The Vault with Financielle - “Should I Use My Inheritance to Clear Debt?” | The Vault Episode 109

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

“I think I depend too much on my partner”… jail or no jail? 🚨This week, we’re diving into these money dilemmas:💸 “What Should You Do With an Extra £250 a Month? Invest it or enjoy it?”💸 ”Should I Use My Inheritance to Clear Debt?”Got a money win or (totally anonymous) dilemma? Share it via the Financielle app community or email [e-mail] 💌You’re not alone in figuring this stuff out. Get honest, helpful reads at financielle.com 💖💸Connect with our Partner🫶 Protect yourself and loved ones with our friends at Lifesearch** The above is a tracked link, which tells our partner we sent you and may in future result in a payment or benefit to our site.

At Medcan, we know that life's greatest moments are built on a foundation of good health, from the big milestones to the quiet winds. That's why our annual health assessment offers a physician-led, full-body checkup that provides a clear picture of your health today, and may uncover early signs of conditions like heart disease and cancer. The healthier you means more moments to cherish. Take control of your well-being and book an assessment today. Medcan. Live well for life.

Visit medcan.com slash moments to get started. 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. Hi everybody. Hello. Good morning everyone. How are we doing today? Oh God. Spring is in the air. It's very sunny outside and you've got a lovely bouncy blow dry. I was actually just talking to Lydia was driving here this morning and I kept my pink curls. You were driving here this morning. Did we announce that you passed your driving test? It was a while back now. Might not have done. No, I don't think we did actually. How are we not a driver?

I'm a driver. She's a drive. Like, did you buy some special things for your car, like driving on stuff? Like a furry steering wheel and... No, I was told... Because I've got Alex's old car. He said, I'm not allowed to do that. Okay, good.

We taught... I'm sure we talked on the pub before about putting, like, eyelashes on the car. Yeah, I was threatening to do that. Again, not allowed, obviously. So now you're... After spending a fortune, like, it is so expensive to pay for those lessons. But you did it at the right time for you when you knew you could go, consistently go for it, go for it, go for it.

And then you passed. So now you've freed him. Yeah. It was really fun. So I was driving here this morning and I thought, I was about to take my pink girls out this morning and I thought, I can just leave these in until I get to the car park at the podcast. And I was driving. And I kept stopping at these lights and singing, honestly, so loud.

I think that my car is soundproof. It's not. I love a karaoke, don't you in the car? I love it. So I was driving along, studying. at like, stood at lights, stopped at lights, like, singing my whole out, there's guys next to me like. But your pink curls in.

Yeah. So I was saying I looked like Cindy Lou. You were driving to Liverpool. Everyone would be proud. Did you have your pajamas on as well? No, I didn't. You know, you got dressed with low coming. I have driven in my pajamas a few times.

Oh God, have we all? Don't you worry? That's very allowed. Well, it's, the hair is bouncing. Thank you. I've just also put some oil on it when I took out. So it looks a bit greasy now because I put oil on my side. scalp by accident.

No, it's fresh. Nice and shiny. Right. I want to get into jail or no jail today. Okay, let's get our paddles. Paddles at the ready. Okay. I think I depend on my partner too much.

No jail. No jail. No jail. Holly's gone jail. If we're talking from a financial perspective, which I'm assuming we are. She didn't say. We're a money podcast. So I hope there would be some money angle here.

Oh, God. You massively depend on your partner too much. Not financially. No, I mean for everything else. Oh, for everything else. She needs a text to say, oh, we're going to bank station, so please get the Northern Line. We both benefit from those instruments. We do.

I depend on her husband too much as well. Right. So this is financially? Yes. Financially. Jail. Because it's too much was the bit I didn't like. No one's coming.

But she's also, she's thinking about it. She's not oblivious. She's still in jail, though, because what we're doing about it. True. Why would we let us get to this point in time? Have we learnt nothing? Like, where's the feminist? Unless she's new.

She just doesn't get a pass. And this doesn't mean I rely on them too much. I'm not saying no jail if this person earn, sorry, jail if this person is earning more than you. So therefore you rely, if you like, oh, I rely on him too much. Like how when we put our finances in a part, you know, he earns much more than me. So I rely on him too much. That's not what I'm saying.

Get your emergency phone. Make sure you've got an income. Yeah. That kind of thing. Well, if she's on maternity and she feels. feels like she depends on. And I felt like that. But I don't depend.

Like we need to reframe the mindset. And if it's guilty on maternity leave because it's not just you and your finances that are affected. It should be family finances that are impacted. Family finances. Yeah. So I'm going to say jail. Only because you need to, if you feel like that way,

what can we do to change it? Do about it. So you can think about that in your jail cell. You go and think about it. In your pink jail cell. Like when you're in your bedroom. go and think about what you've done. That's so scary.

Oh my God. I'd get my pillow and be like, I don't want to reflect. I'm really sorry. No, at the door and be like, I would love to be sent to my room. I just want the peace and quiet. When I say, I'm like, go to your room to,

I'm not going to name the child, but they both do it. No. I'm like, what do you mean? It's a holiday. I would love to be sent up to my room in my house at the moment for a good 40 minutes.

I mean, one of them's got a dartboard. That's a lot of fun. Literally. What else do you want? Get out of your room. Yeah. I avoid checking my pension because it makes me nervous. Jail.

You talk about this because you do actually look at your pension, don't you? Yeah. Sometimes it does scare me because it's like, you will retire when you're 100. And you will have two pounds in retirement. like it is anxiety inducing because it's like well I need to do something about this and still like lots of ostriches for lots of different reasons I think not looking in either a bank account or a pension or we've talked about before student loans is like not wanting to open mail because you don't get mail so true anymore do we but it's the same premise just put it in the bin if I put it in it doesn't count I didn't see it and it's kind of

it is anxiety inducing definitely. If you didn't look at it, you wouldn't know what you need to do to fix it. Exactly. So my biggest thing is if we just ostrich and don't look, we're never going to get to a place where we feel comfortable looking at anything. Or we're going to sleep on stuff. Like if I didn't look at my pension properly a couple of years ago, I wouldn't, like,

I'm trying to, I've upped my pension contributions to try and close the gap. And if I didn't look at what the gap was, I wouldn't have been able to put anything in place to fix that gap. So I'd get to retirement age and I would be resigning in poverty. As the world stands as it is. It's having it front of mind, isn't it? Yeah. We were at an amazing conference yesterday in London with a load of men and women

all looking to improve, you know, investing for women and improve the awful gender investment gap. And it did get me thinking because we were talking about, you know, the ups and downs of investing, literally the physical graphs going up and down and the markets and stuff like that. And the one amazing woman, like confidentially, because we were saying, if there's one thing you could change, what we would. change. And she was like, I would change it so the regulator lets you say, equities will outperform saving because you cannot say it, but it does. So she's like, you should be able to say it because what we do by pussyfooting around it is make people

nervous about it. And then another thing we also talked about was graphs. And so when you see these like big ups and downs of a market performance and that could be your pension, you see these little mountains. I feel, I like picture like Snowden or like, physical mountain ranges. And have you ever seen those mountain ranges or like skyscrapers were at one stage, this mountain was the biggest one in the world or the skyscrap? And then they built another one. They built another one.

And they zoom out. And suddenly that big mountain that you think is really big. Actually is much smaller compared to the next one coming. And they were talking about the more you know that and the more you get comfortable with it, the more familiar. So actually coming back to checking things like your bank balance or your pension, if you check it once in a while or never, it's a big deal. But is it like, what's it?

therapy, what's that therapy where you're like? Exposure therapy. That's why we, for ages, we used to check your bank balance every day for anyone struggling with money, even if it's in a negative check it because to avoid it is obviously to not know what you're dealing with and to put it off. But you kind of get used to it and you get desensitized to it and they are just numbers. I remember feeling like that with my student loan. Remember when I checked it? You had to build up to that. Yeah, I was like, no, I'm at, I will at some point, but I haven't checked it in a while. It's probably going to doubled. Well, listen, it's in the press at the moment. It's something that it's very, very prevalent and very, very, will be interesting to see

what they do about it. But it's no wonder, I bet loads of people don't check it. Yeah. Loads of people. Maybe not even from a point of like avoiding it genuinely oblivious. I wasn't a password? Don't care. It's the way it was positioned to us, wasn't it? So it was literally positioned us. Just don't even look. Like honestly, we've talked about it many times before, finance, my finance sector in my fashion marketing degree, the professor that looked after all the finance stuff, literally said, do not worry.

I remember the baitum. I remember the session. I remember it clear as day where I was at, who I was with, because it was like a, oh, I remember being like buzzing,

thinking, oh, I've borrowed all this money. I don't need to pay it back. She was like, by the time, you were in a paid job, they'll wipe it. Don't even worry.

Don't attempt to pay it off. Don't try. Like, genuinely, I was convinced. So she was convinced and she'd been pushed this narrative. What do you expect

young, impressionable 18-year-olds taking on credit for the first time. What do you think they? I remember my brother was always like, oh yeah, I'll just go abroad for a few years. It gets cleared then. Yeah. Apparently it doesn't. Someone was talking about that, weren't yesterday. Yesterday, yesterday, yeah. So lots of people not checking it. I've upgraded my lifestyle because of what I see online. Jail. Jail, but you've got my empathy because it's just so hard. Every, like I'm trying not to be on social we do as much. Obviously, we do it for our job. We're on there quite a lot looking for

inspiration and stories and engaging with our community and stuff. And even then I just get sucked in straight away to the stories and people selling me stuff and new makeup and beauty and aesthetics and clothing and holidays and restaurants. Like it's just so exciting. Everything's like glittery and shining. I get why you would feel that way. I saw a post on socials the day and it was, I think it was from like 2004 or something. There's a photo of like loads of car parks at a retail park. And it's like we were all literally driving around in KAs. Yeah. And like all these small cars like you, there's no lander over in sight. Like, and now it's completely different. Like, how it looks. Yeah. And it's so interesting. And I was

like, I prefer one of those little bangers. Like, I think they look cute. It is funny. Like, why do we need a defender when we live in? Yeah. Unless it's muddy. People used to probably like Chelsea Tractor, didn't they? It was the football as well as it started it. There was, yeah, something on LinkedIn, a study on how everything's become a status symbol. So at once upon a time it was car or handbag or clothes. But it's like your toothbrush or your mouth tape. It's everything. Because everything's branded.

Your water bottle. It's a particular type of water bottle. Is it an aeropor? Is it a stanley? Like it's everything like mundane items like toothpaste are branded. Literally everything. It just used to be utility used to get it. And that's like what our kids are growing up in.

do you think there's something that you do that is literally as simple as brushing your teeth? Is there anything you can think of that hasn't been influenced by? Let's think about it and let's build a brand because it sounds like. Is it anything they can think of? I saw once like toilet roll, there was a guy that made quirky toilet roll. It was like, you literally like, you're going with it. And it was like, let's brand it. Yeah.

So yeah, I don't know. I'm trying to think. I know. Kitchen roll. Not got there yet. Because even the, you'll know maybe better than me, those really nice aesthetic looking because they're all nice smelling laundry stuff.

I was just about to say the beads that I've never bought into that. Yeah. You don't just do a wash anymore. It's like you put the thing in and then you do the beads. Yeah. But there's like a trendy millennial brand, Gen Z brand of like the detergents and stuff. And they're really expensive.

And like, Lenore's fine. I don't, I'm not sponsored by Lenore. Just like, but it looks nicer. in your nice washing room that used to be in the garage. Like the washing machine used to be in the garage in houses and now there's a built-in laundry room. Now you can't just have washing machine stuff. You have to like decant them and put them in.

Watching pods with the label on it. I'm exhausted. In case you don't know. Labelling machine. I'm literally exhausted. I am. I've got the only thing I put in a decanted thing is porridge oats. And I don't know why.

Because they don't all fit in the decanted thing. So I've got a bag of porridge oats and then a decanter of porridge. I do it, but in a big enough one. Unless because the paro joke bag falls over from time to time. I've been known to do that. But that's what I mean. Like, I'm half there, but I'm obviously not that ballad. It's an unathetic to pour with like a big squashy thing in the middle that.

When we find out, we're not going to tell you because we're going to launch it. Yep. Everyone buys it. I secretly think I'm better with money than my partner. No jail. No jail. You listen to us, so you're definitely going to be better than them. Okay.

Time for our first dilemma of the week. If you're stuck in consumer debt, listen to this. One financial user said budgeting the financial way helped her clear over two and a half thousand pounds worth of debt and finally feeling control of her money. If you're ready to do the same, download the financial app and join our community today. What should you do with an extra £250 a month?

Invest it or enjoy it? Dear financial, I'm about to change jobs and my income after tax and pension will increase by about 250 pounds a month. My question is, what should I do with this extra money? We currently have no debt aside from our mortgage, which is 180K. We have a 20K emergency fund and over £100,000 invested. At the moment, we save around £2,500 per month, not including sinking funds.

We have pots for planned trips, Christmas and birthdays, as well as 5K set aside for what will hopefully be maternity leave for the next few years. So where should this extra 250 pounds go? I'll be honest, I feel like we're in a financially strong place, and I'd quite like to be a bit frivolous with it. I can't say that word. Frithel of great words. Maybe save for a big foreign holiday or invest it in something like a health club membership.

For context, our combined income will now be over 150,000 pounds, and we already have strong savings and investments. My husband thinks we should invest the additional 250 pounds and is wary of lifestyle creep. Please can you help me work out where this money should go? I am fully prepared to be told that my husband is right. They are putting a lot away. She's said two and a half a month for saving.

Why are they saving that when they've got the 20K emergency fund? What is that for? Because we've got five grand for the maternity. Some people say saving when they're investing as well. It could be investing it. Some people are more mean like. I'm like, where's that going? It's such a good chunk, isn't it?

You're a dink, obviously. Yeah, because they're saving. from maternity leave in the next few years, yep. What a great problem to have. I definitely, the big thing when you're earning that amount of money is making sure you're optimising for tax because you're combined income of 150, it depends on where it lies.

You know, if someone's hanging around the 100 barrier, it may seem like a privilege to some, but it actually, you could be double penalized on tax. And it's a rubbish, I've seen people gone, I don't want to get a pay a price. I'm going to say 99. So having a look at tax, and it sounds like the two and a half,

if that is going to investments, both long term and short term in terms of pension for long term, stocks and shares, ISO, maybe for short term or a lesser, depending on their age, they're good shouts, they're good options that they could explore. So, yeah, hopefully they're not just stacking up cash

because it doesn't sound like they need cash for anything, not planning the house move. Maternity sound a little low, but maybe the earnings are going to be that hard, You don't need to save that much from maternity leave. Yeah. You've got a good policy at work. Good policy at work.

She may have a good policy at work. He may be the higher earner and will be continuing. So maybe they don't need much more. So they're doing. They're doing. We would say enjoy. I'm like A-star student. I feel like if you feel like you've been living a little bit frugly

to get where you are now, there's nothing wrong with. Like if you want a gym membership, that's so important to your health and wellness. Like you should be, that's an investment as well. Yeah. I think everyone always thinks of investments in those.

But life's too short and you're going to be healthy and a nice golf club membership. Yeah, why not? But there's a nice sport, especially before you have kids. Like, enjoy. Like, you talked about a foreign holiday. Like, I would implore anyone when they're in this financially strong situation to, I feel like you're not going to do lifestyle group. The fact that you've even mentioned it makes you mean that you're very aware of it.

And you've got all these good things in place. I feel like you've got your direct debit set up for investing. and your emergency funds fall and you're thinking about maternity. Like we do encourage people to like live their lives as well. This isn't a, it shouldn't be a full-time job. The playbook takes you to big life goals. So when you think about the playbook,

the financial playbook, we've got survive, build and grow. For anyone that doesn't know exactly what it is, have a look in the app or we've got some explainers on our website on financial.com. But basically it's all about building foundations and not trying to do everything at once. And it helps someone like this person and it helps someone, in absolutely dire straits in a lot of debt because it's a flow and it's a process. And so if you

look at your situation, you're not in survive, which is making sure you've got emergency funds, maybe make sure that you've got a budget that can like sustain you and making sure that you're paying off debt. And it sounds like they've also got bigger emergency funds and that they're able to save and there's room in that budget. So whilst we then progress to grow, which is putting our excess cash towards things that grow our net worth, which I think they'll be doing Even though she said saving, I'm hoping you're not stacking up to an half grand cash per month because the return that you're going to get at the moment versus teasing out some longer term investments could be a great thing to explore. So just make sure you're having a look at that with your partner. The budget's meant to relax.

It's not meant to creep and that's very, very important. But it's meant to be like, well, okay, what else can add to our life? Like a gym membership. Like a holiday. Again, holidays are expensive. saving up in advance, $250 month might be the right amount of money to pay for a lovely holiday for the two of you

and obviously family in the future. She may be doing that already. She's got holiday sinking funds, didn't she? But then she said, or maybe a big foreign holiday. But I think the point that Laura's making as well is like the lifestyle creep point, it's fine if you get an extra income

at the end of the month, but maybe not adding to fixed expenses. That would always be my thing because they're hard to kind of pull back on. That's so true. That's when the car finance upgrade, the house up clear, I've earned more money. Having it towards something, it's like optional.

Things that you can flex up and down. Yeah. Like holiday. But you could be like, we can't afford the holiday now. Okay, that money can go. You've not put it into something or committed to a contract or like a phone or a car or a. Definitely. And this is where super savers really struggle with spending.

And so the way I always tell people look at it is when you do your budget, especially in the financial app and you've got your excess, we've got something called an excess rate, which, is what percentage of your income do you put towards either savings, paying off debt or investing. And once that's like in a good place, once that 10, 15, 20% range, you can spend the rest and still stay on track. And I think that's what some people get confused with sometimes, which is like, you don't all, you can do if you want to grow that and grow it to 25%, grow it to 30%. That's a great place to be. And that's relevant whether you're on a high income or a low income.

If you can, you know, live off a little amount and the proportions go like that and you've got this excess rate that's big, i.e. you don't need that bit. Then you don't derail your financial plans. So you can spend. And I think that's why some people, the struggle with spending, because any extra money, they think it needs to go over there. Yeah. If that's already rocking and rolling and that's already going really well, you can. And it doesn't derail it. It doesn't spoil anything. And that's what the husband's perspective may be. And that's just such a good part. in Holly that going to a fixed expense. And again, well, it's like a gym membership was technically a fixed expense. You can get out of it. It's not like your council tax because you've moved to a bigger home or a car finance deal that's four years long. It's a lot more flexible.

Yeah. You could vote. Do a vote together. Have a money date night and be like, what do you really? Like what's missing out of this? Like what would we both enjoy? But would you do? You're not allowed to say like invest or you have to like choose something at fun.

What are you doing with the next? Or the gym. Just not doing it at the gym. Yeah, like a wellness place, but... Wellness place. Wellness place, not just a gym, like somewhere like that bit more. You can spend a good Sunday morning there. No, like, oh no, I don't want to be cold.

It's just trying to catch around. So on it. Like, my mum and dad go to David Lloyd and they literally just go to a spa every day now, don't they? Yeah. I get stressed in a spa. I would do that. I'll come on. Why?

I just need... Yeah, I could be doing something else. I could be doing something else. Oh my God. I get hungry. Honestly, once I've sat down in the, in the jacuzzi for two, three minutes, I'm like, right. I'm a bit scared of just. Jukuzis.

Why? I don't know. It's like a lobster or something. Like I'm being cooked. I remember when we were younger, my mom and dad, we all had gym memberships at David Lloyd. And we just used to go for tea. Yeah.

So we pay. To access the restaurant and then pay for the restaurant. Petit or veggies with bacon and cheese. Vivid memory. I'm probably about 14. Go on the crash train for 10 minutes and then go and over. We also used to do when we were much younger. on reflection.

Mom and dad used to go to the gym and we went in the pool and there was a glass between and that was basically. No, it was the Georgian house in Black Rond. We would have been really young and we didn't have swimming lessons.

Trish. Out of you. She does listen, so. We always get a message. She's probably going to go only one of us was in the gym, you idiots. I think they both were.

We like to play this game. We were so hard done too. We were in the private health club swimming. I don't know, wrong. There used to be a little machine that you get water and the cups were cones. Oh, cones. I just picture like Holly's like Woody definitely spent all this time filling up the water and getting everyone water. Put it in the pool.

Yeah. Oh, we probably did that. We were probably dead. Anyway. Okay, time for a community win. Absolutely love your podcast. I've been in consumer debt since my 20s. 12 months ago, I started really knuckling down and getting my finances in order. I was 15K in debt. On the outside, I have all of my shit together. I'm financially savvy, but I couldn't quite get debts cleared. I have really tightened my budget and have just made my final debt payment and I'm officially debt-free at 40. I'm beyond proud of myself and don't have anyone to share this with as

nobody knows the struggles I've been facing, as I haven't told anyone, not even my husband, mainly out of embarrassment. I'm therefore sharing this with you, as I want to scream it from the rooftop, but have no one else to share it with. I'm beyond excited for what my future debt-free self can achieve moving forward. Oh, congratulations. Being debt-free is massive. And the fact that you had to do it on your own, I do feel bad for you, but I understand why lots of people do it. But I love a good show off. So the fact that you can't, I love showing off. So I, when I've done something, not like I love a good show of all I probably do, but she, like, I feel bad that she can't tell her husband because I'd be like, guess what I did? Like, I would just be like, by the way.

Yeah. For the last 20 years, actually. And it'd be like, wow. But don't worry. It's clear now. Oh, it's really hard that, isn't it? Yeah. Because we're trying to, you know, promote people not so embarrassed about that and it's not something to be ashamed of.

But if you've kept it secret for so long, you know, it's in your right to kind of keep it to yourself. But share it with our community. Absolutely. That's great. And she's managed to do it. So it's one of those where if it's something that you can knuckle down and you can see the end, it's when people are really struggling and they're still scared.

You're like, hang on the minute. This is hard. so what you've done is really, really hard. I now want a goal that you're going to hit and then you're going to tell him when you hit it. It's like, maybe it's like, I've saved £10,000 and I've not told you. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good one.

If you'd like to tell us you'll win, head to the community in the app or email it to The Vault atfinancial.com. Next time. Did you know that over a third of women in the UK have no protection in place compared to just 16% of men? We've partnered with Life Search so you can chat to an advisor for free and get the cover that you deserve. Head to fanashel.com for slash protection

to get your free quote today. Should I use my inheritance to clear my debt? Hi girls, big fan of the pod. I'm currently in Survive and have paid off about half of my debts with 7K left, not including car finance. My house is on the market and the plan is for my fiancé and I

to move in with my mum for a year or two so that we can save for a forever home. We also recently got engaged so I have no idea where a wedding fits into all of this. My car has about £1,000 negative equity and isn't practical long term. The boot is tiny and we're hoping to start trying for a baby soon, so it won't work with a pram and a car seat. Recently, I received £10,000 inheritance that was meant for spending.

I've used £500 for a new phone and the rest are sitting in savings. The long-term plan is to use the house sale to clear any remaining debt and I'm stable using the Snowball method until then. So my dilemma is, do I use the inheritance to buy a practical car? Do I clear the debt for the psychological win? Or do I leave the money where it is for now? I'm also thinking ahead to maternity leave on statutory pay, saving for a house and somehow fitting a wedding into. I'm worried I'll be trying to juggle too many goals at once. I'd really love your guidance from a playbook perspective. There's a lot going on here. There's a lot. I'm overwhelmed. I'm mentally exhausted, right?

She's giving Holly on a Monday morning when she's trying to make breakfast for the kids and enter the dishwasher and eat myself and have a shower and get my gym stuff ready and like. And you get anything done? No. I've dropped cereal. I've dropped cereal twice this week. Where have you dropped it? In my decanted cereal all over the floor. Like I've picked up because I've rushed it and I'm emptying the dishwasher and I'm trying to this.

I've picked the top of, I put. So if you live in my house, in the morning you get a continental breakfast laid out for you in that the bowls are ready, the spoons are ready, I get the milk out in the morning, but I will put the cereal out the night before. I keep dropping the cereal as in the decanted tubs because I'm rushing so much and I've dropped rice crispses all over the floor. I've dropped churros all over the floor. It's heading in this direction.

You're juggling too many things and you're trying to do too many things at once. We've got a wedding, potentially a child, potentially a new car, selling a house, saving for a house. Anything else? I missed anything? Moving back in with mum. Yeah. We've got a lot going on.

So this is, if you love the playbook method, if you love the playbook method, we're going to go refer back to the playbook method. What order should she do it in? Literally. So it is going back to playbook and going right. Let's start from the very beginning. That's very like, is that sound of music?

Yeah. Let's start very beginning. So do we have an emergency fund? Because when something goes wrong with that car, when something comes up, even though you're living with your mum, you're not sponging off your mum, you are looking after your own emergency, you and your fiancé, so do we have an emergency fund? And if we do, great, if we don't, some of the ignore, because you did like the inverted comment thing, people don't know that you did it if they're listening. It was for spending.

And it's like, says who, like, was it in the will of the person that said, I'm giving this money it has to be for spending. And listen, I promise you, we get this so often. We're receiving an inheritance is often a burden. It sounds, you know, privileged to say, but actually people are navigating grief, navigating presumably losing someone fairly close if you were left money by them. And you want to do them proud. And what I guarantee you with the playbook is you'll make them proud. You will make them proud because you're going to make strong financial decisions. And if you stick with it and stick with the methodology. it forever, you'll not go back. So we say to people, because the next thing I'm going to say

is the debt snowball is next on the list. And whether you grind it out debt by debt or whether you happen to come into a lump sum and we've had lots of delums before, haven't we had like, how do you use my savings to pay off my debt? Yeah. The danger of doing it is that you don't learn. So if you're not an OG or if you've not done this for a period of time, there is a caveat that by just paying it off and you've not had the pain of paying it off and the grass. you run it back up again. So please consider how long you've been in debt, where it came from, whether you've learned from it.

And if you're not ready, I get it. And actually, that's a permission to tweak the answer because you've just come into this money. But generally, we were following the playbook strictly, you would use this cash and pay off your debts in order. And she's only a thousand pound in, oh, no, she's in negative equity, actually, by a thousand. So she still may owe quite a bit on the car. But you just run down it.

And then you're in a position where your minimum payments have gone or are very, very small. And presumably you've then moved home. If you've sold the house, this is, there's two things that people do. Sometimes you preserve the equity and you don't treat it as savings because you are buying another home. And that does make sense because some people have you being very, very strict about it, would say, and then you use your savings from your house sale and you pay off your car. Practically, your mum's is a stop gap. Yeah.

It's not like a forever. So I would preserve everything in the house and move forward on to the next house that you buy. But you then work your sinking funds and you build up a new car sinking fund and you build up a maternity sinking fund and you build up a wedding sinking fund. And truthfully, the wedding and maternity one, in my view, you pick one that you're going to do first. No judgment. I got married after children, you got married before children. There's no judgment. But don't try and do both what is.

what is hopefully going to come first. You don't know, obviously, and a pile of cash is a pile of cash. So if you build up savings, because you want to have a baby first, and that doesn't happen before, then you switch it and it becomes a wedding fund. If you save up for the wedding fund,

you get married, and then, like everyone else, you start up another one. So pick one of those. Don't try and do two. And then say, save up for a new car in the background. I was there.

I had, I loved it. It was my mum's Volkswagen Beetle. And a pram did not fit in it. Do you remember that boot? Like it was just, you couldn't fit any size of priming it. And it was a three door, which I could have survived with. But I, yeah, got a much more practical car. Didn't get a huge one.

You don't need an expensive one. It was a white fiesta. Oh, yeah. Five door. So it was easy to access in the back. Did you get it on finance? No. I'm trying to think when that would have been in the financial journey.

Because I've had a car finance before. No, it, no, it wasn't. It was the same price as the business. Right. Yeah, white fiesta. Everyone jumps to the car, don't we've had this conversation so many times. Women and girls are like, I need a four by four. There's no car.

There's no car. Like, we've got time. Let's focus on the here and now. Also. It's fine to plan ahead, but let's just like focus on what's in front of us. And for me, it's the debt. It's the buying a house. So what would you do if you were in that position?

I've just picked up on that. She's not pregnant and she's like, I need a new car because I'm having a baby, but she's not having a baby. Yeah, it's like throw it up in there and like, who let's bat it. leave the car until you need to change. But save up for it. You know, we're getting there with one of mine old car's car.

At some point we will be needing to replace them. 12 years old both these cars. And mine's just had like quite a big fix on it. So now I'm like, right, I'm keeping that for a lot longer because I've just fixed that. But it is in the back of my mind, I'm like, oh, we've both got 12 year old cars. At some point, we need to start building up a pot

and it's going to need to be a big one. So that upsets me because, again, it redirects money from other stuff. But she can save for that in the back. background. So coming back to it, it's like, don't be afraid of using the debt to pay, the inheritance to pay off debt if you stick to the playbook. If you're not going to stick to the playbook, I'll be minded to leave it in savings for a bit and work through your debt and prove that you can pay off debt. Because if you do, you know, you'll be happy that you were

able to do that. And like, yeah, move on from there. I would clear half of the 7K and then like force myself to do the rest myself. Use the rest as emergency fund. And then you can start from there. Because do you think... Do you need a bit of pain? Yeah. I was just going to ask, do you think actually...

It needs to be painful like it's not. And also the spent, when you're like, oh, it was for spending. Well, you spent it. You just didn't have the money. Yeah, you've already spent it. You just paid. You were really enjoyed it.

All the shite that you bought, potentially. You're like, that's what your family reward. You'd spend it on. You've already spent it. Yeah, true. On the spend, you've done the spending. You're just paying it back.

So otherwise, you'd be double spending. You know what I mean? It's interesting, actually. And then, um, my, so, I might have shared this on the pub before. And maybe Carl's family listened, so you'll know more than me because you were there.

Carl got an inheritance for his granddad. And he bought a car with it. And he bought a good car. I think it might have been a Volkswagen Golf. And then he sold the car and bought a house in secret and didn't tell his mom and dad until the day he moved out. Oh my God. Oh, they're on great terms.

There was no fallout. He just went moving out today, bought a house. He had been renovating the house, by the way, with a friend. Stop. What? So, Carl, coded. That is very, yeah. is Aaron he especially is, but...

I wish I could move that quietly. You would know about it. I don't want to carry these boxes up the store. But it is that idea of like the money went into a car and then and then actually he was like, no, it needs to be. Like, there's a pressure with having inheritance and there's nothing wrong with spending as well.

Lots of people say like actually went on a family holiday with it. Yeah. Yeah. Memories, yeah. There's no rules. But, you know, it can be a burden when you've got a lot going on. Because if she didn't have this 10K, what would she do? And that's a really good way of looking at what we ought to be doing anyway. Because I don't know about you. It's like if someone said to you, I'm giving you 10K, we can go, oh, I could do this. I could do this. I could do this. Like you'll think of a load of things you could do. Actually, if you didn't have that,

what would you be doing next? And I think those two should match. If I gave you 10K, would you put it in a fund for a new car today? I think I would. We've got a little sinking fund on the little one it's growing, sinking fund for a new car. After this chat maybe, whereas before it might have been, oh no, we'll stick it, we'll stick it into investing and we'll maybe top up some sinking funds because I don't think the car sinking fund has been front of mind. I think I've like just realised it here when we've been chatting. So I'll put about next episode, but we've got a curtain sinking fund because I've got a really big window at the back of my house that no curtain pole that I can do will sort it.

So I need to get professionally done and it gets really hot in the summer. And it'll make it a bit more cosy. Take this. This is what I need. In fact, Dylan, if you could come and bring this. Do you need this second? Like, isn't it really necessary. Because we've got like six, 700 quid in this.

Thinking one because it's going to probably about £800. But it's absolutely huge. Being grown up sometimes, you need to do it. But we've done that one. Maybe we need the car one. I'll report back. Probably car. That's made me so glad that I'm still a child and not growing up.

26-year-old teenager. With her engagement ring and a rented house and a car now. Okay. That is all for this episode. The Vault is now closed. A quick disclaimer, The Vault is just a chat around life and money topics. We are not giving financial advice.

Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything. Like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared. That's why I remember 988, Canada's suicide crisis helpline. It's good to know just in case. Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder anytime. 988 Suicide Crisis Helpline is funded by the government in Canada.