We want to be wealthy! A thread to share ideas on how to achieve financial independence

[ilyana]

I asked a question in another forum about how to get wealthier and improve my lifestyle and financial situation in my late thirties, and I got some really helpful advice.

Several posters were keen to set up a thread to talk about topics we don't get taught about at school, such as investing in stocks and shares, lucrative side gig ideas, and air miles on credit cards, and so here we are!

This is a positive thread about encouraging other women to aim high and reach their goals, so please only contribute with positive, relevant advice. Of course, questions are very welcome too!

Thanks @RegentCafe for the info.
@ilyana i subscribe to ‘Jack’s Flight Club’ which is about £35 per annum and gives details of all bargain fares and sometimes the airline mistakes. I use it a lot ;-) There was a recent deal with Norse Airways for direct flights to multiple USA destinations for £266. Well worth subscribing to.

DH and I have a BA Amex and a Barclaycard avios that we use to do all our spending and accumulate avios for flights. I have a subsidiary card for the Amex and he has a subsidiary card for the Barclaycard. We have a household avios account where all the avios is pooled and shared. We have the paid Amex which is £250 a year and you can fly business on it, you can't on the unpaid card; that's the difference.

If you spend £10k a year, you automatically get a companion voucher. The companion voucher can be used for someone to fly return with you, or to reduce your flight by 50%. It used to be the case that you pay the tax on both flights when flying business, but they've changed the model and you can now use varying amounts of Avios paired with different cash amounts depending on what suits you. The tax amount is still payable if you want to fly first though. We paid £1.2k return business to Mexico for the two of us using 150k avios. For the Maldives it's similar. I called BA the other day to check and I will pop a pic below of how the avios works for Maldives flights.

We flew Club Europe to Iceland recently too using a companion voucher and avios. It is correct that if you want to use the companion voucher you need to do so using avios.

The Amex has various offers on the card every month which can help you to build avios. Also, it's good to shop through: www.shopping.ba.com/gb as this website has lots and lots of offers which give you additional avios above what you will be awarded on the credit card for just spending.

Various BA employees have advised me that you only have to book far in advance for popular routes such as Maldives. You are able to book 355 days in advance and for popular routes then you should. But for normal routes, you will be fine. We didn't book Mexico that far in advance as it's not as popular a route. There are 8 reward seats on each flight.

www.headforpoints.com/2023/02/13/how-many-avios-points-do-i-need-to-fly-to/ this gives you an idea of how many points you'd need to fly to each place but remember that with the new rules you can use less and pay more if that suits you. For exact figures on that it's best to call up, they are really helpful.

In addition to the Barclaycard (which we use when places don't accept Amex), if you get a 0% credit card for any big purchases, you can also get cards that generate Amex. We got a sainsburys card which does this and that added to our Avios balance.

Hope the above is helpful but happy to answer any questions. We think the Amex is really worth it as travelling business is something that is important to us. Would definitely recommend if it's important to you too

@ilyana I completely disagree with your friend’s investing ethos, wouldn’t touch Bitcoin.

I’d recommend the documentary “the line goes up” by Folding Ideas on YouTube.

I definitely think so. I've posted above with more detail but I can PM you a referral code if you would like. If you spend £3k within the first 3 months you will get 26,000 avios

Absolutely loving this thread and all the advice, which I am noting. I've already ordered two books so thanks for the recommendations! (On this thread and the last).

For me and DH, we always knew we wanted to be wealthy because we want the freedom that offers. Everything we choose to do financially revolves around that.

I am a lawyer (28) and DH is a doctor (30). For the moment (and potentially always), I am the one with higher earning potential. Based on that, I moved back into the London market to maximise my earning potential. Not many jobs allow you to become wealthy through work alone but law is one of the few that has the potential for it. When I moved jobs last year, I increased my salary from £47k to £85k. I'm now on £88k. I have been headhunted by a few firms (my practice area is very busy right now) so I am going for various interviews. The salaries range from £115-130k. DH also locums where he is able to and we save that money. Right now we don't have kids so we are maximising our earning potential and setting ourselves up well.

We have a financial advisor. They don't charge directly but a % of our investments. It works for us for now but we will reassess in a few years time if there is a better way to do it. We appreciate the advice we get and they are very responsive so we like that.

We bought our house in 2020, before property prices went crazy and just had a valuation done, there has been an increase of £100k. We also invest monthly to be able to top up our next house deposit. The conundrum for us is whether to keep our first house and rent it out too. We hope to be in a position to do so but property is so expensive and we see a lot of negative things about being landlords these days.

I've read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Cashflow Quadrant and I'm currently reading Think and Grow Rich. We recently watched How to Get Rich by Ramit Sethi on Netflix and we loved it. We have his book so I'll read that soon too.

I have lovely occasion dresses so I rent those out of ByRotation and we also sell old clothes on Vinted.

We are aiming for an emergency fund of £20k and £10k easily accessible savings.

We do all our spending on credit cards as for us, we want to be rewarded for all spending. Our main CC is our Amex and it works really well for us (see my above post re this).

For us, we have tried to start as young as possible and we definitely think it's possible to become wealthy. I think the key to it is strategic job moves, creating passive streams of income outside of work and having a very strong work ethic.

We holiday a lot and quite luxuriously and we don't want to have to curb that when we have kids. We'd also like to send DC to private school so thinking of the best way to make that happen.

Thanks so much for this thread! It's inspiring and it's lovely to have a space to speak openly with other women, and to learn ☺️

Re: choice of investments.

For a portfolio, might be good to think in terms of "what will I need in terms of liquidity and what risk I'm prepared to take".

How much money can you have locked away and forgotten about, and how much do you need to be accessible? (And over what time frame).

Do you have significant outgoings/dependents/fixed costs or can you cut back everything for a while? How hacked off would you be if you made a big loss? What's your risk-tolerance?

(Have sometimes heard it said, men tend to take more risks with money/work/running weird businesses/more likely to be made bankrupt/sleeping on mums sofa at 45 ..but also higher likelihood of getting wealthy)

There's no "one-size fits all" solution.

If you are planning to save for over five years, equities generally outperform savings in the bank, over the longer term they massively outperform savings in the bank.

This thread is amazing!

We are at the point where we can start investing and overpaying (no student loan, cc debt, back in full time after three maternities) and I see so many people recommending AJ Bell or Vanguard etc. I was just going to set up a S&S ISA through my HSBC account. Nobody ever recommends something like this, but I don't know why?

Do they have high fees in comparison, or do you not trust it because it's just your normal bank, too vanilla or what? I feel like this is a stupid question, but I genuinely have no idea!

Thanks in advance 🤞

@VerymuchAllornothing the only thing you can really control are your fees, firstly the platform fee, so your annual charge from your bank or broker for having an account with them, this is either a percentage of the money you have or a fixed amount per year. Generally if you have a higher amount (over £100k) it is cheaper to pay a fixed annual fee. The fee varies a lot and can make a huge difference so shop around, AJ Bell is one of the cheapest. The second fee, is for the fun's you invest in. I say, fund, because, you are normally better off investing in a pool of equities rather than individual shares which are more risky. There are a number of fund providers such as Vanguard, Fidelity, HSBC and they each charge an annual fee which can be as low as 0.06% per year, so keep a close eye on the fund fee. Good luck!

Would you recommend opening a stocks and shares isa via aj bell. I don’t invest at all but my husband does, and has done well through it.

I want to start now but have no clue what I’m doing!

Thank you!

@Pammela go for it, it's a bit of a hassle setting up, but once it's done, it's very satisfying knowing you are building up a nest egg for your future.

My husband and I became accidental landlords when we had to move and couldn’t sell our house in time. I realise we happened to be very lucky to have had the option. It actually then became a springboard for purchasing an extra couple of properties which are also rented out.

We have since diversified our investments in stock and shares with Hargreaves Landsdown. I luckily bought some shares during the first wave of Covid when the share price had slumped and they’ve since risen. We’ve also made investments with Kufflink and Nutmeg.

My husband and I both have our own Amex BA Premium Card. We have found the card invaluable when it comes to booking flights. The new companion vouchers also open up more Business Class seats than the free Amex BA Card.

I think the key for us has been diversifying our investments but also we were very lucky in the first place to have been able to buy our first house at a relatively young age.

@pammela Spend a little time learning, so you do have a clue. AJ Bell, Hargreaves Lansdown, Vanguard Investor, any of those will be fine to start with.

Podcast for beginner investors https://meaningfulmoney.tv/UG4

Following with interest! Thanks for starting this thread op

I'm actually a free member! I got the deal about Norse, but when I went on, I found that by the time I added stuff I'd need (window seat, carry on, etc.) the price wasn't all that great and I thought it would be easier to just go with BA. Did you manage to get a good deal?

Yes please that would be great. Thanks

He made very decent money from it (as in many tens of thousands, from putting in a couple of thousand), so I guess that makes a difference to his viewpoint. I know a few people who got very lucky like that and literally had an entire house deposit just from an investment...so jealous!

I view crypto like gambling or buying lottery tickets...I'm probably happy to put a bit into it and see what happens,fully prepared to lose it all for the small chance of gaining, but for the majority of my money, I want it somewhere safe.

@ilyana no, I didn’t need flights to the US but just thought I’d mention it.

I also have an Amex referral code if anyone needs one

Thank you...this is very useful! I do want a second credit card anyway, purely because the last time I went to NYC, my bank blocked mine and I was screwed until it got sorted! So I might as well have one where I'm benefitting from it as well.

I'm guessing there's no way of actually being able to search the best flights for your Avios, e.g. to find which ones offer the best value? You have to manually look for flights and then see how much they're worth on that route? You got a great deal for Mexico! I'm pretty open about where and when to go, but having to think of possible destinations and manually search is a bit onerous! I think I'd actually prefer somewhere like Mexico or LA for long haul Business....the return leg from NYC to London is actually quite short (6ish hours?) and the times goes quickly once you've had dinner and a glass or two of wine...probably not worth paying for Business compared to other routes, really.

@LiloP I've sent the link over ☺️

@ilyana PM'd you also ☺️

Re searching for the best flights for your avios, the link I attached shows how many avios is needed for each location one way and the price to be paid along with it.

It seems to be done on distance rather than popularity. I think being flexible helps more with availability for routes rather than avios amount/price as some routes will have more rewards seats available for longer whereas others, such as the Maldives, will be snapped up almost immediately.

There is a website you can sign up to (£) which availability when avios seats are released. I’ll see if I can remember what it is.

I don’t doubt he made loads of money from it, I’d imagine this was a while ago. Unfortunately by the time the wider public get in on these things it’s too late for these sorts of gains IMO. The majority of crypto is held by a small number of very early adopters and they can and do manipulate the market. They are desperate to get their theoretical ‘wealth’ out and spend it but can’t without crashing the market.

Don’t get me wrong I’m sure there is money to be made there but as you say, very much feels like gambling (and unlike traditional gambling the odds of winning aren’t printed on the side of the slot machine).

@ilyana
Do you have a number to call BA please I can never get through to talk about merging our accounts?

@Beenalongwinter this is the number I use: 0344 493 0747