FINANCIAL ADVICE
BREAKING DOWN BXXXXXXT MONEY BINGO
We spoke with Annette Petchey, CEO of Metfriendly, for some expert financial advice, hints and tips for managing your money in these continuing challenging financial times. Annette discusses how to keep track of your spending and points to useful links that can help you ensure you’re making the most of your payslip and are getting all the help you are entitled to
You will not have been surprised to see the results in the recent Metfriendly Police Family Finance Index report. We all know that global financial challenges, high levels of inflation combined with low levels of wage growth and recent significant increases in housing costs are all making it harder to do the things we should do, let alone the things we WANT to do. I’m very proud Metfriendly has been helping UK Police families manage their finances for over 130 years, through good times and bad. It is always a good time to be thinking about how to make our money work harder for us, but it feels especially important right now. That’s the first entry in the B******t Bingo (BB) game: “make money work harder”. It’s the kind of thing people who work in financial services say all the time, and it allows us to avoid saying the boring stuff we know we don’t want to hear: don’t get into debt, don’t gamble, save – even if it’s only a little each month, save for the long term and rainy days. It’s the stuff our parents told us as we were growing up; we know it is right, but life sort of gets in the way. So what can I suggest to help in “these challenging times” (BB2)? For me building financial security (BB3) is more than a numbers game. People talk about “financial security”: it’s a catch-all for planning the good stuff and being able to deal with the stuff life throws at you. My parents used to tell me to have
two savings pots: a Rainy Day Pot and a Dream Pot.
The Rainy Day Pot is a small buffer
to deal with the bigger-than-expected gas bill, the MOT that wasn’t as straightforward as you hoped etc. The money needs to be in an easy-access account, but separate from your usual account so you don’t accidently dip
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into it. There are lots of good accounts available now that offer interest but don’t lock your money away. The Dream Pot is for the big things
that take more money. You might know the dream you are saving for, or you might not – either way, you should have
a Dream Pot. The Dream Pot needs to be locked away and not easily accessible. My parents taught me that each Pot MUST grow every month, even if it is only by a little. Direct debits and salary deduction make this so much easier – I am much better at saving when I don’t
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