Rewirement podcast

Angellica Bell: Hello and welcome to Rewirement, the podcast where we can help you make the right connections to create your brightest financial future, brought to you by Legal & General. 

I'm Angellica Bell, and throughout this series we've been talking to all kinds of people who have had questions on money and savings, and getting them answers from experts. This time we're doing something slightly different. We're talking about a challenge that all of us are facing, the cost of living crisis. Prices, interest rates and inflation are all going up, and there are more challenges ahead. How do we cope with these extra pressures, but still keep on track with financial goals? Things like paying off your mortgage, or even having enough saved for your retirement dreams. If something's got to give, how do we decide what, and what might that mean in the long-run? 

Well, as I said, we've been getting answers from an amazing team of experts all series. And to help us out with some of these questions, I'm delighted to say that three of them are joining me here in the studio today. So let's do some introductions. 

Sarah Astley is with us, who was our advisor who talked to Bola in our episode about making sound financial decisions in your 20s. She's a consultant with Mattioli Woods, and provides her clients with a full range of long-term strategic financial support. 

Sarah Astley: Hi, Angellica. 

Angellica Bell: Hi, Sarah. We also have Pete Komolafe, who helped Jessy in our episode focusing on dealing with personal finances while you're running your own business. He's a YouTuber, podcaster, and TV contributor, and also a qualified financial advisor on a mission to help people create financial security. 

Pete Komolafe: Hi, hello. 

Angellica Bell: And if you're a regular listener, our final panellist will be no stranger to you. Matt Frain has been giving us insights throughout the series on all of our various topics. He's Advice Director for Legal & General Financial Advice, and he's also a chartered financial planner with nearly 20 years’ experience. 

Matt Frain: Hi there, Angellica. 

Angellica Bell: Well, welcome all three of you. We wanted to get you all together to discuss the kinds of issues that are really top of mind when it comes to facing this rather uncertain future. So we've talked to advisors who are dealing with clients and their concerns every day, and we've spoken directly to people about the things that are worrying them most. And from that, we've come up with a list of key questions to pose to you today. 

So, one of the most obvious issues that's come out is when someone says their money's tight at the moment, they want to reduce their monthly savings and their pensions for the short-term, and they don't know what to do. So what would you advise them? And we'll go to you, Sarah. 

Sarah Astley: Absolutely, everyone has to think about how they spend the money that comes in. And something that is repeatedly being asked is, "Shall I reduce my pension provision now that I'm paying in. Save a little bit of extra money." But I would say there's a few key points that you should consider before absolutely committing to that kind of strategy. 

In the first instance, you would have to check that your workplace pension arrangement actually allowed you to either reduce or to stop your pension contributions. But assuming that it does, you should also consider whether a reduction in your employee pension contribution will affect how much your employer pays in for you, because ultimately that's free money that you are benefiting from over the long- term. 

But then the other point that I would just say to kind of ponder, is that with pension contributions you benefit from tax relief at your marginal rate. But also if you are paying into a pension through salary sacrifice, you also save National Insurance contributions, and potentially also student loan repayments. So actually you might find that by reducing or stopping your pension contribution, your net take-home pay doesn't increase by that much. 

Ultimately, if you do decide to reduce the amount you put into your pension, you've got to consider that it might impact on the amount you ultimately have at retirement, so you may have a reduced lifestyle as a result. You might have to continue working for longer, or you may have to pay in more to your pension at a later date, so it'll cost you more to cover that shortfall. 

Angellica Bell: What you're saying basically is research, think about the implications before you do anything drastic. 

Sarah Astley: Absolutely. 

Angellica Bell: You guys are nodding your head as well, aren't you? 

Matt Frain: Yeah, completely agree. 

Pete Komolafe: Absolutely. Yeah, she hit the nail on the head really. I think it's a very important decision to consider. There are knock-on consequences potentially down the line. So make sure you know upfront what you are potentially sacrificing for that decision right now. 

Angellica Bell: Let's focus on homeowners right now because they are worried. Interest rates have gone up, that means mortgage payments have gone up. What would you say, Matt, to anyone who's got a lump sum of money? Should they be trying to reduce their mortgage, or help cover the higher payments? 

Matt Frain: Yeah, it's an interesting one, Angellica. I mean, reducing debt is almost always the most sensible thing to do. At some point you do have to pay off your debt, and your mortgage is quite often the biggest debt that you have. So there is a lot of sense in that. And paying off a debt like a mortgage, a long- term debt early, can actually mean that the overall amount that you end up paying back over your lifetime is vastly reduced, so it can be a really sensible option. 

And when you do pay back something like a mortgage or make an early repayment on a mortgage, you normally have the option of keeping the term the same but reducing your monthly costs, your monthly spends, which can be really helpful, especially in the current climate where you might want to free up some money. Or you could keep the monthly payments the same but reduce the term, which means that the mortgage will be paid off sooner. It can be a very, very sensible option. 

Angellica Bell: It's interesting, because I'm actually thinking about this at the moment because obviously savings aren't doing anything. And I'm like, "What shall I do? What shall I do?" 

Matt Frain: Yeah. And another thing to consider is how much are you getting in savings, versus how much are you paying in interest on your mortgage. You can do some fairly quick maths to go, "I'm getting X% on this, but I'm paying X% on that." And you can see which is the higher and make a decision off the back of that. 

Angellica Bell: I've just done the math and I know what I'm going to do. 

Matt Frain: You're very welcome. 

Angellica Bell: Okay, Pete, I want to move on to you. We've had a question come in that goes along these lines. It says, "My outgoings are now quite a bit higher every month so something has to give. I'm currently saving 100 pounds into a cash savings account and 100 pounds into a stocks and shares ISA. Which should I prioritise?" 

Pete Komolafe: Okay. When you look at a stocks and shares ISA, fundamentally it is an investment, so risk comes back into the equation. The question is, do you need that 100 pounds? Cost of living is quite high right now. It's likely to continue to go up because of the underlying factors around this. If you're investing 100 pounds into the stock market and it turns out, "Well, actually in six months’ time, I could probably do back with 50 pounds of that 100 pounds that I've been putting in, I need some of that capital back," then a stocks and shares ISA probably won't be the best place for you. Because again, you need to be able to be comfortable to put that in for the longer term. 

In answering that question I would encourage the person to sit down with their finances and try and have a look at, right, do you have enough of a cushion, an emergency fund, for example. If something were to happen tomorrow, you needed cash, do you need any part of that 100 pounds? If the answer to that is no, then possibly yes. A stocks and shares ISA would be great for you, but again, how long are you looking to invest for? Are you happy with the risk? Do you know what approach you're going to take? If the answer to it is, "Well, actually I'm not really too sure. I think things might get a little bit tight," then maybe having a look at putting it in cash where you can readily get hold of it, just to give yourself that cushion. 

The idea and the fundamental approach that I always say to people is, balance is so important. Balance doesn't mean investing all of the time. Yes, you want your money to work hard for you, but you have to ask that question in the context of what's going on. Where do you find the balance? Where does the balance sit? 

Angellica Bell: And if you are in a position where you need access to your money, make sure you can get the access. 

Pete Komolafe: Absolutely. 

Matt Frain: Yeah. I mean that's vital for emergency funds. They have to be easily accessible. And just to follow on from Pete's point, you need to think about what these asset classes are designed to do. Cash is there to keep your money safe, certainly from a nominal position. You put 100 pound in, 100 pound will still be there. It won't fluctuate depending on markets. So if it's for emergencies, for short-term plans, that's what it's there for. 

If you are willing and able to invest for the longer term, that's when you should start looking at things like stocks and shares ISAs, where you've got the potential for that longer term growth. 

Angellica Bell: Well, Matt, actually, now that we're talking about stocks, the stock market has fallen, so has the value of pension savings. If someone was on track to retire in 15 years, say for instance, would they still be able to do this? 

Matt Frain: They should be able to. I think the important thing to remember is that they are long- term investments. If you are looking to retire in a year, then there's different considerations. If you're looking at, in your example, 15 years, well, that's a long, long time. And any long- term investment, which a pension essentially is, will fluctuate. It will go up and down in value over that period. But they're designed for long-term growth so you ride out those downturns and wait for the upturns to come back through. 

If I was in that position I wouldn't be panicking, I'd be letting the markets do what the markets do best. There are some plus sides potentially to fluctuations in markets. If you're still contributing to a pension or to something like a stocks and shares ISA, when the markets have fallen, unit prices have fallen so units are cheap to buy, so you are buying units that are a low price. And then when the markets recover, you benefit from that through the growth. 

Angellica Bell: Okay. Yeah, yeah. 

Sarah Astley: I think it's important to recognise as well that volatility is completely normal when investing. If we think about the S&P 500, which is the top publicly traded companies in the US, it falls 14% on average every year. But despite that movement has delivered positive returns in 32 out the past 42 years. 

Angellica Bell: Oh really? 

Sarah Astley: So it's completely normal. 

Angellica Bell: Yeah, yeah. 

Sarah Astley: The peaks and troughs, it is part of investing. 

Matt Frain: It worries people when they see the value of their pension or investment falling, that's a natural human reaction to it. But the thing that's really important to remember is it hasn't really lost value or grown, they're just paper losses at this point in time. If you've got a long time horizon, you're not touching that for 10, 15 years, what matters is what it's like in 10, 15 years, not what it's like today. 

Pete Komolafe: We talk about this 15 year horizon and thinking about, "Well, would I be able to make it in 15 years’ time?" If you've seen a really good financial advisor, you know that's already built into the plan. So you have a little bit of comfort knowing that actually, we plan for this. It's already in the plan to a certain degree. You know what contingencies have been put in place to help you manage that. 

And I think that's where the value of advice really shines through when you are working with a really good advisor to give you that transition through the journeys, the peaks and the troughs. 

Angellica Bell: Let's move on to you now, Sarah, and talk about cash savings because, well, as we’ve highlighted here, they’re earning barely any interest these days. Inflation is high, as you know. 

And it means that a lot of people's savings, that they've put blood, sweat and tears into, is valued at nothing for them. Do you know what I mean? Because you always want to make a return. What would you suggest to people who are feeling that at the moment? 

Sarah Astley: I think, firstly, it's important to recognise this is exactly what inflation does. It erodes the value of our purchasing power for money over time, and it's one of the biggest risks of holding cash. It's in the news at the moment, it's really prevalent, it's very high. But we always have inflation, it's always there. 

But what I would say is, it's prudent to hold some cash savings as an emergency fund in the event of unexpected costs arising. Typically I would suggest holding three to six months of essential outgoings. It just provides that little bit of peace of mind. It's about researching the best place for that money that's going to make it work as hard as possible. 

However, if you are saving for a medium to long-term objective, I'd really recommend thinking about investing. The precise strategy will depend on different factors, including how much can you afford for that capital to go down in value because that will impact how much risk you should sensibly be prepared to take. But timeframe is also really crucial for that, in that the longer the investment timeframe you have, essentially the more risk you can afford to take because essentially you can wait out those periods of volatility. 

Essentially, what I'd say to just go back to the question, is really consider what you're trying to achieve with your savings. And if it's beyond the short-term, if you've got an emergency fund, then commit that to the longer term because ultimately, over a long investment period investments will typically outperform. 

Angellica Bell: I guess though risk is a word that gives people chills in uncertain times, isn't it? 

Pete Komolafe: It does, yeah. Absolutely. I think, look, it's one of those fundamental principles that you have to front up and be willing to talk about. Because even if you do go long-term strategies into the stock market, it will go up, it will go down. 

The question is how comfortable are you with that concept, capacity for loss? Are you willing for it to go down 10%? If you are, then you'll be okay. But if you're not, it does raise a really important question of, okay, so what's the alternative? And I think that's the conversation around risk that a lot of people need to front up and need to become really comfortable with. 

Matt Frain: The thing with risk as well, Angellica, is that it's in everything. So people would think there's no risk in cash. Well, of course there is, just look at inflation right now. Inflation's getting very close to being in double figures and that's eroding the real value of any cash holdings you've got. 

So risk is everywhere. It's just about how you manage that risk, and whether you're, like Sarah said, planning for short-term, medium-term, long-term. It's about managing your risk in the right way against your objectives. 

Angellica Bell: That's a good point. It happens all the time, isn't it? 

Matt Frain: Absolutely. 

Angellica Bell: Every aspect of life, isn't it? Now there's a lot of talk at the moment about cryptocurrencies. It's always in the news, isn't it? Bitcoin, should we do it? What advice would you give to anyone, Pete, who is thinking of taking that plunge? 

Pete Komolafe: This is the question I get all the time. Look, I think if you look at cryptocurrencies over the last couple of years, you can't get away from the fact that it's been in the headlines quite extensively. And there are stories of people who have made X amount of money and X amount of millionaires on crypto. 

Angellica Bell: And that's attractive, because you're thinking, "Let's makes some cash." 

Pete Komolafe: 100%. Well, who doesn't want to make any money? Everybody does. But I think with Bitcoin and cryptocurrency specifically, for anyone who's going into it, it's important to acknowledge what it is for what it is. It is a new asset class, which is extremely risky, which fundamentally amongst most circles doesn't really do anything. It's based on sentiment more than anything else. 

If you are looking at Bitcoin and thinking in the context of where it is right now, sub 20,000, I mean, four months ago we were at $65,000 a coin. It is extremely volatile. Make sure you're doing your homework. If you're going into it thinking you're going to be a millionaire overnight, I hate to break it to you, but no, you're not. Unless you are very, very, very, very lucky. And if you are, I'll travel back into a DeLorean and come back with a Sports Almanac. I'll send you the tips as well. But please be careful, it's very, very volatile. It's not a sure bet, it's extremely risky. 

Matt Frain: I would completely concur with what Pete said there. I mean, if you invest in any one single company, any one single asset class, you're taking a really high risk approach. Most financial advisors would tell you to diversify to spread your risk. 

My view on things like Bitcoin are, if you are prepared to lose that money, then absolutely go for it. It doesn't mean that you will lose that money, you might get lucky, it might go well. But don't risk money that you're not prepared to lose on something that is so volatile. 

Sarah Astley: I think on that point as well, I think it's important we note that the government doesn't have a clear stance yet about cryptocurrency because the market's too new. It doesn't fall under our compensation and regulatory kind of regimes, so you've got no safety blanket there if things do go wrong. 

Angellica Bell: Sarah, we've had a question that's come in along these lines, saying, "My monthly outgoings are higher than my salary now and I've budgeted as much as I can. I'm in my late 50s, so I could access some of my private pension savings to give me a lump sum, which I'm tempted to use to clear my mortgage. Should I dip into my pension pot to help?" 

Sarah Astley: Yeah, this is a situation that a lot of people are talking to me about at the moment, particularly in the current heightened cost of living crisis, if you like, in terms of things being more expensive. And so looking to alternative sources of income to help with that short-term position. 

Now absolutely, you could consider accessing pension provision to reduce your outgoings. Again, it's just worth understanding the consequences of doing so, in terms of perhaps what capital that might leave you to help support your income needs when you do retire. Now state pension is age 67, and qualification for full entitlement is based on 35 years of qualifying National Insurance contributions. You can obtain a state pension forecast, or if you're a bit younger, have a look to see how many National Insurance qualifying years you've already become entitled to. But this will just help in terms of understanding how much your private pension will be supplemented by state pension further down the line. And it helps with that kind of cash flow forecasting. 

A couple of points to be aware of. If you do access pension income as well as tax-free cash, you don't have to do both. You have to draw tax-free cash to take income, but you don't have to then start that regular provision if you don't want to. But if you do, it will limit how much you can then put into pensions going forward. In this scenario of the question, Angellica, that you mentioned, if they are still working, the likelihood is that perhaps contributions are still being made. So just to be aware, they could draw the tax-free cash, but anything in terms of an income will affect the ongoing contribution capacity. 

And then finally, when you draw money out of a pension arrangement you're essentially increasing the value of your estate, unless you spend that money. Now it might be a consideration therefore that if your estate is larger, you potentially then might become subject to inheritance tax if anything might happen to you. If inheritance tax might be an issue, if you have a large estate and potentially you're thinking, "Well, my pension is easily accessible where I might have other wealth that isn't," it's just something to perhaps be aware of. Because when you're clearing your mortgage, you are actually just increasing the value of your estate because otherwise that debt would've brought it down. 

Angellica Bell: Now, Pete, I want to move on to you. We've had a few questions that came up that were focused on life insurance policies. And people take out these policies when they take out their mortgage or certain times of their life. And they never think, "Oh, I'm going to have to think about maybe not paying into it because I need to pay my mortgage or stuff." What would you advise people if they're thinking of cancelling their life insurance to get more money? 

Pete Komolafe: This is a really, really difficult one. And I think if you need to cut things, that is a natural position to be. I can completely empathise with it. But I think the main thing I would encourage anyone to do is to think about the purpose for the policy in the first place. 

Let's take for example life insurance, and you've got a mortgage. You've taken out a certain amount of money, call it 200,000 pounds, to cover you if anything would happen to you if you were to die. Now, granted things are tight right now it's very, very difficult. If you cancel the policy and God forbid something did happen to you, you haven't got any coverage. So the question- 

Angellica Bell: You'd be in a worse situation. 

Pete Komolafe: Exactly. Well, the people that you leave behind will be in a worse situation. 

Angellica Bell: Exactly, yeah. 

Pete Komolafe: The question then becomes, well, which one is more important? Now let's just say nothing happened to you. You cancel the policy, you were able to save yourself 10 pounds, 20 pounds, 40 pounds a month, then that's great, that's fine. But what you've now done is you've cancelled an insurance policy, that if you decide to take out two years later on, will possibly cost you even more. 

It's a difficult situation to navigate, but I would always encourage people, think about what it is that you are looking to sacrifice in the short-term. It might cost you more money in the long-term. And you have to start asking the question of, what was the purpose for it in the first place. 

Beyond that, look, people have cut a lot already at the moment. If you can find other things to cut, cut those things first. I had a conversation with someone who had to cut the Disney for the kids. It's not nice, but in replacement of a life insurance policy, really I think you got to think about the priorities and what's really important. 

Angellica Bell: Yeah, it's not comparable. 

Matt Frain: Yeah. I mean, I completely agree. And I think insurances are a funny thing, because in many ways you never want an insurance policy to pay out because it means something's happened to you. You've crashed the car, or you've had a flood at home, or you've got ill, or you've passed away. But if those massive life events do happen, these insurance policies are worth their weight in gold. 

So what Pete said is absolutely spot on. Look, we all sympathise that times are hard. And if people are struggling right now, they will have to make sacrifice and will have to cut certain things. But really think long and hard about cutting something like an insurance policy that could be so valuable to you if the worst did happen. 

Sarah Astley: I think it's about how we perceive it, isn't it. And for me, life insurance is not a discretionary spend. I need that peace of mind to know if anything were to happen to me, my loved ones won't be under financial pressure at a time of grief. It's how you perceive the life cover, or any insurance really. Would you stop paying your house insurance or your car insurance, life cover is the same kind of importance. 

Pete Komolafe: Is that old adage, it's better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it. 

Sarah Astley: Absolutely. 

Angellica Bell: Yeah, 100%. 

Pete Komolafe: And for something so important, being covered by an insurance policy, you have to think about what happens if you didn't have it. 

Angellica Bell: Exactly. I had someone come up to me when I was just shopping, just said they saw me talking about life insurance and they were like, "I can't really afford it." Got it. A month later, breast cancer in their 20s. 

Pete Komolafe: Yeah. 

Angellica Bell: Matt, you're a bit of a guru on pensions, so I've got a question about the high bills, high cost of living, as we know. And if someone's got a tight pension, is downsizing an option for them? So buy somewhere cheaper and use the extra money to help cover their costs. 

Matt Frain: Potentially, yes. First thing I would suggest to people is, check whether you've got any entitlement to any benefits, particularly pension credit. It's quite frightening, but one in three pensioners who are entitled to pension credit, who would qualify for it, aren't claiming it. 

Angellica Bell: Really? That's a lot of people. 

Matt Frain: That's a huge amount of people who could be getting government support and aren't. And actually, the Department for Work and Pensions are really trying to push that message. And at Legal & General we are really supportive of that, and we're trying to get the noise out around that and get people to check their eligibility. And it's quite easy to do. You can actually just go on to www.gov.uk and use their pension credit calculator to see whether you are entitled. Or indeed, if one of your loved ones is entitled. 

In terms of downsizing itself, downsizing is a very credible option. You can buy a smaller property perhaps, a lower value property, use the money that you've made from the sale of your home to help fund your retirement. It can make absolute sense for some people. And I suppose if you're in the position where your home's got too big for you, maybe your children have flown the nest, then absolutely it can make sense. 

There is another side to that. A lot of people are emotionally attached to their property. They've lived there for a long time. They like their neighbours. They want to stay put. 

Angellica Bell: The familiarity as well, as you get older. 

Matt Frain: That's it, absolutely. For a lot of people, downsizing, whilst it's an option, it isn't necessarily what they want to be doing. And for those people there are alternatives. You can look at things like later life lending through a lifetime mortgage or through a retirement interest-only mortgage. With things like later life lending you can actually release equity, release money from the property that you live in, but remain living there. You don't have to sell up and move. 

So for those who don't want to downsize, there are other options to stay in the home, but still release some equity, some capital, to help yourself. 

Angellica Bell: Now, Sarah, I'm going to come to you next. What would you say if someone were to ask this question. "I'm due to retire next year and have pension savings of about 500,000 pounds. But if this year is anything to go by, generating an income for retirement from stock market investments will be a rather rocky ride. Would an annuity be a better bet?" 

Sarah Astley: I think this question really goes to the heart of the situation at the moment that we fired ourselves in, in terms of understanding how much capital we need when we retire to make sure that we can have a lifestyle and an income to last the rest of our lives. 

I think in the first instance, to explain a little bit more about the differences between an annuity purchase and pension drawdown. Annuities haven't been compulsory since 2011. And in 2015, there was an introduction of pension freedoms, which essentially enabled you to access your pension pot however you desired. Whether that was to retire and draw it all out in one go, whether you wanted to draw a lower level of income, whether you might decide to stop a pension income at one point and restart it a later date, it provides a lot of flexibility.

However, this route does come with the responsibility of ensuring that your pension capital lasts for your whole life. It could affect the level of pension you could draw sustainably over your lifetime. 

In comparison, an annuity purchase involves liquidating all of your pension capital and purchasing a guaranteed income for life from an annuity provider. It provides peace of mind and security to know that it doesn't matter how long you might live for, you will always have that level of income coming in every month to pay for your bills. 

I think it's important though to understand or recognise that it's not one route or the other, you can elect to use some of your capital to purchase an annuity and use the rest for pension drawdown. Or you could alternatively go into pension drawdown for a number of years and buy an annuity at a later date. So it's not a decision that you have to make it a specific time. Albeit, once you have bought an annuity, you can't then revert back to pension drawdown. 

Pete Komolafe: I think this is probably one of the biggest and most important decisions anyone at retirement stage will ever make, how do I go about getting a sustainable income from the pot of money I've worked all my life to accumulate? And as just been mentioned there, they are two different things. 

And the important thing is, I would say get advice. Work with an advisor who can actually help you plot your path, because you don't want to give away 100,000 pounds of your 500,000 pound pension pot with no death benefits and all this wonderful stuff and be able to pass it onto your beneficiaries, your family. You want to be able to make an informed decision, so working with an advisor is crucial for that kind of decision. 

Matt Frain: Yeah. I mean, both Sarah and Pete have given fantastic answers there I completely agree with them. I’m pleased Sarah mentioned that actually it's not an either/or situation, so that there could well be an argument for maybe using annuity for a baseline level of guaranteed income, and then potentially using income drawdown for flexibility above and beyond that, for instance. As Pete says, particularly if you've got a sizable pot, as we're using in this example, then the cash flow modelling that a financial advisor can do for you could be worth its weight in gold. It could be really, really important. 

And I'd also go further, not just for people with larger pots of money, but for all people. There's a fantastic free service that Pension Wise run, which gives people free guidance and gives them information around their options at retirement. And given it's free, why not? I think it's a really good service. Other than an hour of your time, why wouldn't you take that out and really think about the decision that you're about to make? 

Angellica Bell: Well, thank you all for some incredibly useful, important advice. You've been amazing. And just to round off, perhaps I can ask each of you to give one final tip when it comes to dealing with these next few years. Something, that if people forget everything else you said, they should remember that one thing. So let's start with you, Sarah. 

Sarah Astley: Oh, I'm glad I get to go first. I think I would recommend that you make sure you have an emergency fund. It just provides peace of mind, it provides financial resilience, because circumstances can change. 

Angellica Bell: Okay, Pete? 

Pete Komolafe: For me, I think it's really, really important to acknowledge when you are facing difficulty. We're talking about money here. It's very, very difficult to front up. We don't get taught stuff in school. As adults, we automatically assume we should know stuff, when actually we have no business knowing the stuff that... 

Really, to be honest, don't feel embarrassed to seek out help when you need it. It's not a sign of weakness. If anything, it's a sign of strength and everybody needs help. There's nothing wrong with seeking a financial advisor or getting a podcast like this to give you the insights that you need to take the next step towards a better position than where you are right now. So don't feel as though you're failing if you need help, you're not. 

Matt Frain: Yeah, and my final thought on this is just take your time. Take your time, do your research, and speak to an expert. These can be big, sometimes complex, sometimes irrevocable decisions. 

So don't rush into them. They can have a huge impact on your life. They can have a huge impact on the life of your loved ones. Do your homework, do your research. And take advantage of the many professionals who do this for a living who can support you in making the right decision. 

Angellica Bell: Great tips there, thank you so much. Sarah, Pete, Matt, you've been wonderful and we appreciate you sharing your insights and expertise with us. And don't forget that wherever you are in life, you can find lots more resources and information on Legal & General's website. Just go to legalandgeneral.com. 

Now this is the last in our current series of Rewirement, but you can find all of our recent episodes and our two previous series actually on your favourite podcast platform. I'm Angellica Bell and it's been a fascinating journey, and also a real privilege hearing about the financial dilemmas people are facing and discovering more about how to deal with them. I'd like to say a special thank you to all our brilliant participants who have shared their stories with us so openly, and also the experts who have passed on their knowledge so willingly. I hope you've learned a lot, I definitely have. So for now, goodbye.