The Vault with Financielle - Saving vs Investing, Flatmate Drama & Reframing Job Loss | The Vault Episode 53

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

Send us a textIn Episode 53 of The Vault, we discuss this week’s controversial opinion, “Savings accounts are a waste of time apart from to keep your emergency fund in”. We then dive into our listener dilemmas:💸 "My flatmate’s girlfriend has overstepped”💸 "I lost my job 2 days before starting, help!”We celebrate a listener who has paid off 3.5k in debt! 😲 More importantly, using the Financielle app has helped her pay attention to her money - she says she was wasting so much without realising it 😬 Here’s to getting our money sh*t together! 🥳🥳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 💌Guess what! As a Vault listener, you can get 25% off our digital course, The Money Playbook. This is a step by step guide to being financially well. It has 101 lessons where you'll learn how to budget, ditch debt, build savings and grow wealth. Use this offer code at checkout: VAULTCheck out The Money Playbook course here  💸Chapters:00:00 Introduction00:46 Welcome to The Vault01:34 K-Pop and Music Talk03:27 Controversial Money Opinions14:27 Dilemma: Flatmate's Girlfriend Overstepping19:45 Roommate Dilemma: Addressing the Unfair Living Situation22:58 Financial App Success Story: From Debt to Savings27:46 Navigating Job Loss: Advice and Encouragement38:25 Final Thoughts and EncouragementThe 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

Oh hey, Laura here. I'm just starting off this episode of The Vault to tell you about the money playbook. I used to be terrible with money, designer shoes, fancy meals, all on credit. But everything changed when I realized I needed to take control of my money. That's why I created the money playbook, a step-by-step guide to help you take control of your money, ditch the overwhelm, and create a solid plan for your future self. With three stages, survive, build, and grow, the playbook walks you through everything from paying off debt to building wealth.

Start your journey today by grabbing the money playbook for 25% off with the code VAULT. Check out the link in the podcast description. I promise you won't look back. Now let's get to the episode. Welcome to the vault with Finite Chal. This is a safe space where you took all things life and money and no topics are off limits. I'm wondering how many times I've said that.

So I'm getting used to doing unlocked and all I can think of is you doing it. I say, welcome to the vault unlocked where I took a deep dive into money topics that no one wants to talk about, which obviously you helped me come up with an intro that I could do. And that is so funny. Every time I think, how does Lucy do this?

Seamlessly. I feel like every time I'm in the shower the day before the podcast, I'm like, welcome to the world. You've not forgotten it. You're like, Alex, come in, let me ask you some questions. What would you do in this situation? Controversial, money opinion. I can imagine you like muttering it in your sleep.

Definitely, definitely. How are we doing today? Good, we were just educating Laura on K-pop. Oh my God. Because she hadn't heard the... Come on, sing it. Ah, pa ta, pa ta, ah, pa ta, pa ta. I mean, it's been out for a couple of months now,

but it's still going strong. Like people are addicted to it. It's very, very addictive. I thought when I played it, I would have then gone, oh yeah, no, no. It's slightly pricked me. So my child was singing it to me and I thought it was a voice exercise

for her theater class and it wasn't, it's a real song. Bruno Mars. Every song's a hit with that man. Oh my God. Anything Bruno Mars touches. Yeah, literally the Lady Gaga one, the kids love that one. Yeah, I love that one. That makes me feel like I'm in a movie.

Yeah. When I'm in the car, passenger side. Very dramatic. Ah ah. Ah ah. You're the main character. Yeah. I was like, you're right.

The radio this morning, someone chose Whitney as like the birthday song with Scott Melzer, not many people listened to it. And the woman wrote in and she was like, I've just done a solo concert in my car as I pulled up to work. That's what I'm so excited for, to be in the car by myself. Like sing.

Do you only see people singing in the car? They're going for it. Love that. That's you. I'm manifesting it. What would the track be musicals? I would do a Mama Mia episode. Show.

Carp or karaoke. Obviously a Harry Styles show. A Sabrina Carpenter show. What the musicals are? She's got it lined up. The funniest is wondering, well the Whitney one would be good. The funniest is wondering whether, how loud have you got it? And how can other people hear?

Cause sometimes if you pull up at the roundabout. When you're in a motorway and you've got it cranked up and you're going for it and then all of a sudden you pull into like a car park and you know full well it's like boom, boom. Yeah, I'm gonna need soundproofing. Proofing, proofing. Oh my, worst car in the world. Okay, I'm going to need sound proofing. Proofing? Proofing. Oh my, worst car in the world.

Okay, I'm going to go into today's controversial opinion. Savings accounts are a waste of time. Disclaimer, apart from to keep your emergency funding. How very dare you. How dare you speak about savings accounts like that. I know, but I'm conflicted. Like this is what happens in my head. I'm like, oh, but then, but then.

It's like, it's not black and white. Yeah. So unfortunately I can't agree or disagree with the controversial opinion outright. I think there's different examples. Yeah, so where it, they're overrated, like people are hugging onto it like a security blanket. We've had dilemmas written in before

and people messing with us separately with a hell of a lot of money. And I'm talking a lot of money, they're in a good financial place, they've got a healthy budget, but they just carry on cranking up those savings and they're not doing anything with it and they're lowballing like what they could do with it. So arguably if you work through the playbook as we've designed it, you should be in a build phase which is growing those savings and then you should graduate into grow. And a lot of people are really scared weirdly of going from build to grow because it feels so alien to put your money in something that you can't see, isn't tangible, you can't like

check in your bank account every day. But actually, I say that you can, I have investment accounts whereby I'm looking at it every day. So it is quite accessible, but yeah. If you're sat hugging a hell of a lot of money in a savings account. What is a hell of a lot of money? Like, past your healthy emergency fund. So your mini emergency fund of a thousand,

and then you've got another one that's like six months expenses. Should suck the shit out of the fund, you lose your job, there's a sickness in the fund, whatever it might be, that's a six months expenses. Should the shit hit the fan, you lose your job, there's a sickness in the family, whatever it might be, that's a healthy amount, a six month as a family, like work out what your expenses would be. Anything well over and above that,

of which we've had before, people like with 60,000 pounds just sat. People with over 100. Yeah, they're just scared, they don't wanna move it. It's terrifying for them, they never spoke about investing or they just feel like it's high risk. I think we're in a very different space

at the moment with interest rates as well. So at least if it's in a savings account with a decent rate of which sometimes they're capped out, like you can put five here and you can put 10 there, you know, you could put 20 or whatever, but they're capped out, like you can put five here and you can put 10 there, you know, you can put 20 or whatever, but they're capped out, but at least, you know, it's growing in some direction, but typically savings accounts don't beat inflation

or just about keep up with inflation sometimes. That's historically the, that we've seen with interest rates. So your money is going backwards. So yeah, we like, we love high cash savings, they're great. In fact, there's been, I don't know if you guys have seen this yet, I'm not showing you in the app, there's been an update, but we've not announced it yet,

but we might have announced it once this comes out. And it's an asset, don't know. Don't know if that's it. I saw, I noticed that, I did my network the other day. It was like, they're releasing stuff, stealth. We're stealthing it, because I still have not gone into the community and talked about all the updates that,

please someone remind me to tell people about new things we've done. I knew that people would see it if they do the net worth, so I wanted to like leave it and see if anyone spots it. So now obviously it's been a reveal, but hopefully someone spotted it before then and put it in the community. But it's this asset, Donut.

And it is interesting because mine is kind of bugging it because my cash as a proportion of my assets is that small. The amount's hidden behind another one. It's such a slither. But that's OK because I have a lot of assets. I'm really, really lucky. I've worked really hard to have a lot of assets. I'm really, really lucky. I've worked really hard to get a lot of assets. So as a percentage of them, my cash looks really small. It's like dwarfed by everything else.

But it's enough. But yeah. And that's your emergency fund, is it? The one that's highlighted as cash. It's emergency. Yeah, it's accessible emergency fund. And then it's either investments or it's property. And yeah, we're lucky that there's been

like a high-ish interest rate environment where at least if it's somewhere, it's making something. But then past then, you wanna be getting it growing and it's not gonna grow loads in savings. But actually the worst culprit is here, and I know you're listening to this, this is the ones that hold them in your current account. Yeah, oh my God.

Current account, like just there. Like even from, we've talked about before, like a fraud perspective, like some people are holding a hell of a lot of money in their current account because they're too scared to move it. Well, actually you could be quite vulnerable, all your money being in one place.

Like it takes one phone call and Laura speaks about the BBC all the time. All the time. It could just go. Like one phone call, one email about it all the time. All the time. It could just go. Like one phone call, one email, one phishing text message, whatever it might be, something so innocent that feels so real, that could go. So even from a safety perspective.

You shouldn't have all that in your current account. It's diversified. In the UK, you're protected up to 85 grand in each bank and that could be like a family of banks so making this up, but for example, you've got Crewe and Santander, the same bank I think, aren't they? So like you're only protected for 85

across that whole umbrella. Yeah, that's something to look at for people. Yeah, luckily there's not as many now that are under the same one, like they're all quite separate, but watch it, you only get protected for 85 if the bank fails. And when it comes to fraud, yeah, exactly.

I mean, God, so I keep a hundred pound in my current account. I have a buffer of a hundred pound and I use pots and all the money's in pots. And yesterday I was on the way out to take my little one to dancing. And my husband was like, we need cash for the dancing. I'm like, oh God, and it's in the space ready. But I just ran to the cash machine.

So I parked up and the car parked a little bit away from where the cash machine is. So I got out, ran with my card in my hand, put it in. 90 pound. I queued. I was like, fff. So I had to run back to the car to get my phone, to move the money from the dance space

into the main bit, run back, rejoin the queue and withdraw. Do you know what the worst thing is with that when you're somewhere without signal? The worst thing about Chester is there's no signal anywhere. Every time before I leave the house I'm like, right, what do I need? What am I going to spend? I mean, it's good because it makes me walk away from things. I literally can't. I just can't say it makes you. I'm a fan I'm like, I literally can't. I literally can't.

I literally can't. It's too aesthetic, there's no mobile phone, masks, and chest. But this is the problem, and I was like, ugh. But I just thought, no one's stealing anybody's money. No. It's like, stop, take my card. There's a lot of friction for you,

but that means there's a lot of friction for the people as well. But if you've just got cash available, rolling around in that account, apart from the fact, stuff, like I always say to Neil, my husband, I'm like panicking when we do our budget that we're not gonna move it quick enough

or like we get distracted. Sometimes we do. Yeah. We're halfway through the month. And I said to him the other day, like we need to make sure there's a little bit of, we know there's a little bit of excess left over where we're gonna put it.

And we started to have the conversation and got distracted and had to go and pick up the kids. So it's actually rolling around in my current account and I'm stressed about it because I'm like, it's going to get spent on nothing. See, that's why I can't have a buffer because I'm like, go spend it. Yeah, it's got free money. Yeah, yeah. That's what I need. Give every penny a job. You meant to keep the book, which is why I was like, obviously angry at my husband that he'd not talked to, I didn't do it either, but in my head I was like,

cause he was the one that reminded me, I thought he might've moved the money over, so it's obviously his fault. But a hundred is our zero. So like the OCD in him more than me will go, so every time I'll go put petrol in, I'll get back in the car, I'll drive off. By the time I've got to wherever I'm going,

if I spent 60, 60's we moved in. Like it's, so yeah, you can do it, but you've just got to, that's your zero. That's your new zero. That's your new zero. I might give it a go. I might test myself. Especially if you are limited in signal and it's stressful and you're trying to pay for stuff and it's just a bit of a- Yeah. I have a 20 pound buffer. Yeah. I think that's good. Laura's got five people in her family, so it's probably, it's like, is the right? I'm hoping your dancing doesn't cost 90. And that's for them.

That's for them thin show costumes and stuff, so to be fair. I would say 20s are good. Just a little bit of a buffer, there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, it stops you having the panic at the till. Yeah, yeah. We've all been.

We love our little buffers. Yeah. I had to do that this morning, literally, before work, I went to get like a little herbal tea. I was like, I went to ward, I was like, one second. And I had to pretend I was looking at the menu to see what I wanted. But I was like, you're moving your money.

Sometimes I say to the person, I'm just moving my money out of my space. I do that in the hairdresser all the time. I make it known. It's a punchy amount. You're like, well, you're gonna do it once every few weeks and like the politely way. And when the thing I'm like,

I'm just moving my money from my hair in beauty space because this was budgeted for. I say it out loud. You're like, I do say that to my hairdresser. Aldi also like, oh, I'm just moving my groceries into my current account. One second. Aldi does never really signal.

Aldi, because the food's getting thrown at you by the person. No. You're trying to put it in the trolley or the till or whatever. because the food's getting thrown at you by the person. You're trying to put it in the trolley or the till or whatever, and then you're trying to pay. Oh, that's why I do online grocery shopping only at the moment. Just take that little bit of- I definitely hijacked that.

I'm sorry with my buffer and my- I didn't even have nice pants. Good luck studying for me. But I feel like hopefully we answered the controversial opinion about savings and we like them, but to a point. And also, like, if you're a bit nervous about that leap up to grow, put a little start, like keep this high chunk and start investing and stuff. And then as you get, the more comfortable you get, then you might be tempted to like move a bit over.

Like a chunk at a time, do you know what I mean? So like if- Yeah, because some people's emergency funds are massive, aren't they? Like well over exceed what you would deem to be like, realistic. Yeah. I'm like, what's gonna happen to you?

Like do you think it's gonna happen? What could possibly happen? Especially if you're financially well in all the other places. So you've got to move down the playbook. So you've fixed expenses, aren't ridiculousbook. Your fixed expenses aren't ridiculous. They're like trimmed down to, you know, not excessive and bougie and whatever. And don't forget, it's all about liquid funds.

So if you have no investments and all your assets are tied up into property, it makes sense to have a high emergency fund because if you need to sell the property to be able to get access to cash, because cash is the king thing here. And I did this in the Net Worth Unlocked at Share, really go into detail on this, because if you need to sell the property to be able to get access to cash, because cash is the king thing here, and I did this in the Net Worth Unlocked, actually I'll really go into detail on this, which is like having access to different things. Sometimes having certain protection insurances

can reduce the need for high emergency funds as well. So there's a few things you can do to, this is all about how you feel, if you make yourself feel better, you'll release your money into different places. But ultimately, if you have money and investments, it is a liquid investment, you can usually, apart from it being a pension, you can get access to your other investments. So yes, it could have gone down, it could have gone up,

but you can get access to them. So if you needed cash, you just sell shares. You can get access to them. It's just it's not as fixed or the minimum isn't guaranteed like cash is. So yeah, get confident with it. I think. Okay. Time for dilemma number one. My flatmate's girlfriend has overstepped. Hey, I have a dilemma. I live in a very small two bed flat share with a friend I've known for at least five years.

My friend has been dating his girlfriend for just over a year. We've been in larger flat shares in the past, but this year it's just been us two. However, it's not just us two. His girlfriend lives here at least six days a week. This is not what I originally signed up for with the flat share, and I didn't realize it was going to be this way.

Additionally, she is unemployed. She doesn't contribute to rent or bills, despite me asking on numerous occasions if a small contribution would be possible. The main issue I have is that she's in the flat all day while myself and her boyfriend are at work. She does her own washing and baking basically every day and I feel like she's racking up all of our bills. It's making me genuinely quite resentful which is not how I want to feel towards anyone. What can I do in this situation? I feel like I'm being rinsed, but also feel really bad for being so frustrated with her about this. Thank you for your help. I feel

like we've had a dilemma similar to this before, but it was targeted at a boyfriend and this is targeted at a girlfriend. So I feel like we're going to answer it differently. Hold on everyone. I want to be really compassionate, okay? We were like really compassionate, okay? We were like really like, we were going out. I believe, did we say we were gonna? He had to do an interpretive dance

every time he wanted to come over. Yeah. We were smoking him out, weren't we? Yeah. We said we need to smoke him out. Cause it was two girls having like this girly time and then boyfriend was. He encroached.

This is not a thruple is what I would say. She did not agree. This is what annoys me. She didn't agree to this. And there's all, I'm all for someone having a girlfriend and them coming over and sometimes the best friendships come out of those types of things. Like it's not a negative.

It's the fact that she's not contributing anything and she's there all day. Like it would play on my mind. I'd be sat like, she sat on the couch now, watching this morning. I'm a little controversial, do you reckon like she's got feelings for him and she just doesn't like the girlfriend as well?

Because like, we had this arrangement, no. To be fair, she says that they were like, they had multiple houses. Sounds like a long term thing. This one ended up just the two of them. She doesn't sound like she doesn't want, she's more annoyed at the non-contribution than she is the fact that she's there all the time.

It seems like that. But I just, in my head, this rom-com is happening. Realistically, is she racking up? Like, if you're in the house all day baking and doing your washing and stuff, how much is she racking up? Like, is it more that she's more resentful so she's like amplifying it in her brain

that like she's racking up all these bills. Like what massive difference. I think it's less about bills. It's more the principle that. It's the principle, yeah. If the, you know, the fact that they need to flat our room, like not room share. Gosh, I really am going with this trouble thing, Anna, sorry.

The fact that they share my bed. I'm going with this trouble thing, Anna, sorry. The fact that they share a bed. The fact that they have to share a house, apartment, whatever, suggests that it's expensive living. It's a city, it's Manchester, it's London. It's one of these, obviously, the only two cities we ever mention. Apologies for the rest of the UK. We're incredibly Manchester-centric here, even though we're in Liverpool today.

But it suggests that we're having to do this because it costs a lot of money. And so it's all about paying your own way for that. And even though strictly you're paying to rent half of it each and if he wants someone in his room, that's his half, you know, the use of everything, I think there's a boundary issue there, which is we're having to pay this and you're not,

and you're getting use of everything. And so I think it's that, I think it's not the bill thing, principle would annoy you, but it's the resentment. Yeah. She's using that as a thing, we actually know. I'm having to pay, but you're getting a free ride. Your feelings are valid.

Do you know, like, yeah, I don't, I don't think it will make a ridiculous difference. It might do. If she wasn't there. Three might do 365 days of the year. It might as well have an extra full on flatmate. Yeah, yeah. And be paying like a third instead of a half. It might be that point like, you know,

that there's a, we can come on to what you would do about it, but you know, it might not be a straight three way split financially. It might be that she contributes as like, you know, a quarter, but she's like sharing a room. She's not got her own like wardrobes and stuff like that. She's having to, but contributes as like, you know, a quarter. But she's like sharing a room, she's not got her own like wardrobes and stuff like that. She's having to, but where does she live? Yeah, it would hurt me.

It would really hurt me. It would really hurt me. Where are you on the seventh? Where are you on the seventh? Where are you on the seventh? I was thinking that with her mum. She goes home and her mum does her washing. I've already imagined it, yeah.

She's at home with her mum. Her mum does her washing. On the Sabbath. And to the point, you know, like we don't know someone's employment journey, but if she doesn't have any bills to pay anywhere, what, there's no incentive. I like how she afforded to do the baking

because it's well expensive. Genuinely, like eggs, butter, like premium ingredients. Oh my God, butter's expensive. Yeah, chocolate, melting chocolate. I'm like, I hope she's making big batches. Yeah, is she sharing? Yeah, do you at least benefit from the big thing? Yeah.

No, it would, I think we can all agree, it would irk all of us for someone to just live rent free in the house. So what does she do? And bills. Go to the boyfriend. He's the one who's like- On the seventh day. Which she's not there. Yeah, time it.

I think it's his responsibility to sort out. Yeah. It should be his responsibility to talk to his girlfriend about it. I don't know how close they are, but. Well, she could be like, if you want to pay extra. You've been friends for five years. That's fine. Yeah. If you want to cover this, but it's not fair

that there's two of us paying and there's three of us basically living here. And if you're not going gonna speak to the landlord, how would you like that? Can you imagine? Oh my God, we've talked about that before, that Emily in Paris, when she shops them and says there's three people living in there.

Yeah, oh my God, yeah. You could message the landlord and get them to do a flat inspection. Oh yeah. A surprise moment. And then plant some stuff. And then she's getting her tenancy at risk, like right, you're all out.

Oh yeah, true. This is what I mean, I'll always take the risk because I don't want to do the- Hard conversation. The conversation. I'd rather lose my flat. She either- So she has to say something.

She needs to say something, she can say something to him. And look, one of the options is she doesn't come around. Yeah. No financial upside to that one though. And she's not actually called this person out personally as in she's like annoying, not a nice person. She doesn't say that at all. Yeah, yeah.

She put it on. She has though, she says that she, despite me asking on numerous occasions if a small contribution would be possible. So I wonder if she's just going to say no that bit. How have you been doing that? She's probably been like, please. Shaking a little bit.

Please, please, please. But yeah, again, she's like, well, you know, maybe she's saying when I get a job. She's just like, please, please, please. Yeah, again, she's like, well, you know, maybe she's saying when I get a job, she's just like, where's that money coming from? Avoiding. So I'd be like, so I've done your CV. And I'm thinking. I've got you a job downstairs in the court.

Barista. So we're gonna practice. You can sell some of your bakes there. Yeah. But therefore, you're absolutely right Lydia. She's already tried to address it. The girl's already tried to avoid the situation. Yeah, enough's enough.

So you need to go to the boyfriend. Yeah. His responsibility. Oh God, it would be annoying though. It's expensive, like it's expensive. Like we all have to do our first year. And it's not like for little periods of time, it's different but.

Yeah, if there was like a shit, she's lost her job, like she needs to move in with us for a few weeks. But this just seems to be nothing. She's happy at home. She's having a great time. This seems permanent. Wonder what she's watching on TV. She's using your perfume when you're out.

She's trying your clothes off. Can you imagine? I'm so. Have you just gone down faster than I thought? Your lush bath bomb, like. You colour-wowed her. I've been present-governing. Oh, oh, oh.

Oh, my God. Jesus Christ Lucy and I would be dead. You got whiplash looking at Lucy. Imagine if someone used dark color eyes. I would literally like- No color eyes. I would literally draw a line. You can't even see in the bottle can you? I'd take the film off.

I'd take the silver wrapping off the wow bottle with a line. And then for baking I think she's been using olive oil, Lucy. I'd take the film off, I'd take the silver wrapping off the wow bottle with the line. And then for baking, I think she's been using olive oil. Oh my god. Your girlfriend's sending us under. She's trying to bankrupt us. I've made this olive oil cake today. You just pulled olive oil.

Can you imagine? Oh my god. Hard for you. Yeah. It's only one thing for it. You gotta God. Hard for you. Yeah. It's only one thing for it. You gotta go. You gotta go. You gotta go.

We voted. Yeah. And you need to leave. Okay, community win. I started using the financial app in January last year and today I had a look back at my financial situation from January January 2024. At that point, I was in over 5K debt and I have very little savings. Fast forward to today and I have under 1.5K left to pay in debt and almost 9K in savings.

The main thing the app did for me was make me pay attention. I was wasting so much money without realizing it. I know what you're about to say. Well done. Now I'll pay you that off. I'll pay you that off. I'll pay you that off. I'll pay you that off. I'll pay you that off. I was wasting so much money without realizing it. I know what you're about to say. Yeah, me too. Well done.

Now I paid it off. You've got 9K. So like, I don't want it to take away because really good exercise, by the way, to look if you've been with financial for a while, looking at your first budget, where you started, like a lovely time stamp. Why not just say I've got no debt and 7.5k in savings?

Makes no difference. Yeah, pay the debt off. Yeah, because nine's the bigger number, like we always like. Yeah, it's like bad, Jovanna, I've got 9k. But if you do, you know us. No, but you've got, you've not. If you owe it, you don't. Yeah.

Please pay it off, please, please. You were so predictable. I'm convinced. I feel so sick to this now going, what's the point in the vault? They say the same things every time. So one thing that makes me laugh is like, new people come in the community and say it.

And people will go, Holly's gonna tell you. Like I tried to convince someone in the community to do it. And they were like, yeah, I see your point. I was like, no, no, it's literally like, you could be debt-free. I said to her, you could be debt-free in the next five minutes. You literally have. Oh my God, I was like, I was like, I was like, she had be debt free in the next five minutes, you literally have.

She had like tens of thousands of savings and like three grand debt and I was like, you could literally ring the credit card company today and pay it off and you'd still have a healthy amount of savings. But they were still open and iron. But I have to, you know, you have to be patient and let people find their own way and each to their own. Like it's how you feel and that's what we always go off.

So you have to be respectful of that. But I think speaking from experience myself, realizing one day that I had savings and I had debt and I could literally just wipe it off. It's cause you know the other stuff as well. Like you said, people get used to it. But if you know how to manage your money, if you have decided I'm never going into debt again,

it's one of the best feelings. But if you actually just gonna do it again, you want savings because the debt doesn't matter enough to you and so you understand why people hesitate. I always say, pay it off and if you don't like it, go get a loan. Oh yeah, love that. I love that.

You can change your mind. If you really missed it, then just get a loan. If you missed it, then get a loan. Just rack it up again. But like literally, the next day, if you're stressed, just go take out a loan, get that cash, move the cash back to your savings.

I promise you you won't. You won't do it. That's such a good little tip, but what a win. And really good exercise to go and look back when you first started to see how far you've come. You've done amazing. What do you think would have been on your prefinancial, because like our first financial budgets

in the apps are cheated because we were on financial before we were doing spreadsheets. But what would prefinancial budgeting, what would we have seen? Like, I would have been clothes, it would have been restaurants. We used to go to really, really big restaurants.

Yeah, we included that in the budget. I would have been included in the budget. There wouldn't have been a budget. There wouldn't have been a budget. This sort of coming in. I don't know what's going out. When you come to us brand new, what's really exciting, especially when you do the playbook, is we tell you do a budget first, like an accurate one, and then... Of your current circumstances.

Of your current spending. What would be the things before the call, as I call it. Ours would just constantly be eating out. Eating out, yeah. And we still eat out, that's the irony of it. Like, I would- And clothes, like designer stuff. Yeah.

Yeah, all on a credit card. Holidays, credit card. We still do that, just not credit card. Yeah. Yeah, still going, we're not, our budgets, our spending patterns are probably not too dissimilar, but the way that we manage money is probably is very different. Yeah, and the way that we manage money is probably very different.

Yeah, and the impulsivities would have gone. I think that'd be interesting to see the ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, the stuff that you just racked up. That's amazing. You've done so well. When you hit 10, pay you down. Yeah. You can't do it now.

Hit a nice random. Yeah. If you'd like to tell us your win, head to the community in the app or email it to the vault at financial.com. Time for our next dilemma. 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 lost my job two days before starting. Help. Hi guys. I've been absolutely blindsided by this and could do with some words of wisdom. I've been on a debt-free and savings journey for the last

year and I've loved your podcast and the financial app for helping me get on top of my budgeting, sinking funds and making me feel less alone. For context, I'm 26, live in London, and I've always been lucky enough to land well-paying jobs. But I lived beyond my means and racked up some consumer debt. I've been chipping away at it and have halved it from 14k to 7k. My dilemma is that I recently got headhunted for a new role, which involved a pay increase, a company car and great career advancement. I've been on garden leave for the last six weeks after handing in my notice at my last job. Now two days before my start date, I got a call to say that the role

would no longer be available due to unforeseen business circumstances. So now I find myself unemployed and unsure of where to go. I live with my boyfriend and we rent privately, but he doesn't earn enough to support us both long term. My mum has offered to cover my portion of the rent and bills as I don't have enough save to do this for more than a month. But I'm also worried about racking up more debt with her and on a credit card, whilst I don't have the income. It's still quite a shock to me and I feel conflicted about where to go next, how to keep my head above water

and what decisions to make about my future. This has massively dented my self-esteem, my expectations of where I'm supposed to be in my career right now and my own faith in my decision-making. Any help or advice would be much appreciated. Wow, first of all, I really don't want her to take this personally because she says I've

taken a hit on my self-confidence. They don't even know you really yet. It was massively out of your control, unforeseen circumstances and- No reflection on her. That does happen. Like I've heard it before, people's role, like they've handed the notice in and then the jobs become not available anymore after they've handed the notice and then kind of left the company. So it does happen. Do not take this personally.

I really don't want your self-confidence to take a hit, especially your decision-making to question leaving for a better career, better opportunity. There's no judgment in that. It's only a good thing. And it just happens to be that, unfortunately, on this occasion, it's fallen down. But I do empathize with how worried you are now because it sounds like you've

not got enough to sustain for a long time. And I love that you're already mindful that you don't want to go into debt to do it. But yeah, just massive empathy, but I really don't want you to take it personally because it's absolutely out of your control and not reflection of you as a person. So many people can't, couldn't do the same as, sorry, so many people would be in the same scenario as her as well. The vast majority of people do not have more than like one month's expenses in savings. It's actually like the financial early emergency fund, you know, and there's a reason for that because sometimes if you make it too big, you're racking up debt in the meantime when you're taking

too long. But she's not on her own in being ending up in that position to gain, to reinforce this personal value point, which is like, you're not bad, you've not done anything wrong, you've been the consequence of circumstance and you're in like, you know, a bit of a crisis mode. That's fine. We like, that's why Survive's called Survive. It's meant to be a bit of a crisis mode.

So she is, she's got a couple of things that she needs to do, doesn't she? So she needs to like, war room, what am I gonna do? What's my job situation? Because the quicker she fixes that, the better. And that does take time. So despite what happened with that job, one, does she wanna go backwards?

Backwards, go back to her other job as well. Like have that conversation. Don't be proud. Especially, and this is why we should always like move, moving through life and moving through careers is not a negative, it's a positive. Like we can move forward to better or different opportunities and you shouldn't burn bridges

because you may be able to step back into the role that you're in. Even temporarily, they might have something else you can kind of say, it didn't work out. But if when you leave, it's not because it was a toxic situation, it was a negative situation because you were ready for the next step

and you were a good people person and you manage that relationship, then that's one option as a stopgap. But otherwise, head down, game face on, like, you need energy. You need to look after yourself, you need to be sleeping well, eating well, exercising, because this is your full-time job.

Now your full-time job is finding your next job. And you don't have to do that to panic as well. I know that you've got this kind of situation where you've only got like one month's worth of expenses, but with a really tight budget and some scrimping and saving and yes, maybe mum helping out a little bit, that might be two months, it might be max three,

but like the job is the bigger one. And I think it's better to put your effort into that for a month properly than it is to go grab any job and go get some part-time work. But that's also in your back pocket as well. If you work out what your mini-budget is. If you're gonna lose sleep at night, even just covering your rent and getting a part-time job

that's not gonna over-consume, but at least it's a full-time job looking for you, especially if it's a senior role. But one thing I would say, if you've been offered that one, there's obviously jobs out there in your sector or whatever you're looking for. So if that job came available, it's not over. The game's not over.

No, and sometimes even doing your thing, but on a temporary contract in basis, if that makes you feel a little bit better and you want a bit of a stock out. So let's say you spend ages trying to find this job and it's finally the right one. You could look if you can do that in a temporary role somewhere else, a six month contract,

generally they hire a bit quicker because they're only taking you on for six months. Exactly, it's a shorter term thing. And if you don't work out for them, it's not as big a deal. So you might take something and then you've got six months to look. But like getting a job is a priority.

You will, if one to two months goes by, you will be able to scrap around for like delivery work and ad hoc like gig economy work, I bet, and get up to your minimum expenses quite easily. Like you'd be able to get some hours in a bar or some hours in a coffee shop. If you know, most people are able to do that, put their mind to it,

and so I don't think you need to do that yet, but just think that in the back of your mind, because I want you to know that it's not gonna be like in two months, like I'm gonna be starting getting into massive debt. It might be in two months, I'm gonna have to take some time to- Use your network as well, like don't be proud

and not tell anyone because your best friend next to you might be like, oh, we're looking for someone to backfill for a few weeks or whatever it might be. Don't be proud to share with your network that the job's fallen through, because I think so many people are just so embarrassed by things like that, but it's totally out of your control. Oh, I've got a LinkedIn post immediately,

in fact, it could be a really cool LinkedIn post. I've seen them and I'm like, oh, and I automatically, you just wanna help that person, it only comes from a good place, you'll see. They always go viral, they're always the ones where. I'm typing it in my head now, I'm always like, I had a really good opportunity, unfortunately. It fell through.

That fell through. It happens. I wish the company all the best, they've been really supportive, and by the way, yeah, lean on them as well, do you know anyone, cause, da, da, da, da, da, but recruiters that have jobs that they need to fill. They'll see that post. They'll reach out to way, yeah, lean on them as well. Do you know anyone? Cause, but recruiters that have jobs that they need to fill will reach out to you. They'll see that post.

Yeah. They'll be getting all over that. So don't be afraid. That's such a good part actually. Be prepared to be vulnerable with it. Cause it's not your fault. It's not a reflection on you. When I've seen people be vulnerable

and share stuff like that, people just want to help. You don't have to go it alone. No, you don't. And I think, I remember, like my husband went through that last year, he got made redundant. And the really strange scenario was, he'd actually been offered another job

that he undenied over for ages while still employed, was just absolutely gonna take it. But the company offered him like an alternative and said, no, please stay, we really, really want you. We've got this new opportunity. So he took that. And then there was a massive redundancy across the whole business. It wasn't just him and his team. It was 30% of the workforce went. And he had just turned down the job. And so he went out to his network on LinkedIn, and he never does LinkedIn. He's not LinkedIn girlie like we are. But people want to help, and stuff comes from there. People go, oh, have you spoke to this person,

spoke to this person? And it is that vulnerable thing where you're putting yourself out there. But people, if it's done in the right way, people love that and they just wanna help. And I think you'll be inundated with the right support, definitely. And also, your personal socials as well,

you never know, it's definitely better on LinkedIn because everyone's getting face- Practical help, yeah, yeah. You're in that employment mindset, connections, networks. And also I think some of the nicest conversation, like I said, that when Karl went through it last year was he spoke to a couple of recruiter friends in our network who weren't in his field, who just gave him advice and connected him with some CEOs.

You're getting calls and suddenly your network, even if it's not for this job, booms. So maybe use it as an opportunity to get on the phone with people, meet people for coffees, offer, like I said at the beginning, this is your full-time job. And it's easy to say, but if you put the work in trust the process just work seems to work out it just does seem to work out if you do the right things

and put the right energy out there you've got a job you've been given a job before just because it didn't work out practically you'll do fine. I'm actually we've reversed all of this we're very excited. We'd like to come on the journey with you. To keep us updated. Manifesting a higher salary, a better job, great projects. Genuinely, if you want help, messages, I'm sure we'll know someone. Holly's favorite thing is to look at your CV and go, okay, she flexes her hands like this and she's like, what we're gonna say?

I feel like she's a liar. Women sometimes underestimate what they've done and they've achieved. Downplay, don't they? Yeah, whereas men, they say like, they only apply for a role if you feel 60%, you feel 60% qualified, whereas men, oh no, women will apply for a role

if you feel 100% qualified, men will apply for a role if you feel 60% qualified. Well. Because you feel like they can just hack the rest of it, of which you can, it's right, they should. Yeah. I feel like this is an unlocked. Ooh, yeah. Probably might have to host an unlocked.

Might just as suggest it. Like imagine you with like Reina. Do I get my own microphone? I've got two, you can have your own microphone. Diamond. Oh my diamond. Incrusted. Your own diamond encrusted microphone.

Yeah, it's not like, what, karaoke? She might say, it could be, every chance. I might sing it. If you're on a locked episode, karaoke. If we did get tips from someone like Rick Reynes, our recruiter friend. We're sure she's amazing. Oh my gosh, she's here as well.

Yeah, okay, done. We'll do a career episode. Any final words? If you want CV help, genuinely, just message us. Or connections, networks, whatever. We just need a shoulder to cry on, we're all so good at that too. But trust in the process.

Like if anyone's going through something like that where you feel like you've been knocked back a peg and it's a bit of a personal hit, and it isn't personal, it's business, and this could turn out, or is likely to turn out exactly the way you want it to. Or even best stuff. It just doesn't feel like that in the meantime.

So for once, the money people are saying, don't worry about the money, you have options. And I think we've had a friend to say this to us before, but make plans ahead of time. So right, and give himself a deadline of six weeks where I'm not gonna take on an extra work, try and raise some money, try and sell stuff, get a job. I'm gonna go for my premier job six weeks.

At that deadline, I then, and I might do my budget again, but then when that passes, I might go, hmm, okay, this is tougher than I thought to find the thing I want. I'm going to explore supplementing my income for a period of time whilst I then still make it my almost full-time job, but I do extra work. So give yourself like timelines, because what that does is takes takes the pressure off now,

because you go, I've got a backup plan. You don't go, I've got to get a job otherwise I've not got any money. Like relax on the money point, because you'll do fine. I like that, yeah. Okay, that is all for this episode. The vault is now closed.

And just a quick disclaimer, the vault is just a chat around life and money topics, and we are not giving financial advice.