I don’t usually reflect too much on my career so far. I have no regrets – I love to write and talk about everything I do and there’s no point rueing past missed chances or anything of that nature.

But there was one really clear point at which my career (which began in 2012 as a freelance journalist) could have gone quite differently.

That is because, for the briefest of moments, I considered doing a masters degree.

It was 2012 and my undergraduate degree was wrapping up. I had studied History and Spanish and was really not that clear on what I wanted to do next.

Unlike many of my (now very successful!) peers, I didn’t try to get on any graduate programs – seemed like too much paperwork and box ticking for my liking.

Instead, I kind of just drifted until effectively an opportunity punched me in the mouth. The rest, as they say, is history – and here I am now 13 or so years into a career in journalism.

But for a moment during that drift – I seriously looked at the idea of doing a masters. I wanted to do international relations, vaguely attracted to the idea and (self-conceived) notions of life as an international diplomat.

One thing really stood in my way though, I had no idea how to pay for it. It was that stumbling block, more than anything else, that stopped me from pursuing it.

At this time, the Government’s own postgraduate loan system had yet to be created – only arriving in 2016.

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Return on investment

The job market for graduates in 2012 was pretty tough. In 2025, it is by all accounts absolutely dreadful.

With so many people now getting undergraduate degrees the need to stand out is rising constantly, making masters and even doctoral degrees more attractive.

In the latest Mouthy Money podcast, we met with Rishi Zaveri, one of the founders of higher education lender Lendwise to discuss. Rishi was emphatic – masters degrees make a huge difference to lifetime earnings. It represents a considerable and valuable investment in onself and one’s career.

This is fairly evident through Government figures on it: the average graduate salary is £26,000, while for a masters grad this goes up to £29,500 – a cool 13.5% difference.

Scale that up over a 40-year career and the potential for long-term earnings and pension savings – cannot be understated.

The return on your personal educational investment could be invaluable – even if you have to take on some debt to do it.

That being said, I don’t regret that I never took a masters, I am grateful for the career I have had so far. But my pension might not be so grateful day, although I guess we’ll never really know!

Photo credits: Pexels

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Introducing savvy mother, Carina Parry, who is investing to ‘future-proof’ and improve family finances just like yours.

In a world where women have fought hard for their financial independence, the unpleasant truth is that there are still far too few women investors.

A quick look at the data suggests that investing is still seen as something that men primarily do. For example, just 10% of women have a stocks and shares ISA, compared to 17% of men, according to a report by data firm Kantar.

Given the imbalance, Mouthy Money sought out three female investors to find out their motivations for investing to improve family finances, and to see if they could offer any advice to the budding female stock pickers out there.

In our first interview of this three-part series, we speak to Carina Parry on why she’s investing for her and her family’s future.

Improve family finances and investments 

Women mention their family substantially more when talking about finance, including children, parents and significant others, according to research by Kantar.

Carina Parry is considering investing for her son’s future and has a sharp focus on her family life when it comes to dealing with her finances.

She says: “For me, investing is about the future. When I hear the word ‘investing’, that’s what I’m thinking about, my future. I’ve just had a baby, so now I have a different mentality around it.”

A few years ago, after receiving a bonus from work and speaking to her dad about the money, Carina made her first ever investment. Several years have passed and she has seen that investment grow.

“Whereas before investing to make money had been an abstract idea, I’ve now personally seen positive results from it. This has encouraged me to get more involved and learn more.”

During lockdown Carina managed to save a pot of money that she now intends to invest for her future.

She says: “I’m looking into junior ISAs  (JISAs) and Junior stocks and shares ISAs for my son, it seems a bit ridiculous because I’ve not even got my finances sorted yet, but at least I can give him a bit of a head start.”

Investment information

When it comes to investments, Carina relies on her family for information, specifically from her dad and brother.

She says: “Maybe that’s a female thing, that you don’t discuss your finances as much.

“It’s my dad and my brother who I know have made investments, so I lean on them for information. I have also tried to speak to a couple of my male friends who work in finance, but everyone holds their cards quite close to their chest, they don’t want to give you any recommendations in case it’s unsuccessful and falls on them!”

Her family has been a primary source of information for investments, as well as main contributors to her financial education – an education that was built “from a young age.”

She admits she hasn’t really spoken to her friendship group really seriously about a wider investment: “I’m sure other people do, but it’s not something that comes up regularly. I think money in general is quite a difficult topic sometimes.”

Investment platforms

Carina uses Hargreaves Lansdown for her investments, a platform recommended to her by family.

“For someone like me, who isn’t confident when it comes to investing, the platform is a safe pair of hands.

“For the foreseeable future, especially now I’ve had a baby and don’t have that much time, I would look to stick with them. I’ve also been looking at the app Plum, but still haven’t decided on changing.

“Part of the barrier to investing is this idea of how much money is going to make it worthwhile. So, for the for larger sums, Hargreaves Lansdown is a good choice, as I can put my savings into an account within the platform, that seems like a preferred direction for me.

“But in terms of daily, weekly, monthly, if I can make small savings that actually can work harder for me, then something like Plum’s app seems perfect and less scary.”

Investing into pensions

Men in their 60s will on average retire with three times more in savings, compared with women of the same age, a report by consultancy Mercer estimates.

Two in five (40%) of women are also worried about running out of money in retirement, Kantar’s research shows.

This is mostly due to the gender pay gap leaving women with less pension savings in work, and the fact that women have been targeted with messages to save and not invest, according to the research.

Carina has a workplace pension, but she is considering investing into a bigger pension fund.

She says: “It’s very much start of the road at the moment. It’s only recently that I’ve actually started thinking about making my pension work harder for me, and tying these things together on my investment learning curve.”

Starting to invest

When she first invested, Carina was excited by it and felt like it was a positive. She admitted that being guided by her family made the whole process a lot easier.

However, now that she’s thinking about it “afresh,” she feels more hesitant, as there’s a lot more at stake.

She says: “Future proofing for me and my family is what’s driving my intention to start investing now.

“Also, I find it quite frustrating because investing is not rocket science, yet I feel clueless about where to make investments and where to start.  It’s a mixture of apprehension and a bit of frustration.

Historically it’s felt a bit like a ‘boys club’, with investors being portrayed in a certain way. As a female and a mum, the stereotyped male investor is unrelatable. However this seems to be changing with more female focussed information being available.

Photo by Mateus Campos Felipe on Unsplash

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Mouthy Money Your Questions Answered panelist, Laura Suter, answers a reader’s question about how to save and invest money on a starting salary.

Question: I’m a young, recent graduate from university and just started my first job where I earn £20,000. I’d like to put away some of my salary each month into investing, but I don’t know where to start or how it works to invest nowadays. Do you have any tips?

Answer: Regular investing – so putting aside money each month – is an ideal route for first time investors like yourself, because it means you can invest a small amount each month into the market and get used to investing.

You can easily set up a direct debit that will automatically transfer the money into your investment account each month (maybe on payday) and then set up regular investing on your platform, which will automatically buy the funds or shares you’ve chosen.

Many investment platforms will allow you to start from as little as £25 or £50 a month, which you can then build up as you get more confidence and more spare cash.

And even if you’re putting away small sums your savings can quickly add up. If you put away £50 a month over 10 years, assuming investment returns of 5% a year after fees, you’d build up a pot of £6,910, while over 20 years you’d end up with £19,175.

A big advantage is that that you don’t have to remember to save and invest your cash each month. Another benefit is that you don’t try to time the market and pick the best point in the month to invest, which is notoriously tricky to do accurately and is an easy trap for first-time investors to fall into.

Drip-feeding your investments each month also provides an in-built protection mechanism during periods of volatility. This is something called ‘pound cost averaging’ and means you should suffer fewer extreme lows in your portfolios if markets fall.

However, charges are one area you need to watch out for. If you’re only investing £25 a month you need to make sure you’re not investing in lots of different funds, as it will cost you a dealing fee each time. You will save money in fees with lots of investment platforms if you opt for regular investing, as many offer a discount to usual dealing fees for signing up to the service.

On AJ Bell Youinvest, for example, you would usually pay £9.95 when you buy or sell shares, but this is reduced to £1.50 if you’re doing so through regular investing.

In order to set up regular investing you’ll need to think about what you want to invest in. It can feel daunting for first-time investors to know what to put their money into or how to navigate markets, but loads of tools, information and guidance have been developed in recent years to make it easier to get going. From curated lists of ‘favourite’ funds to one-stop-shop funds that invest in lots of different assets, there’s lots of options for newcomers.

If you don’t feel confident picking which countries or sectors to invest in you can defer asset allocation decisions to a professional. You can buy so-called ‘all in one’ funds that spread your money between different country’s stock markets and across various asset classes, with an option of having more or less in stock markets versus bonds, gold and cash, depending on your risk appetite.

The Vanguard LifeStrategy funds are one option and investment platforms often offer their own versions too.

Alternatively, first-timers could buy a cheap ‘tracker’ fund, which mimics the performance of a broad global index, such as the MSCI World. Fidelity World Index is one option for this, which has a low annual cost of 0.12%.

If you decide to go down the route of picking your own investments, you need to make sure you understand what you’re buying, and why you think it will make money – whether it’s a fund or a share.

All too often investors are lured in by the promise of high returns or invest because a friend has recommended it, but you need to make sure you understand how the investment works and all the risks before you commit your money.

Once you have set up your investments you want to make sure you’re not checking your account every day, as doing so can mean you end up trading too much. You should be buying investments for the next five or 10 years, not five or 10 days, so you don’t want to be chopping and changing too much.

Apart from anything else the cost of trading will eat into your returns. But becoming too obsessed with the ups and downs in your investments can also mean you panic if they fall one day, meaning you sell and lock in losses.

Laura Suter, head of personal finance at AJ Bell

The opinions expressed in this article should not be construed as financial advice. All investments carry risk, and you can get back less than you invested.

Have you got a burning money question? Ask your question here

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

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Mouthy Money talks to graduates who tell us in their own words what their experience of entering the job market feels like during the pandemic

In our new series, we talk to students who graduated during the pandemic to see what’s their experience of entering the job market has been during one of the biggest crises of the century. Read the first instalment here.

The pandemic put a heavy strain on graduates – to find jobs in a climate that didn’t have any available. Now with the National Insurance tax increase and inflation, the future of the younger generation can seem uncertain at times.

David* graduated in 2020 in the UK. He explains his experience as an international student in the UK, his opinions on how the university helped him prepare for the job market, and how the pandemic changed the course of his life.

Find out more: If you’re 18 – 29, we want to hear from you! By taking our quick survey, you’ll be in with a chance of winning a £100 shopping voucher from your choice of Amazon, John Lewis or M&S – plus four £20 vouchers up for grabs too.

1. Tell us about your university experience? Did the university prepare you for the job market?

I studied chemical and environmental engineering, then I did an energy and environmental engineering masters. I like to think about my university experiences through two separate entities that had a direct impact on me.

There were the student services, practically speaking the university’s administrative side. And then there was the chemical engineering departments. The Faculty of Engineering was top class at my university.

However, the administrative side of the university in student services is different – it’s really built around helping UK-born students, and not internationals.

They have services for international students, but all they do is really give you advice, they don’t help you. And they don’t know how to give you advice, because every country is different when looking for a job.

I want advice that’s adapted to where I come from, and how do I look for a job? What do I need? Is there a list of registered sponsors? No one taught me that.

I would have liked to be helped more by the student services to enter the job market.

I would have liked to stay in the UK, but then the pandemic started, and companies stopped hiring. I think there’s actually a year or two where you’re allowed to stay in the UK and work so, you don’t need to get a registered sponsor for visas. But with the pandemic things have changed practically speaking. I did come at the worst time to be in the UK.

2. How do you feel about the current job market in the UK or in Morocco?

In the UK I’m hopeless. It is a highly developed country, but I think at least for us internationals, I don’t think there’s much hope unless you’re excellent or at the top.

In Morocco I actually have a lot of hope. But that’s because I can see internally who’s working in the sector now. I can see what people are starting up and I can see that businesses are opening, I can see the government doing things and planning. I’m hopeful for the job market because I know that we’re going to start shifting our economy towards the industry of chemicals and pharmaceuticals, which is what I want to do. We’re going to have Covid vaccine manufacturing plants in Morocco. Super fun.

3. Are you thinking of going back to the UK anytime soon?

I’d like to visit the UK, but I don’t think I want to go back right now. I’d like to be able to visit the UK and just spend money and have fun living there.

If someone would give me a job, then that’s excellent. I’d go tomorrow, but it’ll have to be a really good job with a lot of benefits for me to give up my current job.

4. Have you ever considered investing some of the money you earn now as a full-time employee?

If you’re talking about bitcoin and stock markets, nope, it’s basically gambling, let’s call it what it is. It has added no value to the world. It’s not good. But investing in something useful, like investing in an idea, that’s what I actually tried to do.

My first job was as a chemical engineer in a small team in Marrakesh, I was making 8,000 dirhams a month (around £650), and I didn’t spend it because of the pandemic, so I saved up quite a bit of money.

I started thinking about an idea that I did my master’s dissertation on, which was turning waste, agricultural waste, and plastics and stuff into gasoline, diesel. And I took 20,000 dirhams (around £1,600) that I had saved up, and I spent it all on this idea and I built a system and I tested it.

Investing in my own skills and my knowledge, I built something with my own hands.

But it turns out that I couldn’t make diesel. I didn’t think about the full scope of what I was doing or about the legal aspects because you’re not allowed to just sell diesel. Instead, I started making charcoal, which was pretty good, but very expensive. I stopped and I lost the 20,000 dirhams.

But that’s okay because I learned a lot and I became a charcoal expert. You don’t necessarily need to do something in your 20s to prove that you can be a leader. And for sure, it adds up as an experience.

*Name changed to preserve anonymity

Photo by Jason Goodman on Unsplash

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