Speaker 2: 11:52

She will hear about us as a family budget and I remember when my eldest realized we had a mortgage and she was like I thought we didn't have any debts and I'm like make most people have a mortgage, but I love that. You thought that so they're listening to us all the time and so you know, even if their schools aren't able to implement changes to education and the syllabus and stuff, they can pick that up from us at home and so it's a really good opportunity to not necessarily show them the bank account and say there's no money left, but so just include them in conversations that we do a little thing actually with our children and people in the financial community is split. If a child gets money as a gift, like, talk to them about what they'd like to do with it and if you can at least encourage them to spend a bit and save or invest a little bit, they can track that and they can see that concept of it growing. And there's lots we can be doing and you talk about?

Speaker 1: 12:44

I think one of the things you talk about is women. Having more cash isn't just going to impact women, which of course it will it's also some will say it's going to change the world.

Speaker 2: 12:53

Yeah it really is. Well, the thing is, if you think about this, so you know, we take people in our community who don't have any money even if they're earning well, like it just goes out, it spends. That's the vast majority of people are kind of in that there's just not enough to go around. I can need help organizing it and stuff. And when these women start getting confidence and start to have more money they they are. They have what's called an excess, so more disposable cash, more coming in than going out, and when they have that, they then have choices. They have choices to spend in a local community and because of the spenders and so the people you know, they can distribute that appropriately and not buy credit. They can also give and because there's more money around us, you can kind of be more, more giving and more generous.

Speaker 2: 13:37

And but the next layer, so that is if they are more financially well, that's infectious. Because if, if, if a woman is more financially well and her partner happens to be more financially well, and if they have children they are well, it's infectious, because the people in their lives will also benefit from that. They'll kind of ask tips and say can I? You know, you see, you feel like you're good with money, like can I? Can I ask? Oh, or they'll be generous and they'll give to people, or they'll put money into the local, local shops. And so nothing bad happens when women have more money. Only good things happen. And so the more more we can do as a society to encourage that, the better. Only good things will come, and so I.

Speaker 1: 14:13

We always love a top tip. We always have a good top tip and some nice little things that we can put on the side of a tote bag, if you like, or on a postcard. It was always two takeaway. So what are the top three things that you would say that people can take action on to start really taking a grip of those finances? And it could be at any level.

Speaker 2: 14:32

I think the biggest thing is your budget is your biggest tool to making everything happen. Knowing your numbers and even if you're overwhelmed by them, even if it's like, no, it's not in a great place at first, just doing it is the. Sometimes you overthink how bad the experience will be or how difficult the experience will be. Doing that first one, because this is all about putting money to work and if you don't know where you're at, it's blind. There's no point saying, saying I'm going to save 200 pounds a month. What if you don't have to understand? What if you have five? You don't know until you do the budget? And so like, don't, like embrace a budget and an embrace spending in that budget. It doesn't have to be like the equivalent of a crash diet where you kind of on the soup and a shake and you just feel stressed and you feel like you want to Eat. It's just like that with money. You are too restrictive with that budget, you're gonna break it and then mentally you'll feel like you've not done a great job and then you might emotionally spend because you feel bad in. There's like a vicious cycle. So, building a budget that's fair and works for you, but also using every budget to put something towards your goals is really important.

Speaker 2: 15:36

Another tip for people that do feel overwhelmed when it comes to money is take a money minute. So we say every day you should just spend 60 seconds, take a money minute. This could be as simple as I'm gonna look at my bank balance, because so many people are scared of that bank balance, especially the week before payday. You'd be like it'll just be higher in a minute. I'm not gonna look. You know, I say and it's like actually it's just a number, it's literally figures on a page. It doesn't mean anything about you, about your circumstances, it's a number and you can move. Numbers like math is very, very factual, so that that can can definitely help.

Speaker 2: 16:08

And and the third thing is like make sure you're looking up to what's in the future, because Ties, we all know time flies so scarily quick and with a lot of financial things that earlier the better it's. The planting the tree methodology and set best time was, you know, 20 years ago. The second most time is today and at least, if you start now thinking about what's in the future, we have like women, your bring, your, bring up a retirement amount massively because they've just suddenly started to invest in or save for that home that they thought wasn't possible, or Finally start to chip away at that debt. Because what you do is you look ahead and you go. Is this where I'm gonna be 10 years time, 15 years time? No, it's not where I want to be.

Speaker 2: 16:49

And then your budget that we said at the beginning of the tips is the key to that. Your budget is the only way unless one of us wins the lottery or a random amount of money is gonna come into our life and, by the way, that, even if you think it will, it's not a banker, you, the budget's the way to make that number move, and we've seen people do it. It was a debt genuinely works. So, yeah, maybe three was good place.

Speaker 1: 17:10

I'm gonna be so. I love that budget money minute. Look to the future Fantastic, laura, love it. Love the top tips and tell people where they can find a financial.

Speaker 2: 17:20

So if you go to the app store and search for, as you'll find us in both app stores. You can find us on it, on like socials as well. Instagram's a cool place to find us because we and we're there to chat with it, to DM, we're there to gather stories and so, yeah, you'll, you'll be able to find us and it's where you started right, or starter with an Instagram post in it.

Speaker 1: 17:42

Yeah, I love it. I love it. Thank you so much. Please check out the article that Laura shared as well a big shift is really fascinating and download the financial app. I have it already. Will put details in the show notes. So, thank you, laura. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you so much. It was great to great to chat. It is so important. It's such a really really important conversation to have because it involves everyone, absolutely. Thank you so much. Budget money minute look to the future. That's there. That's on the side of my tote bag. That's my fridge magnet now. Thank all of you for listening. We really love to hear your feedback. So please do get into our old-school podcast at northern power women Com. On our Instagram, too, we love our Instagram, northern power women on our Socials and north power women on our Twitter, and please do stay connected with everything we're doing on our digital hub. We are powernet. Thank you so much for listening to the northern power women podcast. What goes on? Media production?