Marriage & Money: Christian’s Final WealthTalk Episode

Transcript

speaker-0 (00:00.056)
We often see people who are not married, maybe partners, maybe living together, maybe being divorced. The first thing we say to them is, have you thought about getting married? And how romantic is that? A romance decision to save the tax and not have any sort of down on money stuff and all that jazz. But joking aside, I think it's a valuable benefit that can protect the wealth for the next generation or the next level of recipients.

speaker-1 (00:26.936)
Welcome to this week's episode of Wealth Talk. name is Christian Rodwell, Memchip Director for Wealth Builders, joined today by our founder, Mr. Kevin Whelan. Hi, Kevin.

speaker-0 (00:35.63)
Chris, good to be with you again and well, you know, I have to say it's been what, seven years now since we started. When was the first episode?

speaker-1 (00:45.484)
19th of February 2019.

speaker-0 (00:47.98)
Yeah. Well, it's just over seven years. You've got the seven year rich now haven't you? That's what happens. We're turning into an old married couple, know. So for our listeners, we should let them know that obviously there's exciting news for you that despite your obvious age, you're a bit late to the wedding table, aren't you?

speaker-1 (01:13.59)
I am a bit, yeah, there's a few too many grey hairs now from when we first started.

speaker-0 (01:18.766)
I also have to say I'm just feeling a little bit under the weather. It's not that I've been crying in my beer because you're taking extended leave of absence and spending time getting married, doing all the things that a newlywed would do, but having a great time about it. think it's been a real joy and a real privilege to have worked with you for this length of time.

I'm so delighted for you, Chris. And I have met Naina. She's a lovely girl. don't know what the hell she saw in you, but anyway, we should talk about the pros and cons of getting married. I mean, I know you left it a little bit late. I thought he was going to be left on the shelf, old fella.

speaker-1 (02:01.358)
No, no, I got lucky in the end and yes, can't wait to get married to Naina in May. And yes, this will be my last episode or our last episode together, Kevin, take that break. And yeah, it's been great. So we did think we'd have a bit of fun today and we'd look at sort of the pros and cons of getting married when it comes to financial elements anyway.

speaker-0 (02:22.35)
Well, we'll put aside the obvious disadvantage of marriages or civil partnerships because we need to be PC. Wealth is a great divider. People don't always see eye to eye. That can happen and that's why we often look at wealth dynamics, don't we, inside the wealth builder membership to see if people are rowing in the same direction or sometimes rowing against each other.

those people who perhaps haven't seen their marriage through, for whatever reason that would be, marriage is a great wealth divider. But I think there are so many things to be said other than the personal thing for it. It just doesn't hurt to talk about some of the things that married couples can do that maybe they forget to do, that they could do, that would improve their

financial situation and certainly can improve the wealth building, the wealth protecting, the wealth transferring in the end. For those of us who've got children and people we want to leave, leave things to. So tell everybody when the big day is.

speaker-1 (03:36.43)
23rd May, that'll be in Leicestershire. And yeah, very much looking forward to it and looking forward to the honeymoon that will follow as well. lots of good stuff to prepare. Hopefully Mauritius, yeah, if that's still a safe destination, who knows these days where we can and can't travel. But yeah, that's the plan. So I love my beaches, moved down to Bournemouth obviously a few years ago. So many things have happened since we launched this podcast. You know, there's been births.

speaker-0 (03:47.694)
don't even know what you had for your honeymoon.

speaker-1 (04:05.368)
deaths and our marriage and working with all of our guests as well has just been amazing. many of them have been our members who have shared their own story of achieving financial independence. And I think that's what I'll look back on as one of my proudest memories, really.

speaker-0 (04:20.167)
the case and I think it's cause for celebration for more than one reason. And delighted actually to be able to, you know, give the old podcast a bit of a shake up as well. Obviously the old geezer is still going to be here a while, but they're not guests where I think there's a complexity to it that I can bring out. But a couple of our members have volunteered to step into the breach, haven't they, to be able to almost be guest hosts. I know they won't be as good as you, Chris, don't they? But then, know, that happens with all great transfers, right?

There's a transfer of the baton passes over from one to the next. And obviously from a wealth perspective, often from one generation to the next, but the podcast, we hold in high esteem and it gets good reviews. And by the way, if you haven't done so, Chris has put seven years of his life into this. If you've been meaning to do a review, but you just haven't.

Could you just send him off with a nice review to say, Chris, thanks for all the hard work. Now, you know, wish you well. That would just be amazing. And where would people go and do that Chris?

speaker-1 (05:33.228)
Well, as long as it is a nice one, then you can head to wealthbuilders.co.uk forward slash reviews and that will link you to Spotify or Google, iTunes or Trustpilot. Any of those review sites we appreciate.

speaker-0 (05:48.312)
So before we reveal who the guests are, the guest presenters soon, which we could do the end, why don't we dive in and just have a bit of fun with, you what are the real values financially for being married? I mean, you're going to have some things of your own to take a look at in terms of getting to know your buying finances and so on. But are you picking out anything? I picked out seven just in my usual style.

The seven reasons why being married can make an incredible difference to your life and your wealth financially.

speaker-1 (06:25.966)
I think we have to probably start with the big one, which we've been talking a lot about recently as we've been building out the Family Well Fortress program and that's inheritance tax. And I think one of the biggest advantages when we get married is the transfer between spouses.

speaker-0 (06:40.812)
Yeah, it's an interesting one, that one. Obviously, the sad implication of that is people have moved on, people have died. But I do take your point that inheritance tax is transferable or the inheritance tax allowances are transferable. So we've got $325,000 each person and if you don't use it, it passes on to spouse.

There's the additional allowance for those of us who've got houses and kids. You don't have kids, you don't have the allowance. And we talked about that before, didn't we? We think it's a bit unfair. Couldn't leave houses to their nieces and nephews or anybody else, but they don't get the allowance. It's not right, but let's not get on a soap box today. 75,000 residents, nil rate band. So if you add the two together, 325,175 is 500, two times 500 for a married couple, all in civil partnership is a mini-quid.

So we know that a million pounds is a sort of a benchmark. And for those people who are over a million, we know family wealth fortress can serve them because inheritance tax is something you have to plan to avoid. isn't something that you can't just assume everything's going to be okay. You can't, because if you're in a million quid, you're going to be paying it, or at least your family are. So that transfer of the nil rate band and the residence nil rate is a very powerful.

Benefit. there's another inheritance tax link as well, Chris, in case you don't know, called BPR, which is business protection relief. So, you know, again, there are some, many of our members and clients are business owners, aren't they? Established business owners, property business owners, but for the trading business owners, not for property business owners. So anybody who's got a business that's trading and it's generating revenue, generating profits or generating a value.

Then if they don't sell it, but they transfer onto the next generation, then there's an allowance. that previously was only allowance for the business, but now it's actually allowance can be claimed by a couple. So it's basically it's two and a half million. So if you've got two and a half million times two is five million quid. So decent benefit, which can be passed on to a spouse. And I think that was one of the very few good things that I've seen.

speaker-0 (08:59.288)
coming out of being married. It's funny because when we do the, we started doing the fortress reviews, our shortened version of family wealth fortress. And the first thing we asked people to do is an inheritance tax calculator. Maybe you could put a link to that. Chris, anyway, got to make you work for your last one. So put the, put the link in and you know, if you think you're over a million, just go ahead and do that and it will crystallize where you are.

When we see it and we see they're not married, because the first question we have, are you married or have been widowed? It's another point because if you've been married and you died, your wife carries the allowance. If she's died, you carry the allowance. So there's a transfer on to the next. And we often see people who they've said then they're not married. Maybe partners, maybe living together, maybe being divorced. And first thing we say to them is.

thought about getting married. And how romantic is that? A romance decision to save the tax and not have any sort of down on one knee stuff and all that jazz. But joking aside, I think it's a valuable benefit that can protect the wealth for the next generation or the next level of recipients, whoever that is. I was watching a summary of the history of London

in 20 minutes online. Maybe I'll find it and get somebody else to post it because it's really, really good. And you just realize that if you take the history of London and you divide it into 20 minutes, everybody's a blip. know, Henry VIII is a blip, he's a mention for five, 10 seconds, you know? So we are all but blips in the end. And therefore we do need to do a good job to...

continue our best to give the next generation something so that they've got something to look forward to. And bearing in mind student debt on the increase and joblessness for graduates on the increase and increasing social media and false news and all the things that Elon Musk seems to be doing is really not filling me with confidence that the next generation are going to be receiving wisdom.

speaker-0 (11:25.838)
You know, receiving wisdom and a better inheritance isn't a bad thing, but that's not about being married. It's just good practice.

speaker-1 (11:33.528)
Following on, few more tax, excuse me, marriage opens up access to certain tax benefits that unmarried couples don't automatically get, one of them being marriage allowance, so transfer of unused personal allowance and all that.

speaker-0 (11:47.054)
It's only a small one for the kind of lower income. If you've got somebody who's not using their full personal allowance, is what's that 12 and a half grand can we'll take, then the tax saving, if you allocate that to a spouse is 250 quid. So it's not massive, but you know, no reason why if you are married, you can't use that. The other one I might mention Chris is capital gains tax. There's zero tax to pay on transfer of assets between spouses.

Whether it's a property asset, business asset, personal asset, anything. So, and I've used that CGT allowance many times and shared it with my wife and that's been a good thing. Now that allowance has got smaller over the years, but nonetheless, small things if used regularly can add up. So that's important. So capital gains, so there's no tax to pay.

when you transfer assets between spouses. So that's good. And it can also be good for business owners to know that they can employ their spouse in a business if that's appropriate, or in my case, very inappropriate. right, Chris, I've got to tell you this. I remember in, I don't remember, was in 1990. And I started off with my mortgage broking practice. Obviously you're bootstrapping everything, right? You're in your twenties. You don't know what the hell's going on.

And so, you know, asked my wife to come in, be an administration assistant. Didn't work out well. Two things seemingly didn't work out well. One, it was a mortgage broken practice and she struggled with the spelling of, how can you spell mortgage? That was one. She'll hate me for telling you that story. And the second one is, because in those days, of course, nothing was.

speaker-1 (13:18.946)
How did that work out?

speaker-0 (13:41.144)
There's no digital anything, everything was photocopies. So can you go and photocopy these mortgage applications for me? Well, I have to go out there with all those other people. So I think it was like two days she lasted. So I didn't employ, but now she's a shareholder, which means for obvious reasons that in businesses that make profits and we've got a number of those, then I can meaningfully.

give her a share of profit, which therefore, you know, makes up for some of those allowances. So I think she's happy enough, whatever it is though, I was married in 89, figure the number of years added to that. So it'd be 40 years in a couple of years time. So, wow, she's done well to keep me in check, think.

speaker-1 (14:27.958)
might tease her about that after a couple of bottles, was going to say a couple of glasses of champagne at the wedding.

speaker-0 (14:34.798)
I look forward to having a glass of bubbly with you up in Leicester on the wedding day and I'm really looking forward to that but I'm not wearing a sari.

speaker-1 (14:41.742)
That's okay. No, you can wear one of your finest suits and that will be good. Okay. So let's move through the list. So couples in general, certainly married, possibly give you borrowing power. So higher affordability for mortgages and potentially better access for lending.

speaker-0 (14:59.086)
That's certainly true and see that don't we with first-time buyers often pooling together. You don't have to be married to do that, but it can make a benefit. One thing where I think it is critical and I've got a sad story on that one is for those people who've got final salary pensions. So typically the blue lights, the doctors, the dentist, the firemen or firefighters as they're called. According to my wife's, my daughter's husband who's a firefighter.

believe it's called Fireman Sam. It genuinely is. Anyway, so where there's a spouse pension, if you don't have a spouse, the pension is not transferable. So we had a story in our wider family of a lady who is related on my wife's side, and she was a teacher and she'd adopted a daughter. And unfortunately, she was 61 when she died. had a teacher's pension from 60 to 61.

And the pension just died with her because there was no spouse. So I've definitely seen people who don't want to lose the pension sometimes stay legally married just to preserve the value of that pension. So if you've got a final salary pension, just be mindful of that and make sure you've nominated your spouse as a beneficiary as well, just for ease so something happened. But also equally be careful if you've divorced and you've got your old wife.

as beneficiary. So something changes in your life. You need to think about updating your will, change your nominated beneficiaries, take a fresh look at what's going on. And we know the divorce rate is high and joking aside, I'm not a casualty of that and you're brand new to it, but the whole thing is we know people don't we? know, communities in the North Plain base that have gone through that pain. And of course, some people would argue.

That's the downside of being married, isn't it? Because the pain of divorce can be a wealth degenerator, not a wealth generator.

speaker-1 (17:04.078)
Okay, so you mentioned one of the downsides, probably the biggest one is the divorce risk. But were there any other advantages that you had on your list of seven,

speaker-0 (17:12.76)
Well, we had income tax, corporation tax, capital gains tax, IHT, BPR for the business owners, spouse's pension and higher borrowing capabilities. So it touches all seven. I think it's a good enough, just fun run through to keep it light in our final episode and maybe just take a moment or two to introduce who's going to be joining us in your stead and doing that first introduction.

And so who've we got lined up?

speaker-1 (17:44.998)
up the mic for the first episode following this one will be Tracy Hilliard who has been a guest and a member of Wealth Builders. Tracy is also leading the Wealth Builders for Women community inside of Wealth Builders and yeah, really excited to introduce Tracy as one of our guest speakers and hosts and Bimbi Fernando.

Alien!

speaker-0 (18:12.27)
That wasn't a very good accent on my part, you get the point. She's a lovely lady and I've spent time with her. In fact, I mentored her for a while and super smart lady and I'm sure she'll give some great insights in a very first interview. Who's the other one?

speaker-1 (18:29.688)
Bimbi. So Bimbi is the chief financial independence following the tried and tested process that we teach. And he's a fantastic member of the wealth bills community and really loves to give back. And he's a surgeon. he works, he's busy, but he's at a point in his life where he's now got recurring income streams. He's really passionate about sharing some different, I guess, different viewpoints about wealth and kindness as well and purposeful retirement, all part of his message.

speaker-0 (18:57.614)
Absolutely. And I think if I was to look, Chris, at our tenure and if we were having a student who was top of the class, it would be Bimby Fernando. He knows everything, can tell me everything I've ever written and said. He knows all of our principles inside and out. Just an amazingly warm and generous natured man. And I'm very much looking forward to hearing his guests.

and to sharing some insights with Bimbi Fernandes. He called himself a doctor. It's a bit of a weird one that isn't it? I found that you're a doctor until you're a consultant, then you're a mister. And somehow that seems to be a good thing. I'm not sure. think if I'd my right to be a doctor, I'd be a doctor forever. I wouldn't be letting that title go.

speaker-1 (19:49.484)
say Bimby's top of the class. I have to think back through all of the episodes. I think Ivor Bennett would give Bimby a run for his money. I'll never forget the wall of wealth where Ivor had printed off pretty much every element of the wealth builder's IP and stuck it on the wall in front of him. He could pretty much recite everything back to us.

speaker-0 (20:09.452)
I think you'll remember that seeing his wall of wealth. I think actually our SAS director, Paul, who I will be interviewing actually coming up, he was saying he's having further connections with Ivers since he's become financially independent as he seeks more to protect his wealth as opposed to just building it. Because the skills needed to protect your wealth and transfer your wealth to the next generation are fundamentally different.

to the skills needed to build it, which is why we've got two completely different programs. How to build wealth, start off creating new recurring income, and then how to keep the building going. There's no reason to stop because if you've got an asset, it's going to keep earning you money, isn't it? That's the whole point of it. And that will outlive you and outlast you, which is why you need a plan. And the stronger structures needed to do that. And with IHT changes, we need to be even smarter.

when it comes to protecting that because you know that inheritance tax bill is creeping up now to a billion a month. you know, honestly, Chris, and I say this and it sounds cruel, but inheritance tax is paid by families who are not prepared. They just simply brush the subject in under the carpet or into a box, do not disturb till I've got a bit more time. And like my dad, they don't find the time.

They never get round. So all the fun we've had, but all the seriousness we've had, some key points still need to be brought out, is pay attention to your money, pay attention to your wealth, find a good source where you can get good information. Not people who are trying to flog you stuff, but people who've got your interests at heart. And if I was a doctor, actually, I feel a bit like a wealth GP. I would take a Hippocratic oath only to serve people.

and make sure that whatever we do helps them build, protect, and transfer their wealth. So I'm going to adopt that and I'll share that with Bimbi on his first episode, the new financial Hippocratic oath. When we first got together, actually, Chris, we created the new financial declaration of independence. Remember that?

speaker-1 (22:23.564)
sure do. Absolutely signed and on the wall. Yeah.

speaker-0 (22:28.29)
Well, I tell you what to do. Why don't you circle back to that, put it in the show notes and give new listeners a chance to sign their own declaration to commit to becoming financially independent, not just for themselves, but for the next generation who are going to need it. And as we pass the baton on to new people, Chris, I want to take a moment just to say how thrilled and

delighted I've been to be working with you over these years. And while it's not the end of our relationship, it's the end of our podcast relationship. And I'll probably have a tear in my eye do the first podcast without you. I'm sure that'd be the.

speaker-1 (23:08.482)
Yes, well, and likewise, it's been an absolutely pleasure and honor to have spent the last seven years hosting this alongside you, Kevin. And so much of your wisdom has rubbed off on me and will remain with me forever. have no doubt about that. So thank you to all of our listeners as well. Thanks for listening, tuning in every week and giving us such wonderful feedback over the years, you know, really means a lot. And I'll be tuning in and enjoying many episodes to come, I'm sure.

speaker-0 (23:35.106)
You can't sign off in your usual way.

You can't say until this file makes me we'll be back the same place same time because it's too bumpy. So what I'm going to say is until I see you on your wedding day. See ya.

We hope you enjoy today's episode. Don't forget that we are constantly updating our resources inside the WealthBuilders membership site to help you create, build and protect your wealth. Head over to wealthbuilders.co.uk slash membership right now for free access. That's wealthbuilders.co.uk slash membership.