¶ Intro / Opening
🎵 Music
¶ Morning Routines & Social Media
Welcome to the Vault with Finite Child. This is a safe space where we talk all things live for money and no topics or off limit. Hi everybody. Happy birthday.
It's definitely cozy, cozy vibes. You are thriving. We know you're thriving in this like winter.
I've got the opposite of sad.
Yeah
Effective.
So I was gonna get a lamp to wake me up'cause we get up early for the gym and I said to Neil, we need to get the lamp that wakes you up.
Yeah but then it wakes both of you up.
I know but I've decided now to start making an effort to g if one of us is on the early gym session that the other one gets up as well and sorts out the pat lunches and the protein shake for the other person.
What time is this but will he do that?
Yeah.
What time is the early gym sess? Five.
Forty there's the get up. Okay, after class starts at quarter past six. So usually I would stay in bed till quarter to seven and then follow him in the gym after. Yeah. But tonight I'm on an evening session. So he got up at five forty. I got up at five forty. I did the two pack lunches. I did the protein shake for him. I did a cup of tea for me. I did a bit of work that wasn't financial. I'm a volunteer for the school's PTFA, so I did my
work before my work. Um like open the curtains, put a wash on. Like I was and I felt so much more in control of the day. So I was like, Do you know what? There might be something in this and I know you're an early riser. No and it and it's it was nice not to do it for something. It was like just to get up and start the day. I'll get up for the gym early, but I'm not sure.
Let's see what she thinks when it's like
Yeah, I want to be
But sure.
I think I don't think that would wake Carl, so I think I prefer
Yeah. Well, Alex bought one of them, but it's only like an Amazon one. Like it doesn't fully light the room up. Yeah. It wakes me up.
Does it make a difference?
Well we've got it like for twelve minutes it gets brighter and then it's like It doesn't wake Alex up.
Carl's got no challenge.
I've been doing evening gyms. 'Cause I'm like in an evening sauna.
Oh before bed,
wanna walk to the gym in the pitch black. Yes. In the morning.
But you'll walk from the gym in the pitch block at night.
I think it's good to do the one of the main reasons that like people talk about faster cardio and stuff and I don't know anything about it, but um one of the main reasons for the morning is like you know, the big indoor frame rush for the day, you've achieved something, but performance wise you are actually meant to work out later in the day, like after
Yeah, because you've eaten and
I think I feel better.
Yeah, you'll you should be able to do it better and achieving it.
If I've done a like tonight I've got a fitness class and I know that I'll yeah, I'll be a little bit quite an intense one. It's like I will be.
Mm-hmm. I don't do anything intense. I left some weights and then I go sit in the sauna for fifteen minutes.
Yeah.
I even looked up by Nassauna the other day. That's how influenced. It's so good for you though, isn't it? The infrared, is that correct?
We've not got an infrared one.
I hate it.
Yeah. A friend round the corner's got one in the garden. So Laura spent summer. Well I know. I've hinted enough times. Um building out her out gym. So she's got a gym outside. And but our friends got a song and I was like, There's something in this guy's like literally morning gym session. Go around.
in our Oudis. I know because I say it's like Holly and I'm like just you lift because it's outside it doesn't if anyone wants to use the gym, yeah call it not anyone listening'cause that's a lot of people come in. But um but imagine if you went to their back garden with like Europe dressing dressing gown.
Yeah, slippers.
We're queuing. I'll put a towel down, it's fine, don't worry.
It is like the new big spend thing on the Instagram, isn't it? Yeah. If you follow any of it. If you follow anything fitness related, every other scroll now at the moment is just selling me something. I played a game on TikTok the other day. I was like, I wonder how many times someone tries to sell me something. And it was like'cause sometimes it's an ad, sometimes it's TikTok shop and sometimes it's someone just talking about something to buy and they're not
TikTok shop's the worst. It really is. Like every single thing is like, girls, these trousers,$5.99, blah, blah, blah. I'm on a market stall.
I caved and bought the gym tops. Do you know the halter neck ones? And they're fine. Wouldn't recommend them. But like I've got three extra dream jobs for like fifteen.
Yeah. Instead of like a gym trout one for thirty five. Yeah.
It we've joked about it before, like it's literally QVC.
It is. I'm like, what? I don't want this from my punting.
Nothing to do with likes.
I love that. Yeah, way less.
Passive aggressive.
I didn't know you could do that.
I'm not gonna comment and say,
I'd love to be able to turn off. I bet I wonder if there's a turn off TikTok shop. But they make too much money. TikTok make too much money. They don't want to turn it off.
Yeah.
Um I thought about winter and then I went off.
Mm-hmm.
¶ Lending Money to Family
Okay, time for today's controversial opinion. You should never lend money to family.
I've not got my purse, can you lend me?
Gives a five.
Or is it like We want to buy a home, can you lend me five grand? Yeah.
Very Like our family WhatsApp is the funniest WhatsApp. It's literally like Professional bailiffs like in there. Like Trish will be like, Does anybody I'm in MS, does anybody need anything? And I'm like, Yes, I need cream cheese, bagels, kitchen roll, da da da.
For my beak and
Six six weeks later. So I'll say make sure you tell me how much I owe you. She does.
Doesn't doesn't if it's f so she probably won't. Invoice me for the bacon because she'll be like
Yeah.
Too quid. Like in padd eighty nine she would invoice me.
कर दो कर दो कर दो
Yeah. But it's like a running family joke, like my nan used to do it. She'd have like a little book and sh obviously we'd be at like college and stuff and she'd be like, Does anybody need anything from it? It would be like something fun for her to do. But it'd be like, Right, I owe you three hundred pounds for that hot bit of the holiday. Can you but you owe me this? So actually we owe each other seven pounds, or should we call it quits like this just
It always works out.
Yeah, there's all these conversations in the in the chat. Yeah. Obviously that that's not the controversial opinion, but it's you can have funny dynamic Like Laura the other day, I was like, I need this dress, I'm going to shopping centre. Can you buy it for me? Yes. Send you the money. Done. But borrowing money and an emotional
level. No, and then so I bought clothes. I got some clothes for um like for the autumn for um no spend September didn't happen last month. Um but a couple of things for morning live, a couple of things that I can also use for work. Um in fact these Money Queen. Um from Mango. And um I'd bought them from a space, a a clothing space.
So then when
Holly paid us sixty quid. No, free money. Like it's like well, I think it's an investment. I didn't spend it, but it was it didn't go back in a clothes pot. So in my head I'd spent that. So oh I've spent'cause it came from the pot, it didn't come from anywhere else. And so Carl was like, What's his sixty four hours? I was like, Never you mind. It's not spare. It's going to our future self.
Yeah.
But yeah, like that's the so that's that i is like lending a little bit
You can't always you can't always just be like Yeah.'Cause it can rack up and that person might be like
I think that's controversial news. It's more like big stuff. It's the deep stuff. When when can you?
When you are poorly or there's been a
When you when you po you probably shouldn't let
Uh
When you pull it.
Well if you've not got we talk about critical illness cover.
Like extreme scenario.
Yeah, like you've had an accident, you're in another country, you need to get home to your kids, like you've suddenly been taken ill like I think I would say to you or to my mum, we need to borrow money. Like, I literally can't pay my mortgage.
¶ Being the Family Bank
weird thing is like if you are lending family money you become like the bank. Yeah. And remember what a bank will do or a credit card company, they will assess creditworthiness, they'll assess risk. And so the reason why so often we'll say, Absolutely don't, is because you have to put yourself in that role and you're related. So you have to think. So for example, um your uh you think she's got she she's she's
got a good job. She could get a good job if she lost a job. She's quite healthy. Um, but she's in an emergency and she's on holiday and she needs to get a new phone or a new passport or like she needs a grand for something. you have to put yourself in that position and go, if I lend you that, what's the likelihood of you paying it back? And if I'm someone that always asks you for money and never pay it back and it's and I'm probably gonna put it on the boat trip that I want to go on.
You might say no. Yeah. And you might say yes. And then I come back and go, So, but it's another holiday. And you'd be like, You owe me a grant. So being the bank doesn't give a shit. The bank goes, Don't care, you owe me that money anyway Whereas you don't have to make payments to family. Yeah. It's optional. There's not a you know, y unless there's a c I mean, you can have a contract between family, by the way.
I wouldn't advise it, but it can be a legal debt that's between you both and you could sue if someone doesn't pay.
How likely is that?
are gonna do it. We always talk about are you willing to
Give it!
So generally and I like I think you're right, I think there's some exceptions where like if there's an absolute emergency in the family and you pay me back when you can pay me back, but this is a one off and it's something e extraordinary. But generally, if you're going to lend money to a family member If they never paid it back and if they continued to like spend money here there and everywhere, would you be all right with that?
Rydyn ni'n ei ddweud yn ddweud yn ddweud. Rydyn ni'n ei ddweud yn ei ddweud yn ei ddweud. Rydyn ni'n ei ddweud yn ei ddweud yn ei ddweud. Rydyn ni'n ei ddweud yn ei ddweud yn ei ddweud. Rydyn ni'n ei ddweud yn ei ddweud yn ei ddweud yn ei ddweud. Rydyn ni'n ei ddweud yn ei ddweud yn ei ddweud yn ei ddweud yn ei ddweud. Rydyn ni'n ei ddweud yn ei ddweud yn ei ddweud yn ei ddweud yn ei ddweud.
can I afford to let this go? And you can if you can afford to let it go, that's your choice. But for the sake of the relationship, but yeah, I I'm we're not one for lending money to family, are we? For it to be a thing the typical person that lends money from a family consistently. The answer to that question is no. Yeah. They've never got the shit together.
Crossing boundaries as well, going like, why do you see me as a line of credit? Like this is not helping you, but that this is not appropriate.
Some people like are doing it'cause they want like a new car. Mm.
Yeah, not like an emergency car. They need like it's it's when it's something boo.
You've got lifestyle creep and the way you fund it is not through family members.
But like imagine like the dinner table when someone owes your money. We've talked to before with friends, like don't lend friends money. There's a difference between like, I mean, God, before we used to go out and not pay on cards, like you used to take cash for a night out. And so someone would be like, Can you lend me twenty quid? Stay out, I'll lend you the money, you know.
Don't leave!
I saw this TikTok of um I think they split up thankfully, hopefully, but this girl's filming her boyfriend who's walking up and down at the end of the bed and she's sat on the bed watching TV and his face is above the camera so you can't see his face. And he's going, Why wouldn't you just let me under quid? Like it'd be ridiculous. I might have saved it for us. Oh, like sometimes I save it every if I watch it like two a.m and go some time.
Her wants her to lend him money and she's done it before. Like, I've got to go out with the boys and like I can't like being really, really like narcissistic and being really like abusive and going like. You are the worst in the world. Like, how embarrassing that I have to go to them and say, I can't come out because I've not got money. And the comments, you can imagine the ladies and gents both in the comments going, What a walking ick! And how as if he's doing
I love that. How embarrassing that I've got to go for my friends that you've not got a hundred quid for a night out and you're bullying me for it.
But it was like between partners, imagine.
That's horrible. Well that's slight financial abuse, isn't it, as well? Yeah. That type of behaviour.
Gill tripping. Yeah.
I don't like that. I'm not here for it. And I'm not here for lending money to family and friends unless I need it. Unless it means.
big boundaries debate. I think lots of people listening will probably start there going right, okay, this is when I think it's acceptable and this is when I think it isn't. But you know, it's a it's a lovely thing also sometimes, um, whether it's friend or family, to be confident to gift something. So I think there's an amount of money that will be right for you that's I don't want it back. Like, don't think about it. You don't owe me that. Oh that oh that no no, it's fine. Tell me.
Well there's boundaries there. Cause it happens again. And you're like, ooh, did and like is the lychee behavior where if there is a wealthy family member, does that family member get asked for money borrow money a lot?
I bet it's had if you had siblings and one ones always like we've talked about before, if they work in the family business and they're always given like the Okay.
Okay.
Whereas the other other sibling has like gone out and built their own life and built their own wealth and stuff and they're never reliant on the parents if even in like the mid forties or whatever and the other ones constantly. asking for stuff or expecting stuff or the family feels like they need to give money to this person for them to like get through life.
Oh God.
Family Dynamics.
¶ Protecting Loved Ones: Wills
Okay, time for our first dilemma.
Although your life can sometimes feel like a Hollywood blockbuster, weddings, divorce, death and scandal are It's the mundane life admin that can protect you from turning it into a horror film. Here at Finan Shell, we feel really passionate about making sure our community and their families are protected. Be honest, do you have a will? And if you do, when was the last time that you updated it?
We've been working with our pals Octopus Legacy for some time now, and our gal Harriet from Octopus Legacy has dropped us this helpful voice note to help you stay in control when it comes to protecting you and your loved ones.
Hi Financielle, here's a quick tip on how to make sure your loved ones are looked after no matter your situation. Make sure you have an up-to-date will in place. Unfortunately, the law doesn't always protect blended or non nuclear family structures the way you'd expect.
So without the right plan in place, your home, savings and assets might not go to the people you'd want, and the people you love might not get what you want them to. That's why writing a will, or for extra protection and control, creating a will with trust.
is so important. It lets you decide who gets what, when and how. Like letting your partner stay in the house while still leaving your share of your home to your children. Or ensuring you've provided for your whole family, not just your immediate relative. And if you've already got a will, you should make sure it's up to date and matches your current wishes. Thanks for letting me interrupt, ladies. I'll let you get back to your podcast now. P.S. Love the show.
A helpful reminder from our gal Harriet to get that important life admin nailed when it comes to protecting you and your loved ones. And right now it's simpler than ever to do so. Until October 31st, Octopus Legacy Has teamed up with charities from across the UK to cover the cost of your will, up to£150. You and your family can write a simple will at no cost.
or get a will with a trust at a discounted rate for a short time only. Let Octopus Legacy help you nail that important life admin so that you can go about living your life with the people you love. Head to the show notes to get started. Now let's get back to it.
¶ Payday Dilemma: Zero Savings
Ten days until payday and I have nothing to fall back on. I feel a bit sick writing writing this because I've never been in this position before and I'm totally spiralling. I've gone into my overdraft today and I'm freaking out. Payday isn't for another ten days and I have zero savings to fall back on. No emergency fund, nothing.
I've always been really sensible with money. I budget, I never mi I've never missed a bill, and I never use my overdraft until today. I'm scared that this is the start of a slippery slope. What if I can't climb back out? I'm already mentally beating myself up for not being well prepared, but I genuinely thought I'd be fine this month. I had an I had an unexpected expense come out and it's completely thrown me off. I really don't want to borrow money.
Oh. Mm-mm.
Or ask anyone for help, I want to try and manage it myself. Is there anything I can do to survive the next ten days without digging myself into a deeper hole? I'm trying to stay calm, but I feel so overwhelmed. I feel like I've failed and I hate that this One moment is making me question everything. Please help. Yeah.
thing that just shows you when you've not got emergency savings and when your budget's really tight, one thing and it blows up the month and She's got ten days to pay a day.
I remember that when I used to work in an office, people being like, Five days a payday. Like they were counting down the days, it was so reliant on that money dropping in because they literally couldn't afford
It's so normal. It's like more people are in that situation than not. It's um
Weirdos. We're always like, Is it paydays?
Well people at Financial is like payday so they can budget. Yeah.
I look forward to the budget.
Like oh some well listen, I know some of you do it a year in advance. Like yeah, those budgets are done. Um, but she's in survive. This is key survive. It's like early survive, isn't it? Because before you can build your mini emergency fund and whilst you're doing your budget and and it's what's a shame for her is it sounds like she's been doing all the right things and she's like, I budget and something's come in. Well...
If you had longer, you'd be like, so you can sell like we've already we've always done that. How can you create access in your budget? But this is like she.
I could do some of those things. You can.
She needs money like here and now, so like vintage. No, no. Things take a lot.
Facebook marketplace.
It's not that I was gonna say you can't do the vintage stuff because it could be Five hundred days and someone's bartering you down to like fifty P for a dress that you bought for sixty five.
Yeah.
Not a monster fall. So you need the cash quick. How can I get cash quick? And Facebook a something like a Facebook marketplace is perfect where it's a media exchange.
Yeah. And it could be um usually if you have ten days left to pay a day. you probably have um paid all your bills usually. Yeah. The last ten days, which is almost half a month. Like it's not an uh an incons a a not a large amount of time. Like it's a large amount of time. But what's in your food cupboards? What is in your freezer? Can mum and dad make you any food?
Get a lift from a work colleague for the to get to work through I can't pay for I don't want to pay for a train, I don't want to pay for a bus. Like who can give me a lift? To work. Can I walk to work? Is it going to take me an hour and a half? Well, I'm going to get up an hour and a half earlier. Like, now's the time to get scrappy the hell out of this.
And then uh'cause ultimately You are where you are, right. And so where you know, you wrote into us, you know where you're writing. We're not gonna go say, Oh, go put on a credit card and learn next time. You know, you're in your overdraft and you might have to use your overdraft. It's one of those it it's a
cruel reminder of why we have the emergency fund. And it's a cruel reminder of why you have to start building that momentum. And so you will do that next month and you'll you're you're adding to your debt a little bit with your overdraft. And as long as it's not a a habit, then forgive yourself a little bit. We've like we've all been there, but w i when you prepared, we don't go through this. We go
It makes sense if I'm annoying, but okay. Yeah.
So like you know, I know we're saying we're not saying use the overdraft, but that is the thing that you'd have to do, but it is
¶ Creative Survival & Damage Control
A time to get creative. You know, can you pick up a shift in a friend's pub and will they pay you cash on the night? Like it's stuff that um it's stuff that We are massively speaking for a place of privilege where we've not had to do that'cause we've had nothing. Um so interesting and maybe this is why you put the lending money thing before it, Lucy, because there's a controversial opinion.
Because lending money. Maybe that's I I'm trying to think what would I do? And it's very easy for me to be like, Sweet sell things on Facebook Marketplace but I might do because you can get cash immediately and if you're gonna sell the thing anyway. Um and I would shop around my freezer and I would have the most random meals you could ever imagine. Um and and look in my cupboards and stuff. But I would prob I would probably
friends and family, would you mind if I borrowed money? Yeah. I I I if I was really up against the wall and I had nothing.
But with a contract that I get paid next month I will be able to give you
fifty cent of it. And I'd be mortified and I would n and it would I would hope that it would make me never be put in a position where I have to do that again. Like Wellisha, what would you do? And some people don't have
Had go into the overdraft mall.
I think sorry, I will do that first.
It's a fast protocol. Yeah.
She's already in the oven.
And like you're spiralling on this, or she's right, uh you are spiralling, you're like, So that's it. So that's it. I'm gonna be shit with money forever because this month I've gone into my overdraft and I've budgeted and I've done really well.
If you're so if your budget is so tight, it's time to do something different. And the way that you can do that is either by squeezing your budget, which we talk about all the time, or getting more money in. Mm-hmm. That's all they're the only two things that you can do. Yn yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n.
That's why Survivor's called Survive, it is trenches it's really
Really. It's not easy at all.
Oh no onions. And you have to think outside the box and you have to do weird and wonderful things and Like Holly said, like th if there's a time to get an extra job, now is it? Is the time to apply for the next big job and create a jump. Yeah. You know, now is the time. Is it renting a room out? Is it moving into a cheaper place? Like is it moving home with parents if that's a possibility? If things are that tight.
Same to self.
I'll sort it this month, I'll go into my overdraft, I'll borrow, I'll be creative, but I'll never be here again. It's the biggest thing that you can do. It's not some people get this set back in like three, four weeks in and they've built up a little bit of emergency fund and they go, Oh you see it, don't you? They go, I've had to use
I'm so annoyed. And unfortunately for you, you've had it happen when you were at zero. Yeah. And and that's just, you know the luck of the drink. Adding as little when people always ask us about this actually, and I say adding as little debt as possible when you have to use debt is the best option.
Yeah.
Cap that, like manage that. Don't it's not a free-for-all. Like sometimes, sometimes it happens immediately. When people have a baby and they've not saved anything, what you're gonna do. to as much debt as you could. Like limit the damage, damage limitation, and then we fix it later. But don't spiral, you're doing okay.
Ten day countdown. Yeah.
Yeah.
No spending ten days.
Ja.
And some really weird meals have come in.
What's what's your weird survival? Got no more like what's in your cupboard right now if you didn't have a food
That's a good question.
I've always got pasta, I've always got rice.
Yeah, I've got, um...
I've always got tuna. I've always got tuna corn. I've always got rice cakes. I've always got cereal. I would I would be fine.
Yeah. Because you'd get your protein and you'd have pasta.
Is that the ed imami in the freezer? Protein fills you up.
I the other week for lunch I didn't have literally anything and I had eight geosas for lunch.
Yeah.
I also was like walking back upstairs to my desk and I spilt the soy sauce all over my desk. No, luckily on my desk.
Uh do you know what? I think we should do a little blog on that, like w no not on the like random things we've got, but whatever budget friendly, like if you need a week
Yeah.
It's like'cause everyone talks about ramen and like I love emiso and I love um noodles. Yeah, yeah. And that is a hack for like, do you want the seventeen pound pret? Platter that they're talking about. Is it seventeen quid or is it cheaper than that? Do you remember we were like
Let's put it in a salad.
salad. The difference between going getting that on your lunch um or having like literally uh Pot noodle for one of the best words. Yeah.
Yeah.
I wouldn't advise it health wise, but financially.
Yeah. Things like rice go a long way. Bolognese goes a long way, like make a few meals out of it.
Yeah.
We're in Shepherd's Pie season. I can't believe we've not spoken about it. It's the worst meal in the world. I will not.
Go on. I will be soon. In January last year. This year. Last year? This year? January. I think we started literally like New Year's Day. We genuinely had a run off like ten days and we ate Shepherd's Pie. No, it's cottage pie every single day.
No. It's basically baby food.
No it's so
It's pure eh. Woody was having that at six months as his first weaned meal.
Maybe I did and that's why I'm so attached to the
My problem is the portion size that I require.
We have a
It has to be a lot and is that
We have like Do you know those enamel trays and you get them in like a pub? Yeah normally in the like an oval. fries in. Yeah. We've got like two bigger ones of them. So every time I make cottage pies, I make two and one will like feed us for one meal. Like we eat a lot of
Do you have a side of veg with it?
Yeah, we do like broccoli.
So I need texture. I think it's the lack of texture for me.
But I quite love texture my sh my cottage pie.
It'll be that you want to. Yeah, I think.
She's like, Is it smooth or lumpy? It's just right. It's like
It's like no like so when you eat it so much it must be amazing. Never Oh right. join people do the I think it's on TikTok and it's like when you run in for for tea and it's a stew.
Yeah when you come in from school and your bum's got a slow cooker on.
But that's what I think about when I think I'm like, poor Alex and Lucy, the Robin Shepherd's fan.
Bye.
Again tonight.
It's literally both our favourite meals. That was like the question on our first date is like what's your favourite meal?
Oh my god, this is the wedding.
Deconstructed can't situate.
¶ Credit Card Debt Freedom
Okay, community win time.
🎵 Music
I finally paid off my credit card, which I have had since I was twenty one. I'm forty seven.
Wow.
Amazing. When I started financial my started when I started my financial journey back in twenty twenty three, clearing my overdrafts and my credit card seemed impossible. Now I can't wait to now I can't wait to cut this credit card down. See ya, Virgin.
Bye.
I'm coming for that phone debt next.
So credit card.
I got still laughing at see a virgin.
Hi Richard.
What we're talking about.
Yeah.
Продолжение следует...
'Cause they put a screenshot of the credit card got in the Financial app. The in the community the zero like balance.
Yeah.
That's it on fire on fire, that's like.
This is where someone said a few weeks ago I need glitter cannons. Yes. Like I get it.
To appear behind you. Mm. I've just got like I just had this vision then, right? So imagine our vault set up, but we're at like a festival. Maybe it's a it's not a money thing. That would be boring. So like a cool festival. And we've got the vault on tour and we've like pre planned all our guests, which has all these wins. And then we get them to come and share the win. And then there's cannons. Yeah. That's where the cannons need to be. You get a car, you get a car.
अपना प्योंका अपना We'd never do that.
Oh my god.
We always talk about wouldn't it be funny if we like paid off one of our community's debt and then but then I'm like, No, because they need to learn to pay the debt off. If we just paid someone. But do you know what I mean? But then the We're not helping them. We're not helping them. You wanna pay it off for yourself. Like the survive journey is like the best one out of them all. If we just like paid it off for people it'd be so fine.
We'll just buy them houses then when they've uh when they've paid off the debt. They can prove they've paid off the debt we'll buy them a house.
I'm really like against it because I want people to go through a bit of the pain of paying it off so they never do it again. We've t you know, when we've done hand dilemmas before where someone's got, Oh, my mum paid off my credit card and then I'm just in credit card debt again. It's'cause they've never gone through the pain of This is true. Or the or the victory of
Sorry, guys.
So sorry.
I got a t-shirt. T-shirt.
Okay.
Can someone get her a gun with t shirts in the end?
Yeah.
If you'd like to tell us your win, head to the community in the app or email it to the vault at financeheld.com. Okay, next dilemma.
Does this sit up?
I end up like this
Yeah.
I think
My bum's so known f like from doing loads of running.
That's what I'm supposed to say. Yeah. But I...
By the way of the first time.
your hair is it stuck in your jumper?
Oh no, they look like the mob hole. No one told me. Oh no. We should do a check before we go live.
Yeah, Lydia said that a few weeks ago, she was like a hair was all a mess and she's like that was her debut, but on my side it looked fine. Holly didn't do this at that. No one's like. We're fine.
Well on the first before we go on the first ep episode that we filmed, I read my legs like this. I took it off and dreaming foot goes dead. I was literally like
It's like flopping all over.
over the place and Lydia was sat next to me I was like 'Cause I couldn't feel it. Just why am I doing it? Ha ha
Listen, you laugh, but I've done that on um BBC before where you sit cross legged at the breakfast bar and then it's like right
Get off and go! Don't fall. I'd be like, I'm staying, sorry, just carry on dance around me or whatever you're doing. And your legs literally. You could punch it.
It's still
Yeah.
Pins and needles does mean. Anyway, so
Yeah.
¶ Pay Rise Dilemma: Insulting Increase
Okay, time for our next dilemma. A£9 a month pay rise is just an insult. Hi girls, I just wanted to say I absolutely love the podcast. My husband was previously awful with money and racked up so much debt. I'm so proud of him because he's now got rid of all his credit card debt and is working to pay off a loan he took out.
In the last year since we got married and combined finances, I feel like we've both made incredible progress despite earning very low incomes. I do extra things on the side like tutoring, dog sitting, and I'm a self procla self proclaimed cashback queen. Our dilemma is this. My husband recently received a promotion he's been told he's been getting for the last twelve months.
but it's nowhere near as much as we thought. It's only nine pounds a month higher than what he currently gets. I feel like this is just an insult considering how hard he works and he basically does everyone's jobs for them. Needless to say, he's looking for something else that's higher earning and respects him more. We previously lived on site for his work through salary sacrifice so he barely paid any tax, and in order to get out of his job we just bought a house.
Our mortgage is half what renting would be, so it just makes sense, especially when we had the money for a deposit and the pesky Scottish offers over scheme. However, with the increase in expenses, it means we can only save two hundred to three hundred pounds a month. We have an emergency fund that's just over one K and a car emergency fund of five hundred pounds, but I'm conscious that this won't last long if an emergency comes up on the house.
In the meantime, while we're on our current salary, do we A put all our cash into our emergency fund and just accept that we won't get any holidays or renovations done on the house? or B, split it more evenly and accept that it might just take a little bit longer to grow our emergency fund.
That's oh I really, really feel for her.
When you think something's coming like a big pay rise and then it's
That's all that's not a pay rise. No, it's that's not a promotion.'Cause before thinking about like her goals and their goals. My immediate wish for this couple is that pay rises, new jobs, new careers, like what can we do? Because there's only so much you're going to be able to do with the excess. you know, if if a promotion delivers nine pound for him, like which she's obviously disappointed with it, they obviously presumed it was would be more.
it's not gonna make a dent in what they do want to save per month. Like it's absolutely tiny. And so, um it's easier said than done and I know we don't know exactly the jobs and the roles and uh they get different benefits as well to be able to do like the sal salary sacrifice housing and things. Um but wow, like must feel must have felt like a slap in the teeth especially when it was kicking the teeth I was like one more hair in here
That's also it's really bad. Yes. Especially when Shady does every like you know the frustration when you do all that work and then it's just kind of not acknowledged. But like she's give us like question A and question B and A was around do we concentrate saving on upper hour emergency fund or do we try and kinda split it between renovation and house and emergency fund? And I think we've given this bit of advice before, but when you're on low income
for me my priority wouldn't be renovating a house, it would be getting my emergency fund together. Because if you can only and I say only, you're in a c couple, generate two to three hundred pounds worth of excess. You can't afford a renovation. You can't. That's a nice to have unless it's something emergency like we've got mould and we need
Well renovation.
What does it mean?
Unlock more things that you need to say the longer way.
cost more. Like uh you can save an amount but yeah, it's gonna be Oh, we need to now what w knock this wall down and oh you need insulation here or there's more behind it, you're gonna have to have it treated. Like it will just be a can of worms I can guarantee now. And I'm gonna be dead honest with you, you can't afford a renovation.
¶ Prioritizing Emergency Funds
You can't even afford probably to like maybe lick a paint. Like if you need to really like if it's getting hit
It's expensive.
Ac yw'r hyn, ac yw'r hyn, ac yw'r hyn, ac yw'r hyn, ac yw'r hyn, ac yw'r hyn, ac yw'r hyn, ac yw'r hyn.
She doesn't mention children, I don't
I didn't hear the
Holiday is
you know, we we prioritize it massively, like it's high up the list.
Because we can.
We can, but what I mean is there are different levels to holiday, there's different things that you can be done, like you know, some um so there's some amazing like if I think we are kids as well, possibly. camping or caravan weekends or off out of season stuff that you can do where you get a break and the food you you do self care and you would do it anyway, you can you can holiday cheaper. But this comes straight back to what I said before, which is
w she needs to pick her emergency fund amount. She said they've got a thousand and they've got five hundred in their car fund. I would treat that as a 1500 emergency fund. I would because what I always say is the car, if a car breaks, It's an emergency.
Um, lots of people can foresee that that car's gonna need replacing. Yeah. So, or I've got my emergency fund, but that's gonna need repairs. And so that's when you start to separate it out. But I think mentally, well done, you've got fifteen hundred. And so like Holly said, I would be parking other things and just going ham on this emergency fund. So you need to pick um th like three to six months minimum expenses.
It w as long as she's debt free, if she's they've got a debt, that's a different matter. But um oh sorry, I'm saying this wrong actually, one month's minimum expenses is what you should be aiming for. Now that might be fifteen hundred, so you might be there. And if you're there Then what you do is you move on to overpay debt. And I think that's the point where you could put, let's say, 50 of the 300 pounds.
into a holiday pot. Yeah. And at some point there might be five hundred pounds in a year's time for a holiday. But Renault stops all this. And so I think that's a lovely goal to look ahead to. And like I said, as long as it's nothing health and safety related with the renovation.
This is where maths is maths. And no magic that we chat about on this sofa is gonna enable you to have all three. The numbers just don't work. But say you wanna get to like two and a half thousand pounds of an emergency fund because that's your one month's minimum expenses. And even that might be a bit high. Once you've put your two three hundreds a month into that, you've done it. It's done. It's done.
Can go to your holiday and your renovation and it's only for
And over pain debt, that's probably the next thing. Because if if they do have debt, let's say they've got I don't think she mentions it, does she, Lucy? But if she's got like a
The debt free. Oh s so her husband's currently working to pay off a loan.
So they've got to do that. Yeah. And if it's a loan I would say it's no, if it's a loan I would say it's quite a high monthly payment. Yeah. Just by very definition of having a loan. You don't tend to take a loan out for like fifty quid a month payment, it would be higher. So when that is paid off, they're gonna have more than 300. Let's say that loan payment's£150 a month, they're making it up.
So you could offer about four fifty. Exactly. And that's where you get momentum. So you're doing the right thing, you're doing it right the order, but that's why the minimum emergency fund is first and you you you shouldn't be bougie sinking funds.
Like we might put a little bit away for Christmas and you're like if you're gonna we always say if you're going to spend it, you may as well save up for it and it'll slow you down. But if you're gonna spend it, don't pretend to yourself and then get there and go. Think about that. It's a bit easier when you've not got kids, I think, um to be like, We're going without, we're fine, we're gonna because next Christmas we're doing something gorgeous.
Rightfully so. Like this isn't us saying you don't make enough money so you can't have fun. Like that's genuinely not we're saying. We're saying your budget, the math does just not work out right now. So you have to focus on being financially well.
¶ Increasing Income for Goals
Building those emergency funds, paying off any sort of debt, then you don't owe any money to anybody, and all that excess eventually will go to you and fun. renovation, holiday, whatever it might be. But for now, in this period of time, the only way that this maths will work is if you bring in more income at the top. Mm-hmm. And that and you said you're looking for a new job.
That's the way that you get all three. Yes. That's the perfect answer. It's not the easiest answer. It's gonna take some work, but your income is your biggest wealth building tool and you can only cut expenses so far. So if you don't increase your income You can have the things that you've talked about, it just slows them down and you do one at a time. Or we get more income in and we speed it up. And um that would be game changing. Like you can imagine if
you wouldn't actually have to earn that much more each to suddenly have like six, seven hundred pounds a month of access. It wouldn't be a huge pay rise. You don't need a big, big twenty grand pay rise here. We're talking smaller pay rises between the two of you that are appropriate and suddenly like No budgets in a whole new place.
What was B? We had an A and we had a B.
Right.
Yeah.
Eva everything.
No, yeah. Do emergency fund, then pay off the debt. possibly at the same time pay off the debt save a little bit for a holiday if you wanted a little UK based.
A friend of mine said the other day that you can get Hav she'd booked a Haven caravan site, I think a year in advance and it was forty five pounds and I was like, Oh, a night and she was like, No, no, for the whole thing. I was like, Sorry? She was like it was like a bronze standard caravan, so it's bronze, silver, gold, and I was like
My kids don't she was like, We're never in it. The kids are like on the rock climbing wall, they're in the pool, they're in this, that and the other. And she said I've booked it a year in advance. It was forty-five pounds for three.
And you can take your own food. So you could go in theory and spend nothing. Don't take the kids to the arcade. Don't take the
But she was like, Oh there's two P arcade, I was like, tenor se across three days. so there are ways you can do it It's called it this survive mode is all about hacking. It's just hacking and being scrappy, thinking outside.
having the confidence that like like Holly said, this is no reflection on you you you, your earnings and where you're at. You've done amazing to become like consumer debt free apart from this one loan. Um, so you're nearly there. Yeah. And like I said, the only way is up. But yeah, I would just like let's get that income up and um nail that emergency fund. You'll feel amazing once you've got that.
Amazing. Okay, that is all for this episode. The vault is now closed. And just a quick disclaimer, the vault is just a chat around life on many topics. We're not giving financial aid.
🎵 Music