The Vault with Financielle - £90K Debt At 56! How Do I Feel Better About Money? | The Vault Episode 16

Episode Date: June 12, 2024

Send us a textIn this episode of The Vault, we discuss whether or not a higher salary is always better 💸, the politics of sharing subscription services with family 🤣, and we share an emotional letter from one of our listeners who’s going through a really tough time. At 56, she's grappling with money worries, job insecurity, and the aftermath of a painful past. Tune in to hear her story and our advice on finding hope and security amidst the struggles. 🌟💪-Visit https://www.financielle.co.uk to join our community!Chapters:00:00:00 - Incorporating Cash into Your Budget00:03:53 - Managing Higher Salaries and Lifestyle Creep00:07:31 - The Secret to Building Wealth on a Lower Income00:11:14 - Netflix and Spotify Account Dilemma00:15:19 - The Struggles of Sharing Subscriptions00:19:01 - Financial Freedom and Living Debt-Free00:22:38 - Building a Sinking Fund00:26:22 - Building Emergency Savings00:29:44 - Taking Control of Your FinancesThe 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

Money. I'll be Zyza this morning because she got money for her birthday. Fake money! It's not fake, it has to come from a pot though. This is what I do. If you ever have cash and you think how can I incorporate it into my budget, my top tip is pick petrol or food yes and trans say you've got 100 in your fuel pot and you've got 50 cash put 50 somewhere and swap the cash in yeah your ex that's our emergency fund or invest in or whatever yeah you're doubling up on it all 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 are we we ready? We are. We're ready. Good morning. I feel like this is very dark.

I was just about to say, did we plan this? I thought I could retire the leather pants. Nope. But nope. It's not. All summer I will be wearing these pants. Holly and I are in our uniform black.

I'm on brand a little bit. At least giving the baby pink vibes. I'm on brand. Old brand. OG. This is the first honey that we ever made wasn't it

but now I've got our proper merch so you're going to have to check that out okay controversial opinion time a higher salary isn't always better

so that's controversial to someone on a lower salary isn't it screw you you would say salary what do you think lisa so i've got like i'm coming in with like two points one is like work life balance so say someone's on a really good salary but they're in the office all the time like working some weekends like constantly their mind is filled with work yeah they've got a family as well and everything but then the other point is there's no point earning more if you don't know how to manage your money 100 so what do you think about both of those points would you rather be someone who's a high earner like busy constantly all the time like always got work on the mind or someone

who earns a little bit less but has a really great work-life balance. Or someone that earns a lot but with a really good life balance and manages the money really well. I mean, that's possible. That's possible. That's a third option.

I think the second, I think that's really hard. I don't know about you guys. When I was at uni and you were trying to find, I knew I wanted to be a lawyer, so I was looking for training contracts the same with graduate roles or in the careers guide what do things earn you know what does

roles earn and it's so sad because sometimes there's some amazing careers that don't pay a lot it could be the creative industries it could be medical industries sometimes like like caring roles are always really poorly paid and I'm like I'm not being funny but the work we're all gonna rely on that that. And unfortunately, by choosing a job or a career with a salary that is kind of capped, maths is maths. And so expenses, it's going to provide you a certain type of lifestyle. The opposite, and though people would flip to what pays the most, oh, investment banking. Oh, well, let's go there. Now, they're very, very sheltered, people that go into investment banking generally especially if they're from that culture what I mean by that is more of a privileged

culture where your father probably did it or um your father's friends did it as opposed to one who's genuinely grinded and worked their way up and got in there um but it it is a high pressured high like long hours I'm you know i'm having to be really careful what i say because i don't mean that they're working hard like the doctor in the corner is working hard it's high demanding on your time so you literally go i'm not going to have a life because you know the the early morning is late starts and I kind of chose that with my career as well. And you can really see how the lifestyle creep comes in because people are earning that, you're being offered credit to higher amounts.

You're in the same circle of friends who have the same house style. Keeping up with the Joneses really kicks in for higher salaries. And what none of us know is how someone's managing that behind the scenes. There's a partner law firm I worked at who had like a really crappy car. And I mean crappy. And the other partners used to take the mick out of him.

And he was doing all right. Like he literally couldn't care less. He's like, it gets me for me to be my kids wreck the car anyway. And at the time I remember thinking, oh my God, why is he is he not got yeah why is he not got the how did the bmw like of course you know because he's got the high pressure job what he doesn't want to do is go through years of that and come out of it with not much yeah i don't like even more pressure of high core payments like high mortgage payments that's it it's the lifestyle creep and we say all the time the more money you get if you can't manage it properly you're just gonna your spending allowance goes up in your

brain we've all been there when you've been in a look at lucy i've been there we haven't lucy we always laugh this is lucy's first job so i always look at her i'm like doing you in a corporate job um where you're looking at the next like salary band people have spent it in their head already yeah it's not to put to my investments or to save for this and the other it's like so i can where you're looking at the next salary band, people have spent it in their head already. It's not to put to my investments or to save for this and the other. It's like, so I can go on holiday. I can get a better car. People have already spent it in their head already.

So you're not making that much ground up on being more financially well. You're just upping your spending limit. And it gets riskier as well. if mortgage payments are higher car payments are higher outgoings fixed expect fixed costs are higher if you don't got emergency funds in place if you've not got anything to fall back on it's like the bigger they are the harder they fall if one person in that family loses a salary yeah you're all up schitt's creek i love it when people commit to not increasing they're changing the budget at all when they get a pay rise and um you know we've had that before where we've had like pay decreases whether through

children or setting up a business and stuff and then we've had the pay increases as as you kind of come back to work and stuff and it's amazing if you can mentally ignore the increase and just carry on and bank the rest. Obviously in a financial budget it's a P&L and so you've got your income, your expenses and then the difference is your excess. And if you can get to a point where if you're living comfortably, if you don't really feel like there's an area that you're struggling, then all you've done is grown that excess you've just put more towards your goals now you might proportionately increase it so you might say actually we tended to have a five percent excess we love that we're still going to have a five percent excess because i'm always struggling for our clothes or i really feel like we deserve a holiday this year yeah and so that that that fund in the top bit of the budget needs more money so i'm happy saving either a percentage and i really would say that i wouldn't

say keep your excess the same like an absolute number make it proportionate and it's the same like the you know the big thing i do want to encourage other people to expand their horizons when it comes to incomes i don't i'm not a fan of side hustles for a long period of time. The best way you can increase your income is your main role. And sometimes the money comes a little later. Sometimes it's leaning into something, learning something, learning a new skill, being in an industry or gaining skills that you know have like earning potential. Because if you can learn to manage your money and keep your expenses manageable, gently increase your lifestyle as you want, you know, not just the new car as you get the new paycheck, then you can have so many options. You really, really are. But looking early on at earning potential and trajectory is what

it's called, where you can see, oh, after a certain amount of time, it's going to go up. You're going to be able to be in both camps. What I would say is the lower earner, but managing it better. I've seen lots of people with a higher net worth than average and low salary. Like average, lower salary, not the six figure, not the even higher taxpayer, just kind of a comfortable amount

where they can cover their expenses and they don't really want for much. They've got a great life and they are putting money into their pension they are investing you know they might be traveling a little bit and stuff as well but that's the secret sauce because hopefully you're doing a job that isn't ridiculously demanding and that's giving you quality of life with your family or quality of life with your friends got a good lifestyle balance yeah that's special so if you are not a high earner just know that if you're good with money like you can be a millionaire yeah we've seen some numbers there we've seen some people on um lower salaries arguably perform a bit better when it comes to things like net worth and putting money in more of a like drive having

a little bit you know you've you've got a better understanding of where your money's going if genuinely there's not as much coming in and not as much going out, you can actually keep a handle on it a little bit better. Yeah, there's a payment that goes out. You're like, hang on. Yeah, your attention to detail is there. What is that? You're like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

We're being scammed. Oh, no, it was me. It was me. Did you get that? When you've got money, people, when we do customer interviews, they say money comes flying in and it goes flying out and i feel like when you're a high earner it's so easy to just yeah same thing with house thing like you know you take your oh if i was earning 50 grand a year what what

mortgage could i get you go for the highest one absolutely well if you go even higher and hope you can knock them down on price it's like the mental thing that people do, that we all do. So it's very normal. But being mortgage-free is a real aspirational goal for lots of people. If you can imagine not owing anyone anything debt-wise, you just kind of have your daily expenses and that. It's very freeing. You have money. Now, I'm not mortgage-free.

It's something that I'd like to do, but it's a big figure. The worst thing for me is then looking at, if we both got pay rises, going, should we go get a bigger house? Because if I already got a big mortgage and I would love to see it go early, you suddenly double that or add 50% onto that. You're just kicking it down the line. In one way, yeah.

When you should be then living your life, you potentially could retire. You're like, I'm changing this mortgage. These higher earners tend to spend, not just least at least the house tends to go up in value versus obviously your regular stuff but i think that's an interesting side too like if is there a good balance a good medium where you earn comfortably more than like it is to live well and to be well and to invest for the future but not too much that you get above your stations and get a bit bougie so no i like it i've really had a go at that one okay time for dilemma number one and this is quite a funny one

so we pay a family subscription service for Spotify that both my wife and I use. They didn't previously have... That's funny already. Sounds familiar. They didn't previously have a duo premium option, only family. And we shared one of our slots with my sister-in-law. In return, we used to get access to her Netflix account. But now Netflix has tightened up their sharing capabilities.

We no longer receive this benefit. But they continue to have access to our Spotify premium account. Spotify family account can now cost 20 pounds a month do we start sending a monthly monza request of five pounds for this this this listener serious beef this listener's actually lying do you know why why because i don't think they pay for it either i think it's their brother that pays for it. No. I'm clean, Holly. This is Neil, isn't it? This sounds very familiar.

I think it might be my husband that's written this. I thought his brother paid for it. No, no, we pay for it. How long is that? His brother has it as well. He missed that bit out. So his brother should be paying anyway. I thought I was a parasite on his brother.

So I'm the sister. It was twice removed removed so it was fine now I'm looking the person in the eye as if Netflix Netflix changing policy was my fault do you know

the worst bit about all this I was just about to say you never paid for Netflix anyway it was mum that paid for Netflix when you had her account so not only

but secondly secondly I paid for Spotify for my daughter get her on our account right we need to do But secondly, I pay for Spotify for my daughter. Get her on our account. Right, we need to do some consolidating after this. But this is an interesting dilemma.

He is correct. But... Wait a minute, he's just going to ask for that edit. He is correct. Never heard in our family circle before. The men are never right. I can't share the Netflix. I would, because I pay for Netflix as well. If I could, I would.

I would share it. It's in Ask Silicon Valley. Is that where they are? It's America's fault. Everyone's struggling with that right now, aren't they? Like the different... Oh yeah, but there's so much of this going down where everyone's like,

so I used to pay for this for you, but i don't get that anymore so what can we do and how can we share it do you remember um it's like mafia favors yeah but um i remember like one of our community members was going through like a budget review um with the family because it's again everyone's decision not just hers and there was like Amazon Prime Netflix Spotify and Disney Plus and she was like

kids they're going they're going no not Disney Plus and I'm like not the Kardashian new series is coming out boys

you know it's like you know how you manage that nowadays I think they're trying to consolidate a lot and help you out a little bit but Netflix did the dirty didn't they with their pulling they really did the dirty I'm and help you out a little bit, but Netflix did the dirty, didn't they?

They really did the dirty. I'm still riding. How? I don't know. Share it with the people. No, I can't. We might get in trouble. I've got an extra bit of a confession.

Oh God, well, it's still a bit far off the press. So we used to have mum's Netflix in one room and then my sister-in-law's in the other room. So she paid for us as well so Laura is riding

this wave she'll come crashing down do you know I think what Lucy's been able to do is you can ignore it for a little period of time

it actually went off and we were like oh my god we're going to have to stop paying so follow me for more budget tips

yeah Lucy's really good at doing this can you explain to the people maybe not giving away their brand but give some people an example of how they can yeah hack like money hacks give us your favourite one

but maybe don't give it away it doesn't exist anymore so I used to when I was in uni Pret used to have, or another popular coffee chain, used to have, it was the start of their subscription. So the first month was free. Okay. And you didn't have to carry on for a certain amount of time.

So I would always, obviously, get a free month and then cancel it straight away. And then I would get, I had like three bank accounts. So I'd use that on everyone. Rinse them all. Got a million email addresses. That's fine. This is mafia.

Okay. And I was like, dad, can I have your card details? Mum, can I have your card details? So you went through the whole. How many months do you reckon you got out of that? Like full year. Full year? Genuinely.

Oh my God. Can you hear sirens? I can hear sirens. Full academic year year I was sat five drinks a day she was wired to my assignments no wonder she can't

stand caffeine anymore I know you body won't take it but now me and my mum share a subscription okay but don't you have to check ahead of time

where were you where am I yeah you have to wait like it's 30 minutes in between that's Lucy's side hustle is keeping up with who's had a coffee

in the last half hour me and my mum are like I've just prettied at 6.45am Piccadilly station my mum's like okay I'll be I'll be at Liverpool

in four minutes you better work it's worth it I will carry on there is something about sharing like if you can share and subscribe

get one up on these companies yeah yeah sharing subscriptions is just you can sharing subscriptions yeah yeah sharing subscriptions is just you can share a fan channel subscription we've not figured out how to

pay for two yet so we've got a couple just sharing one so go for it we're on to you sharing sharing sharing

Liverpool we're cracking down and your freeloader husband I hope our listener finds the resolution they were looking for I hope he's very mature about it

even though he's ended his question with an exclamation mark I'm charging a fee okay community win last month was the first month I haven't used a credit card to bail me out in years it's going to be a long journey but at least i feel in control thank you so much that's not to

be underestimated by the way because credit cards is just that it is the easy way out from just there it's a big jump going from like credit card because it's almost like you're not spending your own money is it that's fake money it's fake card because it's almost like you're not spending your own money, is it? It's like fake money. It's fake money until it's not. Like I think I listened to a message the other day where her 0% had gone, the interest finally started to kick in and that's when she was like, oh shit, I've been playing this game

for years on this, riding this 0% wave and it will end one day and people will be left wondering what the hell they're going to do. Yeah. It's like taking someone's life jacket away. We've been conditioned to rely on it and imagine how that feels when you suddenly make that decision or it's taken away like the minute interest rate starts racking up it does get quite serious for people because suddenly suddenly you realize it wasn't your money for lots of people but but up until then it's just this really easy simple solution and mentally it takes us a lot to jump to I could be that solution I could be my own emergency I just want to say

you have to put the work in to not have a credit card it means that you know what's going on with your money and that's a big step for some people um but there are easy ways to do it like our methodology teaches you how to do it step by step like remove the overwhelm you don't have to be a master of everything all at once just knowing your numbers is like such a big step and i imagine a lot of people that have credit cards don't necessarily know the numbers because they just do that and then pay off at the end of the month yeah so if you're if you're using credit for like month to month expenses, even for bigger expenses that are coming up, you know, I know there's extra protections and stuff sometimes with credit

that we won't go into, but if it's for the holiday or if it's for like a washing machine, even then, those things are expected. I've just been told on text my dishwasher's gone after four and a half years when the new one, and I had to do my own washing up for three days which is oh my god when you've got like a like an aesthetic kitchen my kitchen is really aesthetic and and but everything needs to be put away yeah so when you do the washing oh my god you have to do it all the time it's so stressful really feel sorry for me but um but I underestimate that feeling when a text comes from a partner going,

the dishwasher man's been, he said it's goosed, is his word, I think, goosed. It's goosed. They tend to have a five-year life. We've had it four and a half. It's probably had a lot of work with our family. No problem. Thanks for sorting. I didn't have to say how are we going to pay for that yeah what

does that mean we can't do on and it's this isn't a flex i'm being very very serious here the minute you are able to get yourself into a situation where that's not even in the emergency fund it's in probably the home and garden part i'll have to have a look because we did some garden like garden cleaning up before spring but actually that might not even come from our emergency fund that might be in the one of these things is going to break and and when you can get to that point where all that stuff is in your budget and it isn't um supplemented by credit you've learned to live on less than you make yeah then like holly said then we think about growing then we think about saving then we think about. But the first goal is to get to that point. And I was talking to Holly this morning about being financial broke.

Do you know what being financial broke is? When you feel like you've not got a lot of money in your account because it's all socked away in all the different sinking funds and it's a very real thing. Like you feel like you've not got a lot, but actually you have. You've done the work. And, you know, we were looking at that last night. We were doing the budget. We were moving all our money into all our different pots some are sinking funds

for the future summit some are spending a flexible account for this month there's a big number in there um there's some tax savings in there as well and there's some we're saving up for a new car big number i never look at it and carl just pointed he was like i never look at my total in there and i was like taking funds total yeah doesn't count in my that's not my emergency fund I don't see it I don't even count it

in our net worth because it's for a planned expense it's going to get spent yeah that is being financially well that takes a long time to learn but that's where it comes from that not relying on the card

and you can't underestimate how hard that journey is but once you've done it there's just something in your head that goes never again and then you get so used to it that you don't see it as a thing and then someone will say something like the washing machine thing and you're like oh my god i don't worry about money anymore i don't worry about money anymore it's like a it's not a thing anymore and it's such a revelation and you can't you just want to give everyone else sorry you just want to give everyone else that feeling

Lydia you did your MOT yeah and it passed good you did your own MOT yeah oh yeah I mean

flex my little overalls but even so had it not passed I didn't think about that let's not talk about that. If it had needed something, something small,

do you have a place that you can go? Like, not to garage, like in your bank. Do you have a emergency fund? But I guess what I mean is, if it needed something to pass the MOT, you went in a position where you're like, well, unless I use a credit card, I can't get that done. Oh, no, I wouldn't use a credit card, no. Sorry.

I would just, like, put a a little I'd have to just put less in my savings which is fine like that's not a big deal. You'll get to a point where the car sinking fund. Now I have like 20 quid in my car sinking fund because of their money and I had a service not long ago it's a bit depleted but it'll build back up yeah it's like it's not a panic there it'll build back up yeah like um yeah it's like it's not it's not a panic there's no it's not a panic exactly now that that's a thing that could

be a thing that then triggers you all day as a person to be like how i'm gonna find that money i can't do that holiday now or i can't you know i can't do that thing we were gonna do um or if you don't you know um if you need to borrow money from someone to sort it like that's just all stressful so sinking funds save lives every time saying no to credit and building up the sinking fund is just a big win so i'm glad you shared that one yeah if you would like to share your win head to the community in the app or email it to the vault at financial.com. Okay, time for the next dilemma. Hi girls, my dilemma is that I'm 56 and I don't know where to turn. I've even considered cashing in my life insurance so that I don't have to deal with this. 10 years ago, my husband and I split up because of yet another affair. I then found out

he had another family elsewhere and he hadn't paid anything to anyone. My house was being repossessed. I had bailiffs knocking on my door all the time. He had disappeared and I was left with 90k worth of debt and took on a mortgage to pay him off which was a self-certification mortgage. Fast forward to now and I'm still paying that debt off. I have no savings, no pension and last year I got made redundant and had to live on credit cards and debt basically to survive. I'm back where I was 10 years ago. I now have a temporary job but that could finish at any time. I just want to feel secure for the first time in my whole life and not have to worry about money and paying bills. What do I do? So this came into the financial

community this week and I shared it with Lucy from a financial community member who wanted to be kept anonymous. And obviously for the reasons why you can see really, really like heartfelt goes out to her. She has done incredibly well. Like you've listened to this sounds like a 10 year journey that this lady's been on. And the fact that she's still standing and has written in and kind of still wants to get better with her money and kind of do something about it like Laura mentioned we had a little team talk actually before this dilemma was read out because we wanted to help this person as much as we possibly can we'll probably go out of our way to help her offline as well um but Laura pointed out at the end of a message she just wanted to feel a little bit more financially well like she knows there's no magic wand that's gonna

remove everything that's gone over the past 10 years, apart from the fact that a lot of what happened to her sounds like it was out of her control. A partner either helped or helped her get into this situation. We don't know the full backstory, but it sounds to me like she was in a precarious kind of relationship.

But yeah, her her thing was wanting to feel more financially well at the end of this so what would we say to her yeah we did have a good chat about this because usually we don't know them um but I feel like it was the right thing to do and this is where like personal finance crosses over being really personal this is people's lives like Like sometimes we have jokey dilemmas that I love when I see you send them in and sometimes it's hard to address difficult situations. And this is one of those. And we wanted to answer this in a way that is really, really caring and respects what she's asked. So she wants to feel better and she doesn't

want to feel like she's gone backwards and she wants to like just feel well and so um there's a few things we can do all of us to feel more financially well immediately even if the numbers look like they're stacked against us so one of the first ones is um gonna be looking at that budget and making sure it's in a place where she's not having to rely on credit we've just had a big debate and a chat about that actually and making sure it's in a place where she's not having to rely on credit. We've just had a big debate and a chat about that actually. And it's really interesting that we've moved on there. And she says she was when she made redundant. Hopefully now she's in a point where she's not having to live off credit. But if you can just focus on one month at a time and know

that what, ignore everything else, but if what comes in covers what goes out, you're doing really well. In fact, you're doing better than a lot of us because a lot of us are using credit to fund our life. So you're already doing really well and focus on that's a big thing. If you can just make sure that your needs are met and that you're in as good a place as you can be health-wise, big tick. And your big job for the next two to three months is to continue doing that

um if you can create any room in that budget to help build up some emergency savings having like one month's expenses is a really good rule of thumb to just start like pick what that number is for you um that's a goal it's not thinking about pension it's not thinking about the debt it's not thinking about this it's and don't forget all her debt payments will be in the expenses as well. So she will be paying down some debt. But getting to that next point where you create some room is a really financially well thing to do. You're building up savings. You're seeing a small pot ignore everything else. Can that pot increase? Because that's the thing that then you can rely on if you lose a job, if you need help, like your washing machine breaks that's the thing that then you can rely on if you lose a job if

um you need help like you know washing machine breaks whatever it the thing is and then you know from there she's stressed about her job I'll just about say the job thing is weighing heavily on me because that's your biggest source of income and if that's not stable which it doesn't sound like it is that's already a worry because when that goes redundancy as well like absolutely and even permanent jobs are not permanent as she's well been through um but i think you're right and i think making sure that you know you have a lot of working years ahead of you um you know we all have at that age she's talking like oh this i'm at the end of my working life i'm like sorry to break to you, but people are working well and plus 65 easily.

You've got some time to kind of turn this around. And she mentions a lot of things in there. One thing I would say, she's talked about pension. She's talked about savings. She's talked about debt. What Laura's talking about

is honing in on one thing. Do not worry about that. We've got people in our community that worry so much about the future and they're missing the point about what they can do with every single paycheck. Yeah, and trying to control everything

means you can't control anything sometimes. So it's not that we're not saying that the future's important, but literally at the moment, it's about looking after your mental wellbeing, your mental health and your physical health and literally just going one month at a time. But to your point,

she's not running out of time work-wise. Income is the thing that's going to save her here and so getting a stable income and seeing if she can get that income to grow um you know i don't know how fit and well she is and how many hours she can work if she can take on an extra job if she's no dependents and um you know i'm hoping that she's not doing a load of free child care or you know a lot of helping out people because she she needs to look after herself um in this scenario but there could could be some extra jobs that she could do on making sure she's maximising that earnings because income helps. Income helps, you can stack it up in the corner.

Income helps pension-wise because actually if you've got jobs, you know, looking at whether you can get your auto-enrollment in versus some percentages being taken just like it is for everyone else. And you're building something up again. I just wouldn't worry about that right now because you've got something in front of you. And I think when you're in that position, you can make more sensible choices. So something she's talked about, a self-certification mortgage, I'm pretty sure you can't get them anymore, but they tend to be a higher interest rate, a penalty interest rate, because you've self you've self-certified and said i earn a certain amount you know that usually comes with some

downfalls at some point when she's in a really good place she could possibly go see a mortgage advisor and say can i tackle that yeah that might not be the it forever no and it might be that that home's not the right home forever you know 10 years ago she was probably trying to battle to keep it for you know her maybe family maybe like you've just gone through this grieving process that your partner's left you you want to stay put it may be that there's a more cost-effective living situation that she can look into um another thing she mentions is cashing in life insurance so when on term life policy which is what most of us would have you can't do that but if she's got a particular type of policy then i would not recommend do it i would recommend go speak to

a financial advisor about that if this has got a cash value that's something that you can cash in because you can do that with some policies and especially if you don't have any dependents and so as she's getting older quite frankly if she has children they can kind of sort themselves out then maybe that's a good idea you'd need a professional advisor to help you out with that and then that's worth paying for, given the cash she's talking about. If you could get a lump sum that could go towards paying off debt, or like you said, sorting out that,

getting rid of that mortgage or whatever it might be. Loads of options. There's a penalty to pay that. Yeah, just to feel, because this is all about feeling better. And that was her goal. Feeling better. And so what you do is you nail the things that you can control

and you build momentum. And when you are in a good place, you can make better decisions. If everything feels like it's on fire you could do stuff that isn't you know in your best interests and so um but like you said at the beginning Holly like this is not uncommon we see this a lot you're doing amazing you have survived it feels like you're treading water a little bit or probably not you're probably treading water when you were before you got this new job you've got a job like you're the life raft and you've got it you just just doing what you're doing now is already doing amazing let's do the three like the things i said let's see if we can get to a budget where we live live

on exactly what we make let's see if we can create a tiny bit of gap in that can we build a small emergency fund you've already done 50% more than most of the people in this country so then let's tackle the bigger things but um we yeah we'll definitely follow up with you um separately outside of this and hopefully you know give you a little bit more support and point you in the right direction to to take control of what's an amazing part of your life actually you have done amazing let's like not be defined by the past now you've you've you've got a real opportunity to nail this for the future yeah i like how it's not just like you need to get to this number this number like it is oh yeah we're not a monetary value like she mentioned 90k debt Yeah, she mentioned 90k debt. It's like, it is what it is.

It's numbers. That doesn't mean that you're a bad person, whether it's 90, whether it's 10. It's just a number. And you can put things in place that will help that number go down. Not overnight. Maybe never.

You don't know. But we can make your life, you can have a happy life whilst paying down debt. Yeah, she can. No, you really can. It doesn't have to be this, you just, you can feel it, can't you?

Like grey, dark, like it's all quite consuming. Whereas we have so many people paying down debt that are living really good lives. Yeah. Really happy lives. And different ages

and different stages. Definitely. I feel like in six months time we'll be like, so, how do you feel? This lady. We'll say that, how do you feel? This lady. That's, we'll say that,

how do you feel? Yes. Amazing. So, any final words before we close the vault today? Oh, I feel like we've had

some funny dilemmas and some serious ones. My, I'd like to say that we'll have a chat about our Spotify subscriptions off camera. 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.