The 7 Pillars of Wealth Made Simple with Kevin Whelan

If you’ve ever felt like building wealth sounds complicated, overwhelming, or just not something that’s really “for you”… this episode is going to shift that.

In this episode of Girls in Property I’m joined by Kevin Whelan, founder of Wealth Builders, and we’re having a really honest conversation about what wealth actually looks like, especially for women, and how you can start creating it in a way that feels clear and doable.

We go into the seven pillars of wealth and break them down in a way that actually makes sense. Not just theory, but how you can start applying this to your own life, your income, and your future.

We also talk about diversification, because wealth is not just one thing. It is about building different streams, different opportunities, and understanding how it all fits together.

And one of the biggest parts of this episode is pensions. We get into SAS pensions and how they can be used within property, and how you can start thinking about your pension in a completely different way. Not just something for later, but something you can actively use to build wealth now in a more tax efficient way.

This is one of those episodes that really opens your eyes and gets you thinking bigger.

If you are serious about building wealth, this is for you.

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Transcript

0:01

Good morning everyone and welcome to today's episode of the Girls in Property podcast. My goodness, how is everyone doing today? Do you know what? I don't even know whether we are in March or April by the time this is gonna be released. I'll be honest with you. But one thing I do know is that spring is officially upon us. Spring is coming. I can feel it. I can feel winter slowly like, just like literally melting away and I can feel the sun on sporadic days really coming out. And with that comes new beginnings and I always talk about new beginnings and fresh starts and I genuinely think that spring is becoming my favourite month. And with new beginnings, I also think about kind of this new way of thinking as it were, like new way of thinking and what could we be really looking into this year? What could we be really doing that pushes ourselves that forward, that 1 % and really grounding ourselves and taking ourselves forward? And to be honest with you, ladies and gentlemen, I've been thinking about this for a long time about uh what it is that I really want. to give to you guys on this podcast. And for me, it's all about value, but maybe just expanding your horizon of your mindset, just that little bit in terms of thinking to yourself, what is possible? And today, what we're gonna be talking about is all around investing. So investing and SaaS and SaaS pensions, because I have this conversation on a daily basis from you all, which is, you know, I know that we all have property and I get that, but at the same time, there is so much more than property. There is so much more about investing in yourself and investing in your future and how we can use money more effectively. It's not just about making money like an earning it. It's about keeping it and also investing it in the right place to have those compounding effects. And to be honest with you ladies, and I've never said anything different. I don't know a whole lot about SAS pensions. Not really. I know a bit about SIPP pensions. I know about stocks and shares. I know a bit about ICES, but for me, SAS pensions is a real curve ball that I really want to get into myself. And when I've spoken to a lot of em you girls in the community, you've also said to me that you're really curious about SAS pensions as well. And you asked me to get a person on that I think would do a fantastic job. And I have absolutely no doubt after today's em episode, you were gonna say to me, Athena, you got the right man for the job. So let's have the conversation today. Let's be open-minded. Today is all about keeping it fun, real, practical. and making it feel really, really relatable to you guys and making you feel like you can actually do this walking away today. That's my aim. And also this person's aim. So without further ado, I'd love to introduce Kevin Whelan. Hey, Kevin. Hello and good morning to you too and I'm enjoying your garden podcast today. I know, I know. So we've the garden behind me guys. So, and actually it's a bit sunny as well. It is sunny, which is really good. But Kevin, as we spoke about before, before we press record on today's episode, and I know you absolutely share the same intent that I do. This is today all about really breaking those barriers down, know, breaking it down, keeping it simple, not using complicated jargon and just letting everyone listening to this episode really feel like they could. Go away and invest today. That's the hope. And I know that you've shared that hope with me. I absolutely do. think it was Einstein who said, if you don't understand it enough to teach it, you don't understand it well enough. So I'm going to make it fun, non-scary, completely accessible. So many women I speak to, not that I'm focusing on women particularly, but sometimes find themselves almost behind the eight ball. You know, so many women get left sometimes on their own when their husbands or partners have died or moved on. All sorts of different things can cause that scariness to come in. And also just some of the language you used as well can be impenetrable, um often used by people trying to almost take control of your money and make things look more complex than it should be. I don't do that. So I'm going to break down the whole subject wherever we go. That's your call. But my issue is wealth. know, so everything I do is about wealth, not investing in a sense. So In other words, how to build multiple streams of recurring income so you're set for life. So wealth for me is certainty in a non-certain world. Secondly, to protect it using the right structures because anything unstructured is exposed to changes and things that you don't really understand the whole ecosystem. And then third, which is important to me because people can't see me, I'm a... man of a certain age, let's say, a wizened, wizardly expression on my face, carved by years of experience. So my big additional passion than building and protecting is transferring wisdom, passing on knowledge, passing on involvement, confidence, values to the next generation because, well, let's face it, nobody's teaching them, they really? Mmm. Oh, what a beautiful intro, Kevin. I loved that and absolutely building wealth Beautifully said I love that and stability and I loved that I could feel the pillars of the foundations of this conversation today ladies I'm sure you'll agree, know This is why I really wanted to get Kevin on because because that that is what it's all about And I said to you before we press record Kevin, you know I think what's happened to so many women, I think it really has happened, is that we have this notion that's been built up, maybe it's through media, maybe it's through the movies that we watch, maybe it's the conversations that we have, where we believe that investing is only for these suited men in Mayfair, who sit around in their clubs or their golf clubs and talk about these notions and these, even using the word sass, what does that even mean or sip, what does that even mean? And actually, it isn't, it's for everybody, every single person and more women. really, really, my mission and my purpose is to get more women really building their wealth and understanding their wealth and that's what I hope to do today with you. Looking forward to sharing. I'll let you take uh the direction from my lead there and see where you want to take it. Okay, perfect. So first of all, can we please find out a bit more about you, Kevin, before we jump straight into it. So can you please tell me a bit about you, how you came into, you know, wealth builder, how you became who you are today, the experience and the expertise that you're talking about. And then also with you, Kevin, I'd love to know something that maybe people don't know about you, that, you know, you haven't shared before, but maybe you're happy to share on today's podcast. Sure. So my name's Kevin Whelan. I'm the founder of a company called Wealth Builders, which does what it says on the tin. It's not called Wealth Reducers. So many of the institutions I find their sole purpose in life is to remove wealth from your life so that they can gain wealth in theirs. So I've completely changed that, revolutionized the way finance and the whole concept of wealth building. is taught and shared. Now my history on that, well, you know, there's a little bit of a story, not much, but I was kind of created this passion for sharing and teaching wealth because my father died very young. He was 46, unfortunately. And when you're 46 and you've got a business, which is doing rather well, which it was when he was young, you don't expect anything bad to happen. And then all of a sudden it did. But of course, what that revealed was his lack of preparation, his lack of planning. And as a result, the family, instead of benefiting from his business, went backwards for the fact that he had good ideas, but bad execution. And so often I find busy people, busy people in jobs, busy people in property, busy people in businesses, fail to get around to doing things that would protect. what they built. And that's the second part of my process is to protect. So in 1990 or thereabouts, I became involved in the world of finance and made a decision that I needed to build assets, not work time for money. So I've never really had a job. I've spent my entire life just owning things to that would create what I call recurring income. In other words, you own the asset and it throws off recurring income permanently. So that if you build enough of those, if you build a diverse range of income streams, then irrespective of what happens in the world, irrespective of what happens with the stock market or any market, irrespective of what happens with the government taxation system, you are financially bulletproof and impenetrable barriers being created. to allow you to be completely certain. Now didn't know this then, but it took me 15 years to become financially independent. In other words, when I was 45, I decided to be completely independent. That was my plan in case I died young and then I wouldn't have the wherewithal to pass on that income streams to my spouse. I've got three grown up kids now and I'm a granddad too. and loving every bit of that. the key thing for me then was if it took me 15 years, but how could I distill that with no books, no internet, no guide, no mentor? There was nothing in the 90s. You had to sort of trial and error it really. And I did that. And now I've distilled those lessons down that I can share and teach with anybody how to be completely financially independent within five years. Whereas most people in jobs and other things, they take 30, 35 years, maybe even 40 years with student debt to get anywhere near some sort of financial independence. Well, that's because they're learning the wrong things. And that's because more often than not, it's the institutions that are hiding the real truth, pulling the financial wool over their eyes and taking recurring income out of their life instead of putting it back in. So that's in essence, what I do and I've created a business around that and a reputation for sharing and teaching in an accessible way that makes the whole complexity of the recurring income streams and are bolded down in the end to seven. And I've written a book about that called The Seven Pillars of Wealth. And there are only seven income streams you can have. And despite the fact that I wrote that book many years ago now, I still haven't found anybody to to give me number eight. So may I, Athena, throw out a challenging question to your audience to say, if we get chance, we'll talk about seven. If we don't, I'll make the book available for free to anybody who follows you. But help me get to number eight, because then it'd be lovely to be a perfect balance of four and four, but now it's seven, and it's been that way for, well, 30 years now, so. There you go. So that's what I do. Now, what would somebody not know about me? Well, although the accent is softened over the years, I'm originally from Newcastle, which is where my father had his business. And so I'm a mad Newcastle United fan, for those who follow football. And I call my dog Alan after Alan Shearer. there you Shearer. I love that. A dog called Alan. I love that. That's so funny. funny about that though, when you take him for a walk, and he disappears when he's chasing a rabbit or something, and you shout, Alan! At least three men turn around. Yeah, exactly. Especially in Newcastle, you can imagine them turning around. Or be like, if a dog was called like, Steve, Steve, or like, Gary. I love it. exactly. But I live in London now, and I have done for 30 odd years, but that's why, you know, most people don't equate the accent to being a Geordie accent, softened by years of living in the southeast. Yeah, makes sense. Love that great intro, Kevin. That's so funny. um And we definitely would like to talk to you about these seven pillars actually, because I think it's really, really important. What was the, so actually before we go on then, let's do it because the girls otherwise, I can hear them, they're gonna badger me. You know, what in short, in short form, what are the seven pillars at Curiosity? All right, well, before we talk about what they are, we need to understand the basic principles of where they come from. So the principle is how do you own something that is not you, doesn't depend on you. It puts money into your bank account while you're asleep that you can pass that money on if you're no longer around. So you don't need to show up for the money to show up. So that's the essence of what a asset is, as I call it, which I call a pillar. And I always encourage people to, you don't need seven to be wealthy, but you probably need two or three. So, but let's deal with them as they kind of came out of my head. Most people, 95 % of people, that's most, never ever become financially independent. And why not? Is because they think that the three things that come naturally to mind from their history, from their teaching, from the normal way finance is done in the UK, that they have three that they would be able to think about, but they don't work them very well. So the first one is the, what I call home capacity. It's what do you live in? What are the environs around you, like your garden and so on? What, what do you, what could you do with that space that could generate a revenue stream for you that's permanent and would be flowing ongoing? Now, I'm not talking about property you don't live in, I'm talking about the property you live in, because most people have a property. And in the end, most people don't do that. I'm not saying you should do it, but you could do it. So you could create rent-a-room schemes, 7.5 grand, tax-free. You could, you know, use, I live in the South East, said, people in Wimbledon will rent out their houses in the summer. People who've got big gardens, they'll often build something in the bottom of the garden and work from that. including yoga instructors and other instructors, know where? I've got, one person who's built a wonderful garden room and she's a teacher of yoga. And instead of turning up and doing the teaching, she just puts videos in the room and people turn up and pay a subscription just to go in. I mean, there are some amazing things that can be done with what I call home capacity, but most people don't. They discover it when they get old and they downsize. Hmm. Too late. Right, that's not the time to do. Second is pensions. Almost everybody's got a pension. Now the word is gray, the word is dreary. They're already reaching out for their cappuccinos to get an injection of caffeine because they're going, you're not going to talk about pensions, Kevin, you? Well, you have to because it's the mainstay of retirement planning in the UK and almost everybody's got one through their job, through their, you know, and now it's obligatory. So it's increasingly becoming an important part of somebody's plan. But the problem I've got with pensions that everybody's moving lockstep, they're all doing the same thing, putting their money into the stock market, giving it to a financial institution to manage and hoping it's going to do okay. Now, even if they do okay, when are they going to be financially independent? But when they retire? Well, that could be in their 60s or 70s. And then what happens if you retire with a pot of money you believe is enough and the stock market crashes? Then instead of being set for life, you're now uncertain for the rest of your life. And instead of having in a nest egg and feeling that, you're cracking eggs in your nest to live, feeling insecure. And that insecurity breeds a lack of confidence and an inability to teach anybody of the next generation anything because you haven't done a good job. So that's the problem with pensions is most people don't know how to turn their pension into a recurring income stream, but I do. And I'll share that with you in a minute. And the third, and then we'll take a pause, is uh people invest money. They have money in cash, money in Isis, money in markets. Well, same problem with pensions and investing is the same, that everything is linked to the stock market. Now there is a recurring income that's happening there. The big problem is it's in the reverse direction. That it's the financial institutions that are taking that money and charging typically between one and a half and two percent for the privilege of managing it. It doesn't sound a lot, but if the market gives you six and you get two, you're passing to somebody else, then a third of your money is going to somebody else who gets paid before you, gets paid even if you lose money. Now I like a joint venture. do like a collaboration, but I'm not sure about that one. So in my life, I've helped people to discover that AI is massively driven the cost of money down and institutions using technology, but they keep the retail value high. In other words, the price high when, you know, with a few hours of time, you could learn how to manage your own money at a fraction of the cost, maybe 0.25. So if someone's paying two when they could be paying say 0.2, they could be paying eight, nine, 10 times more money than they should do. And therefore, if you could keep that money and compound that money over time and learn some skills around investing as well, including options, including how to turn that into a recurring income, then there are so many different ways that you could do better for yourself than just trusting that somebody else knows more than you, because they wear a nice suit and they operate at a Mayfair. Hmm, absolutely. Well, my god such wealth and knowledge Kevin those three pillars already and um You know to be completely transparent. I am one of those girls at the moment who is learning about investing I'm at the beginning of my journey um Loving it. Absolutely loving it um and I am that person who who? Did believe did believe that I didn't know as much as a financial advisor and there was a time, and to be fair, I have actually enjoyed working with them, I have enjoyed working with them, but there was a time where we had to move some money very, very quickly out of the business in order to be tax efficient, as it were. and do employees pension contributions. And so I employed a financial advisor. And then from there, they have been investing for me in uh funds, know, different, depending on risk, you know, risk, appetite and things uh from one to four. And it has gone well and it has gone well, but you're right. So I have these conversations with other women, for example, who say, well, actually, I'd rather just invest myself. I don't want to pay a financial advisor. And for me, I think it depends on the certain person because we want people to at least start and for me starting it gave me the confidence to give my money to somebody else to help me to get me to a certain point and then when I learn I can then go on because it's I think what happens is that it's easy for women say to other women you don't need a financial advisor you don't need anyone you can do this yourself but I think actually although they might say that to themselves and they might believe it the actual doing and the actual actually taking part is the bit that really stops them because they get in their own way and so it's like a seesaw act of saying yes use your own money and yes save money and invest yourself but for me I don't mind admitting the fact I think it's a positive thing to say that I actually did lean on a financial advisor to begin with when I was starting to learn because it just gave me that little bit of a leaning block and confidence as well. Yeah, well, let me say that, you know, I'm a professional financial advisor by training. So I am an IFA. So I understand the needs uh and the skill of an IFA. And from time to time, what they're bringing is distinctions and differences in knowledge that can really help. But money managers, they are not. You know, so you don't need in my view. OK, so you can disagree with me. Anybody can. I don't believe everybody needs to pay someone a retail price to manage money that you could manage or have managed using exactly the same software, exactly the same systems. Just you may not know that's exactly the same. It's not the knowledge they're bringing. It's they've got access to a system. Well, you can buy the same system online or through a platform or through some bit of technology that is easily accessible and available. and you can almost go to an advisor, say, what would you recommend I do? Okay. And they do a risk score and you've just demonstrated that they could say, these are the funds I put in. Okay, fine. I'll pay you a fee for giving me that advice. And then you could choose to have that managed without them. They don't need to do the managing. They could do the job of the creation of the system for you and then move away. But of course most don't because They value their business, they value their own recurring income based on receiving that income from you. And nothing wrong with that if you're getting good value, nothing wrong with paying for value at all. But I'm just not certain that if people want to be wealthy, that delegation that very quickly can turn into abdication doesn't take too many years before you just keep allocating and giving and not taking that responsibility. So I think... uh Nothing wrong as I say, I'll repeat that to have an advisor, but advisors rarely teach. They don't normally teach you anything because the teaching of you removes the income stream from them. So I vowed never to have that conflict of interest, really, and to teach people what to do for those who want to and they can learn and there are so many places they could get that teaching. It's not that I'm trying to profit from the teaching. I'm trying to show people they can get taught or They can collaborate with others and there's so many women in investing. Investing in all sorts of markets, whether it's the cash market, the stock market, the bond market, the gold market, the market for crowdfunding. You know, I'm not trying to make it inaccessible by using those things, but each market is really easily available to learn a little bit. And it only takes a few hours to determine whether that sort of issue is for you. So whether you want to allocate your money into the stock market, that's fine. If you want to allocate the money uh and manage it and get involved so you're making more regular decisions than just an annual review, that's fine. But I still think even with that knowledge, it's still virtually impossible to become financially independent with that knowledge because the market's too volatile. The market removes value as quickly as it gives value. And of course there's no recurring income. Because if you think about this, if you put money into the market and you say you've got a fund that's worth 200,000 and it goes up to 300,000 and then it goes down to 250, where's the recurring income that you can bank on? It just isn't there because the compounding doesn't happen simply by leaving it there because the market can fall and remove it just as quickly. Mm. That for that reason or for those reasons the over focus of pensions and stock market I suggest there's a balancing act of play between not delegating but doing and doing all the ownership and control that comes from the other pillars. So I'll touch on those if I may. Well, should we, you know, I was just thinking, should we just take just a pause on this? We've done, we've done three. Cause I think this could actually be a really lovely ethos, actually the whole way through the whole podcast. But I just want to just take a pause, pause there, Kevin, for two things. So the first thing I also want to say just to the listeners, cause I think this is important is. When I'm on my investing journey at this moment in time, I tell you the questions that I have both with myself, my financial advisor, my accountant, like everything like that is, you know, they're asking me, Athena, like I'm 34 years old. So I'm 34 and they're saying, right, what is the plan? You know, what money can we put away that you don't need to touch for 10 years? What money do you need immediately accessible to you? And what money are you happy to leave for say five years? And so we come up with a plan. We say, right, I can put this money away, put it away for 10 years, put this away for five years, but I need an emergency pot. I need easy access to this one. They go, right, great. And when you actually plan your life and you plan what it is that you actually want to do. So for example, I really want to buy a place abroad. So they're like, right, do you want to buy a place abroad using the cash from the business or do you want to buy a place abroad using the investment that you're going to be making? And then we have that conversation and we say, right, well, where's that money going to come from? And when we create this plan and structure, that's when you can then go backwards and start looking at it and go, right, how do I think that I want to put my money? So for example, it might be that I've actually got at the moment money in a Chase savings account, for example, that's got a boost on it at 4.5%. It might be that I've got some of it in something that I don't want to touch for 10 years and like, you know, a compound interest. It might be I've got something quite high risk, like in a Polaris 4, which is a very high risk kind of like a bond. but it's almost like diversification as well. So I just want to say before Kevin carries on, just a little bit of a top tip from me is start thinking about what it is that you actually want in your essence and what do you need now? what can you leave for a rainy day in whatever year's time um and then start looking at that and start looking at where you can position things. So that's just a little bit for me too. And also the other thing to say is when I've got my business at the moment, the main thing I'm really looking at is employees contributions with pension and where we can actually be moving money out of the business into the pension contribution in order to be really tax efficient as well. And that's something that I've been able to do quite, quite well in because, Kevin, please correct me if wrong in this I don't want to get this wrong so please correct me my understanding is that you can do the employees contribution from the business up to sixty thousand pounds a year is that correct yeah So contribution, it's interesting that there's lots of things, there's lots of interesting tips and things that you can learn, just little distinctions that can make a big difference to how you plan things more effectively. So for example, if you're an employee, your limit in pension contributions is whatever you earn. So if you earn 50 grand, you can pay in 50 grand. You're not going to your height because that'll be all your money. So it's always going to be less than that. Whereas a business, it's not income taxes, corporation tax, saving the tax that companies pay on profit. And if you've got a lifestyle business, a business that you're not intending to sell, and I guess we'll come back to business in a second, then there's no reason why you can't maximize your pension contributions provided and get up to 60K irrespective of what you earn. And most business owners pay very, very low wages themselves and take dividends. Well, dividends is not a contribution, dividends is what you get after profit. So the more you can pay in, the greater the impact on the tax reduction so that you've got more money for the future. However, I'm going to, I'm going to take, yeah, hope you don't mind, but I'm just going to take a little issue. I get your point and I fully agree with it. I call it a POM or a peace of mind fund. What's your peace of mind fund that number one, Depending on where your income stream comes from, we'll guarantee that no matter what happens to that income stream, whether it's a job or a business or a lifestyle, you know, that if something interrupts that, which really means interrupting you, you've got enough money to keep yourself going for a healthy period of time. Whatever that period of time is for you. Generally speaking, I say two years, give yourself, you earn 50 grand, put 100 grand away. That way, if something goes wrong, you've got two years. to work things out, you've got two years to sort things out. I'm not gonna talk about insurance, that's another conversation on another day. I'm just gonna talk about building wealth for now. The issue I've got, the question I would always ask is not start there, but start with the end in mind. And the end in mind is wealth. So what level of income? So in other words, if I just throw a question out to your audience and say, I want you to imagine, I want you to do a budget. I'm not interested in a budget, but give a sense of feeling of how much money would you need every month that just flowed into your bank account, just flowed in, just kept coming. It wasn't interrupted. And that would give you at least a level of comfort that all your bills will be paid. Right? Whatever that number is, is it two grand? Is it five grand? Is it 10 grand? What's that number? Now that's the number. that should be your starting objective to get your recurring income to that level. So if it's a job, for example, then you know that if you once you've got all the income that you need to pay your bills completely covered, then you can give more time to building wealth because you've got enough recurring income coming in to at least cover those basic expenses. The second level, that's called financial security, by the way. So what do you need to be financially secure? For most people that I deal with, and I'm not judging anybody's income, it tends to be in the sort of 3 to 5,000 a month range. Okay? Then, what level would give you the life you need? The life you would choose to live? The holidays you want, the things you would want, putting aside the cash that you need for rainy days and for other things, what's that level? And once you've got that level, and for most of the people I deal with, it's about 10 grand a So how do you get to 10 grand a month? Well, you can't do that within a short space of time. So get the security first. Then you can work by adding more pillars to be building to financial independence. And as I said earlier on, and I'll repeat it, with the right fit, with the FIT, the right amount of finance, the right amount of interest or passion, and the right amount of time, which is always the challenge for people, anybody can be financially independent within five years. Would you, if you think about the question, would you prefer to be set for life in five years or invest in the stock market and hope you might be okay in 35? I'd rather be set for life in five years. It's a completely different mindset and that mindset can only start to happen when you get the clarity of understanding where recurring income comes from. Number one, what is recurring income? Number two, where does it come from? And we talked about three and those three of home capacity, your pension investing are the weakest three. Right, the weakest three, okay. Right. not be focused there. Right, okay, they're the weakest three, right. So in that case, Kevin, let's go do our celebrations and then let's carry on with these pillars because if they're the weakest three, I wanna know what the rest of them are and get the rest of the four. just before we go into it, as always, we do celebrate with girls and property and I do not want to get so fixated on this that we miss out on our celebrations. They're always part of the podcast. So what are you celebrating at the moment, either personally or professionally? Well, I'm celebrating the the announcement of a brand new, higher level wealth building involvement called the family wealth fortress. So once people become financially successful, and we'll come back to that, then they built their wealth is then how do you protect it with the right structures? And how do you pass that on to the next generation? with the skill, with the elegance that just makes it so seamless and involves the next generation. Now I can do that because I'm older, right? If you're 34, you're not going to do that because that's not what you're ready for. So this family wealth fortress is the equivalent of almost a family office, which they have in America, where you've got a completely holistic completely focused plan on the wealth of a family where nothing is overlooked, everything is optimized and the whole thing is interdependent like an ecosystem. It's not possible to miss anything. It's not possible to not review something because you've got all the team in the same place speaking entirely on behalf of that family. It's like if I call myself when I'm speaking to clients, that I'm the equivalent of a family wealth GP. And I have a Hippocratic oath to myself, which is only to diagnose and give guidance on what makes the family that I'm speaking to wealthier than they were before. And no conflict of interest, no commission, no taking of recurring income, only the allocation. And there's so many things you could do. I could keep going for hours on the things you can do to minimize leaks. to keep more money, minimise tax and the biggest one, most pernicious one of all, and some of your followers will no doubt be thinking about this as well, which is the inheritance tax that's coming. And particularly what is coming for those people with pensions in 2027, which is just going to massively increase the amount of IHT that's taken and paid by families and... Inheritance tax is paid by the unprepared. Because it's, and the reason we're all unprepared is because we do our tax returns. Right? We do our self assessment return, do our corporation tax return if we've got business, but we never do an inheritance tax return ever because it's only done when you die. So you have to get the clarity. It's a point I keep making. Get clear on everything. Then when you clear on what the IHT bill would be, had you died yesterday, then you can work a plan to get that to zero. So you can get your inheritance tax bill to zero. Yet when we start off doing it, some of our clients are going to have, their kids are going to pay millions. You know, because they're successful people, but they just were focused on earning the money, building the property, building the business. They're not thinking about. how to minimise that tax later. So, that was a long answer to a short question about celebration. I am so pleased and proud of that. And to be honest with you, given where I am in my own life, which is, you know, at a point where I'm thinking about my own legacy, this will be my swan song plan. It will be my last plan to build something for other people to follow. So we're inviting a hundred families. to become part of that and we're guaranteeing their results. So for the right people, it's invitation only, so nobody can buy it. It's not a program. It's nothing like that. So I don't have anything to offer, but I'm pleased to share it with you because I only launched it on the 25th of February, which was the day before my birth. Oh wow, Kevin, I love that. Yeah, celebrate your birthday as well. I absolutely love that. And do know, it's a conversation that have with my mum, like all the time, nearly every day, because she has her whole life, she is massively into her pension. Hugely, she's obsessed with her pension and she's been paying into it for, you know. however long and she's always talking to me about um inheritance tax and how it works and all of this and I would love us to almost be able to have this conversation to learn more because I know it's one of the biggest fears that she has is the inheritance tax and it's lovely actually because I live in a household, I'm very lucky with my mum, where live in a household where we talk about money often in a really healthy positive way. I must say that's rare. which is amazing. There's no shame in our family regarding money. It's very open conversation. It's very much about how much can we keep, how much can we do? Whereas other families I know aren't quite like that. And I'd encourage, and as you've done, Kevin, to encourage people to talk about this because I think it is so important. So what a beautiful, beautiful celebration. I have loved that. It's one of my favorite ones in long time, actually. I absolutely love that. Thank you for saying so. Yeah so okay Kevin carry on then so number four of recurring income for wealth generation where are we number four? four, five, six and seven, I call them the entrepreneurial pillars. The entrepreneurial because it means you've got to think like you're running a business. You've got to think about wealth like it's a business instead of thinking about it like an investment. So you create a business in your mind. And actually, we encourage everybody to name their business so their wealth becomes named. like Wheel and Family Wealth or Dobson's Doe, whatever it would be, know, it's giving names. Dobson's Doe, you know. And just think about it because you bring fun, you bring logos, you bring emblems, you get the kids involved when they're younger. When they're older, they become part of it. As the baton passes to the next generation, they're perpetuating something they can get behind rather than an investment plan that they don't follow. number four. Property portfolio. So generating income from property. Well, we don't need to talk about that because you all know about that. mean, crumb, you know, that's the very essence of your audience. And that's fine. So we don't need to talk about that too much. The next one is recurring income businesses. So how do you create a business that doesn't just generate profit, which you then can't predictably know it's going to be there? the following month or the following year. How do you create a business that has recurring income? And there are a number of ways, only four, that you can use to create recurring income. And I'll give you a couple. One of those would be memberships and subscriptions, for example, which I'm sure again resonates with your audience. And how do you do that? And another one would be the recurring nature of the delivery of a product or a service, for example. Yeah. So I look for those and, you know, there are uh ways to buy businesses that are not very sexy, but actually good recurring income businesses. In fact, one of my clients just bought a business which delivers equine food. You know, why not? Because who wants to go and pick up the bags to give the horses, you know, just ship it out automatically. And the one I subscribe to is wine. So I get wine on delivery. Lovely, very nice. shops and buy it anyway. Business with recurring income. The next one, intellectual property. Oh yes, we love a bit of IP. So IP, how do you turn what you know, how you repackage, repurpose, redistribute your knowledge in a way that has attraction and that can link to the business or it could be separate as well. We don't have to be book writers or songwriters. Everybody's standing on a mountain of value, but it's often because they're looking away from it, just not really revealed itself. But there's IP in everyone and we take time to try and discover what that is. And then the final one is joint ventures. the collaboration between two or more people with a view to making a recurring profit. And how do you do that? And that's often the combination of finance, time, IP. It's that combination of things where people are bringing leverage to each other. And of course, you know, we see a lot of that within the wealth builder community. And I'm sure in your community, too, that people just love to collaborate. and you can do that in a way that you bring something that somebody else doesn't And I think that's very powerful and it brings enormous amount of fun and pleasure to doing it, if chosen well and done with the right due diligence, putting that uh point well made, I guess. But there's all the seven and you need probably three or four in order to be completely financially independent. And I'll touch on one very briefly. which is not really a pillar, but it's it's a leverage point. So you know how I said, and you talked about pensions and pensions being probably the one of the biggest ways people build their future wealth. But if you can turn your pension into a pension that can do business, property, intellectual and joint ventures, you're bringing your pension to be an entrepreneurial point of leverage. And that do we do that, Kevin? Right, that's the sass, come on! Okay. the linchpin, the keystone in wealth building for people who've got pensions but just don't really understand them. So it's possible without getting too technical in the words, the words are very clunky because they were invented in 1973. And everything in 1973 is adate. But the benefits are outstanding. So in simple terms, Instead of a pension being for one person, your pension, your mum's pension, a pension, you turn it into a family trust fund. Now it sounds complex, but it isn't. We do it. So instead of having one person's pension, we now have husband and wife, husband and wife, grown up kids, brothers, sisters, older generation, younger generation. So you can imagine the collaboration of pooling money. Now what's the benefit of that? Well, because it's a pooled fund, it becomes under your complete control. So with the right bit of knowledge and the right bit of guidance, you can say, well, actually, if me and my husband put our money together, and he's got a hundred and I've got a hundred and I'm being simplistic, that's 200. We can now pool our money. What do we want to do? We want to do property. Let's use our pension to buy property. So you're allowing your pension to reflect the business you want to be in rather than the business of the financial advisor. You're choosing the direction. And we've helped now, I've got a community now, 5,000 people who've taken control of their pension using the very weird SaaS, the small self-administered scheme. By the way, people love to Google that one and they love to look at ChatGP and I've I find I spend at least an hour a month changing and challenging what chat GP gets wrong. So this is, there is some complexity, but we've got a community of 5,000 people who are all sharing. I wish there were more women. Only 25 % of our SaaS owners are female. Almost always they come from the business owner male, almost always. But more women are catching on, especially in property. rather than get confounded by complexity, just imagine, get clarity. How much money is in my pension pot? If I could choose to build wealth with it, would I put it in property, my business, intellectual property or joint ventures? And if you do any of those, the SaaS will be potentially a good fit. It's not really the ideal thing if you want to do the stock market because you can do the stock market on your own. So you don't need a SaaS to do that. However, you know, you could, there are some things you can do in the stock market like trading options, which allows you to, to, be a bit more um involved with the stock market. And you can choose other markets like cryptocurrency or gold, which you can't have in a conventional pension. So lots of things for Perhaps your audience to find out a bit more about. ah you a couple of questions? Is that okay? Yeah, sure. because these are questions that I've had with some of the community members. I just know maybe some of them. also, as I said to you at the beginning of this podcast, you know, I'm still learning about this myself. So I have my own questions that, and I don't want anyone ever to think that asking any questions ever a silly question. So I'm just going to lead the way and ask even if I think it's a silly question. So the first thing is, is I've heard on the grapevine, almost like a myth, if you will, that if you're going to invest the SaaS, it can only be used for like construction. properties as such or commercial properties I should say sorry is that true? okay please explain please Okay, so If you think about SaaS as just a bank account, it's bank of self, right? So you put your money in as a bank account. What can a bank invest in? Well, it can bank and invest in commercial property. Of course it can. So SaaS can own a commercial property. So we can buy your business premises. So instead of paying rent to a third party, you pay rent yourself. So there's some lots of benefits in owning commercial property. However, there is a rule within SaaS. which is called a uh SaaS loan back, right? So get rid of the word SaaS, small self administered scheme. It's a loan to your company. So let's say you've got a property company and you've got a SaaS set up, then whatever's in the pot, including the pooled money of any family members you want to be in there, maximum number of people in there is 11. So it's lots of scope for family members. So let's say you pooled some money. So it's more money than you had in your own individual pot. You can lend up to 50 % of that to your company. So if your company does residential property, you could buy residential property with it. What? I'll give you a little tip. So one of my clients was looking to buy a dilapidated property, which you can't get a mortgage on dilapidated property. We know that. So he used the SAS to lend himself the money. Bank of self have a conversation with yourself. You pay 1 % over base for the privilege of borrowing the money. So no bridging fees, no fees, just one over base. What's base three and three quarters. So as we speak today, so how much can you borrow that for? Four and three quarters, that's cheap. Then you're lending it to yourself, paying yourself back, and then you can use that money and buy a piece of property. Now you buy the property as he did, dilapidated property, pay cash for it. Pay cash out of his pension. His company now owns the building, does the refurb, and then gets a normal mortgage when it's refurbed and it's now mortgageable. Pays the SaaS back. Who owns the property? He does. does. Oh my god. And that's not even a commercial property, that's just the standard... was a standard dilapidated, vital property currently now yielding I think about a thousand a month, but a thousand a month to him in his 40s or 50s, not I think he's in his 40s, doesn't matter how old, but not in his 60s. So you're getting access to the money. so he can actually access that money early. Can he access it at any time when putting the money into a SAS pension? anytime. So even if you're 34, you can get access to money in your pension that you probably can't touch until you're 57 at 37. So I could, if I set up a SaaS and I put my money into SaaS pension, I can access that money when? When can I access it? Now. 57 you don't have to wait for that 50 you can access from a low yeah not all of it 50 Okay, say that I put 50 grand in there, so I'd get access to 25 % at any given sort of moment that I needed it. And I could then, or say that, let's give a better one. So what you've just given an example of, so say that I had, let's go easy. Let's say I had like 200,000 that I put in there and I wanted to buy a house up north so I could take out 100,000. The house I've got to buy is 97,000. I could go buy that unencumbered flat out and then I do a refurb on it and then pull it out and whack it on a mortgage using the Yeah, so in true Bob the Builder style, yes you can. my God, that is mind blowing, Kevin. That's incredible. Why? Okay. Let me ask another question then if I may, because I think this conversation might help quite a lot of listeners out there. So I recently went to my financial advisor and I had this conversation about, about, you know, SAS and I've had this conversation with lots of people actually. And their question, they asked me a very specific question and their specific question to me was, do two questions. Do you plan on sharing a pension at this moment with anybody else? and I said no it's just me at this moment in time they said okay they said are you interested at this moment in time in investing in commercial property and I said at this moment in time no I'm not interested in investing in commercial property and they said right in that case we'll set you up with a SIP self-administered pension instead of the SAS so why potentially might they have said that to me because I went I haven't invested in a SAS I've invested in a SIP instead what's the main differences Okay. Well, the main differences are the fact that a SAS you can turn that to do what you want to do. And a SIP you're still in somebody else's vehicle. So you don't own the vehicle. With the SAS you own the vehicle. So the advisor is wrong. Right, right. and that's a tough gig here to say somebody you put your trust in is actually wrong. that, but they are wrong. And if they were to come on a call, I'd show them they were wrong. But it's not deliberately wrong. They're not doing so to pull the wool over your eyes. Although here's an interesting question for you then, and then I'll come back and answer your question. If say for every thousand schemes we set up, how many of them come from financial advisor recommended. So a financial advisor saying, hey, you guys should do a SAS. Here's a referral to wealth builders to help you set one up. I'll give you the answer. It's zero. It's absolutely zero. Now, there are three reasons for this, Number one, it's not on their training. So a SAS is regulated by HMRC and a different organization that regulates big company pensions. So it's a little bit of an oddball because it sits outside the scope of your retail pensions. So your workplace pension and your personal pension rather, and your SIP, sit with the FCA, which means you're a retail investor. You're not a professional investor. So they're not trained on that because all of their guidance is given on that. The second, is, I'll try and be simple, new laws that came in in 23 meant that every financial advisor has got to take a stake and take some responsibility for your outcome. It's called consumer duty. Right. So if you're a financial advisor, I'll be your financial advisor for the purpose of this and say, so Athena, you want to go and buy residential property? I don't know if can, but you can. but he didn't know because he's not trained or she. um What if you buy the wrong property? What if your tenant doesn't pay the rent? What if this, what if that? Can I take responsibility for your outcome? I can't. I can't know what's going to happen because it's outside the scope of my ability. So I can't advise it. And I can't get PI cover. Right. to advise you. So if I don't know about it, I can't get PI and if you go and do a SAS, you're going to take income away from me. Right. Figure those three reasons and go, are they going to tell me anything about SAS or not? No. they did see me away from SAS. Yeah, and I'm not saying they're bad advisors. I'm just saying that the only way to find out how to build wealth is to think outside the retail box. If you're in a retail box, treated like a person who doesn't know what they're doing and needs their hand holding at every single point, then you're not going to be wealthy. The only way to be wealthy is to think like an entrepreneur. Yeah, definitely. is an entrepreneurs pension. think we've done SAS's service today. So just to double check with you, so obviously if my money's in a SIP at the moment, I obviously can't access that until I'm retirement age. And that money's in there now. Like it's done, it's in there, finished. But because I presume you can't, once the money's in a SIP, can you move it into a SAS, Kevin? Pop the bill, Yes, you can. Oh my goodness. Okay, so I could actually get back on track and I could potentially take my money and move it into a SAS then. Oh, Kevin, this is so exciting. Isn't it fun when you're learning on the hoof? Oh, that's what this podcast is, by the way, everybody knows I get psychoanalyzed on this podcast. I get taught on this podcast, but that's what makes it fun. makes it fun when you're learning and that's what it's about. Okay. Brilliant. Wow. Okay. So we're learning about recurring income guys, which we've just learned about the seven pillars and we've just learned about a SAS and how we can use this. Now, Kevin, I have one question for you because I know that all the girls are going to want to ask me this question. Will you come into the Girls and Property community and do a live session for us where the girls can all come together and learn from you about building wealth? have do it. I already said, you know, I have a, want more people, more women to take that responsibility and not feel, not feel as if pension is somehow impenetrable. And that they have to give it to somebody else. You just have to be willing to learn, but the price of learning is freedom. It's financial independence. That's the price of the learning, because you cannot be financially independent. from a place of no learning. It doesn't happen by accident. and give it to their legacy, give it to their children as well, teach their children. You know, they don't teach this in schools, do they? They want to keep us all at a certain level and, you know. oh at a certain level. But I don't think anybody is going to take the responsibility because if you think about teachers, know, wrong with teachers, but teachers don't know anything about pensions. mean, their pension is safe and guaranteed, so there's no financial risk at all. So what are they going to know about that? No, but you can teach kids and kids can join at 18. So kids can come in as trustees at age 18 and we teach the kids how to get involved and to, we run something called a SAS simulator. We sort of teach the kids almost like how to drive a car, to drive a SAS and be involved in it. So they can help mom and dad or mom or dad or whoever to make decisions and get involved in that almost as the stabilizers before they eventually receive the baton when mom, dad or. whoever is finally passed. What fantastic idea! That is a brilliant idea! Because think outside the box and hopefully you can tell I'm an out of the box thinker. You are, you are, I love this. I can't wait to get you in the community. I have so much more to talk to you about. Wait till you meet the girls. They are going to literally be asking every single question under the sun, but in a wonderful way. And um I've really loved today's episode. I think this is going to be the one of many to come, Kevin, because I'm so, so like my, my soul's purpose. So I've been learning a lot, lot this year about what it. not just this year, because we're only in March, and last year, about what it is I really want for women in general. And it extends way beyond property. I know we're called Girls and Property, but it extends beyond that. It's about literally what you're doing, Kevin. It's about wealth building and it's about how as women, we can encourage each other to actually build wealth for ourselves and our families. um you know, obviously International Women's Day was in March and we spoke a lot about this notion, which baffles me, Kevin, which is, you know, Less than 60 years ago, women weren't even allowed to have their own mortgage. They had to have a man's name there. You know, it still upsets me that you've only got 25%, for example, actually learning about this in your own community. And I think that when you bring the right people together of people wanting women to be empowered and to learn, and the genders come together, it's a fantastic place to be because that's all I want. And I guarantee you, this is going to be one podcast that people are going to listen to again and again with their notebooks, with everything. And like I said, ladies, it really will be one of many to come and we'll get Kevin into the community to do some live sessions as well. But Kevin, I've got one final question for you, but of a different type of question, but it's a nice way just to round up this podcast. So the reason I'm gonna ask you this is because this question was asked to me on a podcast, I think about six months ago. And this question absolutely stumped me. I think I was, which is rare for me, I was silent. then. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was silent for about two minutes going what is the answer to this question? And I've asked it to a few people and I've always loved hearing the answers to the question And I'd love to know your response. So my question to you Kevin is What's one question that nobody has ever asked you that you wish that somebody would have asked you? Yeah, OK. Yeah, that is one that would stump because I speak to people all the time like a financial GP. I hear all the questions. I think the question probably would be. What would be? the way to get my kids at the very earliest age to have some explanation or some involvement in the concept of money, but in an age appropriate way. In other words, let's teach them young. Let's not wait till they're 18. know, I was with my grandkids the other day and my wife, was doing some charity thing, she had some pound coins and she was going to be giving these bank on time. And they were like, what's that? Oh my god, they didn't know what a pound coin was. They have never ever in their lives seen money. How old are they, your grandchildren? Well, yeah, five and three. even... well, I'm not... Well, okay. We're not looking to score points here about how clever we were as kids. What we're looking to say is, think children today see everything literally on tap. You tap for this, you tap for that. You you even go to some countries, you can't even pay in cash. And if you asked a kid now to, um so, you know, Finley is the boy's name. So Finley, if I give you a pound coin, what's a pound coin? If I give you a pound coin and I go and buy two packets of crisps for 30p, how much change would you give me back? They'd have no clue. And it's like we're educating our children in a completely different direction. And in fact, probably we're not really educating them in the financial direction at all. And if we don't, who is going to teach him? Trump? question. know, social media, who's going to teach them? Because in the end somebody has to. Because you don't get financial responsibility without somebody teaching something. So that would be it. I hope that's a useful one. Awesome. I love that answer. I absolutely love that. And you're so right, know, and I think that, you know, so a lot of listeners who listen to this are mums, for example, you know, and dads, but mainly mums. And, and they always talk about the fact that they really want to educate their children as well. You know, they want to educate themselves and then they want to educate their children. And I think that this is so important and we are, we are losing what we had when we were younger. You know, when I grew up, for example, at Finley's age, you know, that's what I used to do for maths, right? We used to say, right, you've you've got five, you've got let's say six pennies here and em this packet of crisps cost two pennies, right? One, two, right? Count your pennies. How many pennies have you got left? And that's how I was raised. You we didn't have mobile phones em and you're right. I think that that is a real thing that we need to get back to. And your idea of this car racing for the SaaS. I mean, I love that. I mean, do know what? I'm obviously older than 18, but I'm even interested in being like, right, put me in a car. Where are we going? Where are we going to drive for this sass? I'm like, I'm there. Brilliant. You gave me the job of making things fun, non-scary and accessible. You've done that. you have achieved that. And even I'm excited, even I'm sitting here going, right, I need to have a chat. I'm like, right, where are we moving this money to? um And again, I think it's okay to say that. I just want to say, like, I think it's okay to say, look, I'm now thinking about money. I'm now thinking about where I'm putting it. I'm now thinking about how to make more money. Like, not enough of us just say that and say that, you know, it's okay to talk about money. We love money. Money is a good thing if done in the right way. And I think more of these conversations should be had around money. So I really, really appreciate it. you are. you if you're a good person, more money will make that reflection of good. If you're a bad person, it will make that reflection too. But I think the responsibility of understanding it is critical because, you know, we all have to pay for things through life. And increasingly, that money's been taken from us and having the responsibility of understanding how it works, how to build it, to keep it and ultimately for those of us who care about that part, the transference of not just money to be squandered and spent, but to make our children future custodians and stewards of money is the key. I'll leave you with that. So poetic, I love that. What a great way to finish this episode. Kevin, thank you for today. I've genuinely, absolutely loved it. Where can, like so many people, I do pre-warn you, lots of people are gonna wanna get in contact with you. So where is the best place to find you if they've got any questions or just wanna say hi? Well, I love LinkedIn connections. Yeah. So anybody can connect with me, Kevin Whelan, and just say, Hey, I heard you on the podcast. Or if you want to check out the company first, go to wealthbuilders.co.uk. Beautiful. Thank you so much. And as always guys, I'm Athena Dobson underscore official and girls and property pod on Instagram. You know, let me know what you thought of today's episode. Let me know what you want to learn more about. Let me know, you know, if you want to get Kevin back on and we can have these conversations. I'll pop the dates. I'll talk to Kevin. I'll pop dates for what day Kevin's going to come into the community to do a, a bit of a, you know, a workshop as it were. Cause I really want to get everyone. as possible financial literate as we can. And then just a reminder for a couple of you. So the Girls and Property retreat in April has now sold out. It sold out two months in advance, which is amazing. But if you didn't get yourself a ticket, but you want to learn more about Girls and Property, then there's two ways to do this. The first one would be please head to our brand new website, which I'm so proud of, which is girlsandproperty.co.uk. You can check out ways of working with me and sort of the programs that I'm doing and the other events. um And then the other way is obviously to join our mailing list. If you go to that page and go down to our mailing list, you can then be the first to know about everything that would be coming up for Girls and Property so that you can get your ticket in advance um and go from there. And then as always, if you love the idea of the Girls and Property community, we're over 130 paid members now, um recurring revenue stream, my little membership, which I love. ah So yeah, so we've got the Girls and Property community. And we do amazing calls in there. It's built on the Circle platform. And then we get people like Kevin coming in to talk about, you know, investing and building wealth. We also get different strategies in there. There's a whole library of information from the last two years, because we do this fortnightly. So there's loads of previous content in there to learn about. Believe me, if you want to learn about a particular strategy, I guarantee it's in there. And if it's not in there, I guarantee you it will be in there because I will find somebody to talk to you about it. But if you want to ask any questions about that, DM me the word community and let's have a chat. Kevin, thank you for today. Like I said, one of many to come. Fantastic. So thank you. Great pleasure. Thanks for the invitation. No problem. Right, ladies and gentlemen, have the most amazing week, sending you loads of love. Let us know where you're tuning in from, what you're celebrating. Look after yourselves and speak to you soon. Take care for now. Bye.