What They Don't Teach You About Money: The Instant Top Ten Bestseller

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We are talking to a number of these organisations about whether we could be more tightly linked,” she says. I think it shows me that they know themselves. They know what their business needs and they know which parts of that they can provide and which bits they can’t. That’s really important.

I’ve never thought it is a subject that should be introduced later. It’s such a part of our life. You know, the reason I think I’ve been good with money is that we didn’t have any when I was tiny and it was a big conversation in the house and it wasn’t in a worrying way. It was just like, what are we gonna do to build a better life? And I think that was a real gift because I didn’t learn about money, you know, I just absorbed about it. And I thought, it’s not even in the school curriculum. And how can this lifeblood of the way our entire society works, how can that not be on the school curriculum from the day they first step foot over that school threshold? So I thought, well, well, there’s a gap. It needs to be written. Whether or not I’m the person to write it or not, we’ll see. Now, let’s talk about successes in the den. As an investor, what impresses you the most about someone who’s pitching?

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This article is part of a series of pieces written for the new FT Flic charity which will develop educational programmes to boost the financial literacy of those most in need. I don’t know. The advantage that I often have — because people are pitching their businesses to me and I do get to meet them — the advantage that I have is I’m able to judge the characters behind it. A lot of businesses actually succeed because of the people standing behind them. So I think it’s important to get a sense of the character, the personality of a business, because we’re beginning to appreciate business personalities in our buy-in. If it is a consumer product, we do look for personalities. So I think an understanding of, is there a clear personality and is there a clear vision looking forward? Not what does it look like today because you’re buying at today’s prices, can I see that this is a relevant business going forward? This is an audio transcript of the Money Clinic podcast episode: ‘ What they don’t teach you about money ’ Well, they own a lot of data and people can’t get that anywhere else because no one else has the data. And then also they have this big academic publishing business going through all these academic papers, approving them, putting them in their journals. And although the universities often get extremely annoyed about the amount of money they make out of the academic publishing business, actually the competitive advantage remains. So it’s just one of those situations where no one can really get into the business that they do. The longer they remain in business and continue collecting data and building up the academic journals, the better it is for them as well. So it gets harder for competitors to make any inroads and they make huge amounts of money from their business.

They really think, oh I don’t really want to do all of that. So sometimes that’s the reason it doesn’t work. But I don’t really judge them as long as I’m happy with the investments that I’ve got, not just financially, you know. Are they, have they got the right impact? Are they doing things in the right way? Are they ethical and are they making money? The quality screen was the best, though I should say as a caveat, what came out best over 10 years isn’t necessarily gonna come out best over the next 10 years . . . Yes. So definitely in the UK, and in fact you mentioned entrepreneurship as well, I mean in the UK since the financial crisis, the last one in 2008, there’s been a huge increase in the proportion of people who are self-employed, and that ranges from people being Uber drivers or riding for Deliveroo to people setting up their own kind of independent, one-person consultancies. There’s been a real kind of mixture of people that have decided to become self-employed. But yeah, I feel like the other structures in our economy haven’t necessarily caught up with the fact this is becoming a much more common way of working. So yes, things like getting a mortgage are much, much harder than they need to be, probably. I think the yeah, a lot of our kind of financial institutions are still kind of wedded to the notion of most people having a sort of traditional 9-to-5 job. But actually the world of work hasn’t been like that for quite a long time. The second group of companies Algy thinks are worthy of further investigation are those that pay a dividend. If you’re not sure what that is, listen up.This is an audio transcript of the Money Clinic podcast episode: ‘Understanding economics — why it matters for your money’ If you have a baby, you need to take time out, it’s not gonna be something that is causing you problems. But when you are earning over the threshold, it does become basically like a 7 per cent tax.

Susannah, how about you? Did you learn anything about money in school? And if you didn’t, what would you have liked to learn . . . Forget pounds, dollars or even bitcoin. There’s only one currency that my two-year-old niece currently understands — and it’s pain aux raisins. But then suddenly you wake up and go, oh my goodness (laughter) we’re all, we’re all, far too overexcited. And what we thought was the next great thing isn’t at all. And you know someday the bubble will go pop, and there’ll be a whipsaw reversal, which can be hugely painful. But if you have the earnings momentum in there as well as the price momentum, it slightly limits the damage that’s gonna be done.While the cost of apps, smart devices and broadband is not something every family can afford, these are future financial lessons that every child needs to be taught.

I do think that our kind of obsession in the UK with home ownership and with getting more people on the housing ladder is partly because we allow renting to be such an unpleasant experience. But actually we could fix that bit and then we wouldn’t have to be so obsessed with home ownership. Claer Barrett, the FT’s consumer editor, and Aimée Allam, the director of FT Flic, the FT’s Financial Literacy and Inclusion Campaign, answered your questions in the comments below this story. Well, that’s interesting because I think maths gets a bit of a, disengages. The word maths disengages people because it doesn’t connect what they’re doing with what they need in real life. And of course they need numbers in real life, numeracy. But a lot of the stuff I learned I thought I am never, ever, ever going to use and I really wouldn’t need to do it till I am 18. You can have a feeling for what you’re gonna need. So I think what I would like to see is numeracy actually embedded into the subjects that it should be, that need it and mass-embedded into the subjects that need it instead of being the slightly separate topic, just a different, you know, holistic approach to it, which gives you a much better idea of why I’m bothering to learn this. Um, I do think business is, it should be shown as a proper topic at school and must be part of that in the same way maths should be part, you know, if you’re gonna become a biologist you’re gonna need to do the numbers, you know. So I definitely think that, you know, just fundamental stuff like, you know, what’s a balance sheet? It sounds really complicated. It is really, really simple. It’s just adding up and taking away. It’s as simple as that. So, you know, demystifying it, I think, would be really important. I think that would encourage more people to think that they could go into business.Well, I have to say, perhaps showing my snobbery, I might buy shares, but I certainly would never, ever buy one of its handbags. (Laughter) (Inaudible) stingy, too stingy by half. Now, Algy, this book is incredibly impressive. There’s lots of investment strategy talk, lots of fine numbers, lots of really hard work that you’ve put into this. But it’s not your first book, is it? (laughter) That’s very nice of you to describe me as a young person. I think that’s because I was when I first joined the FT in 2007, I’m not sure I still am at the age of 39, but thank you for saying so. So, yes. So I write about economics. I also write quite a lot about jobs, the world of work and how it is changing and how technology is beginning to change the way that we work and how much we’re going to work in the future. And I’m actually on book leave from the FT at the minute, which is six months of time away from work to try and write a book, which is really exciting. And I keep telling people it’s like being on maternity leave but without a baby to look after. It’s absolutely amazing. I love it. Now, finally we come on to the subjects of side hustles and starting your own business. And we know that lots of listeners on Money Clinic maybe have a dream of starting a business or running their own business one day, and in the meantime, they might have a side hustle that they’re hoping to grow into one. But as somebody who started countless businesses, grown countless businesses, what would be your advice to those listeners?