The Retirement Café Podcast

Most of us don't enter our careers with the aim of retiring early, and our guest this week certainly didn't think early retirement would be an option when he stopped enjoying his career. Chris Mamula qualified as a physiotherapist in Utah but quickly realised he did not want to stay in the industry for 30 or 40 more years. When his wife discovered she was pregnant, Chris dived into the world of pe...

Family is something that most of us take for granted, especially as we get older and we start to rely on our children for help and support. But for some, they don't have that luxury. There are currently 1 million people over 65 who don't have children, and that figure is expected to double by 2030. But what does this mean? It means that over 1 million people will face struggles in everyday life th...

In recent months, we have discussed the idea of ageing well and longevity a few times. This week, we bring the topic back but with a slight twist. Joining me this week is Dr Daniel Levitin.  Dr Daniel Levitin is a neuroscientist, musician and author. 15 years after dropping out of Massachusetts Institute of Technology to follow a career in music, Dr Levitin realised he no longer wanted to be part...

Over the past couple of months, we have been releasing episodes in a new series called The 9 Accelerators of Successful Retirement Planning. The series covers the 9 steps in our Retirement Success ProgrammeTM which include: Life Priorities, Lifetime Financial Forecasting, Minimising Lifetime Tax, Protecting your Legacy, Estate Planning, Care Funding, Well-Crafted Investments, Asset Allocation, and...

Have you ever thought about where our money came from? We have! And so has this week's guest, Jacob Goldstein. Jacob is a correspondent and co-host at NPR – an independent, non-profit media organisation based in America. He co-hosts the radio show and podcast Planet Money, in which they try and explain the economy in a fun and relaxed way. In 2008 Jacob was a successful journalist working at the W...

Over the last couple of months, I've shared a few podcasts from our series called 'The Age of Resilience', designed to support and promote the agenda of The Longevity Week, which took place in November. This week I am delighted to continue the conversation on resilience with my guest Anna Dixon. Anna is Chief Executive of The Centre for Ageing Better, whose mission is to help everyone enjoy a bett...

Before Christmas, we released the first episode of a new series called The 9 Accelerators of Successful Retirement Planning. The series will cover all 9 steps of our Retirement Success Programme which include: Lifetime Financial Forecasting, Minimising Lifetime Tax, Protecting your Legacy, Estate Planning, Care Funding, Well-Crafted Investments, Asset Allocation, and Staying on Track. In this firs...

We all know about physical, emotional and psychological abuse, and we all like to think that we could spot it happening. However, one type of abuse we rarely consider is financial abuse. This week, I am joined by my friend Michelle Hoskins, founder of Standards International, which sets standards across the globe for financial services. Over the past year, author and speaker Michelle has branched...

In last week's episode, I took time to reflect on a few things that I have been grateful for this year. I shared some personal things, like being able to spend more time with my family over lockdown, and some global good news stories that didn't quite make it into the news - thanks to pandemic craziness. As we head towards the end of 2020, and with the dawning of a new year in just a few days' tim...

This year has brought with it hardship and constant struggle. We have introduced a new lexicon into our everyday vocabulary with words such as COVID, social distancing and furlough being part of our daily conversations. But Christmas is a time for celebration and joy, so it seems right to take time and reflect on what a year it's been. In this week's episode, I want to share with you a few persona...

Over the years I've helped well over a hundred couples plan for the retirement they desire - and the retirement they deserve – and during this time we've created a clear framework for what needs to happen for clients to be able to retire with confidence, clarity and choice about how they spend their retirement. We call this the Retirement Success Programme and it's made up of what we call 9 accele...

Having gone straight into financial services at the age of 18, Catherine Morgan found herself in a managerial position at the young age of 28. But among the difficulties of managing those who had been in the business longer than she had, she also had the guilt that came with the £30,000 debt she had racked up.   In a time where she was suffering from low self-esteem, she believed that money could...

Dr Josie Perry is a Chartered Sport and Exercise Psychologist.  Josie's company Performance In Mind works with those in sport at all levels – including Olympians – and sometimes people on the stage or in high profile jobs, to help them overcome their barriers to success so that they can achieve their goals.   Author Josie talks about the moment she realised just how much of a difference her mindse...

A couple of weeks ago we shared the first in a series of podcasts designed to support and promote the agenda of The Longevity Week, which took place between the 9th and 13th of November. The title of this series is 'The Age of Resilience', which was the theme of this year's event.  The Longevity Week is an initiative created by The Longevity Forum, whose co-founder Professor Andrew J Scott was my...

Tracy Blick is the Managing Projects Coordinator at Christchurch Food Bank Plus, where I live here in Dorset. The Food Bank helps people who find themselves in crisis all of a sudden and cannot afford to buy food to feed their families. The demand since the coronavirus impact hit has been incredible. In 12 weeks, the Food Bank has handed out around 6,000 food parcels, the equivalent to the number...

This series is designed to support and promote the agenda of The Longevity Week, which takes place this week - between the 9th and 13th of November. The Longevity Week is an initiative created by The Longevity Forum, whose co-founder Professor Andrew J Scott was my guest on the 100th episode of the podcast . The aim of The Longevity Week is to promote dialogue and test ideas on the future of longe...

Have you ever wondered how the financial experts and pundits who advise on how we should invest our money do, indeed, invest their own? An unprecedented new book from behavioural finance expert and founder of the financial wellness platform Shaping Wealth, Brian Portnoy, and co-founder and chief executive of Ritholtz Wealth Management, Joshua Brown, changes all that. In 'How I Invest My Money: Fin...

Series 6 'The Story of their Lives': Episode 2. Mark spent nearly four decades working in the law. Not intentionally. He studied law at college to give him three more years to consider what he really wanted to do. He then spent forty years planning an exit, even though exiting law is difficult in practice. Eventually, Mark realised that thinking about retiring from the law wasn't productive, so in...

Seven years ago, Shannon McLay was working as a financial advisor with a big corporate bank feeling disheartened about the work she was during. The pro bono work she was doing helping people who couldn't really afford her advice proved to be so much more fulfilling. So Shannon founded The Financial Gym. Based on a fitness-inspired approach to planning and managing your money, The Financial Gym aim...

50 year olds today could be looking at another 50 years of life ahead of them, so it's the perfect time to ask "What's your 20 year plan?" Do you find that question liberating or frightening? Stuart Lewis, founder of Rest Less, joins me on the podcast to share the work that he is doing to inspire today's generation of over 50s and 60s to get the most from life. Rest Less focuses on lifestyle, lear...

I am honoured to be joined by the pre-eminent  authority on longevity and co-author of 'The 100 Year Life', Professor Andrew J Scott, to celebrate the 100th episode of The Retirement Café podcast. Andrew J. Scott is Professor of Economics at London Business School and a consulting scholar at Stanford University's Center on Longevity. He is best known as the co-author of two groundbreaking books th...

In today's episode we are revisiting a topic that I know many listeners are concerned about, and that's making sure your voice is heard and understood at the end of life – even when you lose capacity to do so yourself.  Many things are outside of our control when it comes to how and when we finally shuffle off this mortal coil, but there are ways in which we can at least make our wishes known.  Sa...

Mark Fitzgerald works for Vanguard, an investor-owned, leading asset management company. He is Head of Product Specialism in the ETF Stream. He joins me to talk about ESG investing.  ESG which stands for Environmental, Social and Governance, but Mark explains what each of these terms really means. He also outlines where the selection of ESG or other funds fits within the broader investing process....

Katrina Moss is one of those people who has had a really varied career both working for other people and for herself. She created four businesses of her own over the years in completely different sectors, so has shown her tremendous adaptability. Friend and client Katrina shares the story of her life with a focus on the last decade, which was far from a gentle transition into semi-retirement. She...

Steve appeared in episode 87 back in July to discuss State Pensions in general and more specifically his recent report that explores whether thousands of older women are being short-changed on their State Pension. You can listen to that episode here .  If you're not familiar with the name, Steve served as Pensions Minister in the coalition government of David Cameron for 5 years. In this second ep...