The Vault with Financielle - UNLOCKED: Budgeting for maternity leave, childcare, and life’s big expenses

Episode Date: June 15, 2025

Send us a textThis week’s Unlocked is all about budgeting for life’s big (and small) moments.Laura answers your questions on maternity leave, emergency funds, student loans, childcare costs, and more — with tips to help you feel more in control.Connect with our Partners🐝 Consolidate your pensions with PensionBee (capital at risk)🫶 Protect yourself and loved ones with our friends at Lifesearch✍ Write a will that is tailored to you with Octopus Legacy🏡 Meet our Financielle approved Mortgage Brokers💸 Commission-free investing* with Trading 212 (capital at risk)🛒 Cashback on your shopping with Jam Doughnut (use code FINC)*The above are tracked links, which tells our partners we sent you and may in future result in a payment or benefit to our site.The 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

Welcome to The Vault Unlocked by financial. It's Laura here for your solo episode of the week where I've got a few things to chat about actually. So you're listening to this on Monday. Last weekend, I went to Edinburgh for my anti-surprise 60th. Holly and I, you know, both founders of the financial app, but we are sisters and we have a really close relationship with

our mum and our aunt. There's two years between them two, two years between us two, kind of we've come as a four. A couple years ago we went to Paris for my mum's 60th and this year, this last weekend we went to Edinburgh for Auntie Ruth's 60th. I feel like I need to call her Auntie Ruth because she's all your aunties because we talk about her a lot and you may have heard her Auntie Ruth because she's all your aunties because we talk about her a lot and you may have heard her out before, she's the absolute winner that's killing it with her pension and leaning into investing you know post 55 and obviously she's now just turned 60. We're so so proud of her and we just had the best time so she's all your Auntie Ruth so let's say happy

birthday Auntie Ruth from all your financial girlies and guys. And we definitely have been saving for this for over a year. We have had an Auntie Ruth's birthday sinking fund. And so we have been putting little bits of money aside and paying the bit of the accommodation when it was ready and train tickets. Although truth be told, I only found out it was Edinburgh about a few weeks ago because they thought I would tell her, which I would, but not intentionally.

I just can't really keep a secret that well. And so I would definitely be saying something like, Oh, when we go to Edinburgh or, you know, say something to the kids and the kids will tell her. So they didn't tell me, but then Holly accidentally told me, she said, Oh, we can do that in Edinburgh. And I was like, I'm not going to Edinburgh. And it didn't, I hadn't even remembered that we were going on this trip. So all that to say, we spent the year saving up and it really meant for a guilt-free trip. We really didn't spend

that much, I mean as a fall we don't really drink that much and we kind of did things like we did brunch a couple of days so we didn't do breakfast and we didn't do lunch, we had the brunch that was the one meal and then we'd have like another meal at night and I think that worked out. We didn't go shopping but we went into a couple of shops. And so Auntie Ruth went into a jewelry shop around the corner from where we'd had breakfast. We had a gorgeous breakfast at the Edinburgh Lada, which I can really recommend. It was so, so nice just off the Royal Mile. And then we went to this beautiful little shop and she loves rings and keeps them on.

Like she picks a ring. It's a ride or die. Like she's got some, we were counting that some are 20 years old. So she had some money saved up and she bought a guilt-free birthday purchase it's funny because the other rings on her hands were you like she's not bought them from Manchester or somewhere around the corner from us she's traveled like one was from I think Spain and not a lot another one might have been Portugal so yeah so she's collecting her memories on her fingers.

And that was amazing. And then we also went into Harvey Nichols for a glass of champagne and happened to look at some of the handbags. The coach display was amazing actually, absolutely killing it. Load of reductions, which is helpful. And she's in the market for a new bag.

She's got a Mulberry Antony, which for those people that don't know, it's a cross the body tan bag, absolute banker. It's 10, 15 years old. So she's probably thinking, oh, I'm ready for a bit of an upgrade. for those people that don't know it's a cross the body tan bag absolute banker it's you know 10 15 years old so she's probably thinking oh i'm ready for a bit of an upgrade and it's a fun experience i spotted this little coach bag which i did an instagram post on this is a god's honest truth and i i got this little bag and it's like chanel-esque and it's quilting but it was just pocket size and it was i feel like i could put like my lip gloss and my car keys and my phone and

that's all I'd need in it. I happen to have white jeans, white t-shirt or white jeans, white vest and a baby pink blazer. So this candy pink little handbag just looks so cute. I wear a lot of black so I was like, oh it'd look really good with black. I could wear it around the village. I could wear it going out. I could wear it just going for a walk, spiraling. Just how many of you probably do now. Now it was really interesting because firstly, it looked good. Secondly, the price was amazing. It was reduced to 270 for this coach bag.

So big reduction, like it might even have been a 50% reduction. I can't remember. Definitely a big one, more than 30% reduction had the money. In fact, my mom was there and she was like, oh, well, we get you something for your birthday so we can put money towards it. And this is what we do. This is how easy it is to go from I was not planning on making a purchase. I have no need for a little cross the body candy pink bag to collecting the reasons why this is a

really good purchase. Now the ending of that story is I didn't buy the bag. I followed the financial rules which is in the moment you definitely don't buy. Especially if it's something that you weren't looking for and you weren't planning for, you definitely don't buy and you wait and I waited and we were going on a comedy walking tour which was so much fun and so we were late actually for it was funny I was like she had the bag on me and we're like oh my god we've let you wasted all this time and we're gonna be late. We thanked the assistant for helping us she wasn't pushy she wasn't too salesy she was super helpful she looked in the back for other colors

francy Ruth and so off we went but in the moment when I'm trying it on in front of the mirror guys the heart rate starts going you get excited you think you're gonna get something new I had the money in the bank account I don't have to but if I wanted to I could have rang my husband and said I'm thinking about making this purchase like is that okay he would have said yes like he's an absolute would always say yes because he knows that I'm reasonable in spending and I'm very pragmatic and I spend in proportion to our budget. So this was a moment, this was a moment where I could have got the bag. But I didn't.

And actually the ending of this story is I won't get the bag, but I could have so easily done it. To be fair, I actually reflected that if I see a similar bag in a tan, that's a color bag that I don't have. I wear a lot of blacks and beiges and tans, especially if the fan and shell. It was fan and shell pink. So like I said, I can get giddy about this and maybe I'll look online in the next couple of weeks and find it and maybe I'll rebuy it.

I'll go, it was fan and shell pink. But can you hear what I'm doing? I'm justifying it to myself. But the point is in the moment, it was all about the dopamine. It wasn't about the thing. I didn't need the thing. Now you can have things that you want

and not that you need, but I wanna share it because it's something that a lot of us struggle with and I rarely go shopping. And so I haven't tested myself in that scenario for a long time and honestly I was nearly there. That little bag, bearing in mind I was wearing my Chanel, like my Chanel handbag is, oh this is what I'm trying to work, how old I am, 16, 17 years old I've got a Chanel from when I was, I bought it when I was 21 and I was more excited about this pink bag than the Chanel bag that I have. It was all feels.

It wasn't real. It wasn't real life. But I could, you can so easily see how if you put yourself into positions where sales and marketing just had a glass of rosé champagne and I was getting all the feels and it was like, no, don't. So yeah, I wanted to share that with you because we're all human and we all feel it. And I will absolutely tell you if I go back and buy the bag. But right now I can sleep at night and I'm not good at.

Okay, so I'm going to jump into some questions and these questions. Actually, I did a Q&A while I was in Edinburgh on financial Instagram and we got so many that I typed some responses to some. But actually I was like, oh, that'd be perfect for unlocked actually, because I had no signal on the train, because let's, we all know that you never get any signals on trains. So we're gonna walk through some. So some, it was basically me saying, ask a question,

make a comment, share a win. So we're gonna walk through some, and I honestly have not looked at these. So we're gonna dive into these Instagram questions, and I honestly haven't checked them before doing this. So we'll see what we get. Hopefully I'd asked for like questions, comments, wins. The first one is a win. It's someone saying they've saved a hundred pounds

by doing no spend me. And that is amazing. That is exactly what no spend challenges are for. We talked about my impulsive spending potential earlier on and it's so easy to go off track and to spend when you are tempted to. So setting yourself a specific challenge is a great way of keeping spending to essentials and not having this discretionary spending that can just creep up. And the fact that you have saved a hundred pounds just by doing a no spend challenge in May shows you how much wastage we could all have in our budgets. And so if you were listening to this and you fancy getting extra hundred quid in

June and, and or July or any month or more even, and getting on with a no spend challenge, both in the app, if you scroll down to the blogs or on the website, financial.com, go to search and just search for no spend challenge. You will see lots of resources on how to do your no spend challenge. So well done. Okay, the next one is how to prep for maternity pay whilst paying off debt. Yes, so obviously in the playbook, we have a flow that you would tend to follow generally. So you would do build up a mini emergency fund of at least one month's expenses.

And then you would move on to your debts. You would pick the debt snowball or the debt avalanche and you would pay the, the one that you chose. First, if you did debt snowball, you would be choosing the smallest debt. And if it's debt avalanche, you would start with the highest interest and you'd go all in on that one debt, that one debt, go, go, go until you finished. And then you go on to the next one and the next one. And then when you're debt free, you then build up a bigger emergency fund of

between three to six months expenses is like the more common amount, but people have lots of different amounts based on whether they're a single homeowner or whether they have a unstable job or fluctuating income and stuff. So that's the flow that you go through. And when it comes to things like maternity, this is either that you are expecting and that you know when maternity is going to start or many of you guys that we chat to are planning it at some point, you know, it's not for you right now, or it's something that you're working to.

at some point, you know, it's not for you right now, or it's something that you're working to... You know, it's not something that you... It's something that you hope to be in your future and you just want to be aware of financially preparing for it. And it's hard because one of the best things that you can do when you are on a lower income and when you're on maternity leave is not have consumer debt, because having those payments going out is so frustrating but at the same time you also need to make sure that you have the right levels of emergency savings. Maternity pay is notoriously

poor, not everyone gets full pay at all or for a short period of time and so really it's entirely up to you. What a lot of people do is they do want to pile up the cash. There's something about waiting for that new arrival and that big change at home and that big change in lifestyle that having money in your back pocket, should you need it, makes you feel better. And so much of what we talk about is how you feel. It's not just about the numbers and you might pay all your minimums on your debt,

but build up, build up and build up this big pot of cash. And then once baby's here, once you're out on mat leave, you can decide whether actually you overpay debt with that lump sum or a big chunk of it. But at least you had that emergency money should you need it. Now, when you're prepping for maternity, there's two elements that you have to prep for. One element is that you are likely to need stuff, to need things. This baby is gonna need somewhere to sleep

and it's gonna need a pram and it's gonna need a car seat. It's gonna need some clothes and it will need things. And so it's really handy to make a list of all the things that you think baby will need and put a figure on that. Now, as with everything, you can go uber bougie and ridiculous and super expensive, or you can do re-gifting and Facebook Marketplace, you know, and choose the things that you are bougie with and choose the things that you're completely happy with paying, you know, accepting something for free or paying something quite cheap. But you need to pick that figure.

And if we're going to buy those things, we need to save up for them. There's no point overpaying debt and then getting to when baby's about to arrive and you're starting to buy things and you're having to put it on credit. This is like a sinking fund. So you need a mat leave sinking fund for things that you will need. And in that scenario, especially if you know when baby's gonna be here and this is more in like a shorter term anticipation rather than it's something for the future, then I guess if I was in that scenario,

I would possibly not overpay my debt, but I'd save up a prudent amount that would cover that and I would stick to that budget and I would make sure that I don't blow it and that I don't and I would make that I don't. And I would make it that I don't blow it. And actually, if I could save anything and if there's anything left over, it could then later go back on debt, couldn't it? So that's part one. You need to know what money do I need to buy the things or to do the things required for me to be able to have a baby at home. The second part, and this is more about what you ask, is how to prep for maternity pay, because often there's a gap and we also need to work with our partner if we have one, because often there's a gap and so if we have a partner, we often have to work with them because they need to help on this point as well.

And plug the gap so that you don't again get into debt during maternity leave. And the way that you do that is you look at your budget and you create, and this is what's good about the app because you could create a maternity leave budget. So many people have done this and screenshotted it and sent it in. You can create like a fictional budget which is, let's pretend it's gonna be the month of October and that's gonna be your first month on maternity pay. You might have some reduced costs because you might not have to commute into town.

You might not think you're gonna put as much into travel. You might not need And things like that, so you do a budget with your expenses, but you also importantly put the end and things like that. Pardon me. And things like that. So you do a budget with your expenses, but you also importantly put the income and things like that. So you do a budget with your planned expenses during maternity leave, but you also need to then look at the maternity pay situation. And this will change depending on the package that you get. If you get, for example, six months full pay, then for six months, it's the budget that

you've always used. And then if it stops or if it tapers off, then you need to make sure that you do the budgets for those months that it's lower. And there's going to be a deficit. What that means is you're not going to you're not going to have enough income coming in to cover your expenses. And this can help inform what pot of cash you need to essentially supplement your income. Now, for many people, this might be it for after like six, seven weeks. You might, from six, seven weeks, you go on to statutory maternity pay in the UK, equivalent in your country if you get it.

And it will be tiny, so there will be a big deficit. So you need to do a budget, a hypothetical budget for that first deficit month where you are, for example, on statutory maternity pay, but your expenses, your expenses might be a bit reduced, but not by much. And you're going to have a deficit. And so let's pretend that you are £500 in the deficit. So let's pretend you are say £500 deficit. So you're minus £500 at the end. If that's the case, if that's going to be the case for let's say six months, you need to find 3000 pounds,

have it in a savings account and you need to pay yourself 500 a month like it's a little part-time job. I mean, it's more than a part-time job, it is a lot more of an intense job. But that's how this works. So the two plots of money are, what will I need to buy from maternity? And that obviously can be as low as you can make it,

depending on how aggressive you can be in how you choose to buy things. But the other one is your pay deficit. So coming up with a pot of money that helps to supplement the household income for when you are not on your full time wage or your bigger wage. And lastly, you know it's really important to us that people do this prepping for maternity also involves thinking about pensions. So what happens is, so in a nutshell,

what happens is even though your employer will continue to put your pension contributions into your pension, you don't necessarily, you don't at the same rate because you're being paid less. And so it's really important to have a quick look at what that gap is in pension contributions whilst you're off looking after the baby and have a chat with your partner if you have one to see this is a bill. Like, can we make sure that we continue to proactively invest in either a self-invested personal pension or in a work one, if I speak to HR, but don't lose out

during that time on really important contributions of which you get the government tax kind of contribution and then you'll get the growth hopefully in the portfolio. But yeah, that's maternity. Someone else says, just paid off my last consumer debt. So proud. That moment where you do it is just game changing and you just feel like you can take on the world. So well done for doing that. I can't wait to see your progress now.

What you're going to do is you're going to jump straight over to the bigger emergency fund, pick that figure, set that goal in the app, put a pretty picture on it, set a deadline and a date and go hell for leather. I mean, I don't obviously I don't know the size of your emergency fund and I don't know the size of the emergency fund that you want and the size of access that you have. But imagine if by the end of the year, you can say that you are 100% consumer debt free and you have a big, fat, juicy emergency fund.

So let's go, keep us updated, let us know how you get on. Someone's put, you're in Edinburgh, I work on that street as a financial advisor. Oh my gosh, now I need to work out which, now I need to go back on the pictures and see which, now I need to go back on the pictures and see which street it was. I did walk past what looked like a really cute

financial advisor office, actually, the buildings there are so beautiful where we stayed was amazing. This Airbnb on Stafford Street was where we stayed. And there's some cute little coffee shops and stuff around there. Really pedestrianized, I felt like. It just was really quiet. And these streets were empty. I went for an amazing run actually on, what day was it?

We went Saturday. Okay, Sunday. I went for a run to Arthursea and walked up it like me and all the other Gen Zs that were pretending we were on the film one day. It was more fun going up it than it was going down. Jesus, I was really hurt. I've got a sore toe and it really wasn't,

wasn't, wasn't, I've got a sore toe and I've got a little bit of a sore toe and it really wasn't very pleasant, but the view was pleasant. It was amazing. So thank you for, listen, the thing we thought in Edinburgh is everyone was so welcoming

Every single member of staff Fussed over on series for a birthday. No one nothing was too much for anyone There's usually one dick like the usual is that wasn't so I'm gonna message you now and be like where you work And did I is this one I saw I? Think it was a couple of doors down from a window with a cat in it. Oh, nevermind. Someone else says, got my new rate today for the September remortgage and it wasn't as bad as I'd been worried about. So many people have been worried about the change of interest rates, especially people that were on like five-year deals with the one percents in it. And that really was the outlier. That's not something in the UK that we're going to see,

God, if we see ever again. I mean, never say never, but for a long time. And so lots of people have been panicking about flipping on to the new rates. I've seen so many of you aggressively overpaying your mortgage and trying to reduce that capital amount down, which is great, because what that means is the interest. Because what that means is when you renegotiate because what that means is when you get your new mortgage, obviously the amount that you're borrowing or re borrowing is a lot lower and so the interest that you pay and the monthly payments that you are potentially making are lower as well. And keep an eye on it, especially if you're sticking with the same company,

the same bank, if the rates continue to come down or if the Bank of England rate comes down again or if the commercial interest rates are just, or if commercial interest rates are just coming down, then you may be able to relock in a lower rate. So don't sleep on this, keep on it and you never know. Oh, actually, so this is why I should read ahead. But someone else has said, how much money should I save for mat leave? I get 13 weeks full pay, 13 weeks half pay, 13 weeks statutory and 13 weeks nothing. said how much money should I save for you don't have because you're not going to work. 13 weeks half, so there's gonna be a deficit. So create these little budgets in your app,

say like do a half budget and see what the deficit is. And then you do the same with a statutory and then when there's nothing, you've obviously not contributing any income, there's no income. And then with nothing, there's obviously no income coming in. And so what you need to work out and total up

is what pile of cash do you and your household need to build up to be able to afford maternity leave. So let us know how you get on with that I would love to I think we need to do a bit more indeed on this because I think it's really helpful for people. So let's put I can't okay another one says I plan to clear a 7k debt with overpayment but would you save beyond I plan to clear a 7k debt with overpayments but would you save beyond... I plan to clear a 7k debt with overpayments but would you save beyond emergency first? So this is a straightforward... so the flow that we do things in is we build a mini emergency fund of at least one month's expenses. It can be more if you prefer more. I really wouldn't recommend less at least one month's expenses and that gives you that

powerful money in your back pocket for when not if something comes up. It can help you if you've got your budget wrong, it can help you if you it can help you if an emergency comes up and usually you would use credit where you don't need to because you can rely on that money so we would definitely focus on doing that. Then lots of people in our community have found so many wins by focusing on overpaying one debt at a time. So I don't know if you've got more than one debt, but you do reference a 7k debt and you say with overpayments and this is exactly what you would then do. So if you've got your emergency fund in as high a yield savings account as you can find, you then hammer one debt at a time with overpayments

and you overpay by doing a budget and creating excess cash in that budget and that's squeezing it and making sure that you are spending less than comes in. And once you've made your minimum payment you then look to see what else can you do as an overpayment and just go hammer on that debt. Next question, borrowing for an extension when remortgaging, where to put the money until it's needed at 55k. Okay, the biggest thing that you have to be worried about is that you will dip into this money. This money is expensive money because you have borrowed it and

you're paying a percentage on top of it to use it. And so what we don't want is really to be easily accessible and just like available to dip into. And we'll just use that or we could do the new washing machine. Or what about this? What about that? If you're doing an extension, you need a tight budget, a super tight budget. You need a contingency because you will absolutely spend 10 to 15% more.

I've never heard anyone not doing that. In my own experience and other people's experience, but lock this down. Now practically you don't wanna lock it down because obviously if you're putting away in a fixed saver for a year, you're gonna need it. And so if it were me, I'd be putting this money into one or two high yield savings accounts

that are easy access and that are not in the same bank as my current account. So it's not easy to transfer money and just promise yourself, this is only for the extension, it's not for anything else. I hope that helped. Okay, next up, struggling with setting a food budget as I feel disappointed in myself when I go over tips. You and me both, honestly, it's the one that I say I struggle with the most. I just find it really hard to budget for groceries.

I think it's my stubbornness as well that I can't believe that food does cost what it costs. And so I set this what I think is quite a high budget. But the reality of the situation is it's not that high and we have a family of five and it kind of is what it is. When we've budgeted it too low and you have to transfer money from a different pot or flexible expense or a sinking fund or God forbid your emergency fund because you budgeted too low for that grocery budget, that's frustrating too and that makes you feel rubbish. So I think the best thing to do is if you are going over, go back and add up what you spent on groceries last month and the month before and the month before that, look at

what you actually spent, not on what you set in the budget. And I would pick that amount and add 10%. Give yourself more room and just try it out because it might be that you're trying to force a budget in that's just too narrow. At the very least, give yourself what you have been spending, if not uplift it a little bit and take the hit on either a different category or on your excess or on savings or you know whatever you're doing, you might have to slow down that progress to get an accurate food and grocery budget. Once you have that space and it's

not too tight, I still would set yourself a little bit of a target for making sure you optimize that spending. So can you do meal planning? Can you do online orders? It means you're not tempted to go over. Can you plan batch cooking so that you get in a more cost-effective way of managing the food budget? Anything you can do to stop these amounts creeping up and suddenly, you know, you're halfway through the month and the food budget's gone, You're not alone on this and I do want us to do a lot more content and stuff helping people on optimizing that food budget but ultimately my view is you need to up the budget and give yourself a bit of grace. Someone said listening to your pod puts me in a saving frame of mind. If I don't wanna it's a bad sign. I know that means if you don't want to listen to it it's a

bad sign. Listen I'm here to be your financial Jiminy cricket on your shoulder. And listen, it's not all super responsible. It can be fun as well. I'll not always be the boring one. I will allow you to have fun and try and steer you. But yeah, I know what you mean. If you're not up for it, you're not up for it.

Someone said, long time Insta follower, recent app user and pod listener. Love you girls. You're changing lives. Thank you so much for that feedback. We really, really appreciate it. And thank you for following us for so long on Instagram. It's really weird on Instagram seeing these pop-ups now saying like three years ago,

four years ago, and I can't, I still see Franchelle as a little baby, a little group of people just trying to do better with their money, not, you know, getting older and older. But the thing is, as time goes on and as the wins get bigger, because people have been doing this longer, like I am really excited to start sharing the stories of OGs that started off in debt and started off with no savings and have, you know, graduated through the stages, through the playbook and they've gone through the survive and they've gone through build and they've bought property on their own sometimes, and they are willing to grow, and it's our job to get you all to grow.

So thank you for that message, and make sure you keep us updated on what you're up to. Another one says, would you include student loan in net worth, feeling disheartened at the amount? Student loans is just an absolute beast of an issue. It's an issue because a lot of people have an awful lot of debt that especially given, you know, inflation and how the interest rates are calculated are just going up and up and up. And for many, it's going up at a rate that it was never envisaged. You know, in fact, a lot of people don't realize that student loan debt starts accruing interest from the very first payment you receive. And so people come out of uni and they've

already been accruing interest for three years and so it's really sad because I feel like a lot of people feel like they were really miss-sold, miss-sold what you know what it involved and kind of making it feel like not a big deal. Now listen, I love the access to education, I love the fact that you can borrow to invest in your education but the fact of the can borrow to invest in your education. But the fact of the matter is a lot of people are never going to pay off these loans. And so we end up in a situation like you've said, which is, should I count this towards my personal net worth? You know, this could be tens of thousands of pounds. It could be hundreds

of thousands of pounds worth of student loan, which would blow most people's net worth just out the water. You know, and given a regular student loan isn't treated like other loans, it's not consumer credit, it's earnings linked, so you only pay it back when you hit certain earnings thresholds. But a lot of people see it as more of a tax and so if it were me and if my student loan was so high that actually it was quite demoralizing and I am in that bracket, which is, you know, I'm going to find it tough to pay off. I wouldn't include it. You don't need that negativity in that regular reminder other than, you know, you're possibly dealing with it coming out your salary every month.

And so many people, when it's a big one, prefer not to include it in the net worth and they just focus on consumer debt and they focus on savings and they focus on property and investments and the student loan is just more like a tax. If it's within reach, like if it's a 20, 30, 40,000 pounds student loan, and with your earning trajectory, you are likely to pay it off,

you might find it as a win to include it because it should be going down. If you're paying enough off it, you should be helping get that number go down. And that's a big win every time you do your net worth, you know, once a month, you're gonna get that positive feeling that I've earned that big win every time you do your net worth you know once a month you're going to get that positive feeling that I've earned that money and I've helped to pay that down and I would say especially when you get to the point where if you choose to overpay it or

if you choose to build up savings and then one day pay it off and you get kind of get all your income back finally you know the net once you paid off the next payday you're going to feel like you've had this huge pay rise because so much money isn't going to student loan you're going to feel amazing so I would take a view on it depending on the size how likely you are to pay it off how soon you are to pay it off and take a view knowing that if you do add it in later you're gonna suddenly like massively impact your net worth and so just knowing that at that point would be helpful as well. Someone's put no question just hope you

enjoyed Edinburgh and they've done a castle emoji we loved it I'll tell you a little bit about some of the places we went to. We went to a gorgeous steak restaurant called Kylo which doesn't overlook the castle but it's like around the corner from the castle and Holly's been years ago twice still there still getting rave reviews. Just yeah it was really really amazing. We did Dishoom for brunch one day which I've always wanted to do, Holly's been before again and you can tell who's the foodie and who just says that I'll turn up tell me where to go and I know I'm gonna get a good meal and they do like I did a bacon and egg naan and it's one of their specialties loved that did a gorgeous breakfast at the Edinburgh Lada. Oh and then we

just grabbed some food at the Edinburgh street food thing because we went to watch the Moulin Rouge at the Playhouse and we ate there. And again, we just, we really enjoyed it. Thank you for asking. Next up, someone says, had enough excess to be able to get last minute pit bull tickets. Well done.

That is iconic. We have a lot of music lovers in the financial community. And the idea that you can either save up in advance for these big moments where you wanna get that ticket and you don't wanna get it on buy an hour pay later and you don't wanna get it on a credit card. Or you can spur of the moment grab a ticket because you have enough room in your budget,

you have this excess, it's just absolute goals. Like that's what we want, you're doing amazing. And do you know what? Pitbull will be proud. Someone said, thoughts on upping the age to apply for a credit card to 21. Ooh, I have never heard that suggested, but I understand why. That's a super interesting suggestion, isn't it?

Because on the one hand, you've got lots of things that we're able to do age 18. I wonder what the research is on the debt that we take out between 18 and 21, how necessary it is, if any credit debt could be described as necessary, but from a financial inclusion point of view, from people from more poorer backgrounds, whilst I never advocate for credit, I do wonder whether access to cheap credit helps people get ahead in terms of whether it's university or whether it's their first jobs versus someone that comes from a privileged background and has access to family cash. I couldn't see it ever happening because I think there are too many people that

would lobby against it and put forward the arguments that I've put forward for, which is like financial inclusion and access to emergency credit. But really the credit card companies would just put the weight behind it because they would never want it to be seen that they're a danger. I love that question. I think in the absence of that, we definitely have a responsibility to educate

on the dangers of debt, and I just don't think we do. We do, but maybe we could even go further. Okay, we're nearly there. Child affordability question. What is the minimum monthly excess one should aim for during childcare years? Oh, we are in those we are in the trenches We pay for four days a week nursery

We're very blessed that my mum looks after our youngest one day a week And so we have four days also have rep iron care for the middle one for after school clubs And so yeah, we are there. We are paying A mortgage and more out on childcare. And so it's definitely tough. There are going to be moments in your life where your excess is squeezed. It could be because of high costs like childcare. It could be because you're working part-time.

It could be because you're in a household where people aren't working full-time. Someone's got ill health. It could be navigating a massive jump in prices, you know, when people started to see mortgages and council tax rises in April and bill rises and cost of food going up. It really did squeeze people's excesses. And so there will be moments of our life,

whether it's because of the economic climate or whether it's because of your personal moment in time and where you're up to that will squeeze that excess. Generally, we've seen the most success when people have a minimum of a 15% excess. So in the financial app, when you do your budget, you put all the income at the top, everything like all benefits, all maintenance, all jobs, all side hustle income, everything at the top. And then you have it split out into your fixed expenses, which is your direct debits,

your subscriptions, your bills, and then you've got your sinking fund payments. So the little pots of money that you build up for things like holidays or insurances or beauty sinking funds, the little amount that you put on a monthly basis that goes in that bit, and then you've got your flexible expenses.

So the money that you put aside for food and travel, like transport, it could be coffees, it could be fun money. Once you've got all that, your excess is what's left over. It's like your personal profit. And it's the thing that you put towards the goal that you're working towards at the moment. And that's the percentage we're talking about.

So for people that aren't quite sure, your excess is what's left over. And if you've got a 1% excess, then you're not gonna really make much progress on your money journey. You're not gonna pay down debt. You're not gonna build up savings. And crucially, you're not going to really make much progress on your money journey. You're not going to pay down debt. You're not going to build up savings and crucially, you're not going to be investing. And so what I would say about budgets that have a really small excess or no excess or a negative excess,

they're spending too much in proportion to their income. And if that's you, you either need to up your income in some way or you have to decrease your expenses because you can't go through life where you're just spending everything you make. We've obviously got extremes where, you know, if you're on the poverty line and you are earning everything you can, you might be limited with your health as to how much you can work or your childcare situation, whatever it is. There's lots of reasons why actually pretty much what comes in goes out and there's not much more you can do about it. But for the vast majority of us, we do have control over our budget and we have options.

We have options to pull back. We have options to try and make some extra money. And excess is the thing that's going to change everything. It's going to change your net worth. It's going to change your financial outlook, your financial well-being, your financial future. And so that's what we want to work on. So a really good one is like 25 to 30. If you can live off 70 to 75% of your income and you're

investing 25 to 30% of it or saving it or paying off debt with it, whichever you're doing at the moment, that's game changing because it shows that you can live on less than you make and that you've got this cushion which makes you feel good and that you can put that towards things that are beneficial for you. You may find during childcare years that our excess is 5 to 10% and it's for a defined period of time until you might get access to additional hours, until income goes up. There's lots of different variables but you may find that it's squeezed for that period of time. You may find that it changes and when they come out of nursery it goes to wraparound care but

it's not always as expensive or it's not always needed as, as, as often. You've got summer clubs, these kids, these kids cost us money, don't they? But, um, but yeah, still making sure you've got an excess is super important. How best to manage what goes where with multiple sinking funds and emergency fund. The answer to this lies in pots. So when you have a bank account that has pots functionality,

so a Starling, Monzo, Revolut, Chase, lots more of them have them, you can divide up your sinking funds, your emergency fund, if you can get a good rate on the pot as well, and also your flexible expenses into pots. And it's just game changing so that you don't mix it all up, so that you don't get stressed. If you don't want to, and not everyone wants to open a bank account with those banks and not everyone wants to divide it all up, we have a sinking funds tracker in the app, and you can put all the money together, for example, in a savings account,

and you can track the total in the savings account, but in the app, you can break it down by different sinking funds, and it helps you to work out how much per month you need to save for each thing. And it'll help break down, you know, if there's £5,000 in a savings account, that's all your emergency fund and all your sinking funds, it'll be able to, you'll be able to break it down and say, okay, 3000 of it is emergency fund. 500 of it is Christmas, 200 is car insurance. So have a little look there.

Last quick one that we got was stocks and shares ISA or lifetime ISA. It's a little bit of a trick question because a regular ISA is just an individual savings account it's called. And you can have a stocks and shares individual savings account and you can have a cash individual savings account. And so the cash ISA is regular savings account

with an interest rate on it that may be fixed or maybe go up and down. And a stocks and shares ISA is essentially an investment account. So it's still got the tax-free wrapper that it can grow tax-free and in both those accounts you can have up to £20,000 as part of your capped £20,000 ISA allowance. Now a lifetime ISA you can contribute up to £4,000 per year and the government will top up by 25% meaning that you can max out at 5,000 pounds. Now you can have a lifetime ISA that's a cash ISA or a stocks and shares ISA and so that's kind of the difference between the two. A lifetime ISA is specifically to be used either for the purchase

of your first home as a first time buyer up to a house value of a maximum of 450,000 which has not gone up since I think 2017. I think it's been quite a long time. So that's one place it can be used or it can be withdrawn or it could be used as a bit of a retirement saver and you can access it at 60. There's a few more nuances, but that's the lifetime ISA and the regular ISA. And both of them can either be a stocks and shares ISA or cash ISA. So basically when choosing which one you want,

the lifetime ISA has the 25% top up from the government, but it's locked away. So you need to have a think about what are you saving for? And if this is your emergency fund, you jump over into the stocks and shares ISA, even a cash ISA, you have to really think about the fact that when you invest in an investment ISA like stocks and shares ISA, your capital is at risk, the amount can go up and down we hope over time that we're you know the net impact of it is that it grows but you have to think about what your objective is when you want access to this money how stable you need it to be in terms of like the amount in it and then take it from there but great question and let us know what you do okay we'll leave it there we answered a lot of questions

then conscious that i might have talked really quickly or spoken really quickly because I wanted to run through them all and kind of close the chapter on Edinburgh and on the Q&A so I hope it was helpful. Please do leave a review for The Vault. It really helps spread the word about the podcast and get it in front of more people. Obviously we'd love you to leave a review, in fact on the next one I'll probably read some reviews out so get in there, share your story a little bit, leave us a review in the App Store or on Spotify and if you have any dilemmas feel free to email them into the vault at financial.com and either I'll pick it up on here or I'll chat about it with the girls when we sit on the sofa on Thursdays. So have a great rest

of day and you'll hear from me soon. Just a disclaimer, The Vault Unlocked is a liked hearted chat around life and money, we're not giving financial advice. Bye bye.