The Vault with Financielle - Sinking Funds vs Savings - What’s The Difference? | The Vault Episode 40

Episode Date: November 28, 2024

Send us a textIn Episode 40 of The Vault, we discuss this week’s controversial opinion, "'Settling' for a stable job over pursuing a passion is a valid choice”, before diving into our listener dilemmas:💸 “How should I be saving for my children’s futures?”💸 “I’m scared to make a mistake with my husband’s life insurance pay out”We celebrate a listener who’s transformed their money mindset, started budgeting, and even inspired their best friend to join them in weekly “Monday Money Meetings”. We’re so here for it! ❤️If you’d like to share your money win, head to the community in the Financielle app or email [e-mail] your (totally anonymous) money dilemmas to [e-mail] and we may feature yours on a future episode 💌Thank you to our partner PensionBee, who are on a mission to help you build pension confidence and create a world where everyone can enjoy a happy retirement. With PensionBee you can combine, contribute and withdraw online. Join over 260,000 customers saving with PensionBee. When investing, your capital is at risk.Sign up and combine your pensions here 🐝Start building your investing routine with Trading 212’s Autoinvest feature here 💸When investing, your capital is at risk. Pies & Autoinvest is an execution-only service, not investment advice or portfolio management. Automatic investing refers to executing scheduled deposits. You are responsible for all investment and rebalancing decisions. This information is not investment advice. Do your own research.Chapters:00:00 Introduction00:42 Fashion Talk: The Story Behind the Trainers02:58 Nail Care and Beauty Tips08:21 Balancing Hobbies and Work17:49 Practical Solutions and Investment Routines18:42 Saving for Children's Futures27:43 Community Wins and Money Meetings29:56 Managing Life Insurance PayoutsThe 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

Hey everyone, it's Holly here. Before we get into the episode, I want to share something exciting. That's right. If you're looking to take control of your money, the Financial app is your go-to tool. With the app, you can track your spending, create realistic budgets, and hit your money goals faster than ever. In fact, did you know our premium community members save three and a half times more than our free users? That's incredible. Plus, you'll be part of an amazing community where we all support each other on our money journeys. Whether you're starting to pay off debt or planning for your future, the app has everything that you need to make it happen.

So what are you waiting for? Download the financial app today and start your free trial. Trust us, your future self will wish you did it sooner. I say autumnal, I feel like every start of every autumn episode but very autumnal thanks i like the trainers i'm glad you do they were i've got a story about them go on what's the story well you know i don't really i say i don't buy into trends and i'm literally sat in chocolate brown you're very trendy a teddy flee. Specials in the brown that you cannot get. What are specials? And I am a walking advert for an autumnal Pinterest board.

In 2024? Yeah, literally I am that girl. I don't really buy into trends that much, but I really wanted these trainers and if you can't see these are brown. I think they're worth it. Okay, I agree but I had to you can't get them anywhere they sell out and I was like and I saw happened to see something on adidas that said these will be restocked on Monday the 28th of October at 9am so I did that any

fashion girl who will do and I set an alarm and I got Neil on the case as well but you had to download the app you had to pay up front and then you had to be in a queue and it wasn't guaranteed that you get like you obviously didn't get it but we were sat Taylor Swift ticket actually we were walking to school and I was like I'm giving myself the ick like I'm in a queue to buy trainers like that is not me that is not me sorry hold on yeah talking to the teachers trying to talk to me and i'm like i'm trying to buy some specials so well they look lovely they're comfy i mean define the comfy are they not comfy well they're an actual handball shoe so they're like got in it they've got to play handball yes i was wondering why they were called that yeah you just thought they were

jumping on yeah so it's not just for the aesthetic it's because you're now joining the handballs Yes I was wondering why they were called that Yeah You just thought they were Jumping on Yeah So it's not just for the aesthetic It's because you're now joining the handballs They're practical Shoes So they're not comfy They've got like a high insole

On this side And they're arguably Half size too big for me But we won't worry about that Why have they only got a high insole On one shoe? On one I don't know

Maybe it's my feet I don't know They're not the comfiest of shoes Is all I will say Okay But I'm hoping to wear them in. But I tried really hard to get them and I really don't want to give them back. So you'll just for the bitter end. Just to be stubborn. Yeah. I'm keeping them. I think you should. 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 hello girls hello i like your nail color i feel like we do obviously we're on youtube so well i was about to ask you like not everyone we talk about clothes

we talk about shoes we talk about things and not everyone can see because they're listening but what color would you say your nails are lucy i I'd say like a burgundy. Like wine? Yeah, mulled wine. Holly and I are naked ninnies on the fingers. Well, I would rather be because look how chipped they are. You can't look chipped from here. Put your hands quickly and swiftly. I saw a TikTok that was saying like,

oh, there's like five things you can do to immediately, like without spending a lot of money. Elevate. Yeah, probably elevate, probably. And I've not had nails done for years. It does elevate a lot elevate yeah probably elevate probably and I've not had nails done for years it does elevate a lot it does you look put together

like I wish I had and you don't how good we don't how good would my aesthetic look like

yeah so you wouldn't go brown with her brown you would come dressed warmer yeah I just painted these myself and they're so chipped but I just bought one nail varnish and I will just like continuously

wear that now I'm the same I will die on that hill yeah yeah yeah I'm not one for swapping I might get one I might get one for this festive period get an easy dry one yeah mine was literally like five pounds and I needed to dry within 60 seconds because I will sweat it. Because my tension span is so yeah, I'm doing busy. Someone bought me once like a spray that dries your nails. It was Avon. I don't know if that's still going is it? No, I think it went, didn't it?

It went bust, didn't it? You spray, so you paint your nails and you just spray it and it dries them. Yeah, that's clever. I need that. Yeah. I hate painting my nails. That's why I don't paint them. Well, there's never a time to do it. It's like you have to sit, do nothing.

You can't pick up coats. You can't pick up children. You can't drive. You can't. And it's the shape in them as well. That's the painful bit. Like I've got loads of cuts because I let my nails get that long. Yeah.

I might put it in my budget. Do it. Go and get your nails done. Like go and get gels. Like you feel so good when you get gels. And I quite like going to get it go and get your nails done like go and get gels like you feel so good when you get gels and I quite like going to get it

I get a nice coffee but then I'm that girl that picks them off and I then ruin my nails if you get like go to the strong place

the strong or acrylics would you do acrylic I've never got acrylics before we used to have acrylics we were 15 and thought we were

the bees knees our mum buys us our nails I before. We used to have acrylics. We were 15 and thought we were bees knees. Our mum buys us our nails. I love that mum used to pay for us to get our nails done. Who the hell do we think we were? I used to get gels in uni like religiously. And then I left uni. That's bougie for a student.

Well, we were going to like the cheap places. Or it was literally like industrial. So it wouldn't chip. Got no fingers left. Literally. and I kind of miss it but it looks you look more elevated but then if I was if if you every month were like do you want to pay this subscription for 25 pounds I'd be like no yeah that's true it's the same thing yeah also it's where you're at in your journey because some people will be listening to this and you could be someone who gets your nails done you say it's where you're between your journey because some people will be listening to this and you could be someone who gets your nails done you say it's your treat and and then you're on a debt free journey and that's the time where you go brutal and you go okay how can i diy for x amount

of time or you might say you know even during through my debt free journey i kept going to the hairdressers my hair like i do not want to dye it myself i don't want to sort it myself that was my thing and so the nails went and that's actually because i used to dye it myself I don't want to sort it myself that was my thing and so the nails went and that's actually because I used to have it done and then I've not had it done for years but um you have to cut some things but there might be some things that's like no no that's literally hygiene yeah yeah literally imagine like going through a debt-free journey and then being like and I'm going back to get my nails done yeah like you know like you've paid it all off like you're in a good place and you're like what is really important to me yeah bring it back in welcome it back into your life into your budget what was the

thing that you welcomed back into your budget when you paid off all your debt I'm trying to think something that was a bit like a little bougie yeah like what you would think would be bougie when you're paying off debt but actually it's just pretty normal yeah for people yeah I think it was probably like better meals at home like the Marks and Spencers steak shop or maybe a nice bottle of wine or or eating out like because I'm a foodie I'd like I like going to nice places for food I went nowhere you know so whether it was a lunch choice I would say no and all my friends would go out to lunch and I would take lunch in the convenience thing I bet I think convenience is a big thing where you end up paying a little bit more yeah but when you're in debt you have to put the physical work in

and the mental work of yeah I'm gonna yeah I don't want to eat out tomorrow so I'll make my lunch tonight you know and then just imagine when you finally end up feeling like I'm not gonna make my lunch tonight I'm gonna go and buy it you bougie bitch I was gonna say I'm going for an M&S meal deal I've seen people actually in the app talk about that like what what comes back in like what are you planning to do and I think having that I'm looking forward to that and bringing it back into your budget like yeah you when you go super tight you want to do it for a period of time and then relax because this is then like a lifestyle thing it's not a intense intense forever so was that our controversial money opinion no oh sorry yeah sorry I got it was the nails it was

your fault I got distracted by the nails and then um hit us up with something less controversial okay settling for a stable job over pursuing a passion is a valid choice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like what's your vibe? I think we've talked about this, the nine to five concept before and people throwing shade on it and all that kind of stuff. But it depends what you mean by settling. So I, we we always laugh I'm always jealous of people that like work in really ordinary jobs sometimes because the mental load is a lot and the flexibility like the flexibility sometimes swings the other way and it's just it's a little bit crazy that that level of routine is really healthy for some people it's like the defined passion thing as well

like I think it's missold to you in your 20s passion doesn't mean job follow your passion and so for example say um you really love painting you're an artist i could love to be an artist for a job you can paint and it not be your job you can paint in your private life and you know evenings weekends you can take time off and paint but if it was your job you would still do loads more than the painting you would have to do the admin you might have a gallery you might have to sell your work you might have to do your invoicing you might you know so even if it's like you know if you wanted to be a singer and you're a really good

singer the moment that you're on stage is like probably two percent output of that job the rest of it looks hard work yeah and is it unstable and you know so it's I think it's been sold to you in when people try to pick what they want to be or you know we're picking options with our eldest at school at the moment it's so hard as a parent well at least for us though when for generation, it was genuinely connected to probably what you would study and do as a job. Whereas now, what I love is that what you study at school is highly likely to be nothing to do with what you do as a kid. It's a bit more connected to what you like.

All the kids want to be YouTubers. My five-year-old shouted out the window yesterday. I heard him, subscribe to my channel. I was like, what are you doing? He's like, I don't know. I'm just asking people to subscribe to my channel i was like what are you doing he's like i don't know he's asking people to subscribe to my channel really concerning i i do you know what we've never sat down and gone do you know why they ask that because it's better for the algorithm because they make more money teddy watches things where they say like it's a threat so i've like had to stop that where he's

what like if you don't subscribe and like my channel something's gonna happen to you really seriously oh my god we should start doing that watch the disclaimer at the end of the subscribe to this towards the end of the pod you know why send this to three people subscribe do you remember those chain yeah it was like the meta one the other week i hope none of us in the room shared the meta chain mail where it was like i do not give meta permission to access my face yeah a chain mail would be like an email it'd be like send this on to 10 people and bad things what happened and so i get them all the time for nothing do that what's up i'm gonna see this scam going around on whatsapp you know, you're probably contributing to it.

Yeah, you just spread it to all the scabs. It's like forwarded many times. Yeah, it's very great. But like Lydia, you're good at following your passions outside of work,

aren't you? Like because of the painting thing made me think of you. Yeah, you've got to keep your hobbies as hobbies. Otherwise, they're not hobbies anymore.

They're just always admin. If you monetize something, it's going to suck the joy out of it a bit, isn't it? What are your, list some of your hobbies that you do. Like, ooh. Yeah. Or that you've tried in the past. You've done quite a few.

This is hobby bingo. Yeah. Because if you don't say them, we will. Macrame. Yes. I made it. Oh, go on. Sorry.

Macrame. You know when you do knots and it makes like a plant hanger or like. Yes. I made it. Hang on, sorry. What was that? You know when you do knots and it makes like a plant hanger or like a... Yes. Yeah, like it was big in the 70s apparently. It's definitely made a comeback. Yeah, but like that's fun. But then once I'd bought like loads of it and made my own little sort of factory of it and I was like, you know, why am I doing this?

I sold like three on Facebook Marketplace and I was like I wasn't worth uh that's like turn it into a site everything has to be turned into like a side hustle you can't just do it because you like it yeah yeah what else have you done you've done painting didn't you painting yeah horse riding horse pottery pottery yoga yeah literally told you how you are like such an extracurricular yeah like i'm like what lydia's doing tonight after work lydia should do the tiktok my five to nine after my nine yeah it would be so different i would just be sat that's i haven't got a niche i've just got a little bit of every niche and you did salsa oh I tried bachata. What's that? A form of dance?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. My Turkish friend got me into that. I don't think I know what my passion is. So I think I need to do some... You need to do a list. I think we should... Dip your toe in something. I mean...

Do an activity day. Financial activity day. Activity day. I'm not getting on the horse. No, we're not sharing our passions. I'm happy for you and your passion I'll do pottery with you like ghost

we'll see if I can but I'm not doing the horse but it is true like actually especially you know we play the kid card a lot but as you're getting older

and like my hobbies wouldn't fit in the schedule because there are rugby drop offs and dance drop offs and how so

our WhatsApp group always comes into play here that we've got with our friends. Did you see the messages last night where people were listing out the hobbies that the kids do? And one of my friends is listening and she's got two kids. They're both really good at sport. So one does football full-time basically. Every night is another football thing.

But her daughter does like three hours of gym three hours of gymnastics on this night three hours of gymnastics on one day pony club I think twice a week she'll correct me if I'm wrong she does um yeah she does oh um synchronized swimming she's really good she does swimming as well separately and then she wanted to do um water polo and her mum was like nah like you're done like I cannot someone's asking for dance class recommendations and she said she doesn't do dance she's not got the rhythm she's a stupidly talented child but she like excels at all these things so like she doesn't just go to participate she just picks stuff up and he's extremely athletic I want to

pick a hobby and uh Carl dropped me off yeah yeah like I don't want extremely athletic. I want to pick a hobby and Carl dropped me off. Yeah. Yeah, like, after school club. Because I want to take myself. I want to be taken, dropped off. Give me a little snack

in the car as well. Oh my God, yeah. And hydration, like, this is the dream. Carry me as well. What would you do? What would you choose?

If you were like, right, you've got an hour every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. I would do a choir. A choir? Yeah.

But like a cool choir, like a rock choir or something. A cool choir. A cool mom. Because my mum did take me to one and we'll all agree. It wasn't cool. It wasn't. The choir master left and someone else came in and the drama. There was choir drama.

There was. We ended up with all the music sheets at our house which was a big fallout yeah so yeah

a proper choir like a cool choir my thing for both of you would be like I feel like you would then try

and like run the hobby that's my mum how do you know that's literally where mum gets it from our favourite game is run everyone else's business

so if you hear us talking to you about your business just tell us to shut up and walk away how many businesses have we fixed saved

like sent into in our head that's my passion not to take anything from her do you know what they should do and then we're like we'll lose an hour

and we'll be like shit should we do our own job should we run our own business wouldn't that be good a novel what would your passion be I don't know resting

you do that really well I thought you said wrestling I thought you said wrestling she did she did she's going to get the smack down I'm not going to lie when you said

if you had an hour what would you do nothing just lying on my bed just doing nothing with a hot drink oh my god i would fight you for it yeah that's my passion quiet silence my hobby is being calm i want to know now tell us what like if you're listening i want the dms actually into the insta or in the community do you have hobbies and are

you doing them do you have that do you have hobbies and you're not doing them and you wish you didn't do them and are they connected to your work because i and i think we were we're non-controversial straight away with that we're like no no actually there's we have to work to earn money to fund our lifestyle and sometimes as you said lydia maybe you don't want the two to me yeah i'm still trying to work out how i can incorporate my saxophone into this job uh you absolutely can she's in his dad's band she's a rollerblading saxophonist i think there's money in that she doesn't want to make money because then it spoils it that's true there's some like funky bar in the pool yeah imagine and then you

oh my god and then your rollerblades light up yeah oh yeah see I think we're onto something I think you need to

not enjoy your job that much in the day and then you truly enjoy your passion you're like you need a bit of misery to counteract and then you're like

this hobby's amazing but like good stable job means money which means options. Agreed. Okay. This next dilemma,

this person's like, thank God I've got these helping me. We are on fire with these practical solutions today. We're interrupting this pod to deliver a public service announcement. Ladies, you should prioritize your investment routine just like you do your skin routine. I worked investing into my payday routine with the help of Trading 212. Consistency is key with a routine and Trading 212's auto-invest feature can help you invest in a hands-off way.

Also, I find the daily notifications about how my portfolio is performing helps keep me motivated and accountable on my investment journey. Just a side note, we handpick our partners based on products that we love. If you want to take your investing routine as seriously as your skin routine, Trading 212 is a great place to start. So head to the link in the podcast description to get started. How should I be saving for my children's futures? I was listening to one of your podcast episodes this morning. It was the one where someone asked about her £500 excess and how to split it between an emergency fund, travelling and a house deposit. I loved your answer and it got me thinking how sinking funds are delayed spending and how that's different from saving. My question is, what would

saving for kids' futures be? For for example having a goal to gift them twenty thousand pounds when they're ready to buy a house is that a sinking fund or saving and would this be included in my net worth it was a good episode the one she's talking about the good dialogue and just highlighted this conflicting stuff um and also she's cracked the the mental thing about the sinking funds so when we do a budget we do our income and then we take off our fixed expenses sinking funds which are the monthly payments that you put into your pots of um money for planned spending for things coming up and then flexible expenses and then what's left over is our excess and that's what we put towards things that grow our net worth

so sometimes people say oh i've put my excess to my sinking funds it's like no no then you don't have an excess because that's exactly the point sinking funds are planned spending so it might be your travel part it might be your Christmas part it might be car insurance something a bit more routine and so those are sinking funds and they're for things that practically you usually will spend in the next year like it's further than that it's a little bit different it's a bit more of a saving spot because you kind of don't exactly know what it's going to go on so um when it's for saving for children's future again when we do the financial method and you do the playbook um we really want you to look at yourself don't we first yeah yeah you shouldn't be thinking too much i don't did she give um she doesn't give any more details but it's just say so I'm like I don't know it's really hard it's more if someone's listening and you're like oh I would like to save it's like people always

have a list of everything that they want to do and our biggest piece of advice is doing one thing at a time and following like Laura said the methodology the playbook so if this person has any debt do not be worrying about giving children 20 grand in the future like you've got to I've seen so many people recently doing that like you know they might be in they've not got an emergency fund but they put 25 pound a month into the into the kids and it's just kind of like just we'll get there probably benefit a lot more if you're okay sooner so many people think that they're doing the kids a disservice if they've not got a jicer and they're not investing for them but like you said if you can show them good money habits not being in debt having sinking funds saving up for things that are planned expense

not leaning on credit being sensible with your financial decisions that is so much more powerful and I always have to remember that when there might be something that comes up in our budget whereby we might not put as much to the kids investing like I felt guilty the first couple of times and I was like why am I feeling guilty like they're going to be fine because of what we're doing and how we live our life and how financially well we are they're going to be fine and whether there's 20 grand or there's 18 it doesn't really make a big difference but if you are struggling to pay the bills every month because you're worried about putting something in the jaysa that will harm you financially and your kids and how they view money yeah so like when we're thinking about

saving for children it's great to have always have an account for them because it's great if you like there's presents and you're like saying to relatives can you just not buy them shit can you put money in there like christmas is coming and it's such a good way that if during people ask you and you're like i just don't know like they're real they're real they've played i usually say like get them some chocolate or sweets yeah and then can you put money in the dry set? And then I show them, like we say, because they like,

so we teach that as well and show them their accounts. But yeah, making sure that you are stable, you've got an emergency fund, you're looking after your debt and then if, you know,

once you're at that point where you have excess cash to be putting into, you say extra savings and extra investing, that's when we should be looking at doing something like this. I have a similar goal. So I like how she said, I was like, into you say extra savings and extra investing that's when we should be looking at um doing something like this i have a similar um goal so i like how she said i was like laura laura is it

me i know that you've verbalized it's 21 by 21 so we want to save 21 grand per child by the time we came we've got three children and we came to this late for the eldest because again i was paying off debt when i was when i was a new mum to her and building up savings and kind of buying a home and so she whereas for the little man he we hit the first month he was born he had a contribution into his junior ISA because we had them set up so it's fascinating how I actually did a different calculation to factor in um it's really easy to do actually I will not profess to be a complete expert on the maths. There's tables and calculators. I was going to say there's a lot of timings. Yeah.

Because what you need to do is you want to be able to factor in growth. So what you don't do, I mean, you could do this, but you don't have to do 21 grand divided by 18 years divided by 12 months. You don't have to do that. You can factor in the fact that it will probably grow 5%, 6% a year. And so you actually don't have to put as much in. A simple calculation would just be how many months until they're 18 and then and then do that but with ava because she's got less time it won't grow gotta put more so she has i think yes i think she might have about 350 a month going into hers and he has 100 but he's got 20 years for it to compound um whereas she doesn't she's

gonna be 14 soon so she's only got what seven years before she's 21 but if you had something like coming up and you had to forego that month like this month we did we don't husband's changed jobs we were like wanting to we've got the festive period coming up so the sinking funds actually we're a little bit behind travel so we haven't invested in the junior ices this month or last month we did the month before that it's about being flexible with your budget as well like during people get a bit if you're quite like a big stick now yeah yeah you might feel like a failure if you're like i didn't pay into that we have to change that rhetoric like this our budget the financial method it's about flexibility and we move things up and we move things down and some months it might stay exactly the same for like six months that's okay like it's life is life like it will come but it's better to

pull back on because that's like what I call discretion discretionary investing and saving it's not an essential whilst we like to have it imagine if you put money into that account because you're a cyclopher and you're saying I have to but then you go into your overdraft because you've not got enough money for Christmas and it's kind of like you've just you know you need to look after your actual plan spending first and it can help you you know if you are a high spender and you're buying shopping online you know if you're buying a million dresses for Christmas if you're buying gifts for other people especially but if you're buying like gifts for other people like you're wasting money on gifts and then and then you've pulled back on that investing that should make you feel a bit bad yeah because actually you've made a silly spending decision

and you've pulled back on something that's really good for them that could have grown completely totally good goal um it's an interesting one i if it's in a junior mindset it's not in the net worth it's not yours so i it's funny because sometimes we do our net worth calculation around the third of every month. I like the mortgage payment have been made. So some people do it on the first, I do it on the third. And when, you know, some months, we've not done it the past couple of months,

but some months the investments obviously can add up to about £500 for us as a family, a little bit more into the kids' junior ISAsices and that doesn't move our net worth number and sometimes i'm like oh i wish you did because we are doing good here but it's not ours and so it's something that we don't track but we track it in the app i've got the goals it's in the family network and do you know what like so we keep seeing more and more about student loans and the percents going up it's absolutely dire but not loans and the percents going up. It's absolutely diabolical.

Not percents, sorry. The fees going up with unis. And it's just, it is diabolical. You just don't know where it's going to end. It's so criminal how expensive it is to get a further education. And so it's going to give us options. You know, cars are expensive. And we were super lucky as kids that we, our parents,

got us our first cars. We didn't have to buy them. Super, super privileged. And that meant I could drive and you could drive ourselves to college and to jobs actually we got jobs super early didn't have to rely on buses or late night travel or taxes or stuff um so and then you know I just don't know what the housing situation is going to be like for our kids when they're older but But there's options if you've saved. So it's a super good one. And the earlier the better.

And like I said, just with Ali's, the idea that you can do 50 a month and with compound it'll weigh past 21. It shows that actually even saving up five grand for them, you can do it with a small amount and it just be a little like snowflake in your budget and not like a really, really big one. But look after yourself first and then the family and the family budget I've seen people go without

because they think I need to put money in my kids chicer yeah no you don't little one on that actually you could we don't have to

some people put like child maintenance or child benefit into a kids account I'm like stop doing that if you're someone doing that now yeah take stop that

put it in the top of the budget it's income to run the house it might work out exactly the same you still end up putting money into savings but mental like it's like oh that's for that no no no it's not that's for you to run the house and your partners to run the house you know look after yourself first and if in the budget there's room to save great amazing but that came out the income it's a bonus yeah community win time i'm a new follower and have been catching up with your podcast the last few weeks you have really made me look at money in such a different way you explain it so simply and it makes sense i just want to say thank you i'm slowly getting

there with the budget and i've even got my best friend interested we have set up weekly monday money meetings where we talk about what we've spent and how we feel about finances love that I've seen in the community this past month a massive influx of newbies saying so it's my first month so it's my second month and I just keep doing it and if you're new and you want to find more stories of people like you who are hearing this and going I want to budget this way especially that you know we've got new year coming up like really good time to kind of start afresh and stuff and people keep saying I'm new and I love the confidence of someone coming into a community going okay this is where I'm at and and sharing and you're just sharing it with people that just want to vibe and support you

and get excited so um yeah I love the money Monday I do we're all joining on that that's like accountability after a weekend as well yes for sure time for it yeah if you would like to send us your win head to the community in the app or email it to the vault at financial.com okay listeners I've got a controversial money opinion from our friends at PensionBee it's easy to sort out your pension. Agree? Disagree? Hard agree, but it really does depend on who your pension provider is. I've had them all. A pale, stale male coming into my place of work to talk to me about pensions whilst I daydream about what's for dinner. Or an annual statement that drops on the doormat, left unopened for months with loads of unhelpful jargon. But in the last couple of years, I found PensionBee and all

that changed. Yeah, I'm a PensionBee girlie too and I've never looked back. It's so easy to set up. You get your very own UK-based account manager or a beekeeper as they are called, who is on hand to support you. With PensionBee, it's easy to combine, contribute flexibly and withdraw your pension money all in one place. Download the app today to get started or head to pensionbee.com for more information and remember when investing your capital is at risk. Time for our next dilemma. I'm scared to make a mistake with my husband's life insurance payout. My husband recently passed away unexpectedly and honestly I'm still in shock. I'm so grateful he took out a life insurance policy because it's given us some financial security during this nightmare. He always handled the bills and managed our finances, so now that he's gone, I feel completely lost. I received the payout, but it's overwhelming to figure out what to do next.

There are funeral costs, bills and daily expenses I've never dealt with before. I want to make sure this money lasts and provides for our family, but I'm scared I'll make a mistake. How do I manage it all and make the right decisions for our future? Just the weight. The weight of it all. Sorry if you're lost. That's awful. I can't even fathom what you're going through right now.

I wonder how old she is. She doesn't say. She doesn't say don't say um got a family sounds like she's looking after a family so i'm assuming there's children involved which is just horrendous just imagine the weight of that i mean this is why you get life insurance as well credit to your husband and you for putting that in place because a different dilemma could be a husband's has to make he handled everything, we've no money. Yeah.

And I've got to pay for funeral costs that you would never expect to do as young as they probably are. And just that decision that you both made, which like I said, we've talked about this before, for a relative nominal cost generally, especially just for life insurance. I know there's other protections and stuff that you can look at but credit to you both yeah this is a different

dilemma i'm just about to say there's definitely dilemmas out there and we've seen them whereby people have come with that story we didn't we didn't get life insurance and now there's nothing to go at first of all like time just take your time get some get someone to help you as well like you don't have to navigate this alone I remember there was a death in our family and everyone kind of rallied around and helped that person knowing that they probably didn't look after all the household bills and all those types of things as well so you need someone in your corner even if it's on the life and even just on the life I've been in yeah like cancelling thing and navigating probate and I mean

usually with life insurance it sounds like she also got the money because um it's outside of what probate typically probate is when you know they'll look at whatever assets he had and because they were married most would go to her anyway and so like it's business as normal um in terms of most payments but like there might be loads of things you have to cancel there might be loads of stuff that actually someone else can help you with that and you're not having to do all those phone calls and stuff. Because I think there's like templates and things that you can find online whereby they can just send them to the companies where it's like, so-and-so has passed away.

Can you please do X, Y, and Z? Like she won't have to visit. Sometimes you have to ring and it's really difficult and companies are trying to do better. I've seen nightmare stories and they're very conscious of it not getting out there, that they've not handled like a death of their customer very well.

So I feel like companies are getting much better at it and there should be ready-made templates that you can send but spreadsheet, list everything. Me and Neil did this

the other day. I know we've got a life admin area in the app that's really good for this as well but his name is on a lot of these things

and not on mine so we've created a joint email address whereby that's the email address that we sign up to all the that's such a good idea oh my god i get anybody like i just like make sure i forward it so that someone else like it's joint responsibility because like my you've seen it as well yeah because i was like look i know you're great at admin and he is and he'll just jump on stuff

straight away and i'm like i'll come to the party a bit later like should we and he's like done it I'm like all right um but that her husband could have been that person it sounds like yeah that's fine and you're not saying I'm not saying I don't want to take over that but I would like to have sight of it so I made him list out all the people that we've got policies with um it's in a lovely spreadsheet but you can do it in our app as well there's a life admin area um put the email address put the name put the the email address like everything we just put everything in there and i just think that for someone else that's listening so not necessarily this person to help that's a really good way of making sure that you can just tackle it straight away it's called um it's called like for when i'm gone as well there's like a little thing called for when i'm gone and you can leave recipes to people.

You can leave safe codes to people. There's a story. She's telling a story because we went to my wonderful parents-in-law's house this weekend and we got the will talk. Really? Yeah, I think they've been just redoing it, which is a good thing. You can do it regularly. But she was like, so the wills and the policies

are in the safe under the stairs make it up I don't know where they live they might find out okay lie I can't tell

I feel like I can't tell the story just say in the shed well basically well there's a there's a safe with policies in and the key to that

is in a different safe somewhere else in the house oh my god and then the key to that safe is somewhere else in the house it's like a what policies in and the key to that is in a different safe somewhere else in the house oh my god and then the key to that safe is somewhere else in the house it's like a what's in it an escape room

this is an escape room I was like where's the pirate's map and X marks the spot so I was yeah it was like I don't think there's any jewels

in the safe it sounds like there's just paperwork but it's a game to play and to try and find them out but again they've got huge dogs as well

there was a dog involved. They actually do. But it was like, I just love that they put the thought, like, obviously they had a really good,

fun, putting together the game of finding it. But they've got them and they're planning for it and that was super cool. And I think that that and life had me

and I hadn't really thought about the angle hall, that's super important. But the first thing you said, time. yeah so time what I would like to think for our our listener that she can take the time to um park in any lump sums of money ignore them make sure it's somewhere that's earning some interest because you may as well like it's just best practice but even if that overwhelms you doesn't really matter yeah you are focusing on um like your basic needs and looking after you and your children and getting through every day and then

you get through every week and then you get through every month and if she hasn't run the household budget before um i'd like to come to us as well if you want if that's a little bit of help we can we can work with you and and look at your budget with you but just running a budget and getting to the end of the month is your goal first because if there was um obviously if he had a salary which i presume he did and suddenly you've not got that salary you're going to have a shortfall and that's where what you do is you work out what your budget is you work out what the gap is you may need to top it up from the from the lump sum that's all you do right now there's going to be lots of other options later that i 100 you need to go see a financial advisor on.

It's going to be things like, do you want to pay your mortgage off? How much cash would you like to hold in emergency savings now you're a single parent household? You may want to invest the money. There may be pensions that you want to keep as invested because that'll grow in the background. You could also come with arrangements

where you work out what you're short a month and the investments can can pay you like a bit of a salary as well so that you've lots of options that you really want to look sit down with an independent person and work through and a really good one will sit and go a lot of financial advisors and i know some of you listen to this and so i am on your side and they're not on your side sometimes you'll go oh the maths say don't pay off your mortgage put it in the market and sometimes it feels better to pay off your mortgage and not have to pay that bill who cares about maths if it's about how you feel yeah if mortgage is such a weighted word it literally is especially if you like

you say you've been together as a couple and you're imagining paying off your mortgage together because that's like a big goal for everyone you're left with a mortgage like it's a big heavy word do me a favor google what the word mortgage means i think something to do with death oh it's like death luck it's like a gauge literally it's like french so if you could get rid of that imagine that but yeah sometimes i think i'm gonna go morning sometimes financial advisors do go it literally means death pledge yeah yeah it's like so so so you may have a mortgage and a financial advisor will go oh but mathematically if you put it in the market and let's be clear a financial advisor if they're charging fees makes more money if you put it in the market than if's be clear a financial advisor if they're charging fees makes more money

if you put it in the market than if you yeah you know i'm not saying they would they've got don't get me wrong but they also have a vested interest in you investing versus you paying off your mortgage so going to someone that's recommended to you that you trust that it's regulated you can find that they're regulated park that conversation for six months time yeah because right now you're healing and you're navigating again suddenly having to run the house on your own run the bills on your own and navigate all this and if you can get like i said to balance your books on a monthly basis you win him you can try in the app as well a lot of people when they've got when something's happened there's

been a trigger like a job loss or a death or a divorce they'll practice some budgets like further on as well just to give you like a little bit of peace of or a divorce they'll practice some budgets like further on as well just to give you like a little bit of peace of mind yeah you're like how i'm gonna afford christmas that that comes into especially a mother's head because we do bear the weight of that like that emotional weight like oh what's going to happen at these periods like do some budgets and just see how it goes i think just nearly one thing without mortgage payments in what would that feel just see you model it you have a little look and and gaining confidence like if you've not been the budgeter it's really

overwhelming perfect getting the community people will say it's my first budget and it's wrong like it's probably going to be wrong like the first ones are sometimes mine goes wrong like we run this business and i'm like me and neil will do like a money minute and we'll be like what the bloody hell happened this month like stuff even though you can you can plan forward plan as much but something might just come up and you didn't move something from your pot and and it will just go awry and that's okay like and you are you are human but call on people like find the friend that's the organizer that love some people like to do these things and they want to help so don't feel bad either about leaning on people and and being vulnerable and saying I didn't really look after the household stuff I did these bits of the house so

can you just help me come up with a bit of a plan and you you don't have to even if it's not your personality type to have like said you didn't lead on it you can do it and you don't have to do it like he did it either like if he was a find your own system but good at this system you can have like a minimalist approach sometimes to some of this like I said make it simple keep it straightforward you might consolidate like providers because it's easier and it might cost a little bit more but you have peace of mind and stuff won't go unpaid and all that kind of stuff yeah and do you'll get you'll you'll be amazing at it you'll just nail one thing at a time once you've nailed that one thing it becomes second nature and you'll

learn the next thing and eventually you'll just have a like the financial method is all about having a system that just just works and kind of is repeatable so you don't have to redo things every time so let us know how you get on I'm so sorry for what you've what you've been through but you um you you're in good hands with what your husband and you put in place yeah and um and you're in good hands because we'll look after you as well yeah definitely any final words get life insurance yeah so many people just like i'll deal with that later it's like no no like death can come at any point yeah you're not going to get a pre-warning just just get it and the younger you are the cheaper it is so i always like that that analogy which is it it's virtually apart from like you know health issues aside it's never going to be cheaper than it is today it's like this deal

that's just going up and up and up so you may as well kind of lock in that deal now and make it part of your budget because it's only going to go up in expense later that's all for this episode the vault is now closed just a quick disclaimer the vault is just a chat our life and money topics we are not giving financial advice