Episode Details

Every year, we change from one year to another, but last year it seemed that we were changing from one tier to another! 

This is a time to reflect on how things have gone for us, especially since 2020 was the strangest year in our lifetime.

Of course, there have been losers, but there have been massive winners too.

People running or adapting to an online business models have seen their wealth grow, while many traditional retailers have collapsed.

The point is, it’s not the economy that matters is YOU and your U’Conomy

Brexit has happened and the UK is now out of the European Union, but not out of Europe.

We are entering an exciting new phase for the United Kingdom, which is now free to trade with the rest of the world on its own terms.

For most people, life will go on unchanged, but there will be changes to our lives.

If you run a business which exports imports goods you will need more paperwork. Companies like Amazon have already informed their sellers about what they need to do.

The UK is largely a service-based economy and you can easily start a business offering services.

Before Christmas most of the country went into higher tier restrictions and the Port of Dover was lined up with lorries on the motorway while the French blockaded the port of Calais – nothing new about that sort of behaviour from a country which still wants to fish in British waters after we leave the European Union!

The UK was effectively put under martial law, with much of our freedoms and rights removed as we were told that we could not travel to different parts of the country.

Will I need a Visa to go to Spain? I doubt it. EU passports were always checked or scanned. It was just quicker to stand in the EU line rather than the non-EU passport queue.

Have you made a whole bunch of new year’s resolutions? It’s at this time of year when most people would join a gym or start a diet. This might not be possible at the moment, but our intentions are still good even if we don’t always stick to them.

If your goal is to make more money will become financially free, then you’re in the right place. This year I will continue to bring you money tips to help you save and invest accumulate and enjoy more money.

As we see many shops and physical businesses struggling, the fact is there has never been a better time to start an online business.

Parcel deliveries and online purchases reached record levels last year.

At the same time, we saw a major retailers like Debenhams, John Lewis, Arcadia and others close down stores or go into administration.

Whilst it’s true that the coronavirus pandemic acted as a catalyst to speed up the decline of the High Street, the fact is some had been in decline for a number of years.

Despite this, small businesses continue to open up shops and other physical businesses investing tens of thousands of pounds in the hope that customers would come through the door.

I have seen so many small shops come and go in the last five years that I despair.

Traditional retail businesses work on the basis of finding somewhere in the town centre where there is footfall, and opening up a premises which they usually rent from a commercial landlord who requires the owner to sign a lease with a personal guarantee. This means that unlike Arcadia’s billionaire owner Sir Philip Green, they are personally liable for the lease rental payments.

They invest tens and even hundreds of thousands of pounds of their hard-earned savings, redundancy money or money borrowed against their home to open up a shop, fit it out and buy stock.

Then they have rent, business rates, salaries, taxes and other running costs which let’s say cost them a further £50,000 a year - £1000 per week.

The owners never seem to work out that you have to sell a lot of items costing between £1 and £