The Vault with Financielle - "£90k debt and my husband has run out of money"

Episode Date: August 6, 2026

Over 1 million of you watched this dilemma on socials — so while we cook up the next chapter of The Vault, we're bringing back the episodes you couldn't stop talking about. 🤫This week we debate the controversial opinion "couples should ALWAYS combine finances", before diving into two listener dilemmas:💸 "I've always been an 'executive sponsor' for my friends"💸 "£90k debt and my husband has run out of money"Plus a listener money win we love: a £175 bank-switch bonus, straight onto the loan. 👏Got a money dilemma or a win to share? Tell us anonymously in the Financielle app or email [e-mail] 💌You don't have to figure this out alone. More honest money chat at financielle.com 💖💸

Hi guys, Laura here. We're taking a little summer break from new episodes, but we know the Thursday vault drop is part of your routine, so we're not going anywhere. Instead, we've raided the archive for the episodes you have loved the most, including a few that went slightly viral. We're working on the next chapter of the vault behind the scenes. We can't tell you much yet, but we're excited.

In the meantime, keep your dilemmas coming. Share them in the app community, or, to be completely anonymous, email. the vault at van derangell.com. This week's episode is a big one. Over a million of you watch this dilemma on socials. So if you've never heard the full story, here it is. Enjoy.

That's a way we're suddenly like selling things around the house going. You get scrappy. Yeah, absolutely. Oh my God, you go to war. You get a bit feral. Yeah. We're selling all. Get off that sofa.

I've sold it three hours ago. The man's coming now. He's coming now. Get on the car. Camping chairs. Welcome to the vault with finance child. This is a safe space where we talk all things life and money and no topics are off limits. Happy episode 26.

Oh, lucky 26. I can't keep being surprised that we do it every week. I know. Oh my God. I've still got a job. We're still here. How are we going to celebrate for like big milestones? What's the big milestone?

We've not done our milestone celebration yet. Maybe food after here. We're all like food sour love language the four of us. What do you mean? Like what's the? celebration. Definitely. Cake.

We can't be balloon wankers. Have you seen that on? Yeah. I think we could. No balloon wankers allowed. When people hit 10K on Instagram, who!

100K, woo. I've seen so many people try to get to the 10K and they tell the followers and then people just start unfollowing. Yeah.

I just like, I saw someone do it that hit a million and then I went back on their YouTube channel the other day and they were like 9,000, whatever it is.

997. 9000 or 900,000. I was like, 900,000. Yeah, so people are just going, eh, not letting you get to that milestone. Haters. We will never say. People are asking us for longer ones.

Please vote short. Would you like longer poker? We could look at longer and we could look at more. So now we do one a week. Could we do more? Do you want more? Tell us. I mean, you do.

Tell us louder. Yeah, and like if there's anything that you think would be good to cover or again, keep the dialymers coming because we get a lot. We're going to think about how else we can answer them when they can't all make the pod because there's so many now and we want to be able to, they're so good that it's really helpful to workshop it with many. So whether that's in the community more, whether it's TikTok, we'll share with you, but we're getting that many.

But some of them are a bit repeatable. that we'll make sure we answer them all, but we want you all to be involved in answering them. So watch this space. Okay, I've got controversial opinion. I think it will be. Maybe. Let's see.

Couples should always, always, always, always combine finances. What you're all thinking when you hear Lucy say that? What you're all thinking? And when I say couple, I'm thinking minimum three, four years into the liver relationship. Okay, extra context. But you don't have to be married. So we lived in a household whereby we went there before our parents got married. So I don't know what they did prior to that.

But all we've known is our parents having joint finances and it worked really well for them because I never, ever heard my parents argue about money. I never heard, I'm going to be a bit stereotypical because these are the types of dilemmas that we get into the pod. my dad criticise my mum in any way for buying school shoes, paying for school trips, booking holidays, like any of the types of dilemmas that we're getting where people feel like they're getting kickback for managing a budget at home and the other person's not quite on board. I never heard an argument about money and therefore me and my partner followed the same thing whereby we have had joint finances for as long as I can remember. And we don't argue about money either.

So there's never any of that one up and you're going to come in with your one-upmanship stuff with Alex, whereby he buys a pair of trainers. And Lucy's like, well, I've got to buy a pair of trainers now. There doesn't really, there is never anything like that because it's our money. It's never your money and my money in a central part for bills. We literally put everything in the top because we've got two joint children together. The life admin, dear God, it's hard enough anyway. I can't imagine what it would be like if it was, I bought your dinner the other day. So can you transfer me that money on top of everything else that you've got when you start to build out of family?

The added layer of privilege on that is a mum and dad that stayed together, a mum and dad, like, it was a safe space. Earnings, like, from what we know now, they eventually both, like, worked the way the career ladders. Early days, like, they weren't big earners. Like, it wasn't like, oh, there was loads going around. It was they did this, both from working class homes, like, really struggled in childhood, slowly, slowly built up for, like, financial stability. But, yeah, a massive level of privilege on that that, that there was. was no financial coercion, there was no financial control. Or someone didn't have an addiction whereby, if money came into the family account,

that person would go and spend it on either alcohol or gambling or shopping. So that's a very neutral place to be, an easy place to say. Yeah, it helps to give context as how we can answer that, because I think there is that spectrum of trust and, but also slowly, slowly catchy monkey. So, you know, I met my partner later and we combined finances. We had a child before marriage. So we combined finances before then. But also we then started to save for house together as well. So it was a joint account. What was that a joint account? Maybe when we started to buy the house or save for the house. When you had a joint goal. So we then went and we were

living together renting. So joint savings account and joint current account. And we were. went there. And actually we both kept bank accounts that had little bits of money and we both had savings and stuff. But we were both so focused on our joint goal, which was saving for the home. We both had emergency fund money. So we combined that. So again, really privilege. But the big problem with combining finances, you can't predict the future. But if you, you kind of know in your gut if you want extra protection, extra savings, and also just independence. And I find lots of people are finding a great balance between, I have my money, you have your money, let's do the household budget together. Let's make sure that we do. Yeah, let's make sure we do the household

budget together and this is where we come from, what contribution do put in. I think couples, especially three years plus, should always combine their budgeting. I'm not as precious about them actually combining accounts because there's so many variables. And the big thing here is the more savings going around, the better. Like if you've got your savings and I've got my savings and we've both got our F off money, then that F off money is also our collective F off money. And so if you get to a point where you've combined finances and you've got joint savings and stuff, and then the relationship breaks down, as long as there's not a worry that one would run off with money and steal money, because that's the problem. We've got a joint

account, someone clear it out. And that literally does nothing the bank will do, nothing will happen usually for that because it's kind of a joint account. So if you don't have those vibes and you don't have that echo you don't think that someone could do that, then having joint stuff is great and it's wonderful. As Holly said, I just like the idea of actually you also have stuff in your own name. And quite frankly, the more financially well you get,

the more savings pots you need because you want to be able to get all these good interest rates and you might have five grand in your name, two grand in the other's name. Like, that's a goal's place to be anyway. And if stuff breaks down, you've both got access to kind of finance. What do you think?

What do you and Alex do? I think we do like, percentage that works for us. We're obviously not married. I think we're getting together four or five years. So you budget the house together. Yeah. So we do a combined budget for the house, not for everything in life. Yeah. So like all bills, expenses like food shops and stuff like maybe like date parts or stuff like that. Everything that we spend together that would be like based on a percentage you just split. And then hair, appointment or new shoes. That's all mine. And like, that's all his, whatever we want. I can see, I think the budgeting together is the important thing. Yeah.

And like starting that and getting that as a habit early on. But yeah, I don't think, I think it would cause arguments right now if we were fully combined. If you did join everything. Yeah. And it's like each to their own. There's no right or wrong. So yes, it's a controversial opinion potentially, but it is in each to their own situation. It's a great relationship therapy process to start

when you start, oh my goodness, it's a bit like naked attraction. Let me see your current account. It's like, you know, it is an interesting. There's so many people are so defensive of, if I want to go get coffees, I don't want him to know that I'm getting coffee, that's my business. And

I get it, I do, but there's also something quite freeing about sharing that and sharing that you like to go get coffers. And if you're getting too many coffees, you probably know you are. You know like it's like a conversation to be had. The day my mum and dad went like digital bank was the day that my dad has massive regrets because you always said to me like when notifications happen because it's the notification

pop-ups with the neo bank versus the older banks didn't use to do it. But they do now, but they didn't. So there was that's what you mean, isn't it? Yeah. So you'd say like Gregs. He's like, oh, she knows I've been to Gregs again. Like, do you need another sausage roll? It's a little snitch in your pocket. Yeah, but there was a time when they all do it now,

but the traditional banks didn't and the Starling did. She's like a company number. Yeah. What's that? I don't know. It was a post office. Now it's Gregs. McDonald's.

Gregs, Gregs, Gregs, Gregs. Yeah. Pub. Pat Hyde. 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 Finan Shell, 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. But the big thing that people, we see the shift when there's a relationship where you are completely committed to each other, you've been there a long time, you're kind of married in

the sense of the world, like you're sharing lots of responsibilities, for example, and return to leave happens or a job loss happened. And so if your partner had a job loss, so you see it, but you were kind of cracking on in the same way that you combine the household budgeting, personal money's our own, he could be sat there going, I can't contribute to the main pot. And by the way, you're going having a gales and a nice hairdo. And like, I'm struggling and all we want to go on holiday together. And he's like, I can't, you can understand how there's, that's the job loss or a health issue.

Flipside is like maternity. So if you have children, this is where we see the lack of combined finances really holding like the woman back or the man. if they're having extra parental leave because suddenly the wage drops and the other person's still getting their disposable income and oh, I've put my part into the part, you know, but I can go have tennis lessons or, you know, do an online order. And so when you get to these like really big life stages, even if you don't want to fully combine all bank accounts and have it all sloshing around together, be mindful of those moments when there's an imbalance because, again, this is a relationship

opportunity. How can we navigate this moment? How can we help the other person out? It's such a loving thing to do. And it's very, like empowering for the person that can help out more than the other one. And I don't know. I like it. Yeah. I like it. I think it is different for every situation. Okay. I've always been the executive sponsor for my friends. That's the sad name my late husband used to call me. I used to take my friends shopping in New York, using my husband's points that had to be used by a certain date, spending loads of money on clothes, flights, food, drinks, you name it. I was in the bank always lending money that never got repaid. After my, after my husband's tragic death eight years ago, my so-called friends vanished quickly. However,

new ones came, leaching off my continued generosity because I still had plenty of money. For a while, I kept up the habit, thinking I was helping or maintaining friendships. But then I had enough. I realized it was all one way and worth nothing. I decided to change. I cut off the leeches, became super careful with friends, strict with expenses, and I stopped lending money

and giving things for free. My peace of mind is great now because I know where I stand. But here's my dilemma. Was I wrong to cut off these friends and change my ways so drastically? How do I find a balance in between being generous

and protecting myself from being taken advantage of? this is a really difficult one that's a sad name isn't it so her late husband even identified there was a problem here and he spotted early daughters that she was being taken advantage of effectively

by her so-called friends and I say so-called because that's not a friendship to me I don't care if you pay for me to go somewhere pay for me for dinner friendship is unconditional yeah friendship's about friendship and it was telling that when her husband died those people went away

Like that's a perfect. Your friends are stood by you no matter what, no matter your financial situation, no matter what's going on in your life. So I think she's answered her own questioning that she was right to cut those people off because they obviously didn't stick around when she absolutely needed them.

But yeah, it's a tough one. We all kind of find, especially if we're going through something like that or a period of low self-esteem, period of neediness maybe, like we find our role. I see it a little bit in some of like, like my daughter's friends on their rugby teams, there's a couple of girls that spring to mine where they have been through a lot,

I've been through a lot in home life and they, you know, naughty at school, detentions, getting in trouble, can be aggressive verbal in. Not really aggressive physically. It's rugby, so you can be a bit aggressive, but not like, not out of order, just. And the two in particular,

and I feel like this, think it's their role to be the naughty one, to be the cheeky one, to be, like, that's the role I play in the friendship group, that's the role I play in the cast, and I'm accepted as that, and people know me as that. And if I'm going a bit on a tangent here, because what I feel like is, if I'm not that, who am I? And it's, I think that when you are in a place of low self-esteem or of neediness, your identity is really important. And if, if that's, you could have even been playing up to that if that was your role. So if your role was, I provide my friends, I treat us all. Like, you know, I can afford it. You know, some of these friends have obviously, they might

have intentionally taken advantage initially, but it's kind of a routine. It's really sad that suddenly I think she's woke up and gone, hang on. Was that my role? Am I the provider? And I'm proud of her for going, there's more to me than that. Like, It's hard because she obviously gets a joy of being genuine. Some people do. You have people in friendship groups that friends springs to mind. And if she's watching and I'm calling her out, like she will always be the,

I'll buy the drink for everyone and I'll do this and I'll do that. And sometimes, you know, she's not like, it doesn't serve her that well in a financial well-being sense of you. And Laura challenged her on it the other day. And she was like, come on now. And she's like, I know, but she's just, she's the happiest. I don't know who this is. I feel like she'll know.

too many jokes. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, she, and you just want to say like, you're more than that, that point, you're more than that to us. Like, you don't need to be the, I'll buy it, I'll do it, I'll host you. Like, she's, she's the best host, but I feel like it will impact her financial wellbeing for sure because she's just so generous. And she's, that, that's her personality. She's just so happy, go lucky and wants to look after everybody that, but it can kind of backfire for you personally. It's something that we all have to remind. of because recognise your own value in

your friendship groups. And I said I would counter her to say did she take on the role so much that it could wear her friend's leeches. Like we've talked about this before, like the leech concept. Yeah, she might have overcome. Sometimes it's a sense of like

little self-worth, isn't it? Where you're like, I'm going to do it because you just want to get in there. Yeah, like you'll get a little buzz and dopamine hit from treating your friends and then you've created that character. They've not necessarily put you're on a pedestal and gone.

So obviously you're paying. If you start the friendship with, I'm going to buy the course. People are just going to settle in for the ride. And also, you know, if you want to go to New York and you have points and door money and whatever

and your friends can't afford it, but you want them to do there. You're like, right, come on, I'm paying then because I want to go. But it's about picking your friends wisely and making sure that you're happy in yourself that you're worth more than that.

Because the thing with, She's talked about being like a money lender. No, no, no. No. You should never. And like I talk about like if you're in a position of strength financially and if a friend or family member is struggling and if you want to give money as a one off, like you give money. But you're not a bank. You're not a bank.

So you can't give more than once. No. You're not an ATM. You can't give more than once. And you also can't, you shouldn't lend because it's just just this really weird thing with friends and family when you lend money. Really weird. It's especially if it's more than a one off. because then you're seen as an ATM and that's I can't imagine that feels nice.

Yeah, definitely not. This is a community win. I switched my bank account earlier this week as there was a switching offer, giving £170 pounds cash for switching my bank account. It says it would be paid within 10 days of switching and I received it earlier today. Went straight on overpaying my loan to clear it using the bank's money against them. Oh, weaponising. They're scared of you.

I got one too. I just say I've got a little win I did a current account. Yeah, I did. You finally did one. I did one. Ladies and gentlemen, we've only had this business. God knows how many years.

Holly's done a bank switch. And my husband did one as well. You doubled up. So that's, I mean, double bubble. What did you get? 10075 times two. I'll leave that to you.

Under pressure. You're 50. Around about. I mean, Lucy. Yeah, this is a touchy subject. Lucy. Lucy, what happened with your bank switch? Well, I didn't read the blog post close enough clearly in the app.

I went to do, which one was it, first direct? Same one that you did. Sorry. And I didn't realize that I had to set up two direct debits to switch over. And I just switched a random bank account that I had from a last switch with nothing in it. It's had a penny in it so that I knew when it was closed. I've got a little tip for, wait so it didn't work, did it? just interrupted you. No, it didn't work. But if you're going to say about direct debits, I wouldn't

know what to do anyway. So I've got a tip and maybe we'll turn it into a financial product, but I didn't, I've done it before where I set up some charity direct debits that you can kind of use. And this sounds really anti-charity, but we give to charity anyway. I've got a giving amount. So I just wanted some small direct debits to use that wasn't kind of key direct debits. Because what I didn't want was those moving around the place because the ADHD in my life, just would not cope with where the hell what's coming out from where my budget is nice and slick. And so I set up a couple of charity debit. But I wanted to cancel them because they weren't meaningful enough.

And like I said, I gave to charity separately. And it was so hard to cancel. And I canceled one too early and nearly didn't qualify for the thing. And it was messing around. And suddenly I was like, what if I just did a one pound direct debit to finance shall. So I settled a direct debit from my bank account to our company bank account for a pound. So we've made a pound. I think there's a bit of a,

there's a bit of, there's a bit of, can you do two separate transactions? So I did two direct debits. Yeah. So I'll do that next time then. So in my next. Pay to work here.

In my next. But I feel like we could probably offer this as a service, which is like we make nothing on it. By the time we've paid the transfer fee, the transaction fee, transaction fee. Franchel is not making any money on that. But I was like,

I'd rather, I mean, control of that more easily. I'll cancel it at any time. Two, one pound direct debits to Fan Shell, boom. And so on my next bank transfer, I think it needs two for me, two for my husband. And I need to do it before the end of July because I read the blog. So I'm going to do it again. So if anyone... Dig because I read the blog. Because I read the blog. Why don't you try it? So I need to read the blog because I don't know the terms. And I think I'm going to do it again.

So if you guys, if you want me to set up a scrappy web page where you can set up a financial direct debit, donate to the cause one pound. If it helps you out, it certainly helped me out because I'm not to mention. give it back as like a prize fund. Oh yeah, that's fun. We could do that. Because literally just to help you, it's that to help our community. It's not,

it doesn't make any money. Premium bonds, but fun and. Once a month can give the pot to one of the people that use it. Yeah, we should totally do that. Right. Yeah, we're not got enough to do,

so we'll just have a got that. Yeah, tip. We're not busy enough. Let's give ourselves another job. Okay. If you'd like to tell us you'll win,

head to the community in the app or email it to the vault at finitchel.com. Ready for the next dilemma. Okay. Ready for the next time? Okay. Talking to yourself. Are you ready, Lucy?

Yeah, I am. Yes, yes I am. Here I go. We're going in. You know what this is like? Do you remember in school and you'd be in English class or something and you would get,

it would be like, you're reading page one, you're reading page two. And it's like, I'm going to be on page three. Let me. You read ahead. Let me make sure. Bye. It's me every podcast.

Or is that I'd be staring out the window and they'd be like, come on. Sorry? Waiting for me. Okay. 90K debt and my husband has run out of money. Please help. Last week, my husband came to me to confess he had ran out of money and was unable to make his debt payments days after he'd been paid. He had taken this debt out without my knowledge of around 11K, mostly on high interest payday loans.

With this new additional debt, we are now in a total consumer debt of not. 90K. And this last unknown batch of debt has taken us from keeping our head above the water to leaving us with a hundred pound excess for the whole month after bills, food and petrol. This has become the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. The debt consists of

mostly loans and around 10K in credit cards. We have a combined household salary of 110K and no savings. We cannot move any credit cards to zero interest or consolidate as we have done this several times and racked up the spending back on the credit again. We have stripped the budget of all unnecessary expenses, subscriptions, beauty treatments, etc. No social activities.

We clearly have a significant spending problem. With that in mind, how do we change our destructive patterns? We already have a couple of sinking funds, but with so little to spare, should we throw it all at our debt? Or tackle our loans first so we cannot add to the credit cards. I have spoken to debt management charities and there are no other options available to us as we don't want to pursue a debt management plan, or similar as this would affect our mortgage when the fix ends. Disclaimer, please do not blame my husband. This has simply been the tipping point for what has been poor financial decisions

and spending for most of our 20s on both of our parts. Sorry for the chaotic message and I love, love, love, love the podcast. I love, love, love that you don't want to blame your husband. Yeah. I know, because I was about to go in on it. I wasn't really. There's obviously a significant spending problem there and that's just not because someone can't be bothered to take control.

Like debt has been the norm clearly. Sometimes you need that one thing that makes you go enough. Like we cannot keep lying to ourselves. We cannot keep in ourselves. And like healthy household income, this is evidence everyone. Like it is not necessarily just the low earners that are trying. In fact, sometimes the more that you're aware of what you've got, the better you manage it. It is so easy to increase spending.

this is one where I'm like I wish they could come in and give me the budget I want the budget I want to go line by line. We've got our details we'll do a little bit of budget therapy with them maybe definitely you can do that yeah because and I credit to them for not wanting to go the formal

routes they've obviously spoken to debt charities that's a really good tip speak to them because you have more than just the fault and you'll get immediate you know advice and you'll also be able to have it personal to your actual situation and but be mindful that debt charities have been accused as a wrong word,

but sometimes they're very quick to jump to a formal solution, a formal arrangement, and it's not an easy way out. It impacts your credit and your life for a long time, actually. You know, so that's really for when the math is literally so, so tough. And so you say you've got 100 excess. I definitely feel like you need to do sinking funds in the budget from the off. The reason is.

And I mean like necessary sinking funds So it's not like a nice Christmas We go on holiday every year And at the moment I'll be honestly saying You don't go on holiday Like this is not a holiday family Not for a couple of years

Because you have to create some This is about creating momentum Isn't it and you've got to get the first shove So you do need sinking funds In your budget for things that are going to come up Like car Insurance is Anything that helps you live your life

Minimum Minimum because you are going to spend So let's not pretend What I would say though it is and I spoke to someone a couple weeks ago about this, your emergency fund can be like a car maintenance emergency fund. So like you know you're going to have an MOT. You should say for that.

That's not an emergency. You know it's coming. You don't know if you're going to need new tires or not. And so for a period of time to scrape together like a one month's expenses emergency fund being the focus, you can really dial back on those, I call them safety sinking funds. So the house, we have a house and garden fund. But that, and if something went wrong with the house, like if we had a leak,

we would probably use the house fund for it rather than our emergency fund. But that's a luxury. So we don't need that house and garden fund. And quite frankly, we don't need the house lot like mowing. And we don't need the fencing. That's all luxuries. So it's about picking these sinking funds that are for the car insurance is going to come up and actually can get it cheaper ever pay for it in full.

So I'm going to put a little bit away. Car service, MOT. Christmas, you know, birthdays, but we're talking like non-boosy birthdays. If you can get the sinking funds in your budget but as so small as possible and still have a little bit of an excess, you've had a win. But you need a little bit of excess to create that little bit of shove to get the wheel moving. Yeah, for sure. Because a hundred pound excess is not much momentum at all.

You're not really going to be making a dent in anything. But their annual salaries aren't to be sniffed at either. Like there should be, there should be more momentum in that. But because the debt's so high and imagine the loans. and the interest rates and all that kind of stuff, it starts to become a little bit overwhelming. There's, I mean, 100% do the money, MOT, because I would challenge you that you might have cancelled this,

that and the other. But again, a bit of budget therapy. Like, if we were sat next to you, could you justify every single item? Oh, we would be so challenging because someone would be like, so we've done it before where someone spends double on things and they don't realize.

I'm like, but you've already got this over here. Like, yeah, but you're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. There's a meal prep service in there. Yeah. Or there's a gym, but it's really important that I'm being fit. And we like, we get it. Yeah, we get it. And you could put that back in, but sometimes you need a six-month lean-in.

And the other thing is, income helps you right now. So I know you've got a really good income, but if one or both of you can drive Uber, do delivery, you know, take on extra proper work, not like you survey stuff, like take on a part-time job. Again, for a period of time. And that was put solely on debt. You would see an impact immediately. Like it didn't. Yeah, you can. So this is not going to be easy. This is about both of you realizing that agreeing we have to change our lives because what kind of life are we going to live? So they've said, do they tackle the loans first or the credit cards? Because if they do the credit cards first, they're just going to rack that back up.

Well, then don't tackle anything if you're just going to rack it back up. Like, I'm going to be harsh. This is killing you with kindness here. You have to decide you're never going to use debt again. Those cards should be cut up. It shouldn't exist. Go in the financial community and see. the people that have cut the cards up because that's someone that is hell-bent on never using credit

again. The fact that she's already planning to the languages, we're definitely going to use it again. No, no, this is a lifestyle change now. You now have a new way. You will create new habits. You have a methodology that you can stick to. You don't need to go back into debt. You actually don't. You can do it. So I know what she means because they, she's already said they won't get approved for not percents, which is what she's mentally thinking is, if I pay off the cards, I'm not eligible for a loan. I'm not eligible for a new card because I'm maxed out, so I'll just rack them back up again.

I mean, I feel like if she's got so many, I would look at the avalanche method for this payoff. There's two ways to pay off debt. There's a debt snowball, which is where you list your debts smallest to largest, and you tackle the smallest first, and a Harvard business school study showed that this way is more successful than Avalanche because Avalanche is about maths. Avalanche method is about tackling debts in order of interest rate.

So we usually recommend the snowball because Harvard says so. And we do what Harvard says. We'll follow the brains. And we've personally both used snowball method. It's very addictive because you get momentum straight away. You get the quick wins so you just stay committed to it. But in this case, like where there's lots of higher interest rates, like not all of us have been in situations where we've got cards,

which could be at a 28, 29% APR, it's worth looking at those and doing a bit of the maths because you may find that tackling the loans of their higher interest rate or the cards is whichever way, whichever order you think you feel excited about. And if that's loan first, great, but those cards should be cut up. You should not have them connected to your phone.

You should not be able to buy anything with them. And if you're not going to do that, not that we can't help you, but this isn't going to work. the whole plan's not going to work because you're never going to do it. Like, you have to get to a point where you hate that consumer debt so much that it could impact your marriage, it could impact your family. And you're going, I'm done.

And if you decide that, like, you've got so many other people in this community that will be like, yay, us too. Like, we did it and we were there and we thought we couldn't. She doesn't talk about emergency fund, does she? No, I don't think so. They've got no savings, she says. Because she's going to hate to save them more, but she needs to. to do the emergency fund first.

Because you're just going to go into debt. Because you'll get the budget wrong. And there will be an emergency. Like there is. Define emergency. New washing machine needed. School shoes needed. Emergency flights to see family.

If something happened. Budgeting wrong and you need food. Yeah. It's like it's going to happen. So the worst thing about this is I'm going to tell to build the emergency fund first, which increases the debt. But it's, that's a way we're suddenly like selling things around the house going. You get scrappy.

Yeah. Absolutely. Oh my God, you go to war. You get a bit feral. Yeah. I want to sell it all. Get off that sofa. I've sold it three hours ago. The man's coming now.

He's coming now. Get on the camping chairs. My favorite thing is sending him a husband for Facebook marketplace. If someone, if I've sold something, I'm not going to the door. You are hiding upstairs. I'm not talking to the last week. I'm not talking to the person. I've got a weight set.

I was like, oh, Alex can't lift that old downstairs, can I? I couldn't possibly. Girl power. And then I'm going out, bye. So I'm that call at this time. I've never met face to face to Facebook marketplace person, but my husband has met plenty. I actually did it for the first time the other day.

I gave someone a wee. Sorry? An Nintendo Wii. For money, you go. No, I just need to. God, I don't know why we had it. Bowling. I don't know why I had it after.

Bowling. The guy has since messaged me being like, do you have the sensor? I was like, no. What's the sensor? Oh yeah. So it's for the actual... It doesn't work.

Yeah. Okay, I'm glad you didn't... I'm glad you didn't charge him money. You give him a piece of plastic. I was like, do you want this whole thing? Apart from the centre. Yeah. So you can't play the games.

I can see how that will get last actually. They're on a little. Is it like the long thing? Yeah. But it's how the thing works. It doesn't work without it. I think I've got one in my cupboard. I'll send it to him.

Okay. I'm not giving him though. You have to. But there's like this is about small milestones. And if, like, first thing, send us your budget. We will love to go through it with you. And I think if you even looked at yourself and pretended that you were sat on this sofa, we would be cruel to become big sisters. And we would be like, nope, you can do this again for a period of time. Second is, can you bring in any extra money? One of you, both of you, can you get part-time jobs? Can you drive Uber? Can you do

delivery? Period of time? You could make 500 quid, a thousand pound in a month. That's building up that emergency fund. And once you've got that, you start tackling this debt. and cut them up. You can do it. Send the picture. You want a picture. Send it to me, I'll do it. Blend them.

No, don't blend them. Blend them. Sell the blender. She can't face the marketplace a blender that she's never used now. Imagine. We've all got one of them. Don't do that. That's probably a health and safety issue.

We are not giving health and safety advice. Okay. Any final words? Don't blend you cards. But cut them. Cut them up and cut them from your phone because they're on that wallet. I know. And it's so easy. And it's scary. But do it and build that emergency fund. And I promise. And then message us when you've done it. And then we'll give you a next piece of homework. On to the next. That's all for this episode. The Vault is now closed. Just a quick disclaimer. The Vault is just a chat around life and money topics. And we are not giving financial advice.