If you run your own business, one of the top things that we can do is learn to love money, get in contact with the money we've got, know what's coming in and out of our bank and get on top of those debts. It's really difficult to bring more money in if we're ignoring parts of our money story.
And I've been thinking for a long time now that I don't have a pension. I'm coming up to 40 and I don't want to be poor in my old age - I want to go on holiday, I want to enjoy things, I want to retire before 67 if I can help it! So I've been looking into pensions in more detail, because obviously if we're freelance then we don't have a company
paying into a pension for us. It's really difficult when you run your own business to put money aside for those things that are far in the future because sometimes we're just kind of hanging on in there with the money that we've got today.
So I wanted to share what I found with you. I want to tell you more about Lifetime ISAs, which are created by the government. ISAs give you the opportunity to either save for your first house or for your pension. You can put money into it every week and the beauty of this is that for every pound you put into this lifetime ISA, the government will put in 25p, which is like 25% interest!
Now obviously there is a lot of information about there about ISAs and of course, if you want to know more, go and speak to somebody in financial services. Alongside the ISA, I'm also using an app called Moneybox, which rounds up all the transactions I make on my debit card up to the nearest pound and then saves that extra money into the ISA for me. Plus, I can decide to put a little bit more money in that pot. So every week I know there's some money going into the ISA, and I know that for every pound I put in, that government tops it up!
Now, here's the thing. You can't get a lifetime ISA if you're over 40. I mean 40 isn't even old and there's so many people who are over 40 who don't have pensions at all, so I think that's pretty frustrating. And the government will only carry on contributing until you're 50. If you're like me and you're just under 40, you've only got 10 years to get the government to put those 25p’s in for every pound you put in. But hey, it's something isn't it? It's something towards the future.
And by just feeling like you're a little bit more in control of the money that's coming in and the savings that you're making, that's going to change a whole dynamic around money because you're starting to be in control of your finances and the future.
For me, this is a really easy way for that money to just disappear into the ISA account without me even thinking about it. If you want more advice go and speak to a financial advisor – obviously I'm not a financial advisor!
