Women’s Wealth is Rising: How to Take Control of Yours with Shaa Wasmund MBE

A massive welcome to series 4 of the podcast! We’re kicking off the series with an amazing interview with Shaa Wasmund talking about women’s wealth and how we can take more control over our own.

We’ve got some really exciting things happening this year – you might have noticed our brand new podcast logo. We also have some new courses launching in 2020, starting with the course Female Financial Intentions which launches in January. There’s also still time to register for the FREE 5 day Plug Your Money Leaks challenge which starts again on January 20th. We had some incredible, life changing feedback from members who took part in this challenge last year, so we have decided to re-run it in January to help you kick start your finances for 2020 and help you get in control of money.

Women’s Wealth is Rising

Based on the global wealth report report of 2018, women hold 40% of global wealth. This is because we are now better educated, and are in a better position than ever before to be financially independent. We earn more, we save more, and according to the report we spend more on our children. There’s no one better than Shaa Wasmund to talk about women and wealth! Shaa is the bestselling author of Do Less, Get More, Stop Talking, Start Doing, and How to Fix Your Sh*t. She’s been a lifelong supporter of encouraging more women into business, and in 2015 Shaa received an MBE for her services to business and entrepreneurship. She was recently named one of the top 20 most influential entrepreneurs in the UK, and today she runs one of the biggest and most active Facebook groups for business called The Freedom Collective.

Shaa has built a million pound online business quite literally from her back garden, and over the last 5 years has completely revolutionised how she works and today is able to take an astonishing 17 weeks holiday every year!

Introducing Shaa Wasmund MBE.

A very warm welcome to the podcast, Shaa. Can you talk to us a little bit about your background in terms of wealth and building wealth.

Absolutely. I think it’s really important to say that most of us experience highs and lows throughout our career, and our relationship with money changes hopefully for the better.

I started out in a very different place to where I am today, I grew up in a single parent family, lived on a council estate, and no one in my family had ever been to university. I started working when I was 13 in order to be able to buy the things that I wanted for myself, so I’ve had a really strong work ethic my whole life because realistically I had to. Because of the financial instability that I grew up with, my number one focus was to create financial stability for myself. Then when I had my son it became to create long term financial stability for him.

I think that’s a really interesting conversation to have too. I have now set up a life whereby if my son never worked a day in his life, truthfully he would be able to live really well, but I don’t want him to not have my work ethic. So it’s about finding that balance.

That’s a really interesting point. As a parent and as a mother, you want to provide everything for your children, but equally you don’t want them growing up believing that everything will be handed to them on a plate. So how do you find that balance?

It’s hard, I’ll be honest! I’ve done what I feel are some really sensible things; I set my son up with a pension from the day he was born. He’s 14 now and probably close to £100,000 in his pension. Equally, he will inherit two multi-million pound properties. So his life is very much made.

I’m very proud of my upbringing, and of course I want my son to have the same work ethic that helped to get me where I am today. In June of this year I’m taking him along with a group of to Kenya, and we are literally going out to build a school for the children there. We’ll be building the school with our own hands and really getting involved with the community there, and I think it’s going to be an amazing experience for him.

Wow, what a great way to teach kids the value of money, and a philanthropic attitude with money. Giving your time that way, too, because your time is worth more than anything else!

Yeah, and also if you just write a cheque you don’t see and feel what it’s like to be in those communities. I want him to see what it’s like to not have money and to not have access to a school, with the view that he comes back appreciating those things more. I want him to appreciate where money comes from, and how hard people have to work for it.

Also the group that are going out is a small group, but we’re all entrepreneurs, so I’m hoping that entrepreneurial spirit is going to rub off on him!

You’ve mentioned that you set up a pension for your son, let’s talk about that. It’s something that I’ve also done for my boys, and not a lot of people realise they can do this for their children. Statistics say that if you put away £5 a week from when they’re born until they’re 18, the incredible compound effect means that their pot would be worth £1 million by their retirement age.

Yeah, it’s amazing. So I’ve put in the maximum from the day he was born, and even when there have been real challenges in my life that’s always been a non-negotiable. So he’s had £250 put into his pension every single month which the government then tops up, and for me it had to be non-negotiable to create the habit and consistency of paying into that for him.

I have to thank the incredible Gill Fielding – I was at one of her seminars once before I was even pregnant and this came up. Sometimes you hear something and it just sticks, and for this just stuck. So literally in the first week after he was born, I’d set up my son’s pension.

I also wanted to set him up with a pension rather than savings because I still wanted him to have to hustle and work. The pension is for the future not for the present; he will have to wait to be able to access that, but I also know that he’s always going to be okay.

Does he know about the pension?

He does, but I think because it’s something so far in the future it’s difficult for him to comprehend. He’s probably fed up with me reminding him daily how fortunate he is with the life that he has!

A massive welcome to series 4 of the podcast! We're kicking off the series with an amazing interview with Shaa Wasmund talking about women and wealth.

I love that you’re talking to him about that, and it actually must be even harder when you’re so successful.

Oh he definitely sees my work ethic! He’s not mistaken and thinking that this happens easily. He sees what time I wake up, but he also sees the things that I prioritise. I prioritise him, my relationship, my health, and then work. But other things fall by the wayside if they have to. I don’t binge-watch TV, I don’t lay in bed – if you see me in bed beyond 6:30 I’m really sick!

I’m not someone who’s going to tell you that you have to work yourself into the ground, but equally I’ve just never been that person – I can’t lie in bed! In fact, having a lie-in is probably the only thing that makes me feel anxious.

What fuels you to make more money in your business?

I think it’s not so much about making more money, I feel like I’ve still got a lot of work to do, and I can’t do that working 8 hours a day. As much as I love the concept of the 4 hour work week, I don’t know anyone (including the author) who does it. I do believe in working smarter not harder, but that said when you want to do things like write books, run a membership site, create online courses, and you love doing the real life in person stuff, you can’t do it in 8 hours a day.

I section off my day so that the 8 hours goes into my work, and then writing books and the other things comes after that. For me it’s about how many women can I impact in my lifetime. I’ve got really clear on that, and my goal now is how many women can I empower and teach to be taking home 6 figures a year. Because that to me is the tipping point where you suddenly get in control of your money.

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Let’s talk about that. The biggest challenge that I see is around women’s wealth is about creating those financial foundations. We see all these 6-figure and 7-figure coaches talking about creating wealth. Sometimes just the word ‘wealth’ petrifies people because they don’t feel deserving of it. So setting financial foundations has to be the first step – once you’ve set those foundations you can make better decisions. Thinking about that, what would say are some of the key things any woman listening should be thinking about creating for themselves?

One of the things that I wish I’d done earlier was invested in a pension for myself. I think entrepreneurs are least likely to invest in pensions because we’re control freaks, and there’s all sorts of other reasons too. But ultimately do I want to give my money to a pension or to the tax man?! So that’s the first thing I would encourage all women to start doing.

Again from experience, is to have money automatically taken from your account. Don’t leave it to yourself, have it set up to automatically come out and go elsewhere. Whatever you can, whether it’s a small amount or a large amount. I use a couple of awesome apps that automatically sweep money out of my account each week into an ISA. So it’s done, I don’t need to think about it.

Get your bank accounts in order. I’ve just switched all my accounts from Barclays to Starling. The ease of use of the app is phenomenal, but for me the most important thing is the information it gives me. I can actually understand my money better.

It’s all about having information at your fingertips. It’s about knowing where your money is, really understanding where your money is, knowing what that looks like, and finding ways to make the most of it. For me personally, it was investing in property.

So property, stock and shares ISA’s, pensions. Anything else?

Just be conscious of your money! The most important thing is getting your money mindset right, but that could a whole entire podcast in itself. If you don’t feel your money mindset is right, you need to work on that before you hit go.

The next thing is automation. Whatever you’re going to do, set it up for consistency. Then I’d be looking at pensions, property, and ISA’s.

For someone who has none of those things right now, that might sound like so many things to do and feel overwhelming, but just start small. I use the Moneybox account, and it just sweeps money, or you can set a regular amount, and that goes straight into an ISA.

Automating these habits is such a great idea. Starling now have an automatic roundup feature, so that your purchases are automatically rounded up and the extra is put into a separate pot, which would work really well as perhaps an emergency fund.

I think there’s still a lot of fear around using these apps, and people worry that their money might not be safe. One thing I always say to check for is that any app you use is regulated by the FCA. As long as they are, your money is protected up to £85,000.

Statistics show that we will live to 82, that 25% of us will live until we’re 96, and that 1 in 10 of us will reach 100, so investing and pensions are really important.

I plan on being the 1 in 10! Either way, we’re here for a while, so it’s important we think about this stuff. This whole thing about investing and being fearful of it, I do kind of understand it and I used to feel that way. But think about it like this; how many of us have an iPhone, have a Mac, or buy virtually everything on Amazon? Well, we’re investing in those companies products, so why not invest your money into those same companies shares?

Why not benefit from your own purchases?

Women’s wealth: Take Control of Yours

Where can our readers find you, Shaa?

I have a really unique name, which is helpful! Just go to Shaa.com, and for all of you entrepreneurs out there there is a fantastic quiz you can take which will help you find out what is the best way to get from where you are right now to actually taking home 6 figures.

One of my biggest bug bears is how people are made to feel that they have to do things a certain way. I wanted to put this quiz together to help people find the best path for them. You don’t have to do what everyone else is doing, and then maybe as you grow you might want to add more elements to your business.