Kevin Mountford, Co-founder of Raisin Uk with advice on savings
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 Yes, I mean, at Raisin we've undertaken a number of kind of research projects, and very
00:06 often looking at kind of financial awareness and stability. And as you say, the last one
00:12 we've undertaken shows some really worrying concerns that millions of UK individuals are
00:19 struggling around finance. I think there's a number of things here. I mean, on one hand,
00:24 there seems to be a lack of awareness. So general terms that we use in the media like
00:29 inflation, recession, interest rates, over 50% of those that we approached didn't even
00:37 know what they mean. That in itself isn't overly problematic. But the fact that one
00:42 in four reckon that their finances are unstable, and they don't feel that they have the knowledge
00:48 to empower them to make the right decisions. That's an issue.
00:51 Yeah, one thing that's interesting is one in five are not saving any monthly income.
00:55 So what advice can you give to encourage better financial saving and investment habits?
01:00 We all live to our means, you know, I'm guilty of that, the same as everybody else. So I
01:04 think what you got to do is consciously try and put some money aside at the start of the
01:09 month, take a regular saver out as little as £25 over a year gives you a nice pot of
01:14 money. Now you might use that for emergency, but you might use it to kind of contribute
01:19 to something you want to buy. And I think as opposed to borrowing 100% of a purchase,
01:24 whether it be a holiday, a gift or whatever, I think it's nice to have a little bit of
01:28 money set aside. But yeah, I mean, as we looked at our research, the fact that people are
01:34 not saving, you know, a high number of people are not saving anything, then as we've seen,
01:40 you know, suddenly an unforeseen bill of £200, millions of people can't afford to pay it.
01:45 And that's where it's really worrying. The knock on effect is a physical emotive impact
01:50 that it has.
01:51 What would you say to people who perhaps have got a little bit more money and they are saving
01:54 towards a financial goal? What products would you recommend in that circumstance?
01:58 So again, it's difficult to generalise because we're all in different circumstances. I think
02:04 if you're maybe more affluent and maybe slightly older, and you're thinking about locking money
02:11 away, you generally can get a better interest. So you can still get around 6% on a one year
02:16 bond. What we've seen is quite a number of people looking for short term, three, six,
02:21 nine months, particularly if they've got an event or something that they're saving up
02:25 for. Because the thing is, the money's in, it's locked away. So you couldn't suddenly,
02:30 you know, have the temptation of drawing it out. But even people on things like easy access,
02:35 where they may want to be a bit more liquid and get a hold of the money, you can get over
02:40 it. Whereas the big banks are possibly paying you only a quarter of that. So the other thing
02:45 is things like notice accounts. I think they're disciplined approach because you have to give
02:51 a period of notice before the money comes back. So it's a bit more considered. But I
02:56 think, yeah, for a lot of people, likes of regular saver, putting little amounts away
03:00 often is a good approach to kickstarting your savings habit.