The following is a transcript of a bonus podcast episode of The Pension Confident Podcast. Listen to the episode or scroll on to read the conversation.
PHILIPPA: Hello. Welcome to our final episode of 2025. We’ve covered a lot this year, from changing climate to changing careers, Trump’s tariffs, ADHD. We even dug into the financial realities of living with your parents. For those of you who are parents, we looked at funding your kids through university.
It’s been another brilliant year for guests, too. We’ve had old and new friends with us, everyone from Divorce Lawyers to Behavioural Experts, Authors to Financial Influencers, and of course, some of our favourite people from PensionBee HQ.
We have a lot of fun recording the podcast, but it wouldn’t be possible without a whole team of people that you, the listeners, never usually hear from. So today, we’re in for a treat because I’ve persuaded our Producer, Lucy Greenwell, to come out of the gallery into the studio so she can reveal her favourite moments from Series 4.
Before I talk to Lucy, I’m just going to remind you, as I always do, that nothing discussed on the podcast should ever be regarded as financial advice or legal advice, and when investing, your capital is at risk.
Lucy, welcome to this side of the glass.
LUCY: Hello.
PHILIPPA: Does it feel weird?
LUCY: It does a bit. I can see behind your head, a sea of ghostly faces in the gallery, which is where I normally sit. So it’s a taste of my own medicine now.
PHILIPPA: Yeah, you can see what I see, which isn’t very much actually through the glass, which I think could do with a bit of a clean, actually.
LUCY: It’s also nice being in the room with you. Normally, we do it on Zoom. Every month, we do quite a lot of chatting, scripting, thinking about the guests and the order and the topics. Now we’re here in person.
PHILIPPA: I know. Now, look, everyone knows you’re the brains behind this operation, but I think -
LUCY: - that’s actually not true. It’s a massive team effort.
PHILIPPA: It is, but you’re involved from start to finish in every single episode. But I think we can agree, can’t we? The guests, they’re the ones who make it. Their expertise, their stories. I mean, without them, obviously, there would be no show.
LUCY: No, it’s true. We’ve had 22 this season, I counted. 22 different guests, all their deep expertise and their tools and tips and thoughts ideas and creativity around this stuff. Yeah, the guests have been epic. For that, we should praise Dani and Tilly, who’ve been casting these.
PHILIPPA: From PensionBee? Yes, absolutely. Who picked the guests and booked them. You end up with this huge pool of knowledge, don’t you? All these insights, hidden in the podcast.
1. Biggest “I never knew” moment
PHILIPPA: But I was thinking about this. I was thinking of all the things that the guests have said to us this year, and obviously it’s a lot. Was there one thing that you’d just never thought about before?
LUCY: There were loads of things that I’d never thought about before. We just recorded an episode before this in the studio, and I was sitting in the gallery. During that recording alone, I made two changes to my personal finance arrangements.
PHILIPPA: Is that actually true?
LUCY: Yes, totally true. I know I’m meant to be working, and I’m listening, but I’m also thinking, “God, that sounds like a really good idea. I’m going to do that”.
I downloaded an app that’ll help me save, Snoop, that someone mentioned. I also asked my phone not to allow apps to track me, to stop me being hustled about buying things or showing me stuff. So yeah, there’s so much stuff.
But the one I’ve chosen for this is actually from Episode 35, which was about the cost of divorce. Now, I’m married, luckily not divorcing at the moment, but I was really blown away by -
PHILIPPA: Sorry, I’m going to stop you there. You said “not divorcing at the moment”. Does your husband know this?
LUCY: Not currently divorcing.
PHILIPPA: Let’s just clarify. Not divorcing.
LUCY: Not divorcing. But this episode was really fascinating. They talked about this form, this massive form that I just didn’t understand that there was such a load of admin around divorce.
PHILIPPA: Oh, yeah.
LUCY: Yeah. The ‘Form E’. Should we listen to the clip about that? Yeah.
Clip from E35: The cost of divorce plays.
PHILIPPA: I remember this, Lynn, do you? This great long list of trying to work your way through everything.
LYNN: It’s so painful. And getting all the paperwork, it took so much time.
HARRY: When you fill in the document, which is called a ‘Form E‘, it’s 28 pages of agony for most people.
PHILIPPA: It’s tough.
LYNN: I had to print out so much stuff, all my bank accounts, 12 months, and all my accounts.
HARRY: Yes.
PHILIPPA: It’s a big job, this. You don’t do it in five minutes. It really is a big task.
HARRY: It’s a big job.
2. Most shocking number
PHILIPPA: And talking of big jobs, it’s making me think about numbers, it’s making me think about statistics. Because obviously, it’s a financial podcast. We have a lot of statistics on the podcast. They drop into every episode, even if we don’t particularly go looking for them. Tell me the one that has stood out for you the most this year.
LUCY: Well, this is one… This is really easy because these stats do get mentioned. They’ve been mentioned in more than one episode because they’re so fundamental to planning [for] our futures and our retirements. They’re these figures from Pensions UK. They set these annual figures for three different retirement lifestyles: minimum, moderate, and comfortable.
PHILIPPA: OK, so these are the benchmarks, aren’t they?
LUCY: Yes.
PHILIPPA: Say, if you’re a single person, I think it’s £13,400 a year for a minimum lifestyle, which does sound quite minimum.
LUCY: Very minimum.
PHILIPPA: No holidays abroad, no car. £31,700 for a moderate. A comfortable lifestyle, maybe with some holidays, it’s £43,000 - well, nearly £44,000. Not quite double if there’s two of you, right? But still, it’s more than people might think.
LUCY: It’s more than people might think. The real kicker about these numbers is that they’re based on you owning your home, i.e. having no monthly housing costs, not mortgage payments, not rent. Given that so many people are struggling to get onto the housing ladder at the moment -
PHILIPPA: You make a really good point because, as we say, what is it - first time buyer’s average age in the UK now, is it 35? [Correction: 34] If you get a mortgage now that takes you 20 years, 55 [years old]. That doesn’t give you a huge amount of time before you’re looking at maybe wanting to retire. As you say, if you do it later, or if you’re renting and you’re having to pay rent or mortgage payments out of your pension, those numbers don’t start to look very realistic at all, do they?
LUCY: No. It feels like there’s real trouble coming down the track for that. Yeah, that was very startling.
3. Surprising money tip
PHILIPPA: [I’ll] tell you the episodes that I really love. They’re the ones where you get into the real nitty-gritty of how people manage their money. You know, not the theory, but the personal stories. Obviously, a lot of it’s rooted in family. I mean, not always. But do you remember Damien Fahy?
LUCY: I love Damien Fahy!
PHILIPPA: I know. He’s always so great.
LUCY: He’s a returner to our podcast.
PHILIPPA: He’s a returner and a great talker, so he’ll definitely be on again.
LUCY: Yeah, so Damien from Money to the Masses. He came on, he told us this story about how he’d done this projection of having very young kids and you start saving for them £50-ish a month, and you just put it in every month, and then they take over when they’re 18 [years old]. Flat rate doesn’t go up, I think, and it just stews and does its own clever, wild, compounding thing.
PHILIPPA: Until they retire.
LUCY: Yes. Makes them a millionaire by the time they retire.
PHILIPPA: Wow, let’s have a listen.
Clip from E43: Who wants to be a pension millionaire? plays.
DAMIEN: We did a piece about how to make your child a millionaire, because we all get to a stage where in life you start to look at this million pound number. If you started early, or you started for your children, they have a much greater chance of becoming a millionaire on much lower numbers. We looked at the numbers and crunched them.
Let’s say, for example, you had somebody who was five years old. When we did this example, we were looking at putting it into a Junior ISA. If you assume growth rates that are slightly more punchy, let’s say 8%, which is the higher of the FCA guidelines and the numbers in which they’ll allow people to project with.
PHILIPPA: OK, so it’s optimistic.
DAMIEN: It’s optimistic, but if you’re investing for a very long time, we’re talking about somebody from age 5 to 65.
PHILIPPA: Yup.
DAMIEN: You can get to the point where for that person, if they have £56 a month put into a Junior ISA to start with, which when they get to 18, it will become a Stocks and Shares ISA, which they take control of themselves as adults, then that amount of money will grow to a million pounds over time.
PHILIPPA: That’s a flat contribution that doesn’t go up?
DAMIEN: That’s a flat contribution that doesn’t go up. You can see by starting early, you have something to compound because that’s the thing about compounding. If you have nothing, it doesn’t compound to anything. So you have to have some money.
LUCY: It’s the dream! But on the other hand, if I’m going to be putting £56 away for each of my children every month, there are more imminent costs that they’re going to have to face that I might prefer to help them with. Buying -
PHILIPPA: - Buying a flat deposit or something.
LUCY: Yes. Or a car or their university fees, something like that. It’s hard to know whether you want to put it away for that long.
PHILIPPA: It’s like all parental decisions, isn’t it? You never know if you’re making the right one. Personal choice, I guess.
4. Funniest episode
PHILIPPA: Now, obviously, we’re a serious money podcast. We talk about personal finance and pensions, but it always seems to me, and it’s one of the things I really like about the series, that there’s a lot of laughter in - We always are laughing about something in the studio. There are some moments, some guests who’re just priceless. I’ve got a favourite. Have you got a favourite?
LUCY: Well, I had a runner up who’s Sam Bartley from an episode this season about intergenerational living. He was very funny about living with his in-laws during COVID.
PHILIPPA: I remember that.
LUCY: But my winner… Well, tell me who yours is.
PHILIPPA: So my winner was a guest called Suzanne.
LUCY: Yeah, she was my winner.
PHILIPPA: She was too! She was great.
LUCY: She was absolutely brilliant. She was talking about her fantasy dream job in episode 38 about how to shift careers. Suzanne is the Co-Founder of Startup School for Seniors, but she’s also a podcast Presenter of Sex Advice for Seniors. So, yeah, it’s a personal finance podcast, but don’t make the mistake of thinking that we have dull or hum drum guests. We don’t!
PHILIPPA: Absolutely not. Suzanne was a spectacular woman. Let’s hear from her.
Clip from E38: How to shift careers plays.
SUZANNE: Years ago I said, “I want to run a small boutique hotel in Mexico -
PHILIPPA: Really?
SUZANNE: - where I swan around in a kaftan and just ask people what they want to eat every day. While I instruct the Michelin starred chef what to -
PHILIPPA: To make?
SUZANNE: - to do”. Then I started doing Airbnb.
PHILIPPA: Ah ha! And how was that?
SUZANNE: Then I realised that I’ll never run a boutique hotel in Mexico.
PHILIPPA: Or anywhere else?
SUZANNE: Or anywhere else for this.
HANNAH: That maybe saved you an expensive lesson.
SUZANNE: A very expensive lesson.
BAT: I’m impressed at the level of detail in the original fantasy.
HANNAH: Clearly well thought out.
BAT: You’ve been thinking about this, haven’t you?
SUZANNE: I’ve been thinking about it for a really long time.
PHILIPPA: Wasn’t she fantastic? We need to get her back on.
LUCY: We do.
5. Best episode for beginners
PHILIPPA: OK, I’ve got another question for you. If someone is listening and they love the podcast, and we hope they do, and they want to introduce it to a friend, which episode would you recommend that they share?
LUCY: Oh, that’s tricky. Thinking about it, I’d have to pick episode 37, which was about the - It was the easiest way to retire with more money. It was off the back of this stat that we read, which was that it could cost you half a million pounds across your lifetime being unengaged with your pension, your personal finances.
PHILIPPA: Yes.
LUCY: Which blew our minds. We had this Behavioural Expert on. I always love having Behavioural Experts on.
PHILIPPA: Yes.
LUCY: Neil Bage. He just gave us this unbelievably good light bulb moment about why it’s exactly that we switch off from our retirement planning - and how to switch it back on.
Clip from E37: The easiest way to retire with more money plays.
PHILIPPA: Neil, we’re not great at doing that, are we? It feels so far away that you don’t feel you need to keep on it?
NEIL: Yeah. As humans, we have a really interesting challenge with our ‘present self’ and our ‘future self’. And the future self (so, the Neil Bage in the future, right?) it’s a stranger to me. And in order for me to engage with my future self, I need to use my imagination and think “OK, who do I want that Neil to be when I reach 60 or 65”. Or whatever the date is, whatever the age is.
But the challenge in that isn’t only am I relying on my imagination, I’m also trying to weigh up the day-to-day challenges of living life. The bills and the holidays and all of the other things that are competing for my cognitive attention. And so, we’ve always as a species had a really difficult time to put ourselves into a future state and make decisions today that will ultimately benefit me in the future. It’s a notoriously difficult thing for us to do.
PHILIPPA: Yeah, that visualisation. Particularly when you’re in your 20s, visualising yourself in your 60s or your 70s - I mean, it feels almost impossible, doesn’t it?
NEIL: It’s incredibly difficult, and I’d say impossible. There’s a great piece of research by Hal Hirschfield, a Professor in the US, who is one of the world’s leading authorities on ‘future self‘. He created this app where it would age you and then say, “I now need you to make some decisions”. And what they found is people who looked at an aged version of themselves typically invested more money into their pension than someone who didn’t. And it’s not just picturing it, it’s planning for who you want to be.
The other challenge is there’s an amazing psychological phenomenon called the ‘End of History Illusion‘, whereby if you ask people, “are you different to how you were 10 years ago?”, people go, “yeah, I am”. “What about 20 years ago?”, “very different”. “30?” “Oh, I don’t recognise that person.” “Great. How much do you reckon you’re going to change going forward in the next 10 years?”, people will typically say, “not a lot”.
PHILIPPA: Really?
NEIL: It’s called the End of History Illusion because we believe that we’re the finished article today. That’s playing out at the same time. Then when somebody says, “can I talk to you about a pension?”, which is about saving for your future. You’ve got these unconscious conflicts going on all the time.
PHILIPPA: See, that’s why I love this podcast, because it’s stuff like that, that End of History Illusion, where you never think you’re going to change, but when you look back, you know you already have.
LUCY: Yes, exactly.
PHILIPPA: It’s a complete disconnect.
LUCY: It’s a complete disconnect. There’s something philosophical and profound about it. It’s scientific. It’s absolutely riveting. I feel like this - Considering our future self is so hard, isn’t it? I feel like it comes down to mortality. I think it’s really hard to make your brain think about the realities of the future.
PHILIPPA: Then translate that into money.
LUCY: Into today’s actions. Yeah, it’s hard, but it’s worth doing.
PHILIPPA: It is. It’s so fascinating.
See you next year, for Series 5
PHILIPPA: I’ve really, really enjoyed listening back to all these.
LUCY: Me too.
PHILIPPA: If you missed one of these earlier in the year, don’t worry about it. You can catch up on every episode so far, not just on this series, but all the previous series, wherever you get your podcasts. We’re on YouTube, and of course, the PensionBee app, too. Whatever works best for you.
PHILIPPA: We’ll be back in January with a brand new Series 5. And of course, new bonus content to keep you feeling pension confident. A final reminder, anything discussed on the podcast shouldn’t be regarded as financial advice or as legal advice. And when investing, your capital is at risk. We will see you next year.
LUCY: I’m going to get back into the gallery where I belong.
PHILIPPA: Until the next time.
LUCY: Until the next time.
Risk warning
As always with investments, your capital is at risk. The value of your investment can go down as well as up, and you may get back less than you invest. This information should not be regarded as financial advice.
