UNLOCKED: "Should we be getting married?" PLUS how to make a billion

Welcome to The Vault Unlocked by Fran and Shell.

Now, I was chatting to some friends recently and you don't immediately consider everyone's marital status or legal standing at every moment. I'm sure you don't. And so I forget that... These ladies are amazing. Some of them have children, some of them don't have children. They're in long-term relationships. They're not married. And we keep talking about life events like buying a new home, starting a new business. We talk about...

the fact that they are self-employed and so their pensions are non-existent. You can imagine I'm working on them. We talk about when they've been through health issues, one or both of them, you know, all of us in the group are late 30s and up. And so health is impacting some of us, especially those that are older or have partners that are older.

And so we're having these conversations and it kind of hit me again that they're not married. Now, what's living and acting like they are? You know, this isn't like two weeks in. This is, you know, decades of relationships. And anyway, you know me, I can't hold my water. So I definitely... reminded them about what things they should be thinking about, even if marriage isn't for them, but highlighting the imbalance in their relationships when it comes to finances and when it comes to control.

when they are all in really loving relationships. So this is not necessarily, in fact, it's definitely not a red flag. It's just couples can get into situations. by accident and not really understand the consequences. So this is a message to the unmarried girlies or guys in long-term relationships that are in the financial community.

Or if you know someone that's in that situation, feel free to send them this pod. And if you've been sent this, welcome. This is a safe space and this is just a practical message that I want you to consider because there could be a couple of little things that you could do. to bring you some of the financial and practical benefits of being married without having to actually go get married. So firstly, I think it's important to say I am not pro-marriage. I'm pro-you-do-you.

So whilst I'm married, we recently, in fact, yesterday celebrated our six year wedding anniversary. I'm pro you do you. But sometimes there is a power imbalance in long term relationships when it comes to. thinking about marriage and possibly deciding to get married. I'm good. There's a couple of, I could do sex in the city anecdotes all day long. And so if you didn't watch it, I'm really sorry. I am that person.

A few scenes spring to mind. There's a scene where Charlotte's trying to, she wants to get married to Harry, who ironically was her divorce lawyer. And he was Jewish and she's Catholic. She converts. She does all the things. She's making the...

Jewish bread. She's going to the community events. And there's a scene that's very famous. So she's like... like set the date set the date why won't you set the date and she talks about I converted to Judaism for you you know and he's like oh my god and he goes no this is you've put like we're not going through this and by the way I bought a ring and so the story is that well she's

desperate to get married and she's desperate to force him to ask the question and make it happen. It was actually her neuroticness and I guess impatience that rocked the relationship. Now, as we all know, they did get married.

and lived there happily ever after. But I don't want to call out Charlotte here. What I want to call out is the societal setup of marriage proposals and how this comes about. But when you are the person that... isn't meant to ask will you marry me or start those conversations or actually like make the deal happen like you might be able to have pragmatic conversations would we like to do it one day yeah yeah i could see myself with you yeah i could see myself with you but if you're not meant to

propose the contract like make the proposal then you're just this like You're just stuck. You can't do anything. You can't affect something. You can't make this thing happen because society says you have to wait for the guy to be ready to maybe ask the parents' permission. In fact, the father's permission, which is a whole nother debate. It's got to buy the room.

then it's got to be in this like beautiful place and you're meant to have your proposal face and get ready and go oh my god oh my god and hopefully someone's i have to admit i struggle with proposals i do so Sorry. But if you think about that construct, typically in a heterosexual relationship, the woman has to wait. I am fascinated to learn more about proposals in a gay relationship because it like surely it's fair game. There's no societal rules about who has to do it first.

who has to wait. And I'm sure the conversations about gay marriage are so more practical and pragmatic. They're not about this like sneaky. I mean, you want surprises. I'm not. I'm not dissing the surprises and the next proposal and the decision to ask someone is massive. But like women are made to feel like you can't be pushy and you can't say.

you know, when will you ask me? And I'm a long time since being proposed to. So maybe as you get older, you get a bit more jaded about the whole thing. But that being said, the first thing I want to highlight is I do think it's really unfair that the situation is dictated by one party.

typically the man if we're talking about a heterosexual relationship and then the woman just has to be like this meek and mild oh I wonder when he's gonna do it and oh my gosh I'm so surprised when this is like a big decision contractually this isn't about the party and the dress and the vibes.

Those are all upsides of the celebration of it. And we can skip over quickly the love aspects. Like it's lovely that someone says, I pick you and I want to be with you forever. But people do that in non-married relationships as well, that you can still say you're my person and you don't. don't need to get married to prove that. You can be a super solid couple and present yourselves to the world as super and solid and within your own relationship, be super and solid and not need.

a random ring on your finger again, which is like, these are all traditions that have been built up over years, usually backed by commerciality, to be fair. But in some way, there is a power imbalance about who can propose this contractual arrangement where you become married.

And so if the person responsible for that is not massively pro-marriage or not in any rush, as you kind of hear often, doesn't really understand the practical and financial benefits of being in a marriage or a civil partnership. then there's quite a few risks. You know, we can have people that are building their life together. They're dependent on each other, especially financially. You know, in today's day and age, and those not in a long-term relationship know this too well.

It is so hard to run a house on your own or run an apartment on your own and live on your own independently between housing and bills and a social life and travel, everything that you need to be able to share these costs out.

So when you are in a long-term relationship, you do become intertwined and you do become dependent on each other financially, but you aren't contractually. And so either you are in this situation and whether you are... into or not into marriage or not into it right yet or whatever just be aware of these handful of practical considerations and ultimately don't be afraid of raising this with your partner you this was again this is another sex and city anecdote because

Because Carrie says to Big, you know, should we get married? Like you... You own this house. I don't own this house. They talk about assets. They talk about finances. They talk about contracts. Now, then what happens is we all know in the movie is she goes Uber bridezilla and he gets spooked.

But I want you to feel empowered to raise the topic with your partner for the right reasons, not because you want the bird on your head and the Vivian Westwood epic dress. So the key things to think about is property ownership.

If you are in a long-term relationship and if the home that you live in is in one of your names, the other person doesn't have an automatic right to stay if the relationship ends. And we've had loads of dilemmas on this. We've had like, you know... partner one owned a home, partner two moves into it, partner one doesn't want...

the new partner, especially one week into moving in to have a claim on this home that they've kind of built up equity and then pay the mortgage down over years, which is fine. So partner number two kind of pays a bit of money to contribute to bills, ends up staying there 10 years. Then there's a breakdown in the relationship. and partner one says, that's my house.

And at some point in that 10 years, that changed. The kind of power imbalance shifts a little bit and it's a little more even when it comes to the property. And obviously, if you're married, the law kicks in and kind of says, you know, your assets... essentially become one there's lots of exceptions that I'm definitely not going to go into divorce law right now but

you do start on that basis of 50-50 when it comes to assets, and then they look at lots of different factors. And so if marriage or civil partnership isn't for you, and if you cohabit, especially in a house that you don't both own, just one of you owns, it's worth entering into a small league.

agreement to just draft all that up it might be a cohabitation agreement it might be a declaration of trust property is what i'm saying think about property because people that are married in civil partnerships have different rights to people that are simply cohabiting and this especially

protects the person that does not own the house but that contributes. Can also protect the person that does own the house and the other person hasn't contributed. It's both sides. It's both sides. Next up is inheritance. Like this is more of the obvious one but if one partner dies without a... will, there's no automatic right to inherit under intestacy laws. So this is true of lots of different types of assets, but I think it's really helpful to

Walk through practically what would happen if one of you were to pass away. So firstly, if you are just long-term partners and you're not legally married or in a civil partnership, your partner's family will inherit their assets. And that might include the house you live in.

or part of the house that you live in or joint savings that you had together that happened to be in one partner's name. So getting a will and looking at life insurance and nominating each other as beneficiaries is a really good way of protecting each other.

in this circumstance as ever in the show notes we have a partner octopus legacy that do amazing online wills if you've got a bit of a complicated situation definitely worth going seeing a lawyer and as i always say with life insurance i think the best thing to do is pick up the phone and speak to an expert especially if you're not married because what you can do is you can walk through your situation you can explain how dependent you are on each other for different things

And they can walk you through the different options and the different prices. Find a link for that at financial.com forward slash protection or the link in the show notes. And just have a think about how you could use a couple of small products to...

I'm going to say it plug the gap, plug the gap that you have when you don't have the benefits of being married. And by the way, if you're married and listen to this, you still need life insurance and wills. They'll just cover different things. On the inheritance point, it's worth nodding to inheritance tax.

In the UK, there's also a big inheritance tax benefit. There's something called a spousal exemption and it's a tax relief that's available in the UK and allows the transfer of assets between spouses or civil partners to be free from inheritance tax during the lifetime or upon death. Now at the moment... inheritance tax threshold not including real estate is £325,000.

But what that means is it effectively doubles for a couple. And so unmarried couples, even if they have been cohabiting for decades, do not qualify for this spousal exemption. And so it can lead to quite a big inheritance tax bill upon death. You may also not... automatically get a partner's pension or death in service benefit.

And so if you're not married yet or not planning to be at all, you need to make sure that you are nominated as the beneficiary for workplace and private pensions for each other. So look at both policies. And so if you want to leave your pension and your death in service benefits to your partner.

Make sure you check those scheme rules and show the right people are nominated as beneficiary. And again, that's a simple way that you can plug the gap that's left by not being married or in a civil partnership. But on the pension thing, and this is probably one of the things that comes to mind when I think about the friends I was talking to.

It's having that open and honest conversation about building up a pension in your name and treating it like a bill. The gender pension gap is absolutely huge. Like it's astonishing, but a lot of it is born out of innocent scenarios where especially a female. has taken on a carer role, worked part time, not been the higher earner. And so you have one partner building up a huge pension pot.

and the other having absolutely nothing or very little. And so again, because you're not married, when you separate, there's no legal separation. You just aren't together anymore. And so there's not a conversation about the pension that one person built up over years.

and years and years maybe while the other person looked after kids or worked part-time and so making sure that your budget and the household budget if you do combine finances in some way caters for you being able to build up your own pension in this

time and I guess the last point to consider is healthcare decisions so you know one of my friend's partner was very poorly recently and you may not be automatically recognized as the next of kin or consulted for medical decisions and so there's one thing like being listed

as next of kin on certain documents, but actually looking to get a lasting power of attorney. I mean, you could look at the financial one, but there's two, the health and welfare one as well. So that both of you know that your partner, your long-term partner, the person that knows you the best. can help make the right decisions for you. You know, it's someone's worst nightmare that they wouldn't have someone that could make that decision or that decision might be.

put to family and people might be estranged from family. So I feel that was quite a ramble. I think I went sex in the city to lasting power of attorney. I don't think that's ever been done on a pod, but just in summary. If you are not married and you don't plan to be anytime soon, have a little look into some of the things that you can do to plug the practical and financial gaps.

And the ultimate one that you're not going to be able to plug is the inheritance tax one. It's not a reason to get married. But it's something to bear in mind. But ultimately, I think don't be afraid about having these conversations with your partner about whether you get married. If you're the partner that wants to get married, but you're not sure how the other one would feel, but you do things like live together and have children.

together or run a business together or own property together or live together and one of them owns the property but you've been together absolutely years then why not and if it's the big party and the fuss and the cost then that's a good conversation to have because we've had loads of conversations on here about elopements and what it's really about. And just because everyone else does this doesn't mean you have to.

that's why the civil partnership is a great route as well because you don't have to, if you don't like the concept of marriage, you can still contractually come together and have many of these benefits without having to walk down the aisle. Okay, after that nice light topic, we're going to move on. I'm going to mention a couple of things that we've talked about in...

app and on blogs this week that are just good to I guess expand on a little bit so you know we are the anti buy now pay later crew we want to encourage you guys to save now buy later sinking funds do save lives and it's the best thing that you'll ever ever do to not use this product.

So the big thing we've talked about in the blogs this week is the $136 million consumer credit loss that Klarna have reported. Now, this was all over the financial press. It was in the Financial Times. It was all over the state's financial.

Press. It was in Morning Brew. It was everywhere because Klarna are preparing to IPO. And I think I've shared this with you before, you know, Klarna's owned by a handful of men. Yes, some women might have been early employees and they're going to make some money too, but it's a lot of men, a lot of men making money.

by making a pink brand at the checkout where you guys are thinking about buying clothes and makeup and convincing you that you can afford it, you just need to split the payments. Some of the founders will make... hundreds of millions of dollars. So it's quite a crunch point for Klarna because obviously you want to be building up really good results and really good reputation. And whilst these losses are relatively consistent as a percentage basis...

It just looks like a lot of money, doesn't it? $136 million worth of credit losses where people say that thing that you said is affordable. I can't pay it now.

We know that Buy Now Pay Later targets women. 60% of users are women. And we just need to help turn the tide against this payment method and encourage people to buy what they can afford in their budget. And so for those of you cancelling clients, Like practically, not necessarily cancelling them, but cancelling it, breaking up with Klarna or realising that Monzo Flex is not so much of a flex.

Well done. And talk to others about it. Have an open and non-judgmental conversation. Share your experience about why you gave it up. Because honestly, if you tell someone you did it, you're going to spark something in them and they'll go, hmm. Yeah, you've got a point. Oh, what did you say?

Bino Pelator makes you spend way more. But I just thought that was an interesting start on the consumer credit losses for Klarna. Next up, just a quick mention to another story we did, which was a bit of a news story for us. So please do let us know if you liked it, enjoyed hearing a little bit.

about it we talked about Hayley Bieber potentially becoming a billionaire I myself do read a lot of business content but we're a personal finance platform so we've never really lent into the business stuff but I do recognize that there is a bit of a knowledge gap

especially for big business. Now, Hayley Bieber, obviously formerly Hayley Baldwin of the Baldwin family, married Justin Bieber, obviously global superstar. And I'm not massively into the pop culture element, but I do get a vibe that for a long time. Like everyone was like, he can do better and he's the wealthy one. She's only with him for his money. Like she was from a fairly wealthy family to all our standards anyway. But there was this bit of a power imbalance where she was Justin Bieber's.

girlfriend and then wife. She built up a skincare brand called Rode. It was like this affordable-ish but minimalist skincare brand. It really bought into this TikTok like minimal makeup, natural beauty trend. A little bit like Reef I did with the eyebrows as well. You know, it's very, very timely. So last week she sold... road to Elf Beauty in a $1 billion deal.

And so apart from all the dynamics of, ooh, their relationship now, like she's the breadwinner. How does he do with that? Are they all right with that? How are they going to manage? Is he going to be able to handle it? There's been lots of discussion on that, but I just wanted to break down the $1 billion deal to help. into life what she's actually taking home and how much money she will actually have. So the one billion dollar deal.

It was $800 million in cash and stock up front. Now, they didn't disclose the proportion, but let's pretend it's 50-50 for argument's sake. So she's got a 50-50 cash and stock deal. It means that she got $400 million cash. and $400 million stock in Elf. So she had the shares in Rode. So she had the company, her and the other co-founders, they sold Rode to Elf and Elf in return didn't just give cash, they gave cash and shares.

So now she's a shareholder in Elf, which is this bigger company, obviously absolutely huge, a lot more brands. And that's what a cash and stock deal means. So the owners of Rode didn't get $800 million in their pocket. Some of that was cash, but some of it was stock. There's also what's called an earn out of $200 million. And what that means is...

Over the next three years, Rode will continue. So Elf owns Rode, but it still operates as a company and it will have targets to hit. And so kind of like a bonus, if it hits its targets, then they will also earn up to a maximum. of $200 million. So that's how the billion dollar deal came together. It was an $800 million cash and stock deal and then there was a $200 million earn out. The other element to this though is don't forget she and her co-founders are now shareholders in Elf.

Elf is going to do amazing off the back of this deal. This plans to ship road globally through distribution in Sephora, which they've not really had. There's loads of people around the world that want this brand. They've not been able to buy it. So I suspect, and this is where I want to bring you back down to the stock bit. The stock that they held, let's say they had $400 million stock in Elf, that might double.

that might double in value. It might not, it might go up 10%, whatever. It's probably going to go up because the value of Elf as a company, as a group. is higher. Now it has road. And it has Haley because she's going to continue on as chief creative officer and head of innovation and will be a strategic advisor to Elf Beauty. So I know that's a bit businessy for where we like to go, but I just wanted to share the mechanics of that deal. and how I deal like that.

personally affects someone's wealth okay for the last part of the podcast going to jump to a couple of community comments and talk them through one is a dm on tiktok so um it's from someone who begins with j so this is you this is you um you've said thanks so much I've done three months on the app to give it a try and I love it so far I feel so much more in control motivated less overwhelmed amazing star emoji I really appreciate your help thank you so much I think this is going to change

my life jay from the tiktok dms thank you so much for that message but no you are going to change your life we are very very blessed to have been a part of that and to be a part of that with the tool and the rest of the community listening to this are also ready to help you so if you haven't already commented in the community asked a question introduce yourself now is the time to do that

And so on that note, just a couple of other comments. So Cloan, you shared an amazing win. You said, just wanted to share a little win after a rubbish month. I never really looked at the bigger picture and the net worth graph as a whole until this week and I'm so glad I did. Although I don't necessarily have anything to show for it, not that you ever have to. My net worth has increased this much over the last almost two years.

Albeit, at first, I don't think I regularly tracked it. I have increased it by 1,525%. Wow, I don't have any credit card debt, but I don't own my car just yet. But I only have a very small amount left, so that will be very soon. And we are hopefully looking to buy next year. So it doesn't always feel like I've done much in my financial journey.

But just looking at this makes me so proud of how far I've come anyway. And she shows a picture of this epic graph, which is like climbing a mountain. It's going up and up and up and up.

And I wanted to mention it because it's such an important point about when you're on this financial wellbeing journey, when you're taking back control finally and you're changing habits and you're not buying stuff that you don't need and you're not spending more than you need and you're doing the work to pay off debt. Yeah.

bank account it just feels like you just don't have anything but hopefully that's because you've actually got money in pots so you've got some sinking funds you've either got a separate bank account or you've got a digital bank with all the pots and it's also because you're not building up savings necessarily you're paying down debt so every time you pay down debt

you are increasing your net worth, but because you're handing money over to a provider, it feels like you're spending it all and it feels like you've not got anything. That's the magic of the graph because what that helps to do is remind you that you are doing good. This is the way forward after you've built a mini emergency fund.

of a minimum of one month's expenses, you then start to grind out paying out debt as well as building up these sinking funds. And it can feel rubbish. You like the payment, but you just don't feel like you've got anything. The minute that you become debt-free... Every bit of your excess every month in your budget suddenly goes to you. It goes towards...

your bank account, your savings account, your big emergency fund, your house deposit, as you've said, Chloe, that you hope to buy next year. And just picture this. And this is what I want you all to think about. If you have home ownership on your horizon,

To save for a deposit and to prepare yourself for a mortgage application whilst in a lot of consumer debt is making life incredibly hard for yourself. And so if that's in your future... the quicker that you pay off your consumer debt and the quicker that you stop all these extra payments.

means the quicker you will save up your deposit but you will also improve your affordability because your fixed expenses are lower you do not have a car payment you do not have a loan payment you do not have credit cards you don't have buy now pay later you will look so much more responsible but practically you will be able to afford these numbers far more easily and so your future self will absolutely thank you for it thank you cloran for sharing that

I also thought this was a lovely thing that Rosie shared. She said, Hi everyone. I just wanted to share how much our emergency fund has helped our family this past month. Sadly, one of my wife's close family members became very seriously and unexpected. little so she had to drop everything to be by their side. My wife only gets three paid sick days a year so our emergency fund has been dipped into to top up her wage from missing shifts plus extra to cover any other expenses such as fuel to

and from the hospital, which is a three hour round trip and money to grab on the go meals. The emergency fund took away all the financial stress out of an already stressful situation. Thankfully, her loved one is in a more stable health situation now and we can begin to top the fund back up to its original level. That is literally it right there. Until you need it.

You don't appreciate what it can actually give you. When you're building up your emergency fund, it can be really frustrating because you kind of want to pay your debt and you want to be able to travel and you want to be able to buy the home. When the H word comes up, health, you would do anything.

to be healthy and you would do anything to help your friends and family be healthy and that's what Rosie your wife did she dropped everything and she went you know you you don't want to ever have to think oh I can't, I can't come or what's going to happen. You just, you don't ever, you just want peace of mind and that's what it gives you. So thank you so much for sharing that. And then finally, I loved this win shared by Lisa. I know I've done a lot of wins today. I think this week, the wins.

just help to show what people are achieving and that if you hear one of these and you think, oh, I could do that or I resonated with that. So Lisa shares, huge, huge win for me today. I've paid off my first debt with financial. I started in January with what felt like a huge mountain of debt to climb. The first one was to tackle my next pay account, which was £3,095.41. The interest rate each month is so high at 24.9%, so it felt really hard to make a headway with it.

out literally over 15 years ago when buying Christmas presents I went to pay at the online checkout and an account had been opened for me this happened to me there's a story about a bikini a swimsuit sorry and I hadn't realized I bought it on credit at checkout

online so apparently i'd not paid for this 19 pound swimsuit and um they sent me letters chasing me but i didn't open them because i thought they were marketing so i wasn't knowing the letters and it went on my credit report and i was like you are effing kidding me a 19 pants swimsuit and i didn't realize i'd taken out credit because it was accidental so anyway i digress lisa from your win you said that you took it out

literally 15 years ago and buying Christmas presents, you went to pay online and it had been opened for you. Once your emergency fund was sorted, you started using your excess and any extra money from selling on Vinted to pay this debt down. You say, I did sometimes feel a bit down that even when I made a big overpayment, interest whacked on top put a dent in your efforts but you kept strong and today you made a final payment so the balance is zero.

This was your smallest debt, but also the most expensive in interest. Now you've conquered this, you feel so fired up to move on to the credit cards. Thank you to Financial and the community. All of the posts and sharing of stories from others really do help. Lisa, you absolutely killed it. And lots and lots of comments and likes after say the same. And we're just so, so proud of you. So I guess I want to close with this. It starts with the debt. And what do you do? How do we pay off the debt?

We build a budget which has more income coming in than expenses going out. And sometimes... That means lifestyle and habit change, even just for a bit. Sometimes we've been way overspending and we can rein it right in. Sometimes we have to cut back on things we like and we reintroduce them later. But making that effort to pay off that debt after you've built up a mini emergency fund.

is the hardest thing I promise you, you will ever do on this journey. But you know what? It's the most rewarding because to close these accounts, to ring them up, to say I want to cancel, to stop seeing that big payment go out. is such a win and it's you did it. No one else did it. You did the work. But later, as you move through the playbook and you move to build and you build your big emergency fund and you build your house deposit.

You increase those sinking funds, so big life goals, you start to increase your travel budget, you start to increase your fun budget, you start to have a really nice eating out budget, but you still keep in excess and you get to grow. And then all the grind you've done to pay off debt, you rinse and repeat, but you put it into investments. You increase your pension contributions. You put money into ISAs. You put money into children's ISAs. You might buy more property.

that's how you do it it's the same so it's our job to get you out of survive to get you with an emergency fund to get you debt free and to literally kick you to grow that's literally our job

But, you know, the big thing about all this is you're not doing it alone. That community is full of people doing similar things. And for those people that aren't on the premium version of the app, we will try to bring more and more of those stories to life, whether it's through the podcast or whether it's through some blog.

Like I want to show you real life budgets, real life people, real life wins, because that's what's going to keep you going when it feels a bit shit and it feels a bit hard and it will. It absolutely will. But just a special thank you to everyone who shares in the community. And just because someone doesn't comment or like the post doesn't mean you didn't have an impact. And that's case in point. People have been reading and watching and waiting. And then we get a post that says.

This is my first post. I've been here a while. You're all amazing. So best wishes for the rest of the week. If you listen to this live, it's the beginning of the month. Go get it. Go bring in more money. Go cut your expenses. Have a fun June.

And I guess a little reminder to the next couple of days, do a net worth graph. If you struggle with it, email us, put it in the community. We will help you do your net worth graph. Don't feel you have to struggle alone, but do it because you need to log it once a month. And now is the time. Some people do it at the beginning of the month.

some people do at the end pick your date and stick with it and let us know how you get on so that is it for today's the vault just a quick disclaimer this is just a chat around life and money we are not giving financial advice bye