Curious about generating passive income through options? In this video, I'll show you how to utilize call and put options like rental properties to earn a monthly income.

Whether you've heard of covered call options or you're completely new to the concept, I've got you covered.

Plus, I'll do a live demo on my platform, Interactive Brokers and share some tips on selecting the right strike prices.

Thousands have learnt via our Investment Academy - learn more here:

https://investlikeapro.co.uk/academy

IMPORTANT: Your Capital is at Risk. Investments may not be covered by the FSCS. This is NOT investment advice - for information purposes only. Please seek advice from a regulated advisor before investing. The value of investments can fall as well as rise - don't rely on past performance.

For patient set-and-forget investors, the recent tariff-driven volatility was overdue and welcome.

Pullbacks enable long-term investors, like myself, to accumulate quality assets at better prices. As Warren Buffett says:

“The Stockmarket is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient”

We do this by pound-cost-averaging. This is working well for our investors now, and always works to grow and compound our portfolios at opportune times.

Markets don’t rise in a straight line: Pull-backs are healthy …

.. and normal. In fact, that’s exactly why markets have returned 8-10% pa, on average, since day-dot. Because volatility isn’t loss. The chart below shows how stocks have grown over the last 50+ years but certainly not in a straight line …

WHY Volatility helps us …

Think about it: if stocks had zero volatility and grew in a straight line, the whole world and their dog would be fully invested in stocks.

If everyone was fully invested, there would be no risk premium and no new money entering the market. Stock returns would then be risk-free and equal to cash savings rates.

It’s a shame that market fluctuations and perceptions discourage the majority of people from investing. In the UK only 23% of people actively invest in stocks, according to Hargreaves Lansdowne. In the US that’s a lot higher.

And because the majority of people stay on the sidelines, earning cash returns that are lower than the real inflation rate, that then creates the risk-premium which enables those higher stock returns.

Today we're exploring a topic that's not only timely, given the impending financial year-end, but also incredibly valuable—accessing free money for investing and securing your financial future. Yes, you heard it right, free money! Learn how to utilize the U.K.'s tax system to your advantage and make your investing as efficient as possible.

I've got our investment coach, Peter Deane with me who has experience with these tax incentives and also advises our clients on how to leverage them in an efficient way.

As investors, our aim is to maximize our financial security through compounded growth. One effective way to achieve this is by tapping into the free money available via tax incentives.

This is a final opportunity to check for any gaps in your National Insurance record, and if so top up your contributions to prevent a shortfall of State Pension. Normally, you can buy back up to six years, but when the new State Pension was introduced, arrangements were put in place to go back as far as 2006. The deadline for checking back to 2006 is 5th April 2025.

You should check your position as soon as possible if you think this may apply to you. You can start by checking your National Insurance record which will show you whether you have full year’s contributions from 2006 and identify any years that are not full. To do this, follow this link [Check your National Insurance record - GOV.UK](https://www.gov.uk/check-national-insurance-record) .

Next, visit the State Pension forecast calculator [Check your State Pension forecast - GOV.UK](https://www.gov.uk/check-state-pension) which will tell you how much State Pension you stand to receive based on your current National Insurance record, and a forecast of how much State Pension you are likely to get if you work up to State Pension age. The full amount of State Pension is £221.20 per week and if this is not the amount showing, you may be able to boost your contributions to get to the full amount.

If you identify a shortfall, you can make additional contributions to cover the gap. However, you should talk this through as whilst topping up is beneficial in most cases, there will be individuals for whom this is not appropriate. Phone lines are set up for people who are not yet at state pension age [Contact the Future Pension Centre - GOV.UK](https://www.gov.uk/future-pension-centre)

Remember, a full State Pension can be a valuable part of planning for retirement and is worth approximately £300,000 in today’s terms.

Thank you for joining us today, and a special thanks to Peter Deane for his insights. Until next time, stay informed and make the most of what’s available to you.

Link to slides mentioned in the episode are here and here.

Thousands have learnt via our Investment Academy - learn more here:

https://investlikeapro.co.uk/academy

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