Nobody Panic - How to Navigate the Cost of Living Crisis

Episode Date: October 11, 2022

Feeling panicked about the cost of living? Stevie and Tessa get advice on money saving, as well as how to deal with the emotional drain of stressing about money, from financial coach Clare Seal (@myfrugalyear).Follow Clare on Instagram: @myfrugalyearCheck out thefwforum.comSubscribe to the Nobody Panic Patreon at patreon.com/nobodypanicWant to support Nobody Panic? You can make a one-off donation at https://supporter.acast.com/nobodypanicRecorded and edited by Naomi Parnell for Plosive.Photos by Marco Vittur, jingle by David Dobson.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/nobodypanic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Carriad. I'm Sarah. And we are the Weirdo's Book Club podcast. We are doing a very special live show as part of the London Podcast Festival. The date is Thursday, 11th of September. The time is 7pm and our special guest is the brilliant Alan Davies. Tickets from kingsplace.com. Single ladies, it's coming to London.

True on Saturday, the 13th of September. At the London Podcast Festival. The rumours are true, Saturday the 13th of September. At King's Place. Oh, that sounds like a date to me, Harriet. Hello and welcome to Nobody Panic with me, Stevie, and me, Tessa. And today, joining us in the studio, a special guest. It's Claire Seal.

Now, she's not a seal, but what she is, I hope this is probably the best introduction you've ever heard of yourself, isn't it? She's not a seal. Sorry, Claire. She's financial coach and founder of the Financial Well-Being Forum. Her Instagram at My Frugal Year is just, Claire, it's a real, nice, safe financial space that is very calming to me and has great tips. Thank you so much for coming on and helping us today. Thanks so much for having me. It's a real delight. Claire, to the uninitiated, how would you describe your Instagram safe space? So, yeah, I mean, I set it up when I was really

struggling with money myself. So it always aimed to be really sort of understanding and talking about money maybe in a slightly different way. I just, I tried so hard to engage with, like, other financial spaces when I was really struggling, all of which are really helpful, but I didn't really find anything that was talking to me in a language that made me feel better or that kind of fit with my experience of money. So, yeah, I think it's something where we talk about kind of the layers. under our behavioural with money so why we spend the way that we do why we struggle to save but then

also always try and include something a bit practical as well because I think once you have like the understanding of stuff it's nice to know what to do with it then but yeah it's really nice sort of chassis space you do like a lot of talking about um you know the way that emotions linked to money, but also quite importantly, it's not like an apolitical space. I think that a lot of personal finance people are really determined to ignore what's going on in politics and the economy. And I just, I don't think that you can talk about money inclusively while you're doing that. So we talk about that stuff as well.

You're a very right wing. Yes, very right wing. I went to see Joe Lice a few weeks ago and he entirely sold. me on the whole thing. So, yeah, I've switched. Right-wing committed. He's so magical because him just saying, no, I'm right-wing with a totally straight face.

Everyone's like, you're taking the piss? And he's like, nothing I've said. He says, I'm taking the piss. And yet, everybody whose right-wing knows that their stance is so outrageous that anybody who was publicly saying they were right-ring must be taking the piss. It's really wild. It's like, lustrous is great. Like that as a statement is just funny.

It's so funny. And he doesn't say anything bad. take the piss out of her. He just is openly enthusiastic and everyone went to dessert. No, my absolute, my absolute favorite person at the moment. A real tonic. Well, thank you so, so much for being here. Thank you. It's just excellent. And I suppose we wanted to do this episode because we've had quite a few messages about people, I think.

And we've been like, oh, I don't know if we can do that. And it feels a really thorny. Obviously, it's going to be thorny and difficult. And everyone's coming out from such different, from a place of real fear and real concern. also everyone's coming out from different perspective. And I think, like you say about it being apolitical, the times started running new articles that were like, actually, being very cold is very good for the body. Oh, I've read that.

Stuff like this. You're like, I don't know if it is. And like this attitude of like it being put on the individual of like, well, does everyone fasten your bookstrapes? Your bookstrapes. Don't let those books fall away. You can't afford those bugs to fall down. And, you know, it should be on the individual.

to not be so flippant and, you know, why don't you cancel all your silly things? And really it's a much bigger, you know, much bigger issue than that. Yes, and it's a spectrum, isn't it? Because there are people listening who, well, I mean, I've got a spectrum of friends, for example, who on one side, it's like, I've cut down everything, and I don't have anything more to cut. And then it's like a real panic. And then I've got other friends who are genuinely having the same panic. They're like, well, I own two properties and the fixed rate mortgage is running out.

like, okay, still, very valid, but it's a huge gamut of people who are being affected by this in a way that I don't really remember having, because I just imagine I wasn't really sentient in 2007 or 2008 when the crash happened. I think I was just sort of drunk because I was a student, so I don't really think, I was like, well, I can't afford any point. Just as a very broad opening, you know, how would you, how would you, what would you say to people that, listening who are kind of scared and struggling financially at the moment and then we can kind of narrow in on sort of other things. Sure. So I mean, I think one of the things to say is that like you said, people in all kinds of financial situations are finding themselves in the same position

in terms of worrying and being scared. And I think it's really not helped, A, by like our constant access to news updates. So I would say, like, first of all, try not to panic and try not to be checking things all of the time because, you know, there really was, especially after the mini budget was announced, there was like this big surge of kind of all mortgages are going to be 500% interest and all of this stuff.

And actually that fear and that anxiety can stop you checking, out what the reality is actually going to be for you. And I think money is something where it's so, so easy. It's so kind of fraught with anxiety that it's really easy then to bury your head in the sand. And actually quite often things aren't as bad as you think they are. And there's a way to make things okay. But the longer that you ignore them, the more difficult it gets. I would say kind of the first thing is just try not to panic, try not to absorb or consume

too much like panicky information from the news. And then also talk to someone about it. If there's like one good thing that comes out of big financial crises that are all over the news, it's that it is suddenly okay to say to someone, oh, I'm a bit worried about this cost of living crisis. and then you are able to kind of share that problem in a way where money worries typically are really taboo and we're not allowed to talk about them. So I think using that opportunity to have a conversation with family or friends, someone that you trust, someone that, you know, where you have a kind of relationship where you don't judge each other too harshly for things. can be quite a nice opener for sort of, you know, sharing a bit of that worry and talking it through with someone. Well, so often you sort of share a problem with somebody that you have been not refusing

to speak out loud. And then someone's like, have you spoken to Jim? Yes. Or like, I think Jim. A great tip the other day about this. And like even things like neighborhood Facebook groups, I think, have really come into their own at the moment. Because you can then find information like where food banks are, where like, like,

Just like advice about how to bring your gas bill down, okay, well, I'm on this provider who I've got this really great deal. If you switch to them, you get money or whatever. Like, I think, yeah, the more you open up, just the better. That's a great starting point. Yeah, and I think, like, what you said about feeling ashamed, and I've been in that position as well. And I, we ended up having to move the morning after the first lockdown was announced

because we asked for some routine maintenance on our house. and our landlord said, actually no, we'd rather sell than do that. We sort of found ourselves having to explain to like a sobbing five-year-old why we had to move. And I remember like me and my husband being like, the shame that we can't have a home that like we're not going to get kicked out of and we have to now deal with like our crying children is almost unbearable. But again, by this point, I already had the Instagram account.

We had quite a big community already. And I spoke about it. And not even, there was no even like solution there. Like we still had to find somewhere else to live. And we were really lucky there. And we had to still spend the fortune on like deposits and moving and all of that stuff. But there were loads of people there who were like, oh God, I felt exactly the same. me and my children

or we and our children have had to move you know four times in the last six years and I'm like coming to the end of it so I think sometimes there doesn't even have to be a solution presented it can just be that catharsis of like oh I'm not uniquely terrible at this actually money is really hard

and I think one of the things that I try and talk about a lot is that you you have to be actively trying very hard and also be quite lucky and also be very financially literate to be what the broad consensus considers good with money. You have to be really emotionally resilient to things like manipulative marketing, like buy now, pay later, that kind of thing. All of this stuff is really very cleverly designed.

to like poke the part of your brain that's going to make you spend all your money on something that you regret further down the line. And there is like a really difficult economic situation that we're up against unless we've got, you know, like inherited wealth or gifted wealth. So I think it's about recognising. Because I think quite often we're just trapped in on our like lonely little islands of I haven't done everything right and therefore I must be terrible with money and look at me compared to everyone else but but you don't really know what's going on with everyone else because everyone else is keeping it all bottled up as well so I think if you're sharing you can make yourself feel a lot better and funnily enough when you start to feel better

about money and when you stop sort of blaming yourself and feeling kind of too ashamed to talk about any of it you're in a much better frame of mind to like do something about it so there's always like that first level of getting yourself on like good ground to move forwards and like you were saying like community I think is going to be really important during the next kind of few years and there's some great ways of sharing things. So like Facebook marketplace is brilliant. People just put things on there for like free or really cheap. Often you can walk to pick it up if you don't have kind of your own like transport. But also Ollio is brilliant. So like obviously food banks are doing brilliant work that shouldn't be necessary. But there's also so Olio is kind of like a food and non-food

sharing platform and they've got a borrow function. I love it. It's so good. So, you know, anything that you've got that's going to go out of date, like before you're going to eat it, you could give away. But also, if you're like maybe struggling a bit to make up a meal and you don't get paid until Friday and like, God knows I've been in that situation so many times, then you can go on there and there might be like the one component that you need to kind of just relax yourself

a bit or if there's something that's like gone wrong in your house and you need a drill but you can't afford to buy one they have like a borrow feature on there so you could go borrow it from a neighbour and then take it back and actually they have a stat that says that the average drill is used for eight minutes in its entire lifetime so before it's thrown away so actually probably like you only need one drill in your community that you will share Tesco and like M&S and Sainsbury's food that is like the bread and stuff there's always like somebody in each kind of community that goes and just gets it all and then delivers it to people.

It's just really nice and it's nice. Sometimes you can get some really nice food on there because it's like this myth that if you've not got any money you should be eating cold beans and cool. And if you have anything else, then that is chocolate, you should, you're not allowed that. No. That's that awful, awful MP being like, this bad, this 20 key. kilos of oats are 75 pence. So what the fuck are you talking about? There's no cost of living problem. You know, like you want people to just live on those oats. I think it's really important. We have to be really careful. So what I always want to do is give people practical options. I think like olios are

brilliant tool and, you know, all of the places where you can get free stuff. I think and you know, sort of like chefs who are doing low-cost meals and all of that stuff. I think it's really brilliant, but I think we just have to be really careful that that's not then usable by MPs who want to say, well, look at so-and-so. They say you can feed a family on 20 quid a week, which I don't think that you can. Quite often those things, they don't factor in, like, stuff that you'd already have in your store cupboard or your freezer. So I think we just have to be really mindful of the fact that just, you know, just because you, there are some ways that you can really reduce the cost and they can be really, really helpful, that that doesn't then, like, that's not a cop out for the powers that be to actually make things better.

And you're not kind of like feeding into that, like, individualist narrative. but I think it is really helpful to have those super practical things. And also the great thing about things like OLLIO is, you know, some budgeting tips are about going like looking for yellow stickers in the supermarket. Not everyone's got the time or like the emotional reserves or the transport or whatever to do that. So it gives it's a slightly lower effort way of doing that. And I think it's really important that we consider effort. and time and energy when we're talking about like, you know, ways of reducing costs

because there comes a point at which you're spending like every ounce of energy on keeping your costs as low as possible and then you sacrifice so much quality of life. So I think it's just really about like finding the right balance, finding where there are resources that allow you to have, like a decent relationship with money without spending every second of your time worrying about saving every penny. People have been talking a bit more about universal credit and things like that recently. And as somebody who isn't on it, I didn't realize that you can be, which is both great and also terrible, you can be working and also get universal credit. And I think a lot

of people think, oh, well, if I've got a job or I have worked this year, I'm self-employed, I haven't got a lot of work, but I got a bit, then there's no way I'm, but then the process of getting it is so difficult and tricky, but that's like, it's like almost about, like, prioritising, it's worth checking to see if you, if you were, if you're eligible for it, because I know some people that didn't realize that they were until, do you know what the threshold is for I don't, but you can, you can find it online. Martin Lewis has like a benefit checker. and Saviour Maldon has a benefit checker

that you can go on and you can see kind of what you're eligible for. The narrative of benefits is so poisonous in this country. It's so horrifying. But like it's always worth

just having a quiet look. But then if you're doing that, that takes a lot, like you say, a lot of energy. Yeah. And I mean, you're right. So 40% of universal

credit claimants are in work. And, you know, a huge proportion of the the rest of claimants are either, you know, single parents are children under three years old or, you know, are disabled. You know, so I think there's kind of a bit of a narrative like glorifying work when some people just can't work. And actually, they're spending all of the energy that we use to go to work on just surviving, like getting from one minute to the next. You know, I think there is like a real rhetoric of like laziness around benefits.

And I think it's really unhelpful. But yeah, it can be a real, a real kind of process. But citizens' advice actually have a service that's like a help to claim service that can take a little bit of that off you as well. So it help you work out what you're eligible for and help you with kind of putting the claim through. because it's loads of hoops to jump through. Like, even just do it from doing like personal tax returns,

anything that goes through HMRC or any of the kind of government departments, there's so much bureaucracy. But if you've got someone who can kind of walk you through it or lay out a process for you, then again, that can take a bit of that like mental energy expenditure when we've all got like a massive mental load that we carry around with us anyway. Yeah.

So going into this, knowing that none of these things should be necessary, but we're here now, what would you say are some of those super practical tips that have really made things easier or that you think people should know? I think the first thing I would say is that borrow don't buy with stuff that is kind of you might only use for a short amount of time. So there's some really brilliant like borrowing services that are quite sort of innovative at the moment and where this stuff is like really good quality. So you can do OLEO, which is free. You've probably got like a local share and repair library.

I know there is definitely one in London across with sites across London that I can't remember the name of, off the top of my head. But also things like baby clothes. So if you're kind of expecting a baby or you have a baby in this climate, I think that adds an extra layer of anxiety. But there are services where you can borrow baby clothes. So you're not having to constantly buy new sizes as they grow. You just send them back and get new sizes. So there's lots of innovation going on there.

There's loads of great kind of innovation going on in like the second hand market as well. there's a service called Only, which is like an app where you can sell and buy secondhand clothes. Because I think for loads of people like fashion and the way that we dress is like a real sort of self-care and well-being thing. So, you know, you don't have to kind of give up absolutely everything that you love or that excites you. But maybe there's a way to do it that's lower cost and where you're also not just like accumulating loads of stuff because you can move. some of your stuff on at the same time as you're getting something new and exciting that's going to kind of bring you some joy. I think it's really important not to give up on joy during this time. You know, we're kind of here in comparison to like the Great Depression and stuff like that.

And I think even just that mindset can be a bit of like a self-fulfilling prophecy. So like really just still trying to hold on to a bit of a bit of a bit of. bit of joy, but maybe just in a slightly different way. There's a really great app called Snoop and there's another one called Emma where they're like budgeting apps. So they link to your bank account, but they do it using something called open banking, which has the same like security levels as your normal banking app. And they get read only data. So they can't change anything in your bank account. I think people are quite nervous with linking their bank account up. But, you know, those are kind of as safe as you can get.

But they can do things like spot when a contract is coming to an end so that you can like get a car insurance deal before yours rolls onto a more expensive one. That's great. Yeah. And, you know, that's, again, that just takes another thing off your mental load if you don't have to have a load of calendar entries. It will just tell you. and it all spot that you've got loads of subscriptions and you might have forgotten like we just had some coffee pods ordered yesterday that I'm going to have to cram into a cupboard of 900 coffee pods because I keep forgetting to cancel the subscription.

So there's things like that. As you said that, I remembered I had also got a free trial. Yeah. And I said very much myself, you're not stupid for forgetting that. Like the system is built in such a way that is designed for exactly that. that you think, oh, great deal, of course I'll remember. And then you don't remember. And then they've got way more money out of you than they would if you just paid up.

For the first thing, so, like, you know, we mustn't sort of beat ourselves up about getting got by a system designed to get us. And this is where I think, like, sometimes memes can be really helpful. Because as soon as something's a meme, you're like, oh, well, this must be something that happens to everyone. And there are so many about forgetting to cancel subscriptions. There are kind of apps and things that can help you to. remember I think some banking apps are like, have brought in a subscriptions feature where you can sort of, you know, just cancel it through your banking app rather than having to, because the other thing is, if you've done it for a few, like, remembering your login details and then, like,

computer says no. And then for most like newspapers, you have to actually phone to do it. And sometimes there's no one there. And then you forget for another six months. So, you, you And that's their business model. Like they're expecting you to forget. Because even if they only get like two or three months out of you, it's still, you know, it's still something. A really brilliant one is just signing up for a cashback app or a couple of cashback apps because you can get cashback on pretty much everything.

And I'm not just talking about like clothes or other kind of physical purchases, like insurance and holidays and stuff. Like big, expensive things where even a small, small percentage of cashback is going to be quite a lot. And what it does is it saves it up in the app. And sometimes you have to wait kind of a few weeks before it's withdrawable. But if you just do that every time you shop, just go through the app rather than going straight to the website,

you can save quite a lot of money. And then you can just pull that out for something like Christmas and suddenly like half of your presents are paid for or all of your booze is paid for or whatever. So, and that's just a way of like saving money on things that you would be buying anyway. And quite often you can use them even if you're using like a discount code or the things in the sale. So it's a really good way of just like chipping an extra bit off and saving it up. What are the good cashback apps?

So there's top cash pack and then there's quidco. Those are the two sort of main ones. And then there's airtime rewards as well, which is, does the same thing, but it knocks the money off your phone bill. Oh, wow. Like your mobile phone bill. Great. That's excellent. I was going to say, if you are in the mood to move banks or indeed with Santander, but not with this one,

they had the Santander 1,2, 3 account, was started a couple of years ago and had it was a great interest rate. And then it was like, oh, it's like, it's gone now. but they still do, they now do 4% cash back on your bills. So your phone, your gas, your electricity, your water, everything like that. You get, you know, so it's not massive, but at least it's like something that feels like it's sort of coming back. Yeah, and also with switching banks, which I would add, like if you're going to be applying for a mortgage or any really important credit, don't switch banks. But if you aren't and you're kind of looking at switching banks, you can get, up to like 200 quid in like joining incentives. So I think it's nationwide with the highest at the

moment, which is £200. And if you open it soon, you would have that money again in time for Christmas. And I think sometimes actually, even if things feel really difficult financially, all you need is like a small bounce back in the right direction. A little, yeah, a little boost. And I would say like, and I, again, I don't speak officially, but merely in my own capacity that I have a bank with every high, every high street bank. There is no limit to how many new accounts you can get or how many little welcome bonuses you can have. I also did a good money saving thing recently, which was my partner changed to GIFGaf and it was like so much cheaper. So I've switched to that and I've just like halved my phone bill. And GIFGaf have frozen their rates until the end of 2023 as well.

So I think also if you're looking for like, if you are looking to switch to something, see if they have, you know, done a price freeze because then again, like you can just breathe a bit of a sigh of relief of like, okay, I'm not going to get that horrible text or horrible letter being like, we're changing your rates and then have to have that feeling of like panic. And again, it's a sort of head out of the sand thing of being like properly sit down with all the accounts and be like, okay, what is the best deal we can get here? And maybe like calling your phone provider or whatever and be like, I'm leaving. And maybe they'd be like, go on then, off your, off your piss. And then you'll be like, oh, or maybe they'll say, oh, what if we can change you to a better

deal or what, maybe we can get something better for you. I would also say on that front, like, that strategy applies to absolutely everything. So when I had like 27 grand of debt and I was earning like 27 grand a year and two small kids in full-time child care and a husband who's working like 90 hours a week and I was just like still buying scatter cushions being like this will maybe this one will be the one that makes me feel better but when I got to that like break a breaking point of okay so like something's got to change otherwise I am going to end up in like a formal debt management plan which are brilliant but they you know they come with a big big commitment one of the first things that I did was I phoned all of my credit card providers and just said to them,

look, this is a situation. I'm quite overburdened. I'm really committed to paying down the balance on these. Is there anything you can do for me? And Barclay card froze my interest for three months, which was the, that was my biggest account. I had like 10 grand on it. And that saved me like 300, 400, 400 quid in interest. loan and again like a little bounce back in the right direction um a couple of others uh like refunded

some charges like my bank account they had an overdraft on they refunded like 300 quids worth of charges so if you can just like steal yourself for a morning set yourself up with all of your details like on a piece of paper on your computer a cup of tea and a glass of water and just blast through it the maybe things and they're all like goodwill gestures none of them are like or very few of them are things that um your bank's like obliged to do for you but they have a discretionary amount that they can give you as goodwill it's just think it is worth sometimes like a morning of your time to go through a like you've spoken to all of your banks so you have that feeling of relief of like I'm not going to die if my bank phone me um and

also you can get like some real material gains from it and again like just to bounce back in the right direction or just like a bit of a reprieve and on a similar note there is a fairly new government legislation called breathing space so if you are really struggling with debt what it means is that you can have 30 days or up to 90 days if you have kind of a diagnosed mental health condition that you or a diagnosis that this financial difficulty is severely affecting your mental health. For each of them you have to go through a debt advisor, which you can find in your local area or through step change.

But what it does is it gives you a break where you're not constantly having to make payments or move money from one account to another to plug these big holes in your budget just literally gives you some breathing space to sit down and make a plan. And you can use that in conjunction with like some formal debt advice. And like I said, step change are brilliant or there's Christians against poverty as well.

Sorry, what is step change? Is that a debt? Yeah, it's a debt charity. So they're amazing. So even if you're just a bit worried about how much you owe or it's starting to get on top of your or your interest rates have gone up recently, you can go in and put onto their website. and you can put in all of your information and it will generate a report with all of your options. So you don't even have to talk to anyone or be vulnerable to anyone.

You just can do that and it will generate a report. And then you can speak to them and they can get things like formal debt management plans or IVAs set up, which are always kind of a very, very good option as a last resort. Because they really can make things. They can be like transformative. but they also come with kind of some quite big like provisos but they are a very very good final option and I think also like remember that the person on the other end of the phone is like a human being as well I can't tell you how many people I've spoken to who are like I'm a mortgage advisor and I'm really

struggling without my own money or I work in a bank and I can't figure out my own finances, like don't, definitely don't assume that the person on the other end of the phone is judging you because, like, just, they're a human being as well. And also, I would just say, especially if you call HMRC, but if you call one of the big banks and you get someone who's not listening to you or who you don't feel like understands, just put the phone down and phone again, you won't get the same person. Yes, that's very, that's very good. Any more final sort of hints or tips? Yeah, I think I would just say, like, as a final thing. Within like our lives and particularly within money, there's like a circle of

things that are within your control and then everything outside of that is not within your control. And so taking the blame or feeling guilty or ashamed about the stuff that's outside of your circle is just a real waste of energy. So I always find that like a really good way forward is acknowledge the stuff that's not within your control and then look at the stuff that is and see if you can make a bit of a practical plan with the resources and the agency that you actually have. That tends to me to be the best way

to kind of reduce the panic, feel like you're actually doing something, build up a bit of financial confidence without like constantly flogging yourself for things that aren't your fault. May I share something that might be a shade too bleak. Oh, yeah, I think that's about time.

Go for it. It's just that it was in, it's in Banksy's book. And it's about this moment in a prisoner of war camp, which so it sounds bleak, but it's going to be hopeful. And it's about them sending in this care package into the prison of war camp and into the care package, someone had put a lipstick. And initially, when I read that, I was like, what a flippant and frivolous thing to send. Like, obviously they need food and resources and things.

And then the survivors, years later, wrote about this day when the lipstick arrived, being the best, like, just being like, they gave them something back. And it's well what you're saying about, like, not denying yourself the nice things or the joy or the, like, you don't have to just be eating gruel and getting by. You know, you're here to like thrive, not just survive. And suddenly they were like, wore the lipstick and like had some identity back and were like, oh, I'm a person and I have all these likes and things. And I don't, it doesn't have to be this like, I think that we're so quick to like beat ourselves

up and deny us anything nice. And actually the nice stuff is what makes us people and we shouldn't, you know. Yeah, it's like that great blog website. the bootstrap cook. Cooking on a bootstrap, which is Jack Monroe. She's an amazing chef who kind of creates, and was living in poverty herself for a long time and has created just lots of nice recipes

that are cheap, but are cheap, but it's not just like, cheapness is not the only thing. Yeah, cheapness is not the only thing. Yeah, it doesn't have to just be about, and look how much money I saved it, and look what good things I did. And also, like, the more that you deprive yourself, so people will, like, do really punitive budgeting,

in the same way that people like put themselves on horrible, horrible diets because they see something that like they perceive to be wrong with themselves. So one motivation is to fix it, but always underneath there's like a and I must be punished kind of thing. But all you do when you like purposefully deprive yourself is like set yourself up for a massive blowout, like in my experience. I've been stuck in that bin. purge cycle with both money and food and it is not fun and I think you know like you say those small like treats and like moments of joy and things that you buy for yourself because you want to are like quite important sort of fending that off absolutely final tip is to follow follow claire

please um on my frugal year on instagram and also i and also the um the financial well-being forum is the FW Forum. So follow both of those. Yeah, thank you so much, Claire, for coming in. Thanks for having me. It was a very tricky thing to navigate, but I feel like, I just feel like it's, there's so many good bits of advice in there

and, like, practical apps that you can just sound really helpful and just psychologically the most important thing. Yeah, you're not alone. I've come away so much psychologically karma. You're not alone and this is achievable. Follow us at at Nobody Panic Pod and we'll see you next week, guys. next time, everybody. Goodbye.