Hey, how you doing everybody? It's Platinum Marshal back here for week seven. So this week is all about getting the accounts sorted. Last week you were looking at the nitty gritty of what the actual spending is. And I hope that that has been a real eye opening exercise for you in accounting for everything that you've got going on. What we're now going to do is we're going to look at it all and we're going to get it set up, get it all set up.

So that actually it's really simple for you to manage. We can spend so much time trawling through bank accounts trying to work out what's what, when actually the reality is if we set them up in a really simple way, and we have different accounts for different purposes, that actually what it happened, what happens and what it means is that ultimately, you can have a bank account for various different things and it can very much manage itself. So in your workbook, you can see what my suggested model is account setup and managing your money in the most effective way. Now, why is it important to do this? Well, because most people make the fatal mistake of attempting to manage all of their money in just one account, or even two. And simply, you know what, it doesn't work.

And why doesn't it work, it doesn't work, because you are always having to check in to see what's come out what's going to come out, what money you've got left, etc, etc, etc. And, you know, let me just let you into a bit of a secret. bank accounts don't cost anything, they're absolutely free. I have lots and lots and lots of them, because I've all different accounts for all different purposes. So you know, getting this set up in this way is going to take you a bit of time to get done. And it may be that you have to go and visit your account to set up a new account and maybe you can do it online.

And the reality is it can be really super simple to repurpose all of these accounts, a lot of banks nowadays that you name your accounts So you can name them and quickly look at them and see what they all are. But, you know, do this work. And the reason I encourage you to do this work is it is going to make life so much easier for you going forward and save you more time that you could ever begin to imagine. Now, here's the first thing I want to say, with my suggested model, you will know that I've put an up to percentage on each account. Now there is a method behind my madness in me saying it's up to there's a lot of models out there that tell us we should be putting these exact amounts in each of the accounts and you look at them and straight away your brain will say, Well, I actually don't have that much money to put that into that account.

So I'm not even going to bother trying to do it because I can't work with those percentages. That's why I've said up to Because ultimately, what I want you to do is start taking a step towards for example, we've suggested that your bills and essential items that you're paying for Foreign non essential items, or quite a few of them only accounted for 50% of your net monthly income. Now, it may be that at the moment, I would say reality is for a lot of you that that figure is a lot higher. So that's why I'm saying but two, because making a very small movement in every single area is going to make a really big difference. So, you know, analogies, once again, you know, I love them. If you decide to run a marathon, you do not go out on your first run and run 26 miles, you go out on your first run, and it maybe you don't even run it maybe that you walk for a mile and that is where you start.

Well, what this exercise is designed to do is exactly the same thing with your bank accounts. Walk slowly, but surely through all of these things, and then that will help you to achieve the bigger overall result. So get your workbook so let's go through this exercise. Now. The first account that I really encourage Everybody to have is what I call a bill account. Now your bill account is for all of your standing orders and direct debits for your regular monthly bills.

So when we think about the exercise from last month, and we think about the essential monthly items that you put, these are the things that I'm talking about there. So it may be that you've already got a bank account with all of these aren't in your alarm, or how do I do this quickest way. Maybe you make that your bill account and then you create a second can third account fourth account for the other spending. With a lot of banks nowadays as well, what they will easily do and they will do this on your behalf is they will move all of the direct debits onto a new account if you ask them to do that and your standing orders. So this is something that can be done simply is going to take a bit of time to do it though. So your bill account is for all of those regular things that you've got to pay every month including things like child care, maintenance, you know loans and credit cards.

If you pay in those, you know they can come out of this bill account. What I then recommend you to do is have what I would call a sub account of this but it is literally just a second bank account. And that bank account is purely for your food. Because I will keep banging this drum people spend a lot of money on food, a lot, a lot of money on food. And it's one of those things where you know, most people will shop weekly and sometimes more than once a week, sometimes you know, every single day and so you can lose complete track of what you're spending on food and it is an area that I can virtually guarantee everybody can save money in. So you know, being very clear on what your budget is for your food.

And one of the exercises for you to do this is look back at what you have been spending on food will really really help you to know exactly where you are. So rather than you having to look at the bill account go through and see what has got yet to come out because you know with all the will in the world I have yet struggled to get everything single one of my direct debits to come out on the same day, I've got more in the space of a week where they come back together. So I know, you know, at a glance exactly how much I've got in my bill account. And you know, having to recalculate what you've got left to spend on food and what you have spent on food can be a very time consuming task, that task. So do that. Now maybe also that you another sub account here is that you need your own personal account.

Maybe you are living with somebody and you have a joint account to pay all of the bills, but then you have regular ongoing subscriptions of your own. For example, it could be your money, personal trainer, regular monthly subscription, it could be subscriptions to other things such as Apple Music, Amazon, magazines, it could be subscription to the gym, things that maybe you don't classes, essentially you pay for yourself, they can go into your own personal bill account. And again, work out what that figure is and allocate that amount of money into that account every single month. The idea of this is that basically, when your salary goes in to your main account, you set up sand in order so that the money shoots off into all different directions. So you don't actually have to do anything other than spend it. And this really is a huge time saver.

So the next account that you can look at is your spending and full money. So this is your day to day spending. This can include things such as fuel, it can include other travel costs, it can include lunch treats, if you're buying clothes, presents, days out, you know, all of the events that we talked about kind of the non essential events, all of this can come out of that particular account, so that you know you've got that. You've got that there. The next account then is your longer term savings account. And when I say longer term, I'm talking kind of the next five years so this can include things such as holidays that you want to plan for it.

It can include such things as home improvements. And it could be saving for, say, a deposit on a house, if you want to move house and you need a more of a deposit, it could be a new car, it could be anything that is not kind of a regular amount for you. So, you know, again, with the front account, I didn't mention this. And with the long term savings account, we're talking up to 10% of your income. So again, up to remember people, it may be that you can't put that much in at the moment, even if you can only afford to put 20 quid a month into say the long term savings account, start making that contingency because this is very much part of your emergency fund as well. So the next account we talk about is the retirement account slash financial freedom account.

This is a really important account because for majority of people, they do want to retire at some point. And the reality is, as a world, we are not saving enough for this particular eventuality. Now personally, I kind of don't agree nowadays with the whole Kind of 6567 retirement age, because you know, we're living a lot longer years ago, when these ages were set, people did die in their late 60s, early 70s as an average. But nowadays, you know, we are living a lot longer medical science has advanced, we live our lives in a far more healthy way. So ultimately, we could end up spending longer in retirement than we ever did working. Because if you say, for example, start working at 20.

And then you know, you are aiming to retire when you are 65. That's 45 years in employment, which means that, you know, if you then live to 90, you could end up spending another 30 years in retirement. Now, what you've got to think about when it comes to retirement is, you know, when you're at work, you spend 70% of your week at work, so you only have 30% of your time to do the things that you choose to do it with. And obviously then we have holidays and so on and so forth where you've got 100% of your time, but the reality is people And when you retire, you've got 100% of your time, and the hundred percent of your time. And that you've got means that actually, you've got a lot of time to be spending on the things that you want to do that you're choosing to do.

Now, it may be that you didn't actually choose to go to work. So, you know, planning for your retirement, and knowing that you can actually achieve maybe financial freedom is a really key thing. Now working out the financial freedom figure, again, is another task that we're going to do for another day. I'm trying to keep this short and concise so that you could actually get this work done and achieve results. And again, planning for your retirement is a whole nother exercise, which we're going to do a masterclass around, you know, so you're clued up with what you've got to do in this area, to actually make sure that you've got enough income and to live on and to and to really thrive rather than survive when you get to that point. The next account that I talked to people about is your Education Fund.

Now, you know you if you're watching this video, then you are educating yourself, you are bettering yourself, you are improving your skills, it may be that you decide that you want to go back to university or you do an open university course or you do some kind of further education. If you're in the self development world, there's courses that you can do, and all of these things cost money. Now, personally, I think they're an absolutely critical part to our ongoing development, because ultimately, you know, without these things, and we don't grow, and if we're not growing, then actually, in my opinion, we're retracting. So, you know, Benjamin Franklin said, an investment in knowledge pays the bills, and he was a pretty clever guy. So basically, what I want you to be doing is thinking about simply what do you want to be spending on education, again, up to is the figure that we are saying here But it's you know, it's as much as you can put into there, because it's important to develop you.

The final account is optional, really. And it could be that you used to put this 10% in other areas, but the final account that I encourage you to have is a gift account. And the gift account is ultimately about the fact that there is always somebody that is worse off than you. And that's reality, guys, you know, we think that we're kind of hard to come by, but in, you know, the modern world that we live in today, and we have a lot of what I coin at first world problems, you know, there's people out there that can't afford to eat, guys, and you're worrying about you know, whether you can buy yourself that new handbag, and you're worried about you know, things that actually really when you put them into perspective, and not that critical, so giving to others for me is an essential part of my life.

And not only do I give financially but I give quite a bit of my time with the fact that I work with a charity so I am a member of one of the world's largest charities with International, and I give a lot of my time to this particular charity. So, you know, for me, it's you know, it's a double edged coin, it's not only do I give my time and my time obviously has a value, but I also give a percentage of my income towards this. And in you know, the fact that I want to help people I want to help people that are less fortunate than me. And I'm a huge believer in you know, the more that we give, the more that we receive, it's about that reciprocity, and making sure that you know, we are all rounded as energetic human beings. So the key to all of this is his go and do this work.

Again, a little bit like the task last week, it is going to take you a bit of time to get this sorted. But what I not even virtually, I guarantee you, you will save so much time in the long run. By doing this particular exercise, I cannot even begin to tell you, because when you do that quick flash on your bank accounts every single day in your app or on your own Online Banking, you know exactly where you stand to the penny. So really, really important exercise. Again, one of the most critical exercises, practicality wise that you are going to do within this 12 weeks. So go and do the work people.

Tell us how you get on and I'll catch you in the next week on the next module.