The Vault with Financielle - “I’m Too Busy To Save Money” | The Vault Episode 34

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

Send us a textWelcome to The Vault with Financielle.In Episode 34 of The Vault, we discuss this week’s controversial opinion, “Budgeting apps don’t work”, before diving into our listener dilemmas:“I can’t balance my budget with my social life” 🥂“I’m obsessed with the idea of being debt free” 💸 We celebrate a listener who used her car maintenance sinking fund to dodge the stress of an unexpected car tyre expense 🚘🛞 We’re here for that peace of mind 🧘‍♀️✨If you’d like to share your money win, head to the community in the Financielle app or email [e-mail] your (totally anonymous) money dilemmas to [e-mail] and we may feature yours on a future episode 💌Thank you to our partner PensionBee, who are on a mission to help you build pension confidence and create a world where everyone can enjoy a happy retirement. With PensionBee you can combine, contribute and withdraw online. Join over 252,000 customers saving with PensionBee. When investing, your capital is at risk.Sign up and combine your pensions here 🐝Chapters:00:00 Introduction03:00 Welcome to The Vault05:50 Controversial Opinion: "Budgeting apps don’t work"13:37 Dilemma 1: “I can’t balance my budget with my social life” 🥂24:10 Community win - Sinking Funds FTW! 29:34 Dilemma 2: “I’m obsessed with the idea of being debt free”  💸40:11 Final ThoughtsThe Vault is an entertaining yet thought provoking podcast that answers our community’s dilemmas and confessions surrounding women and money.Visit https://www.financielle.com to download our app.Watch the podcast on YouTube.Follow Financielle for more:▶︎ TikTok▶︎ InstagramAbout Financielle:Financielle is a female focussed finance app helping women to take back control of their money, ditch debt, increase savings and invest in their future.Recorded and Produced by Liverpool Podcast Studios▶︎ Web ▶︎ Instagram▶︎ LinkedIn

I've just been getting a flurry of text messages. Laura and I went out with our friends at the weekend to watch Duran McNally in Manchester. It was very good. We had a meal out first and then we went to there. And we don't do it a lot, so it was like in the budget. It was, we don't get together and... It was nice.

It was a proper girly day out. And the first message is, next time we need a kitty, Fan and Shell will make a podcast out of this next week because they already know what's going to go down. This is a message we got off our, I would say, type A personality friend. Very successful CFO, very intelligent, very organized. So I've totted up what everyone has spent and sorted it into categories in brackets because not all eight of us participated in all eight categories and then divided each category by the number of

participants equally for instance divided host house which is a bar in manchester by six as there was only six of us then i've deducted what people had spent on the night to arrive at the amounts we each owe and then she's gone on to say if someone transfer this and da-da-da-da-da. Da-da-da-da-da. If you don't follow the above table, here is what you owe each. And then by name, how much everybody owes. There's a table.

It was a spreadsheet. It was fabulous. I've got a spreadsheet. I've got a table. Things are highlighted in yellow because some payments have been made and then it's like, this is your remaining payment. Blah, blah, blah.

Financial sisters, please don't despair of us any questions or missing expenditure of course shout up I've rushed this so it could be wrong it definitely won't be wrong Suzanne

you know it's not wrong but this is the friend that she always sorts out the bill for everybody she's a CFO so she's an expert in this field

but one day Laura and I went out for dinner with her and I was like Suzanne I'll sort the bill today. You have a rest, you have a break.

We always rely on you to be the organised person. And you could see she was like, okay, but really wanted to take control. And I was like, no, no, no, I'm doing you a favour. Like, I'll sort it. All got to leave the restaurant. The man comes running after us, he's like, you still owe us £40. So his mental math did not work that day. It didn't work.

I think I even used a calculator and I tried my best, but she was like, I was, when I said to her, I'm really sorry. She was like, yeah, I did actually really want to do it. I actually enjoy it. So next time just leave it to me. She also, you've missed out the phrase that she said, and next time I'm not drinking. Because look at Holly's bill compared to everyone else's. It is so expensive.'s bill I wasn't drinking my bill I was a bit smug with mine I felt like I was

savvy I don't do it for money reasons though it's not even like it's just a difference yeah it's funny that they're sending money here they're in everywhere I know that there's always been loads of products that have come out to try and be like split bills and this and that. It just doesn't work because it doesn't think about the different people going to different towns, different people already paying for different things. You need a Susan. Yeah. Everyone needs a Susan in their life.

Did you hear that? We love you. Welcome to The Vault with Financial. This is a safe space where we talk all things life and money and no topics are off limits. Good morning. Good morning. Happy pod day. Happy pod day. Reflecting on what we're wearing and when you don't watch on YouTube you can't see a bottle. Lucy and I have both got our merch on today. Mine's got wrinkles. I haven't but Holly put a jumper on backwards so I'm going to tie one before.

I didn't realise. No, I'd have rocked it to be honest I did see Grace Beverley's Tala has got this reversible top that's high neck at the front and V on the back and then V on the front high neck at the back

that's nice yeah I like that sure would you have a V on the back yeah it's not too low it looked handy anyway yeah

nice I'd probably get makeup on it as I was turning it around like a costume yeah do you know what my friend

who is now a minister of parliament so gives you a context of how important he is he once said when he when he was at school he spent a full day with a hanger in his jumper at the end of the day did the teaching oh I didn't say his name so I'm not going to probably be in the press if I said it and be like this man is responsible

for thousands of people but great posture yeah I didn't know he was like come here see we never realised tell me you're relaxed

never realised having a great time I notice if there's like a grain of sand in my sock like I am that person but you didn't notice that your jumper

was on Matt's front so then Lydia looked at you and went that's very true maybe I'm more relaxed than I thought I'm envisioning

you know Matilda or Miss Trunchbull picture it by picture it would have been handy wouldn't it hang on hang on a minute I do a lot of gym

leggings inside out oh a lot always does that and I'm like but never realise until it's just halfway through. In uni, we used to be like addicted to gym classes and it would be like squats and everything and we'd always be late

so we'd end up like at the front. And I just had this obsessive fear that I was going to do a squat and my leggings would just go. That's happened to someone at our gym. Who was it? Someone told you this. Claire.

They would call her out and I'd always be like oh my god I can definitely tell like those scrunched ones that no one's told me those scrunched leggings oh yeah

I just they really do you have those yeah they're so comfy I was going to call them out when you walk down the street and it's just like

yeah I don't I can't I can't wear them I can't stop Holly's hands doing this. But the scrunchies, I'm making a gif out of that.

They're there for a reason. It's to make your bum look big and juicy. That's exactly what they do, to be fair. But I can foresee cheap Amazon ones at the beginning,

at the front of the class doing a squat, just, pew, pew. It's probably what has happened in the gym. And you fear a lot. Now I don't go to gym class, so not worried.

I go in jeans. Okay, I've got a controversial opinion and I feel like I need to take shelter when I say it. Okay. Budgeting apps don't work. How very dare they. Sorry, what? How very dare you.

Did you come up with this controversial money opinion state your case yeah what we're thinking oh it depends on the budgeting app i would say because we've got this big thing of everyone's like why is financial different like why why does it work and one of the big things that comes out when we speak to people they've tried budgeting apps before they've tried spreadsheets before they've tried paper people. They've tried budgeting apps before. They've tried spreadsheets before. They've tried paper budget planners. They've tried pieces of paper. They've tried notes on the phone.

It just doesn't work. It's really... Some spreadsheets do, sorry, if you're like uber geeky and want to track every single thing on your spreadsheet, but they can get complicated. Formulas break.

You can't update it on the go, which is one of the big things when we speak to people, why they like financial. But some of the other budgeting apps, they do all the hard work for you so you never truly get down and dirty with your numbers you never truly have a full understanding of what's coming in and what's going out because some really savvy clever highly technical apps will round up spending for you will put take money out of your account without you knowing and put it into savings

that's great for the person that um they're breezing through life and he's kind of comfortable hasn't got a um emergency in their face or something could set on fire or like a stress in their life yeah although super savvy when it comes to money you know but for the many of i would say the majority of us in the uk we should have some or a lot of engagement with our money because that's how it goes awry. If you don't look at your bank account for days on end because you're scared of what it is, that turns into months, it turns into years. You never truly get to grips with your money. So I understand the controversial opinion. Many people have tried a

budget staff and it's not worked, but it's just not the one for them. And I think it's just a case of researching and finding out the reason why you want to download it in the first place and then how you engage with it when it's when it's in your pocket the lots of them as well sorts of banking apps are very reflective but not forward-looking but I guess you said budgeting apps so you would think a budgeting app is budgeting it but do you know what is sad about that it's so lonely because it's just the budget and then it's like off I go whereas what I guess we're quite proud of is the community side of it because we hope that people come to us and make a change they improve self-development and personal development like it's an investment in yourself and we probably don't shout about that enough that you come to us to change um you know

some people like give us a hard time for the price. You know, it's £40 for the year and that's £3.33 a month and £4.20 is a Starbucks coffee. But it's changing, it's development. I think we saw recently like someone that pays for premium, is it saves three and a half times as much? It's just crazy and pays off debt two and a half times more quicker than someone that doesn't. So, you know, everyone's so happy to give payments to car and around payments,

to the credit card companies and payments to car finance, and no one's looking at the cost of that and the profit that those companies are making. Sometimes people give us a little bit of a hard time for it not being free, but you're paying for development, but you're paying part of that development. It's not just the budget, it's the people. And if you want a pick-me-, or if you want to feel like you're not on your own, you can just go into that community and see what people are saying. And when someone this morning said, just a quick one, Laura here, if you're wanting to take back

control of your money, ditch debt, make better decisions and build wealth for the future, the Financial app is for you. With Financial, you can track your spending on the go, hit your money goals faster and create a realistic budget that you can actually stick to. Not to mention, you'll be part of an exclusive money community who share tips, offer support and celebrate your successes along the way. Click the link in the description to download Financial and start your free trial now. This is your sign to take control of your money today. Okay, I'm done. Let's go back to the vault. I've been in debt my entire adult life and that's, I think that's normal. I think that's normal. So what are the budgeting, what are the other budgeting apps doing to help not be the normal

what are the budgeting budgeting apps doing helping someone save up in advance for having a baby what are the other apps doing that i want to help someone get through christmas without relying on credit what are the other apps doing to help that person with someone else in a similar position yeah just that empathy and and so it's that but it's also and i'm gonna obviously give um you three guys credit to the content that's in there those blogs i love it when people say oh my god it was a nugget it was like this just a little bit of insight that i went oh i'm not on my own or oh that person's paying off the mortgage that's amazing or oh do you know what i've never thought about how toxic um you know by now but later i would say yeah always always but they've just like that's the

combo that works so um some budgeting apps don't work if you're not super into it because if you're not super into it you need the other things to kind of keep you going and then you also don't get a nice pretty donut like we do get a donut of you that's a good little thing for people to look at by the way um when you do a budget in do. You get a donut of you. That's a good little thing for people to look at, by the way. When you do a budget in our app, you get the donut of dreams, which is breaking up how your income is spent. And there's four nice colours. And so you've got to look between your fixed expenses,

your flexible expenses, your sinking funds and the excess. And the excess is green. And if you spend more than you make, you't get any green and it's just a three cook three color um donut but my favorite two are the green and the purple because purple sinking funds so sinking funds is like oh look how organized i am and the green is that's my growth that money's been thrown at debt that money's been invested and um that's the element of i don't care how much i spend on groceries really like as long as I manage it that's not the win whereas other apps go oh you spent this much in Gregg's and you spent this

much in Tesco and mentioned the forward um the retrospective spending thing our app is the only one that I know of whereby you go in the UK this is what I'm going to spend this month like you are truly taking control of your finances when you decide where your money's going to go at the beginning of the month not just get a fancy report at the end when it tells you how much you fucked up yeah i went to too many times like that's not helpful like i knew that i ate we always go i ate the donut i ate the sausage roll like whatever you don't need to tell me that in a pretty graph like it's great and it's fun and it's engaging but is it truly going to change your life no it's like being hung over and someone being like well you had this many drinks yeah i told you so i know

but that's not helping too late now isn't it that's when you do need the sausage roll and the donuts yeah it's funny when someone um messages like and if they've not got really good coverage and the app's not loading they go oh it's broken tell me yeah and sometimes i go oh we've known the months where we've we said we were going to do this one month we weren't going to use it i can't do it i'm doing it. I'm not having to just have everything. Just wing it. Just get paid and wait.

I can't. Look at you all holding your breath. You're mentioning maths. Got your turkey. Could not. I love how you take on all different challenges. Like you'll do no spend challenges and you'll try and cut back on this

and you'll not use this and you'll, you know, but. Take my budget away. Do not take my budget away. New challenge. Be shit budget away. Do not take my budget away. New challenge, be shit with money. Create content. I think we'd be rubbish at it.

Yeah, me too. Yeah. Good fail. Okay, I've got a dilemma for everybody. I can't balance my budget with my social life.

Hi girls. I'm writing in today as I have a bit of a dilemma. I've been a silent listener of the podcast for a while and after an expensive summer, I'm finally taking the plunge to making a budget and paying off my debt, which is about 3.5k. I have made a budget for the month following the financial playbook and have budgeted for all my social plans within the month. The problem is I have barely any excess left to build up my emergency and start paying down the debt. I feel like I need to cut back on my social life for the first couple

of months whilst I get the ball rolling but I struggle to say no to plans with friends especially as most of my friends now live in different cities so aligning schedules is tricky how do I cut back on my social life without feeling like I'm letting my friends down so that I can have a bit more flexibility in my budget and start my financial wellness journey. Really good dilemma that one actually. FOMO is real. Yeah. I mean I'm just picturing Lucy's response which is it's fine just say no. Next. Is this a dilemma or is this a dream? 3.5k worth of debt if you double down and really commit yourself you will not be saying no to this social life for a very long time like this is a period in your life it gets really addictive and really fun so you need to delve into the communities my first bit of advice there are so

many people that have got this like last bit of remaining debt that just go all in. And it's so addictive. And the dopamine hits amazing. You can stay in touch with friends. You're not letting people down. Half of me is like, everyone always thinks like, oh, I'm letting my friends down

because I'm not going to go. Like, I know you're the main character of your life, but you're not in this. Like, I don't think when you say no, that I love you and all your friends probably love you as well, but they're not sat there going, I can't think when you say no that I love you and all your friends probably love you as well but they're not sat there going I can't believe it was here like you are the main character of your own life like it's very dramatic we've said this before though they might be like thank

god why I can like you all but why do I see you all the time yeah yeah um it's a I think it's a transition of it definitely happened to me on an age basis that in my early 20s and and my two best friends were ones in london ones in manchester um and we just made such an effort to see each other constantly and i loved that and now it's too much the other way whether it's kids involved or like moving and stuff and work and it is really really hard to catch up but i also think we've given each other a little bit of a break, like not a break, but it's okay. Like permission. Yeah, yeah. The friendship doesn't change.

Because if you are paying for trains, paying for hotels, if you catch up in different places, dinner's out because when you get together, you're like your social animals, you go out. It just, it's really expensive. And if you're suddenly taking care of your money,

it's just a lot. I think it's hard because with like WhatsApp and social media and stuff these people 20 years ago our best friends we probably would have rung two three times a year if we didn't live close and that wouldn't have been a bad thing but because we're all connected and you've got a routine of it I think it's time to maybe change up the routine and think about some quality milestones that you do together if there is a lot of travel involved but it's okay to say no rather those like impulsive like oh just pop

down to see you this weekend or you can be like no no in two months time we're gonna go here and you can have a little sinking fund for that no one's saying that you have to say no to everything but just being mindful that it's not a big deal anymore i don't think i don't know if i'm i think we're all weirdos we always say this conditioned. We're a bit conditioned in a particular way. We're all conditioned to be able to prioritise our financial wellness and say no to things

with a bigger goal in mind. That's just what this is. We have to put ourselves back into a previous position. We've done this with money scripts before. So for those people that haven't heard us

talk about this, it's, and we need someone in the app to keep them. I think we've got, it's like spread it around, but different ways to say, practice saying no to certain things so um i think one option for you is sharing with your friends look i finally want to get my shit together and um i'm gonna go on a

debt-free journey and so i'm gonna be tempted at times to want to join in but i'm gonna say no to some things firstly once in a while can um i we do something that isn't as expensive i'll host come to me i'll cook you something we're not going out we don't need to go out popcorn pajamas you probably carry it on as well when you get free yeah you'll realize you don't want to go out in heels and have to do the the spreadsheet personality paying each other back. It's just going to be

a new era a new dawn for you all. You want to just inspire some of your friends to do the same thing. You could do. Your friends are probably

in a similar situation like someone will be. Yeah. Someone will be like oh thank god you said something. Accountability buddy. Well me and my boyfriend

well we've like coined a new meaning for this term he's probably got this term from like a crypto bro content creator

that makes money from something else but they actually get paid from being a content creator and it's called monk mode

oh go what is it bald brown shave your hair it's autumn we're gonna go brown we're gonna go bald and it's basically where you just like cut out all distractions and you go like all in on this like one thing okay ladies i've got a controversial money opinion from our friends at pension bay

money can't buy you happiness agree Agree? Disagree? Controversially, I disagree with this statement, but not for the reasons you might think. I think being financially well and being in control of your money can definitely bring you happiness. I get it. We're not talking material goods here like mansions or flashy cars. When it comes down to it, we know that money and mental health are intrinsically linked, so it makes sense that a certain amount of money could buy you happiness you can listen to the pension b team hash this controversial money opinion out on episode 30 of their pension confident podcast the pension confident podcast is available right now wherever you usually get your podcasts and remember when investing your capital is at risk um whether it's like productivity or just any area of life. I don't think that's the actual, what it means, like Google it.

I get it though. It'll be some like, actual monk mode. So like, no social media and stuff. But if it like, that could be like, right, I'm going monk mode on my reading. Yeah. And it's like, I'm doing no social media in the evenings. You're just focusing on a goal. Yeah.

That's what it is. Just doubling down. Yeah, but make it trendy. Okay, monk mode. Oh, perfect. Go on on what does it mean simplifying your life and daily routine eliminating distractions and focusing deeply on tasks and self-improvement perfect right i've seen people do um i've seen those ads it's like girl disappear for six months i'm like what am i going disappear i've got pictures drop off at school like yeah that's the sort of thing and it's like right tell up don't just like ghost everyone that no

don't do that tell everyone be like right give me a year literally like i will be back oh my god like going into a cocoon yeah yeah this is the main character thing coming back everyone couldn't give a shit and didn't realise that you were missing. They didn't realise you were... I'm going. Who are you? Can't have a great chat.

Who is this? Who are you? Lucy. Lucy. I think I knew her in uni. Lucy's left the chat. Lucy's never in the chat. I thought you moved away.

As long as there's no pressure for a glow up because that would terrify me as well. I was like, oh my God, if I said I'm coming away for six months, I couldn't come for a glow up because that would terrify me as well I was like oh my god if I said I'm coming away for six months I couldn't come back after six months

because nothing would have changed what did you improve just rotting for six months I'd look rougher I don't know if that's possible but I would you have to have

like a coming back party chrysalis is that what they say like after when um like a singer does a big tour oh yeah

and like at the end Harry Styles was like I'm gonna go away for a while but everyone sees him like walking down the London that's where he went

walking around Notting Hill every day yeah he gets that social media exists literally but to that point poor Harry

is done he's been Mr Social he goes to the local pub for a couple of drinks he's watching his money he's being mindful he's been mr social he goes to the local pub yeah for a couple of drinks he's watching his money he's being mindful he's in his monkey era i see you in your monkey era monk mode oh monk mode sorry he did actually shave his head as well so maybe he will i feel like i'm not shaving my listener that rose listener that wrote this dilemma, does this help? Because we're having a great time. I think the prescription is monk mode.

Yes. We're in agreement. But no pressure monk mode. No, just non-dramatic. But focus on, like Holly said, three and a half grand, you can nail this and you can plan a couple of things in that are light socials.

But I think you need to get, you've had a summer of excess. Lots of us have. Sometimes just breaking that cycle that cycle makes you realize oh that doesn't have to be the way keep in contact with friends in different ways like keep the whatsapp group going get on some group calls i don't even see them on whatsapp you can give these really good like video memos now oh my gosh i've said to that with some of my friends which is it's really like one of us lives in australia it's really hard to get on chat. Instead of a voice note. Instead of a voice note.

And it can't be long because it goes around the circle and it stops. And so you can't leave a 12 minute podcast voice note. I just need to address the length of the voice note that Lucy received from her friend

the other day. Yeah, one was 17 minutes. In total, 30 minutes. Get it on the pod. The pod extra. She said, put this all into chat GPT and get it to summarise it for you

and I did and great summary she's having a wild time we're obviously not allowed to start sharing it's on the vault after hours we need to get her on the sofa actually

I feel like looking at different ways this isn't like bye friends see you in a year but it's changed and also we're about to have a really social period Christmas time yeah I feel like looking at different ways, this isn't like, bye friends, see you in a year. And also we're about to have a really social period. Christmas time is coming up.

After that, I think January. Everyone's calling out for it. It's calling for hibernation. It is. You would hibernate all year round. Absolutely. July's hibernation month for you, Lucy. I was saying to Lydia before before I get the opposite of sad

yeah like it's sunny I'm like vampire vampire eyes yeah I think mug mode is the answer okay

good luck I like it document your mug mode in the community please yeah don't go away too much because we need to know what you're doing

we're here as well if you need friends I'll be supportive I'm not coming out with you though okay community win time sinking funds for the win my car went in for its service yesterday and i got the dreaded call it needs a new tire not a problem thanks to my car sinking fund which has never felt so aptly named before cars really are a money pit and a quick payment later it was all sorted and I got on with my day yeah honestly we'd say it time and time again if you do not engage with sinking funds what are you doing like they are

they save lives for the journey though like when you first do them it's proper adulting and it makes you feel a bit sick you're like oh it's a bit painful. I have to put my money that was for here and it goes over there. And you're like, why am I putting money away for a car? But then the first time you get to use it, you go, thank God I don't have to use my savings. I mean, in the summer we went to France and whilst we were in France, my husband noticed that the tread on his car tyre had gone incredibly low and I mean really low and we'd only just got MOTs and they'd given like not a warning on it just to kind of keep an eye on them and our services due back end of the year and so it was

going to be you know we'll probably have to replace the tyre the tyres then but he looked and it was really really low and so we're in France none of us speak French thankfully a lot of the French speak English and help us out and we found a really good tyre place of which he whacks lyrical about how amazing

this tyre place was it was going back next year to get his tyres changed he said he was like I will he said it was cheaper he said he might replace them

every year because we go to the same place it was really efficient everyone you just turn up and it's like you just turn up like a car wash but you get your tyres changed

yeah it was cheaper it was more efficient he was very excited I got videoing great morning he's in monk mode he's getting his tires started but imagine that so we're we're in the summer everything's expensive already you're going out for meals you are going to disney like there's lots of money going out luckily out of pots but the last thing you really want is to be hit with when you're in France, to be able to get home safely.

A tyre bill, doesn't matter. There's a fund for it. It would feel quite dramatic if you didn't have a sinking fund. It'd be like, we've got to pay for the time. That would be like the disaster of the holiday. But imagine if, if you didn't have that money, you had to get home safely. Someone could have made a decision about, we'll risk it. Like that's so dangerous to do.

It wasn't an issue and it's not because there's a wad of cash that we just dip into. There is a car service sinking fund that just takes peace of mind away. But if anyone wants to get their tyres replaced, drive to the north of France

because it was a great, great service. But that's the, that peace of mind is the reason you're doing it once you don't have to dip into your precious savings that we all love like staying there and not touching and you feel like a failure when you dip into those that's the biggest you're backwards upset that people when people when we do community interviews with people they're like and all i do is dip back into that i start the beginning of the month and i go i'm gonna whack loads into my

savings feel really smug and then by like day seven I'm like just going to pull a little bit off it's because they were artificially high and this is the point about these things are going to come up so just put them in the budget big girl pants

and then when you use it you just feel like you've really done like you're proud of yourself have you got like a niche sinking fund like what's your

what's your most interesting sinking fund nothing really the other one that I look back to was the Dyson Air air wrap one oh yeah that was fun and then you returned it that was nearly a year ago did you see someone in the community talk about a january sinking fund yes i love this idea because it can be such a depressing month i might do that i honestly thought it was ingenious yeah so she was like christmas so was it because january is a long month or because it's a depressing month both i think i think it was a bit of both things acknowledged that it was a

difficult month mentally for everybody a difficult month money wise because sometimes you've been paid early which is the devil in december early in december is a nightmare yeah unless you start going oh i might make extra interest most of us are going oh that's a nice bit of cash so I can get some presents from the garage on Christmas Eve yeah people want to get paid

I remember in our old job people like just I'm going to get paid before Christmas what day will I get paid so it's early

so you forget you don't want to it gets paid it's a really long month it can be a six to seven week pay

month end apparently but actually loads of restaurants and stuff do 50% off in January so build a really cool sinking fund now

and go out every week if you need a January food fund go out every weekend for half the price and you've already saved up for it

like we should all have a January sinking fund happy January sinking fund yeah we're not going to be that kind of we're going to build it now that content

and let people have a plan for a really nice january on a note can you guys please pay us on christmas day instead of before it would be christmas day i think it was earlier last year and i was like i'm not touching oh did we do it earlier are we those people it was like a day or two earlier and i was like i'm not touching it well it like you know it's kind of a bank holiday isn't it so you do have to go a bit earlier

but no no no don't look at it delayed gratification do you want to spend it's free anyway I was going to say I was just about to say Jen's like

what do you pay for on Christmas day and we just sat tucking into a Sunday roast and I don't know what you have everything

I know everything all the presents you get if you'd like to send us your win please head to the community in the app or email it to the vault at financial.com okay next dilemma I'm obsessed with the idea of being debt-free hello I only joined financial about one week ago and I've been obsessed with the idea of of being debt-free. I worked out I would be debt-free by 2026 using the snowball method. Our plan before my financial enlightenment was

to sell both of our cars and to buy a new car. So we would cut down our costs on MOTs, insurance, etc. by only having one car. We would need a bit of a car loan to support getting a new car. Now I've learned more about financing, I'm wondering why I would keep myself in this debt loop. Today, my fiancé and I have sold one of our cars for a sum of money which will cover most of our debt and leave us with only £1,700 worth of debt. If we keep my car, we can use the money we were spending on our monthly debt repayments to pay the £1,700 off and we will be debt free by January 2025, a whole year earlier. I'm excited by the idea of starting a new year debt free but also feel strange about using it

all to pay off the debt. To note we don't have a sinking fund set up yet. I'm so scared of using all the money on the debt and feel we should hold some back as a sinking fund but I'm worried I will just take it out and spend it. I know I need to change my a sinking fund but I'm worried I will just take it out and spend it I know we need I know I need to change my psychology around this but I'm scared of having nothing left nothing left from the sale I didn't grow up with money and I tend to be a spender when I have it some support on this would be super helpful one weekend welcome you are already in it on it wow all over it and I i think i can empathize with the obsession with being debt free that's a good thing like be obsessed care about it healthy healthy obsession

you know it needs to be like because we can rein you back in but if you don't feel motivated to be debt free never gonna be you're never gonna be and you'll none of these other things will come together so it's a healthy obsession also sounds like you and your partner are on the same page for planning for this and if you said you're a spender if he's not combining at least the budgeting together and working together and like knowing that you're that spender that's the first part of the battle I just I'm so impressed with the self-reflection already that she's like I recognize I'm a spender and if I have access to that money, I'll probably spend it. So I know I need to do this.

Like so good at the self-reflection and recognising. And good that you've caught yourself literally just before you're about to buy a car on finance. Yeah. Yeah. And so they've thought, oh, let's sell two cars and then we'll finance one. And obviously car finance, the long story short with

car finances you are much more likely to finance a much more expensive car than you'd be willing to buy so car finance isn't like bad um and especially if you've kind of you know fairly financially comfortable if you're someone that likes to change cars regularly you like that convenience you do you it's like but it's it's definitely a want it's not a need for the vast majority of us the problem with car finance is we literally go and get a car that we can't afford we never look at the list price i always challenge people if you have a car on finance do you know how much it was yeah would you we always say it would you pay 40 000 pounds for a car you'd be like would i have but it's so easy to do on finance they market it so well they do I mean god

I remember that big change actually when it switched to monthly payments and that's what you think you can afford you don't look at the margin they're making you don't look if you're over

you'll never get it at a discount like it'll always be at the full full whack market value they build their margin into the finance price and so

they actually want you to get finance more than they want you to get like pay with cash or a car loan at the moment because they make much more money on the finance and so the so they actually want you to get finance more than they want you to get like pay with cash or a car loan at the moment because they make much more money on the finance. And so the danger of going and getting a finance car, even though you can keep payments short is one, you don't own the car. And two, you've probably well overpaid.

You know, it's not as trendy to finance a nice little run around, isn't it? So I think that's a fab idea for them. And to just kind of keep things simple. It sounds like they can run off one car. Amazing. You can reduce your expenses. And you guys did this for a little while, actually. I know you got two now, but it's absolutely doable,

depending on your circumstances, your village location. If you can share a family, like we're close, she could borrow ours, she could borrow our parents and stuff. So she's saying sinking fund. She's saying if she uses all the money from the sale to pay off the remainder of the debt, she's really scared to have nothing left. And that's the right scared to be. We get so giddy about paying off debt that actually we, we, we're like, we lose our mind a little bit. And we're like, Oh my God, was, and if you have no emergency fund

and she calls it a sinking fund, but I think she means emergency fund. The emergency fund is the thing that like gives you peace of mind, first of all, and then can help you in an emergency. And it's two jobs. If you have an emergency, and sometimes if you're new to budgeting, she's intense. She's probably going to overdo it. She'll cut too much.

She'll forget something because none of us get a budget right. None of us. Especially your first one, you're like, I'm going to make a massive change and you cut every sort of... You're going to have pot noodles. It's like a fad diet, isn't it? Yeah, it is. It goes a bit crazy.

And it's natural to do that. The emergency fund helps us out when we went, we're a bit ambitious, weren't we? We definitely thought that we could... I wasn't going to eat this week. Yeah. Or that we forgot about fuel. And it's lunchtime.

Oh, yeah. We just forget stuff. And so picking one month's expenses as a minimum to put to one side, this may kick your debt-free date to like the spring of 2025 or something. But that's okay. That's better than going,

paying off all your debt and going, oh, I literally have no money. This is stressful. And one thing comes out and what do you need? You need debt. You need credit. You need an overdraft.

You need a Monzo Flex. You need a binary policy uh you need help because you don't have any money and we want to be in control so um sinking funds is a good one to when you just start in your journey they have to be lean sinking funds we always say this like if you're going to go on holiday start building a travel sinking fund if that's a bougie travel sinking fund you you actually like you're doing yourself a disservice because you are extending the time the debt-free date if you go out we're going to go away but we're this is all we're spending because being debt-free is more important this year you can include a travel sinking fund which is the monthly bit that in your budget that you put into the pot but it's still nice and lean and then you should have your sinking funds for your essentials so

the things that you're going to be spending your car tax car insurance home insurance home maintenance just in case something happens although i have said this before actually a home maintenance and a car maintenance you can actually slow down on those if you've got an emergency fund because those can help in an emergency later you get to a point where you up those and by having your little sinking funds that are nice and lean um an emergency fund to one side and then smashing that debt is definitely the best course of action yeah you've got this how would you say so say someone's completely new to sinking funds ready to go ready to put money in them but they are a spender and they're just like oh i'll just dip into that what would you say so like that mental yeah I think so location location location um you shouldn't have them in front of your eyes so a lot of us that use kind of neobanks that have the pots functionality

that's a great way of parking money for specific jobs and having the pots named um and so in our app you can kind of use a sinking fund um budgeting bit to decide what you're going to put away put it away and it's practice to know i don't dip into that it's hard some people in the community i've seen that are impulsive spenders and it's generally when they're at the beginning of the journey because by the time they've got to a certain point they've retrained the brain and they don't have that urge to impulse spend because the money's in a good place and they they budget for it they have impulse spending pots so it's like a pot of money that they put aside permission to spend yeah if they know that that person like

don't lie to yourself like we aren't this is not a diet like you say like this is real life this is money things cost money if you want to have a bit of fun like and you know that you're not great and you dip into savings and you're going to be that person then just plan for it put an in create a pot that says impulsive spend yeah i have a problem bet you don't spend it because you've given yourself permission so it's not fun anymore you're not naughty so it's not fun it's allowed yeah oh that's boring like you and then at the end of the month when you've not spent it you can whack that into paying off debt or

keeping it in the fund for the next month and roll it over but I honestly bet you don't spend it but give yourself permission to and see what happens and the two extra bits

tips are put friction in the process so if POTS is too accessible for you having your sinking funds in a completely separate bank account where you have to do

a bank transfer to get it back in and the other one is doing a budget jointly so um she talks about her partner they don't have to physically combine banks but if they are managing the budget together sometimes knowing someone else would see seeing us dip into something is enough to go I shouldn't do it like yeah you know it's not controlling you it controlling you it's you knowing if you've got a joint account like my dad when he goes to Greg's my mum's like did you enjoy that

Greg's he's like I can't go anywhere without knowing what I'm doing and it's there it's healthy accountability for someone who

shouldn't be going to Greg's for whatever reason but good luck we're about to get Greg's by the way hope you enjoyed that Leon just got that you mean back again she likes Leon yeah I know how much that is But good luck. We're about to get Greg's, by the way. Hope you enjoyed that, Leon.

Just got that, you mean back again. Cappuccino and a cake. Yeah, I know how much that is. The worst thing is, going to reveal to my mum that my dad actually doesn't mind Starbucks, but my mum hates it. And so sometimes he gets a coffee from Starbucks without her, obviously. And I wonder if she knows. That's in his fuck off one. Sorry, obviously. And I wonder if she knows. That's in his fuck-off one.

Sorry, Dad. He hasn't got one, really. He wouldn't know how to put one together, to be fair. He's bald. He'll tap away. But he doesn't want to do it out of style, because it pings up. Did you say he's bald?

Bald. Oh, bald. I thought you said bald. He's not in his mud. He doesn't know bored or bald bald bald B-A-L-D

he's not he's not bald he's got a full head of hair look at Laura's hair he's got a thick his head of hair going it's because you've got

a better accent than me I couldn't tell is he bald or bold it's him we say bold like confident like oh he's confident

he's also bald he's got bald energy nothing wrong with bald either guys excuse me he just happens not to be no he's not he's in his

what is it monk monk era monk era monk mode he's in starbucks in his monk era any last words don't think we've got any lucy i think we'll leave sorry dad we'll leave it there

on that note that is all for this episode the vault is now closed uh just a quick disclaimer the vault is just a chat around life and money topics and we are not giving financial advice