The Vault with Financielle - Unlocked: Cheap Dates + Mini Q&A

Episode Date: May 4, 2025

Send us a text💸 Welcome to The Vault Unlocked – the bonus series of *The Vault*.On this episode, we're answering your money questions, plus discussing cheap date ideas!Need support from people who get it? Join our community in the app. No shame, no judgement—just real talk. Head to http://financielle.com to download now.Got a topic you’d love us to unlock next? Email us at [e-mail]👉 Subscribe to Financielle for honest, practical conversations about money. Let’s make your money work for *you*.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. You are joined by Laura on what is for the UK another bank holiday Monday. So I hope you've had an amazing weekend. I'm enjoying your day. If you're in the UK and if you are not in the UK, I'm really sorry that we have so many at this time of year. It is something we're very, very proud of. It's very British, but I hope you've had an amazing weekend and you are ready for your Monday. One thing that I've been doing this weekend,

a little bit of Life Admin, is gathering together lots of gift vouchers that we have. So we're now in May, okay, we're in May, but for Christmas, people in our family may have been given gift vouchers, different kids, my husband got quite a few for his birthday, which was just after Christmas. My daughter in March got some gift vouchers here and there. And do you know what happens to gift vouchers? You forget about them. They end up in a drawer, or in, yeah, like in the emergency drawer maybe, or the random drawer,

or in a bookcase, or in a wardrobe, or in a pile, simply in a pile. Hours have been in a pile on my aesthetic shelves that are not very aesthetic. They were built to be aesthetic. But then I clearly don't have the aesthetic element in my life. It's now got piles of paper, school papers and sports papers and a pile of vouchers.

And so I had a chat with Carl and I was just saying to him, we need to use them or lose them. Now I don't practically mean lose them, but the thing with gift vouchers is if the company that the gift voucher is for goes bust, you have no claim claim that's gone. So I know we're talking extremes but I've seen that quite a few times where people have you know

big retail company vouchers and you know we do see insolvencies and suddenly it's kind of worthless so that's point one. Point two is that we forget them they gather dust in the corner and we really should be spending them. One, because if someone's gifted us that gift voucher, I think it's a really nice thing to go back to the person and say, oh by the way thank you so much for the voucher. We bought this with it or that with it. But this is my third and final trick. Another savvy financial thing that you can do with gift vouchers is you can use it for your budget. Obviously depends on the gift voucher, but hear me out.

So I have a hair and beauty sinking fund and I was given a lovely gift by someone to go to a spa and get beauty treatments. And so I still haven't spent that gift voucher, but I do get skincare from time to time, might get a facial and I have a beauty sinking fund. So what I'm gonna do is I'm going, you know, skincare from time to time, I get a facial and I have a beauty syncing fund. So what I'm gonna do is I'm going to use it, I'll use it in my head and I'm gonna book that facial,

I'm gonna get a nice facial, I think ready for summer. In the next couple of weeks, I'm gonna get it, I'm gonna book it this week and I'm gonna have it either this week or next week. And I'm gonna switch out 50 quid from my beauty syncing fund and gonna put that towards my excess. So I've managed to kind of do an exchange where I've not taken the gift voucher as a bonus.

I've incorporated it into my normal planned spending and I've been able to take cash out that pot and put it towards my goal, which at the moment for us is we are putting extra money into stocks and shares, ICES. If we were paying off debt, I would have done it a lot more quickly actually. If we were paying off debt, we would have gone straight off lot more quickly actually. If we were paying off debt we would have gone straight off a card or straight off

a car loan or whatever it is. But it's also we got another, my husband got a gift voucher from some friends to an amazing garden center not far from us called Bent's. It's very good if you're from the north west of England you have to go. Bent's have a wonderful farm shop, a lovely lovely food area that listen is pricey but it's super, super good quality. You can imagine like really nice steaks or really nice like marinated chicken, gorgeous veg and stuff and so we could either you know go get coffee and cake and a treat you know we're on a health kick at the moment so not really eating cake and my husband doesn't drink coffee so it's his gifter. So I can't kind of sweep in and take the coffee benefits. But he loves chicken wings and steaks and stuff from Bents.

So I am going to go to Bents and I'm going to buy the, you know, what I think he's going to like. And I'm going to switch out the 25 pound from our grocery budget and put that towards the excess. So I'm not going to do that with my daughters. I feel like that's probably a bit, I mean, there's some things in the budget for them, but they really only get treats around their birthdays.

And when grandparents kind of want to spoil them, they don't get stuff here, there and everywhere. So when they do have gift vouchers, I am gonna let them use it and not use it out of the budget. But I'm gonna, over the next two to three weeks, I've got a list now of all the vouchers we've got and I'm going to be clearing them saying you need to pick something. Let's get something news. And quite frankly, you know, I think, you know, my daughter's got an Amazon voucher.

And if she can't find it on Amazon that she fancies and we need something for the house or for the home or for school or for something, I don't mind giving her £10 and me using that Amazon gift voucher, but there's something about using them and getting them spent and getting the things for them and then clearing, it's just like a bit of a tidy up, isn't it? And it's a nice thing, because you know,

it is spending and the money's ready to go. So yeah, I think we've got some fashion gift vouchers. So we actually did this last week. I have some Adidas trainers, which they're not like fashion ones like everyone wears. They're just the comfiest, amazing, softest trainers. And they had a little bit of netting near the toe and I bought them two years ago.

And there's a hole in both toes because I wear them that much. And my husband was like, oh my God, can you please, please, please get some new trainers? This was last year when the hole started to appear. And so I tried to get some more fashion new ones that gave the same aesthetics of big chunky white trainers

that can wear with like comfy socks and shorts and stuff. And so I bought some Steve Madden ones and they look nice, but they're heavy. And when I've been wearing pillows for a year on my feet and then suddenly I had to put these ones on, you know, like I said, I wear them for nice occasions, maybe if I'm wearing trainers, however often you wear trainers for nice occasions,

but I wouldn't go for walking them, like they are not walking shoes. So I kept putting my old ones back on. Anyway, we had this Adidas gift voucher and my husband was like, please can we get you the other ones that you got last time? Like stop wearing the ones with the holes, the holes are too big now, this is embarrassing. And so I was like, okay, can we get you the other ones that you got last time, like stop wearing the ones with the holes, the holes are too big now, this is embarrassing.

And so I was like, okay, okay, let's do it. So he remembered that he'd seen in his emails a 20% off from Adidas, which is pretty rare, I think that's quite a big discount, only on full price stuff. And so these trainers were 95 pounds, but we had this 20% off and we had a 50 pound gift voucher. So it felt like we had to top up a little bit,

maybe like 25 pounds in total. It felt like we'd got trainers for me for 25 pounds, which honest to God, I think I've had them four days and I've worn them every day since then. They're my best trainers. I've had my gym trainers with the gym, switch out into them. And again, I feel like I'm walking on pillows.

So I mean, moral of the story is, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, as in, I should have just bought this type of trainer this time last year, but ultimately, I now have used my gift voucher, and I've been able to put a little bit of money towards it from the clothing sinking fund, and they're beautiful. And I'm pleased that my husband suggested that we get them,

and I'm so glad we had the gift voucher. So, gift vouchers, this is your call to action, use them we get them. And I'm so glad we had the gift voucher. So gift vouchers, this is your call to action. Use them or lose them. Make a list, it's a little shopping spree in your life. If you know, not everyone has them, but if you do have them, it can be a really, really good thing to do. Okay, we today are gonna go after my ramble

about gift vouchers, gonna jump straight into Q&A. So we've got a first question, which I've lifted from the community because I saw it and it's by Fern. So hi Fern, thank you so much for putting this in and I was like, this is something that will be on the minds of lots of newbies. So she says, hey, new member here, starting from the beginning on the podcasts up to episode 15 and loving it.

I need to literally start from scratch. So I need an emergency fund, but how much? I'm thinking 500 pounds, but would love to know what others have. Thanks. Well confirmed, and we are so excited to see what you can do on this money journey and all the changes you're gonna make. We always say this, like people that have done financial

for a long time are sometimes jealous of people in your position. It's like when you've read the best book of your life the first time and once you've read it once, even if you go back and read it, there's something deep down that makes you think, I wish I could go back and read it again and when you know someone's gonna read it,

you're jealous of them and you're kind of going, oh my God, how you'll have the best time and tell me where you're up to and I wish I could do that again. And I think a lot of people will resonate with that. They won't underestimate how difficult a journey people have, especially if you've kind of got consumer debt and you've got income struggles and spending issues

and loads of, you know, all the weird and the wonderful that we all have had. But it's such a good question. So when you're picking your first mini emergency fund, there is a bit of an it depends with this. So for many, this is the first time that we're gonna save to just have it to help you out in an emergency. The goal is not to use it.

The goal is to have a lovely stack of cash in a high interest bearing savings account that you don't need to touch. And you will, by the way, we've all had to use it, but there's this like game where you try not to. And the way that you pick the amount is looking at your own situation. You might be single, you might be living at home, you might be in a couple, you might have children, you might have high expenses, you might have low salary. There are lots of variables that you have to consider.

So the financial playbook, which is in the app, and obviously you can buy the more in-depth digital course as well, I think the link's usually in our bio. We talk about the different stages of the playbook. And the first stage is kind of knowing your numbers and doing your first budgets. But the next stage is build a mini emergency fund of a minimum of one month's expenses. So you can see how you need to do the budget first, because you do the budget and you look at what costs you need to get yourself through a month. So most people just take the total expenses number,

you know, they combine the flexible, the fixed and the sinking funds and they take that number. But you can also go lower than that because there may be some things in your fixed and flexible that are optional. So there could be subscriptions that you could cut and there could be expending that you could pull back on. But ultimately picking one month's expenses is a massive milestone for lots of people.

Some people at this stage want to do a higher one than that for them. And again, it could depend on the circumstances if they've got more pressure on them, if they are more responsible for more of the bills or solely responsible for all the bills. The balance here is picking an amount of money that is high enough that it gives you, first of all, practical support in an emergency, but second of all, mental support that you just

have hit this amazing goal. You've got this amount of money that you've never had before and it's your power play. Like if anything goes wrong, you've got it. It just gives you this peace of mind. So it's this massive mental win. You need to pick an amount that's high enough to be that, but that's low enough that it doesn't take you a long time to save. Because the problem is, if you don't get onto paying off

your debt, because that's stage two, ditching your debt. Because the problem is, if you are staying in building your emergency fund phase too long, and you're not jumping onto paying off debt if you are staying in building your emergency fund phase too long and you're not jumping onto paying off debt if you had it, you can get sidetracked, you can get lethargic, you can get demotivated, it's demoralizing for some people. You are stuck in like building this one pot of money. And so the idea is pick an amount that gives you

that peace of mind and can practically help you out, but then you leave it and then you jump onto paying off debt. And you remember we do the debt snowball, you pay off one debt at a time. And it shouldn't feel like enough, like it should feel a bit stressy. What that helps with is making sure

that you're not slow on your debt payoff journey as well, because in the back of your mind, really, you might want an emergency fund three, four, five times the size than the one you've built in your bigger emergency fund when you're in the build phase. And so it's so interesting how it is litigate, jigsaw, piecing all fits together. There's a reason for picking a low enough amount that's high enough to make you feel good, but low enough to keep you motivated so that you can then move on to

debt. You then pay off your debt knowing that I've only got one month's expenses saved. I need to be aware of that. Like the sooner I can get that up to three, four, five months, whatever I choose, the better. Now all that being said, sometimes picking nice round numbers and sometimes smaller numbers is a really good first step. So I know lots of people that do, as you said, pick £500 first because really I would say, and I'm going to be quite direct with this, most of us could find £500 in a month. You might not be able to find it every month but by cutting some expenses, by doing a couple of bank switches, by selling things on Vinted, by taking on a little bit of extra delivery work or a part-time job,

by finding money in different bank accounts, by going down the sofa, if anyone's got any coins down any sofas nowadays. But most people can pull together 500 pounds. Like it's something that's a nice, manageable challenge. In fact, it's sometimes a really, you know, how fast can you do it kind of challenge that you can set yourself.

And so some people do that and then they go, right, I'm gonna go for a thousand next. So do it how you want to do it. I did a thousand pounds back in the day, we're talking over 10 years ago, and it probably wasn't high enough. And in hindsight, I might have made that a little bit bigger, but I was so impatient

to get onto my debt payoff journey that I did keep it at 1,000. But nowadays I see people pick, you know, 1,000, 3,000, it obviously depends on the circumstance and again, the balance between the two. And then when you're getting up to your larger emergency fund, we want, you know, four, five, six months expenses.

Some people do 12 months expenses. It depends on, you know, your employment status and lots of different scenarios. But such a good question. Welcome. Please keep the community updated with how you are doing on your money journey. We can't wait to see you do amazing

and tell us when you hit that one month's expenses. We had another really good question that was very closely connected with the emergency fund chat. So I thought it was a great place to put it. This is Kat, hi Kat. She says, "'Sinking funds are emergency fund first.

"'I'm a bit stuck because I can either do one "'or the other with my salary. "'I know I have sinking funds that can wait, "'such as holiday funds, "'but expenses that I know come up "'as well as a car maintenance fund, "'which is the one thing that constantly gets me "'back into debt, and sinking funds to change monthly subscriptions

to annual ones. My gut says this order, sinking funds for annual payments and things that I know come up such as dentist, car maintenance, emergency fund, but would love to know if there is a right way. So I'm gonna try and explain this as clear as I can, but sometimes I get on a roll,

so I do apologize if I make this a bit messy. First of all, and this is an answer for everyone listening, there's kind of different types of sinking funds as Kat has quite rightly identified. We have our bougie sinking funds, our bulky holiday one, our bulky, and I call them bulky because I mean, it's not the bare minimum,

beauty, clothing, all stuff that we can genuinely go without, you know, dig down in the cupboard, go in the wardrobe, find other things to wear, go on a more budget holiday. So we've got bougie ones, which is usually when you're up into build and you're in the big life goals section, because you're in a really good place, you've got your big emergency fund

and your budget can relax a bit and you can put more money into these pots. But when you're in survive and when you're at the very beginning, we want our basic beach sinking funds like absolutely bare minimum. So firstly, you build your budget and obviously in your budget goes sinking funds. And so the general rule with sinking funds is if you are genuinely going to spend the thing it's better to put money aside in a sinking fund than to later use credit to do it. So for example if you are going to spend money at Christmas there's no point building an emergency

fund before putting Christmas in the budget because what's's gonna happen is when you get to Christmas, you're gonna either need to use your emergency fund or it doesn't put you in a great place mentally when you have to use that and it's not really an emergency, it's just you didn't budget for it. Or you're gonna use credit. So whilst Christmas might not be a really extravagant amount and you're gonna have to be lean with that total

and you can always backfill it later, Christmas, the monthly saving bit goes in the budget. So let's say you want 600 pounds for Christmas, 50 pound a month into Christmas pot. So I would put that in because if I'm going to spend it, there's no point lying to myself. Now a different type of sinking fund is the one you've identified which is annual subscriptions and annual expenses. So for those things, it's a great idea to be able to try and get ahead. So if your car insurance is 600 pounds a year, that's 50 pounds a month that you can put into your budget.

By the time it comes to it being due, you can come off the monthly payment, which has credit built into it, which is more expensive, and you can flip to the annual. But that's not essential because you can pay monthly. This isn't something that you'd have to kind of use a credit card for. You are on a monthly plan already

and you still don't have your emergency fund. So on that basis, I would include sinking funds that are definitely things that you're definitely going to spend, like lean Christmas, lean kids clothes, lean birthdays, like a super, super small amount, but a well thought out amount. And then when you've done your budget,

at the bottom you've got your excess and you put your excess towards your emergency fund. And then you pick your, the right number, which we've just talked about how to pick the right amount of emergency fund for you. Once I've got that mini emergency fund, I'll go back into my budget and I'll possibly add on some of these extra,

really clever sinking funds like for example, annual car insurance or your MOT that's going to come up. Car maintenance one's a really good question. What I would do if it were me is focus on the fact that my emergency fund can be used for car maintenance because that's an emergency. It's something that needs to be done to be able to use the car properly. And quite frankly, if it's something that needs to be done to be able to use the car properly. And quite frankly, if it's something that needs to be done to the car for aesthetic reasons,

but it's not really a practical or a safety issue, it goes on the list and it gets done at a later date. But the car maintenance is one that I would hold back building, focus on the emergency fund, but as soon as that emergency fund is built, go back into your budget and start building up a car maintenance fund. Because the wonderful thing about about that and I can speak from a lot of experience we have to you know I think both of our cars are 10 years old

actually we stuff will always need to be done to them and we never get into the mindset that oh my god it's costing me so much this cost cars costing me more than it's worth we just you know we're not silly everything is an ROI and if if a bill was particularly high and there was a point which we go okay is it that worth more than the car's worth then we'd have that conversation but we are happy to pay to maintain our cars because we've built a car maintenance fund. If I had to use my emergency fund for the cars it would really stress me out it's the kind of thing that I imagine leads people into car finance and to go get a newer car because they just don't like the idea that they're handing out money for their car but when the money comes

from the car maintenance fund it's just a no it's just a breezy no-brainer it's a no pressure situation and so yeah fine no worries how much do you need oh that's annoying never mind move on and so I love my car maintenance sinking fund but I do think it comes after emergency fund so I hope Kat that helped a little bit. This is about how it feels. You'll do it one month, you'll tweak it, but I definitely think that we can add on bigger sinking funds once our emergency fund's done,

still putting in those earlier sinking funds that you're definitely gonna spend anyway, because we don't wanna go back into credit later. And you'll find the right balance, but it was a super good question. We had another great comment in the community actually. Hey folks, just totted up how much of my wage this month has gone to debt. Over 735 pounds.

This does not include my mortgage and car, although I won't get a car loan again if I can avoid it. She also goes on to say, but with the car loan, it has come to almost a thousand pounds. This is horrifying. I'm just imagining the other side of this journey, But with the car loan, it has come to almost a thousand pounds. This is horrifying. I'm just imagining the other side of this journey where that money is going to savings and sinking funds instead. When I'm paying myself and not a debt provider for something I can't even remember buying. Let's set the goal of Christmas 2026.

You have just picked up on something there. That's like a libel moment that I think so many of us have. When you do your budget and obviously your minimum payments for your debt goes into fixed expenses. So you put them all in and you know you're just paying them all and it's only when you see them all together that you kind of go oh okay that adds up to quite a bit because what's happening is there's just little payments going here and there out your account, bigger ones if it's car finance.

When you do the playbook and you do your first budget, and then we tell you to squeeze your budget, so go through line by line, by the way, there's a free money MOT in the app. If you go all the way to the bottom of the homepage where free eBooks are, there's a step-by-step money MOT where you can go line by line through your budget.

We go into much more detail actually in the digital playbook that you can get from the LinkinBio. You go and you try and optimize every expense. So you do things like, you know, switch providers and cancel subscriptions and, you know, reduce your spending a little bit. All the stuff that's very, very practical and easier. And then there's kind of nowhere to go because you've cut everything you can and what happens is you see the big debt payments and you go, oh my God, like how much, imagine what my excess is going to be when they go. She's realised that these payments are the result of small decisions that build up over years and years and years, like this is not an overnight thing, it slowly slowly grows and each individually are affordable but all together, firstly they're not always affordable when you lump them all together

and you realise you know how much of your income is actually going towards paying for things that go down in value or that you don't even remember that you bought but also that amount of money could be going to you, I mean she quite rightly says imagine when that's going to savings and sinking funds which is amazing because that's when it's going to go to you know your big emergency funds and holidays and renovations or whatever your sinking funds are going to be. But actually the bigger part for me is when your excess can be used to invest. And that's where we want to get you all to. So all these credit companies charging you interest,

they are making money on your repayments. Most things are not 0%. People tend to have credit cards here and there. They might do buy now, pay later. But eventually they drop off and they go on to really high APRs. Car loans and car finance are almost never at 0%, in fact, less than 5% of car finance deals are 0%. So you're always paying quite a lot of interest built into your car finance or your car loan payments. And then just general loans carry interest.

That's the bank benefiting from having lent you that money. That's them profiting. Imagine when you profit, because what happens is when you put money. That's then profiting. Imagine when you profit, because what happens is when you put money into a savings account and you get interest on those savings, that's your profit, that's what you keep. But historically, we've also seen that if you invest, you make a bigger return.

This is obviously caveated with the fact that your capital is completely at risk, you could get less than you put in. Stocks and shares go up and down. So you can go back to the investing episode if you want to get some more detailed information on it. But typically, investments over time perform better than savings. That's certainly been the case in my scenario.

So imagine if you can get to a point where you are putting a thousand pounds a month into savings. And then when you've capped out at a point where you are putting a thousand pounds a month into savings. And then when you've capped out at your savings because you've got a really chunky emergency fund and you don't need the money for anything else other than your long-term wealth and your long-term growth, you put that into investments.

You could be getting five, six, seven, even 10% a year growth. That's your profit. So I really want you to think that through that this is a journey to get you to grow, survive, build and grow and in grow you're consumer debt free, you are not paying anyone else any interest apart from your mortgage which is another thing that you'll take a look at and go okay, banks, how much money are you making from my mortgage payments, right, that's annoyed me, might look at paying off the mortgage but you'll also look at seeing if you

can invest in the market and profit in that way. Now, I love the last question that I'm gonna cover today because I think it really should spark creativity in lots of your minds. This contributor says, what do we do for date nights and fun days whilst working in Survive? Me and my partner tend to drink alcohol and eat out

and with summer coming along, does anyone have any ideas to go out together without spending lots of money? and survive. Me and my partner tend to drink alcohol and eat out and with summer coming along does anyone have any ideas to go out together without spending lots of money? Please and thanks. It is such a good question and it is a massive conundrum that people have where when you're doing the financial playbook and you're doing this method and you're paying off your debt and you're budgeting, building savings, paying off debt and you're on a roll and you're working towards your own future or your joint future as a couple. It's a hard journey and we still don't want to feel like we're missing out and we don't want to feel like we're not treating

ourselves because life is short, it really is. We want to be enjoying experiences, we want to be enjoying quality time with each other and you still can. We obviously want you to go super intense and survive because we don't want you there a long time but at the. We obviously want you to go super intense and survive because we don't want you there a long time but at the same time we want you to be happy and enjoy relationships and I think a big thing about this is also habit. So when you have built up habits they are really hard to break. There's something about the Brits and sunshine and beer gardens and having drinks with friends. It's such a lovely coming together of people

and quite frankly, we don't always get the weather and so when you do, you wanna grab it. And I do think as well, social media romanticizes things like date night and friends gatherings and stuff. So it's super hard. Firstly, I'd love to hear what people think. Like, does anyone have any suggestions? Send us fan mail and message it into the DM.

We might collect them all up. This might be a really good article that we could do for the app and the web that we'll share with everyone, which is like date night ideas or nights out with friends that you can do that don't break the bank. I think there's a few ways that you can do date days and date nights and gatherings in Survive. And I think it's about how intense you want to go.

So firstly, if you are big spenders and you are, you know, you've always been out doing the drinks and the pre-drinks and the dinners and starters mains desserts. I do think this is a really good opportunity to look at what you've spent. And I think having a reflect back and look at what meals genuinely cost,

what drinks cost, you know, we have as a culture normalized this leisure activity that's very, very expensive. And I think the amount might shock you because let's say, for example, you spend 500 pounds a month on going out as a couple. And that's because you go out one night a week. Even just halving that two nights a week is 250 pounds.

And you've just saved yourself 250 but you still go out twice so you're not not going out you're just not doing it all the time. I think also a healthy reflection on whether that kind of lifestyle was funded by credit is a big it's like a smack in the face really to be honest I've done it myself and you just kind of go that wasn, like I can't afford that. I was living that life, you know, but I can't afford eating there, I can't afford drinking there.

So I think, yeah, having a look at what you spent, trying to put it in the budget, if you want it in the budget, and if you like this kind of routine, don't go without, but like reduce it, that's a big tip. You then within the activity can optimize your spending. So for example, are you going into cities or towns where you need taxes? Can you go more locally? Can you switch it up and try more local venues? Can one of you not drink or both of you not drink and then

you end up being able to drive where you want to go? Luckily nowadays there's so much more choice to have a really good night and it be alcohol free or low alcohol. So the Guinness naught percent beer is meant to be absolutely amazing. I really like Lucky Saint, which is a non-alcoholic lager. Great when it's like hot weather and you just want a cold beer, but you don't want to drink. I also like trip drinks from time to time. I feel like they're like a nice, feels like it could be a gin. I don't like gin anyway, so, but I always liked the idea of gin

because it looks very refreshing. But having that in like a nice wine glass or a gin glass with ice, and it feels like you're having a little bit of a pick me up, a little bit of a treat. And again, any like gin mocktails, but a lot of money is spent on the alcohol. You have to decide how important the alcohol is

as part of your night out, because it might be, but then there are other things you can do as well. So some people might have a couple of drinks at home and not drink with the meal. And so you've been able to fund the alcohol part of your night at home, and then you go out for the nice meal and you still tick the box

and you feel like you've done the nice thing, but you've not had to spend the amount that you would have typically spent and you won't have to spend restaurant markups on alcohol. I've seen people in the community do things like we don't do starters and we don't do desserts, we just do mains. You can also really be savvy with what you pick out

and menu, there are two different types of restaurant trips. There's a type where you just look at the menu and you decide what you want. It's gonna be a pricey meal. If you went to like an Italian and you opted for pizzas for example, and even some of like the vegetarian pastas. It really is a massive difference in price.

And so for the same type of night out, just by being a little bit clever with how you are picking your dinner and how you're picking your location, you can really save quite a lot of money. I think it goes without saying that the more effort you put in, the more savings you're gonna make.

So are there any discount codes you can get? Can you go out for your date night midweek? And is that, are there cheaper deals on if you go then? Is it cheaper during the day if you get the early bird menu? Again, I'm a massive day eater and drinker. Like I'm a pajamas at 8 p.m. girl. And so I'm really on board

with some of the more daytime stuff. But I feel like you can, if you made this your project, if that's your thing and it's important to you both to enjoy your time with each other on these date days and these date nights, you can still replicate what you've had, but just by optimizing and maybe reducing the frequency, you're still gonna get the same dopamine hits

and you're still gonna get the same nice feelings, but you've not had to spend what you've been spending previously. There are obviously a whole host of other things that you could do, which is not that activity, which is free. Garden dates are amazing. And I think when we get some nice weather and we really get into a lovely routine of getting like salad-y stuff and picky stuff and stuff that

can be reused over two, three, four nights, because it feels nice. It feels like you're outside again. It might be with some alcohol. It might not be with some alcohol, but making it into a thing where you've not got your phones on. You've got some nice tunes on. You're having a really good discussion. You're inviting friends over. You go into different friends.

That's a way as well that you can kind of keep the costs down, but make it into a treat, make it into a thing. And then you've got your other stuff like, do you go for different walks instead? Do you do some active stuff together? So I think that's just a couple of suggestions to do what you're already doing, but optimizing it because that's what you say you like. But I'm here for community suggestions about, you know, what do you do when you're trying

to be extra frugal for a particular period? You might be on a no-spend challenge and so for a particular month, there aren't the activities. And the good thing about a no-spend challenge is it's for a defined period. And so once that period is finished, you then stop it and you can have your treat or you can have the thing. Hopefully the idea is that not only have you been able to change habits, especially repeated

impulsive spending habits or repeated impulsive eating habits, but you have saved money and you've learned something. You've learned that you're doing it too often or whatever. So have a look at a no-spend challenge. But I loved that question. And a couple of people in the community actually answered, for example, a date in the park, Rosie says, is one of my favourite cost-effective ways of going out, especially when the weather's so hot.

Drinks, snacks, drugs, games, etc. And Benny says, escapes cinema tickets offer free screenings at independent cinemas, could be a good one for when it rains, you can take your own Tesco bag of popcorns, keep it cost low. Again, I'm here for your suggestions, these are so, so helpful. Let's help our community member out so that she and her partner can enjoy each other's time and each other's company and enjoy working hard without it breaking the bank balance and helping her pay off her debt.

So yeah, thank you so much for that. I think we'll leave it there. So again, if you've any questions or any comments to make, put it in the community or email the vault at financial.com and we'll see you on Thursday with the girls on the vault couch. Just a disclaimer, The Vault Unlocked is a light-hearted chat around life and money. We're not giving financial advice. Bye bye.