Tax doesn't discriminate by gender, but there's still a gender gap in how men and women manage their long-term savings
Women are more likely to hold their nest eggs in taxable savings accounts, missing out on the tax benefits of ISAs or pensions...
No editorial this week since I’m still travelling.
Instead, this is an OG-style Money Brunch newsletter, when it was a Notion page I’d update each week!
1. Women are ‘less likely than men to be using tax-efficient ways to save’
🚨🚨🚨Women are more likely than men to be holding their long-term nest eggs in a savings account instead of a tax-efficient ISA or pension. 🚨🚨🚨
Long-term savings are defined here as money for anything longer than five years ahead - such as saving for retirement, a deposit on a property or starting a business.
Why don’t you want to keep them in a savings account? The interest you earn is taxable over a certain threshold. Whereas, if it’s in an ISA, there’s no tax to be paid!
I think ISAs scare people, since there is often a perception that it’s harder to take your money out of one. That’s not always the case. An easy-access ISA works in the same way as a savings account; you can usually deposit and make withdrawals as much as you’d like. The only difference is that it sits outside of your taxable assets.
And you have £20,000 that you can put into an ISA each year. Don’t let it go to waste, if you have that sort of cash available to you. And if you don’t have that much, that’s fine too! Just get into the habit of utilising it as part of your wealth building plan.
Your cash ISA and stocks and shares ISA options are outlined here.
2. ‘I just want a dumb job.’
You know. The type where you don’t have to think a whole lot, where your workday ends at 5pm, where you don’t have emails on your phone. For some people, at times of high stress, this can feel like the dream work set up.
Here, three women talk about a version of this, when they quit the jobs they fought hard for and found out that they were much happier on the other side.
I don’t know that they have a dumb job, but instead have less stressful and more boundaried jobs. That’s not a bad thing! And I think it highlights how we can make small changes to make big differences, rather than swinging towards an extreme to escape burnout or a horrible work environment.
3. Streaming sucks, and is likely just going to get worse
How the joy in streaming TV died:
Price hikes: Where once there was just Netflix, as a bottomless treasure trove of content, there is Amazon, Now, Apple, Disney, Paramount, Britbox, Hayu, Shudder, BFI Player and Mubi. On top of that, ITV has a paid tier, Channel 4 has a paid tier and even YouTube has a paid tier. And all of them are steadily raising their prices.
No one would do this, since different types of platforms are meant to appeal to different preferences, but to watch everything streamed by all these platforms, you would need to spend £1,452 a year
That’s insane.
This sums it up nicely; “It feels like the streamers are starting to act like drug dealers, giving us all a cheap taste and then gouging us once we’re hooked.”
Terrible adverts: HONESTLY.
They’re also jammed into shows that weren’t designed to sit around ad breaks; something I hadn’t previously considered
“Watch, say, Broadchurch on ITV, and you’re watching a show built around ad breaks. Shows like this rise and fall to several miniature crescendos an episode, because the people who made it knew they had to work to keep our interest through the breaks. This doesn’t happen on Amazon shows.”
Customer crackdowns: Password sharing is being curbed.
This week Disney+ announced its “paid sharing program”, in which subscribers could add members outside their households for just five extra pounds a month. Bargain… 😕
No links this week; I’ve been pretty offline so I haven’t been collecting nuggets to share with you. Normal programming will resume next Sunday!
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