The Vault with Financielle - UNLOCKED: Money Guilt, Debt & Budgeting—Your Questions Answered

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

Send us a text💸 Welcome to The Vault Unlocked – a special bonus series of The Vault Podcast, where we deep dive into the big money topics no one wants to talk about.Today, we’re doing something a little different. I want to answer your questions. We get SO many DMs, emails and comments from you all and this is our chance to dive deeper into the topics you care about most. No question is too big, too small or too awkward. Coming up in this episode:💸 I always feel guilty for spending money, how do I stop?💸 I’m in debt and it feels like I’m starting from 0, what would you do?💸 I know what sinking funds are etc. but how do I actually set them up?💸 How do I budget if I don’t get paid the same every month?💸 I want to save money but I also want to enjoy life. How do I find the balance?💬 Have a question or a topic you’d love us to unlock next? Email us at [e-mail]👉 Subscribe to Financielle for honest conversations about money, and let’s rewrite your money story together.Guess what! As a Vault listener, you can get 25% off our digital course, The Money Playbook. This is a step by step guide to being financially well. It has 101 lessons where you'll learn how to budget, ditch debt, build savings and grow wealth. Use this offer code at checkout: VAULTCheck out The Money Playbook course here  💸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, where I take a deep dive into money topics that no one wants to talk about. Happy Monday if you're listening to this the day it came out and I hope you had an amazing weekend not derailed by anything financial, on track with your money girls, living your life, all that good stuff. Obviously one of the biggest things about financial is the community element to it, that you, if you are on a money journey, you're not on your own. Other people may be struggling just like you, in fact not me. Other people will definitely be struggling like you,

if you feel like you've got a mountain of debt to climb, if you're trying to save for a home or get on this godforsaken property ladder, if you're trying to invest and you're unsure, that is what we are here for. And I think if I reflect on, you know, the vault journey and where we've gone with it, the dilemmas are so important. They're very, very vulnerable, very honest, direct, because they can be anonymous, people reveal their souls, they reveal very, very private things because they've nowhere else to turn

or they really value not just our perspective but the wider community's perspective. I love it when you guys all sit and think, how would I advise this person? Like what guidance would I give as a friend? Because most of this is life stuff isn't it? There's a little bit of money intertwined but it's so much more about people than it is about money. We've had so much fun doing the Unlocked series and we have a massive backlog of things

that people want us to look into, give our view on, help you understand a little bit more, but at the same time we like to keep things fresh and we like to keep making sure that we're giving you exactly what you need to be in complete control of your money. So with that in mind we've got a bit of a twist for this episode. We get so many DMs, emails, questions and if you think about it on The Vault where we do the dilemmas they're quite lengthy and complex dilemmas. They usually have multiple characters and multiple feelings and multiple elements. And, you know, Lucy will take the time to share the dilemma and will kind of workshop the dilemma. On the other end, we've got Unlocked, where we kind of take a topic and pick it apart and help, you know,

everyone understand that in a particular way. and help everyone understand that in a particular way. There's a whole lot of Q&A in the middle that you guys ask that is really hard to, wouldn't really fit as a dilemma as such because it's kind of a one-off question. But is otherwise answered kind of like one-to-one and we just think that you guys would benefit from seeing or hearing the questions that other people are asking because if they're asking them you may well be thinking I could do with the answer to that too. So Lucy has done some digging into all the archives of all the questions that we get, all the dilemmas that don't quite make it as dilemmas and we're going to bring it together

for this episode so it's going to be a little bit Q&A. I've not seen them. I'm going to be so transparent. I think in my head, I thought, oh, I'll do loads of prep for this and know what my answer is going to be for each one. I haven't. And the reason I haven't is we don't do that on the vault. And I think it's right that it's a bit authentic.

So if it's a bit messy, it's just Laura on her couch with a microphone, with the hope that can help in some way. And with that in mind you are the content of all these podcasts. If you have a specific question, a specific dilemma, send it into the vault at financial.com and we will look to see if we can help answer it and on which program, channel, not channel, on which show we do that. Anyhow I'm going to jump in. Question number one is, I always feel guilty for spending money. How do I stop?

Before I answer these, I always sit and think, who might have sent something like this? What kind of person says, I always feel guilty for spending money? If you are operating your budget on your own, if you have no dependents, if you're someone who just looks after yourself, you probably feel guilty perhaps because you're getting in your own way. So maybe you have a financial goal or an expectation from others that you're gonna save for a home home and you're going to move out if you're living at home,

or that you should be doing better than you should. And so maybe that could be why you feel guilty, because spending doesn't align with the behavior that's required to do the goal or to achieve the goal that you're looking to achieve. Sometimes we feel guilt because of other people, that we feel like we're letting other people down, and I mean financially, so if you're in a couple and you manage money, and if you are part of a family where you have dependents, every time you choose to spend money on something for you, in fact, you don't even, the question doesn't say for you,

by the way, it just says spending money. But every time you feel inclined to spend, feelings of guilt appear because it's a trade-off, isn't it? Like it could have been spent somewhere else. You know, you show me someone's bank account and it'll, and where they spend money and how much they spend and on what. It'll reveal a lot about them.

It'll reveal a lot about their values, their preferences, their habits. It's kind of like a window to your soul, isn't it? Looking at where the ping, ping, ping goes. So we've talked about the person who possibly might think other people should think they should be doing other things with their money rather than spending it. We've talked about the fact that people depend on you financially and you're deciding to spend money in a particular way.

But the other side as well could be someone who is a spender. I think this comes down to thinking about your money personality. What are you like as an individual? Do you like to spend? Do you get the dopamine hit? Are you always thinking about the next thing that you need? You know, it's not necessarily all about frivolous or impulsive spending. It might just be things, consumer items, goods form a big part of your life.

And that's especially true if you spend your life with someone who's a saver. And so if you think about the dynamics there, I can imagine that if you live with a saver and you're the one doing the errands, buying the presents, buying the clothes, buying the this, buying the that, you appear more frivolous and you appear more of a spender, but you could be spending on everyone's behalf,

but because you're, you know, co-budgeter, whoever that person is, is a saver, it makes you feel guilty. Because this is what it comes down to, this is the feeling, isn't the feeling of guilt. We're all somewhere on that spectrum of saver, it makes you feel guilty. Because this is what it comes down to, this is the feeling, isn't the feeling of guilt. We're all somewhere on that spectrum of saver-spender and sometimes it changes at different points in our lives. But you shouldn't always feel guilty for spending money. You shouldn't always feel guilty.

Sometimes we should feel guilty, but just like how we might feel guilty because we didn't do the washing up when it was probably our turn. Or we didn't go to a friend's birthday that they would have wanted us to go to, but we decided to stay in and be a hermit. You will especially feel guilty if you're a people pleaser, if you're a big empath and you really worry about how the other person thinks sometimes.

And Holly always says this on the pod, like we're the main character of our lives. And so we think that if we do something that isn't exactly what someone else wanted us to do, that we're letting them down in some way. So I think firstly, I would love the person that's asked this to really think about why do they feel guilty? And we really need to start to unpick

when you should feel guilty and when you shouldn't. So I have a solution that covers all of these scenarios, right? Which is the budget is the B word. The budget is permission to spend. Okay. And so whether you are a solo budgeter or whether you have a combined budget in the household, building a budget together is a great way of agreeing where spending should be guilt-free. Every decision, every penny in that budget is

a decision to put money somewhere towards something, whether it's to pay the rent or whether it's to pay for food or whether it's to pay for nails or whether it's to pay for new clothes, whatever the category at the amount is needs to be decided on intentionally. And there's always a trade off because the money can always go somewhere else. So whether that money goes to the, I like expensive cocktails fund,

or whether it goes to fuel, we've decided that it goes there. So we need to get to a point where our budgets are balanced. And what I mean by balanced is having it so that you have your needs taken care of, your sinking funds are in a good place for things that you're gonna be spending. You have your discretionary spending appropriate

and you also have an excess. And the excess is the thing that's going towards your goal. So that's going to emergency saving, that's going to paying down debt, that's going to investing, that's going to buy in property. And if you have those like the budget donor, if you think about it in the app,

if you have it in a good place where you are doing things that will grow your net worth, you are doing things that are positive financially, you can do that and have spending categories. The two can exist together. Now, how quick you want to move towards those financial goals will impact how big a section the spending section is versus how big the excess section is.

And it can change. You can have some really intensive saving months and you can have some lighter saving months and allow ourselves the spending, but it's always a trade off. And so when you set a budget like that and you've decided the right amounts and you kind of lock it down and stamp it and say, yeah, we're in, you really shouldn't feel guilty because your spending shouldn't be derailing the financial goals. So point number one is get to that budget and get to an agreed point, because what's amazing about spending from those categories is

you can sleep more peacefully at night because you know that you're still moving in the right direction financially, but you can like, you know, nod over there and say, but we're still doing this, we're not going there. And actually having that element of spending allows us to not feel like it's too intense and actually can keep us on track financially. The irony of all this is actually spending

can be really good for a money journey because it's just the right amount to keep you engaged and keep you feeling like you're not going without. But it's the power to turn it off if you want to. It's super helpful. So I feel like the budget is the key to all this. If you feel guilty because you think you could be saving much more,

then I just think have a little look at maybe doing some challenges and some breaks from spending. Do try and pull back a little bit. If you need to see, you hit a certain number with a goal or something like that. So make sure that the amounts work for you. And I guess the final thing that we've kind of not talked about is like your background, your history, how money was spoken about in your

house. Because lots of us feel guilty because of something to do with childhood, something, a memory at some point, like maybe you didn't have a lot and suddenly you've got money. So you feel guilty for spending. Maybe you grew up around a super, super saver who didn't like any spending at all. And just kind of nod to that and go, give yourself a bit of a break because, you know, it's all part of how we think and how we operate. That could be massively impacting you.

If you feel guilty for any spending at all, then quite frankly, you need to practice guilt-free spending. So set yourself these small amounts that don't derail the budget, get more used to it. Plan for a treat. It might be a save up your spending and then splurge on something that again doesn't derail the budget,

but is a celebration of something later. It might be a wardrobe item. It might be a trip, whatever it is for you. As long as it's far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, why you feel guilty, in what circumstances. And if there's someone in your life who's making you feel guilty for spending, you're much easier to changing you than you are them. So think about your boundaries. Think about, you may think that, but I know deep down I've got a plan, et cetera, et cetera.

You're gonna feel a lot better and you're gonna feel less guilty. You might hear someone and appreciate what they've said, but you still do you. And then lastly, actually, if, if this is a problem with spending, if you actually have an impulsive spending problem, two vaults and locks ago, we did a deep dive on impulsive spending, lots of tips and tricks on how to navigate that for you. Okay.

Let's move on to question two and actually side note, if you are someone who's sending us these shorter ones or the longer ones, if you are someone who's sending us these shorter ones or longer ones, if you ever want your name to be read out, then you might want that. And you are welcome to say and ask for that. So I've not revealed who this person is who sent this, but if you want to add your name on, we can share it with the Franchel community and share that you've asked the question. So this question says, I'm in debt and it feels like I'm starting from zero. What would you do?

I hear the defeat in your voice and the fact that you're saying, I'm starting from zero. And that is what debt can feel like. It can feel like this mountain that you just, you're looking, you're starting at the bottom and it's your Everest and you're just thinking, what on earth, how am I gonna be able to do this? Firstly, you're starting at the bottom and it's your Everest and you're just thinking, what on earth? How am I gonna be able to do this? Firstly, you're not alone.

Lots of people will feel exactly the same and it must be very strange for people in their regular lives when loads of other people don't care about debt. Debt is so normal. It is thrust upon us at every single opportunity. We are used to it, we're used to being offered it in supermarkets and when we're purchasing a car, when we're buying anything online, all we know is it's very popular to use

credit to buy things and you know we know it's aggressively marketed and so it's so normal to have debt. It's then really weird that the minute we kind of want to go, actually, this isn't serving me very well. I don't want to be in debt anymore. You suddenly like, you have to keep it private. It's suddenly something to be more ashamed of. You know, it's fine when you were getting the things, but later when you finally kind of accept

that you don't want it in your life, it's like accepting that you've done something wrong or admitting that you've got a particular type of problem, which you may or may not have, but it's this stigma around debt. And so this can add to this feeling like you're just starting from zero and you've just got a mountain to climb. I like zero though. I like the idea that you decide this is the worst it's ever gonna be.

It is never gonna be worse than today. I'm never gonna be in more debt than I am today. Cause that's a position of power and it's a position of strength and it's a position of you taking control and saying, no, we are building a plan and I am gonna pay off this debt. And then I will be looking up in future

and seeing, looking back and looking at how far I came having pay off this debt. And then I will be looking up in future and seeing, looking back and looking at how far I came having paid off this debt. So that's what I want you to do. I want you to accept that zero is now, we are never coming back to zero. And what's gonna happen is you're gonna do a few things. You are gonna make sure you list out all your debts. List them all, do a free credit report

if you want to have a little look to see exactly kind of how much you have But you're gonna know them you're gonna do gonna be your friends that you're then gonna ditch Um, which is a bit sadistic. So sorry, but yeah, you're gonna list them out You're gonna know who the debt is with you're gonna know how much is for you're gonna know the interest rate You're gonna know the minimum payment that is our target list that we're gonna go after At the same time you're're then going to make sure you do a budget and you do a budget with this debt in mind

because you are going to want to pay off this debt aggressively and move up from zero and climb this mountain and get to the top. And so a budget is the way we do that because as we know, financial land, you take your income, you minus off your fixed expenses, your monthly sinking fund amounts off your fixed expenses, your monthly sinking fund amounts and your flexible expenses

and then you will have an excess left over. And the excess ultimately is a thing that's gonna drag you up this mountain. So we need to be super, super particular with this budget and know that this is, we're in survive, this is playbook survive. You are gonna go after it so aggressively, so intensely, when this isn't forever, it's for a period of time.

So again, if we think about Playbook, you need to make sure that you've got a mini emergency fund behind you. Let's hope it's around at least one month's expenses. If you've not got that, then you use your excess to build that out first. Where else do you have savings? Where do you have money lying around? What can you sell around the house? What can you do to build up this mini emergency fund

so that you can then jump over and start paying off the debt? We've got Air Vault Unlocked specializing in the debt payoff, but then in a summary, you kind of pick your method, whether you do Snowball, whether you do Avalanche. One is focused on paying off debts, smallest to largest. I like that the best. The other one is math-driven. So it's the Aalanche you pay off

with the highest interest rate first. Again, if you've got real penalty interest rates or high interest rates, it can make you feel a lot better to do that one. But whichever one it is, you pick which one to do and you focus on one debt at a time. You pay minimum on all of them and you overpay one. And slowly and surely, you're gonna climb that mountain.

You're gonna pull yourself up from zero and there will be a time if you commit to this and if you go all in that you will be debt free, that you will not pay finance payments to anyone, that you will have loads of extra money every month because you're not sending payments to all these different finance companies you will be in such control of your money and then you can set more aspirational goals but you'll never feel zero again I promise you if you got all into this and you build up that emergency fund and you smash those debts and then you build a bigger emergency fund it is super unlikely that you'll ever be in that position again. Zero to hero, I'm here for it, zero to hero, thank you for your question.

Question number three, I know what sinking funds are, but how do I actually set them up? Yes, I love the practical element of this question. So for those people that don't know what sinking funds are, they are pots of money that we build up for planned expenses. So these could be for practical things like my car maintenance or home maintenance. It could be for big insurances, so when you want to take advantage of the cheaper annual payment, you save monthly for your car insurance, your travel insurance, your home insurance, and then when that's due you pay for it in full. Or it could be the more popular travel ones, Christmas ones, anything where there's a minimum of like a quarterly or a six-monthly or an annual payment for something at some point

that's going to be a chunk, you save up in advance for it. And you do that because it helps you to avoid debt for, oh, Christmas has come or holidays come and I kind of don't have the money, so I'll just put it on the card and I'll sort it later. But it also means you don't have to dip into savings as well. Lots of us don't like dipping into our savings. I definitely don't. I don't like going to my savings for things that I knew were coming

because they should have been in the budget. So this is what sinking funds are. Obviously in the app, they are broken down into the, if it's monthly or it's however periodically your budget runs, if it's weekly, monthly, you work out what that amount is and you put it in the budget and then this is where the answer to your question is.

So we wanna get super practical with our sinking funds. I like having my sinking funds in pots that are just off my current account. I happen to use Starlink, but your Monzo's, your Chase's, Revolutes, lots of these banks do have pot functionality. And so what it means is you can create a pot for each of your sinking funds. I also use it for my flexible expenses as well.

And you move the money in there and then you can set a total so you know how much you want in there. And every, when you need to use it, you just move it back into the current account and pay that way. Other people, if you don't have that pot functionality and you like the bank that you're with,

I really recommend having sinking funds just in a separate bank account to your current account. It still could be another current account, but it needs to be separate so that you don't mix the money up. And actually a really cool feature in the financial app that I think came out the back end of last year is a sinking fund tracker.

It was something that was asked for a lot and a really recent update is you can actually move them to your homepage as well and have a little look on your homepage. So have a play around with that. But you could in theory keep, say if you had 10,000 pounds total of sinking funds, nice round number,

and you move all those to your bank account B, bank account A is your bill account and it's your current account, it's where you do all your spending and you keep your sinking funds in bank account B. Would be great if bank account B had a lovely interest rate. So again, it may change, it could be like an easy access saver or something.

Not as useful to be an ISA because you're just gonna use up your allowance by putting money in and out, but that's by the by. And so you have a separate account for your sinking funds, but you can track them in the app. And so you can you can know that all of this 10,000 pounds actually, 3,000 of it is travel and 2,000 of it is Christmas and a thousand of it is my car insurances. And that's how you can know at any one time using the total at the bottom, how much is in your sinking fund pot and where you are at in each of those. So you've got two ways of doing it. Do it with a pot functionality bank account, or do it with a big chunky savings

account, making interest, but it's divided up in the financial app. We are going to jump ahead to question number four. How do I budget if I don't get paid the same every month? This is so timely because we did actually do a Unlocked last week, which was about fluctuating income or self-employed income, which sometimes you can struggle for it to be predictable and you don't know what you're gonna make.

So I would definitely direct you to go listen to that. But just for kind of a high level stuff, there are a couple of different ways you can budget when you've got an inconsistent income. One of them is the pay a month ahead. One of them is the budget a month ahead method, which is called a month ahead, but you technically do it two months ahead,

so bear with me. Sometimes it's really hard to save your, got a fluctuated income and you get paid on the 31st of January and you need that money and you need to know that income in your head to do February's budget. It's so close and if you happen to have had a bad month and if you happen to have had a low income month in January

and you only know that on the end of January or you only got paid that at the end of January, then it's really hard to do February's budget and what if your expenses are higher than the budget money, the income money? So what we do is we skip forward a month and we say, January's money, January's income is used for March's budget, because we do March's budget at the end of February. I want you to stay with me. Let's imagine on the 31st of January, you get paid all your commissions or income or client money on the last day of January.

It's really hard to turn that around for February's budget. So imagine if you actually had December's money ready for the February budget, and the January money is used for the March budget. So even though it sounds like I'm skipping two months, actually practically it's only one month. And so you save up an extra... The way you get to do this is you build savings of one month

and you use that as your buffer month. And I've seen loads of people do this really effectively. And it seems to be the cleanest way that you can budget for fluctuating income but not excessively fluctuating but it keeps it clean because you're not left until the last minute to know what money's coming in. So if you can pick like an average month,

build that up and put it to one side, then effectively when money comes in in January, you push it out to a separate account, and then you bring in December's income, and then you use that as if it's a salary. And so it might sound a little complicated, but once you've worked your way through it, if that was you, you can really understand how you do it.

The problem is you've just gotta get ahead a month, and you've gotta be able to save that extra month, and that isn't really your emergency fund. It is your cash, and it is kind of your emergency fund. It is your cash and it's is kind of an emergency fund but we would want one of those as well. So that's the budget and month ahead method. The other method is waterfall method. In a nutshell, what you're going to do there is you're going to build a budget around essential expenses first. So your bare bones budget expenses. So making sure you look after your home, making sure you look after your food, your essential bills, things that are super important to prioritize.

And like a waterfall, the income that you get, and you pick, sorry, the bare bones budget, needs to match up to at least your lowest typical income month. Once you've nailed that, the pressure's a little bit off because you're kind of like, okay, anything else is gravy, we're in a good place because we've been able to cover our expenses. And then like a waterfall, you're pouring the water down the budget. And next kind of like, okay, anything else is gravy. We're in a good place because we've been able to cover our expenses.

And then like a waterfall, you're pouring the water down the budget. And next we would have, okay, the first bare bones budget wouldn't have sinking funds in it because it's just what I actually need to get through that month. So you then would fill up some of your sinking funds. And then if there's more income, it pours down and it can then come to more bougier expenses. So a nicer, you know, an eating budget and eating out, sorry, not an eating budget,

but an eating out budget if you didn't have one, or a hair and beauty budget, or a clothing budget if you didn't have one, because all those are not bare budget essentials. They are nice to haves. And then also lastly, I'm going to say it last, but it doesn't mean it comes last in priority, you would have your excess.

So making sure that in every budget, we're putting money towards things that grow. Could be savings, could be paying off debt, could be investing. So what you do is you create a budget in the app, which is your absolute minimum essential budget, which matches the minimum that you're likely to bring in on fluctuating income and then in thes, where extra money comes in, you can kind of backfill and go, okay, next we're gonna do sinking fund stuff. You wanna keep that in notes actually as well,

like what you'd like to do, what are the nice to haves that you'll do with extra money if it comes in. And again, looking at your excess, and again, looking at more, you know, fuller, flexible expenses that are not essentials. And that's the way that you deal with the lowest that you're gonna make,

but you can cater for when you have these higher months as well. You know, you have to really think I might load up my sinking funds, I might really put extra into my pension, I might really put extra into savings, because the next time there's a lower month, I might not be able to do that.

So those are the two main ways that you can budget a fluctuated income. Again, we did a really in-depth pod on it that you might wanna listen to. We've got another question. I want to save money, but I also want to enjoy life. How do I find the balance? You are in the right place, question answerer,

question asker number five. It's a particular dynamic, isn't it, about balancing the here and now, and our needs here and, about balancing like the here and now and our needs here and now and our wants here and now and the short term, the medium term and the longer term. Your question where it says I want to save money but I also want to enjoy life kind of indicates that it's either one or the other a little bit. You do say how do I find the balance?

So I'll give you that, but it doesn't need to be an either or. I speak to people and they'll definitely be listening to this podcast who have lost people young. They've lost partners, husbands, parents, young. And so for them, it's really hard to think about super long-term because life's for living, like it could all go tomorrow. I want to enjoy myself. I don't want like never ending delayed gratification. And there's such difficult conversations

because that is correct. Like imagine if you didn't live life and you didn't do what you wanted to do and you just basically squirreled away money and saved and saved and saved. And you know, lots of people say, you can't take it with you when you go. And that's so true.

The flip to that is, what if we are here? What if we do meet our average life expectancy, if not beyond, and we've not provided for the future? We're kind of not looking after our future self. It's a real interesting balancing act, as you say, between saving money, and by saving I want to talk about saving money, investing money, paying off debt,

like doing things on your money journey, and making sure that you are enjoying life. And enjoying life sometimes means spending, and sometimes doesn't. Enjoying life isn't necessarily spending money on expensive cocktails and buying new clothes, but it might be spending time with friends and it might be spending time with loved ones

and whatever that costs to do that, but we will convince ourselves of anything. So sometimes by saying, I wanna live life, like I wanna be able to do this, I wanna be able to do that. What do you like, what do you mean? What's the thing that's going to bring you enjoyment? Because too often we associate the enjoyment with the spending of the thing that we'll just excuse ourselves to be like, treat yourself and your low. And poor, you know, enjoying your life might also be travel. It might also

be that really nice meal out that experience, that memory, and that might come with money and money is needed for that. And so the two can live together. The aim for us with Fire and Shell is to get you to a place where you have a budget that lets you enjoy your life today, enjoy your life next week and next month, and enjoy your life in 30 plus years time.

That's the goal. There are times in your life in 30 plus years time. That's the goal. There are times in your life when the balance will tip. So it could be that there is a debt-free journey and an urgency and so we're spending less and maybe we're enjoying ourselves a little less. I love it when we find fun in those moments and embrace the freebies and embrace the cost-effective times and lean into that element of debt payoff that I can still enjoy my life and be more frugal. I can still enjoy life and do less that costs money. So sometimes the pendulum swings that way. And other times it can be spending times

that might be like getting married or it might be like having the kids and taking the kids somewhere nice. So it might be treating family or it might be going through a wardrobe update or a house update, you know, all the interiors you might have in you might move home and you might plow your money and your energy into interiors and for a period of time, as long as we're using cash to do it and not using credit, that's okay. So this is all about balance and and I do believe you can save and enjoy life. I'm doing that now and there are levers you can pull to

make that easier. You can bring in more income. More income means more money. More money means more choices. At the same time it also might mean pulling back on income. You might have a job you absolutely hate and so you love saving money but ultimately you want to enjoy life and so you want to pull back and move to a different career a different role a different job that doesn't give you the same financial reward but it gives you a more enjoyable life that's okay too. So I hope that answered your question and I want to encourage anyone listening to this that you can have balance.

There'll be different moments in your life where it swings one way or the other. And you just have to know which season you're in, like different seasons of life. And if you do find yourself staying too long and in what on one side, the pendulum swinging too far towards enjoying life and not doing any saving

or anything financially responsible, bring yourself back to the middle come back to middle still have some spending and enjoying but come in the middle and if you find yourself just squirreling loads of money away and save save save and saying no to everything not being as social not doing things that could bring you joy try bring it back the other way I feel like I've talked about the people that I've spoken to that are very much what's the point and I want to live life for today. And that I still want them to be able to look after themselves in the future because odds are they're going to be around and they're the, you know, I don't want them to be in hardship in later

life. And on the flip side, I've got some very special friends who've passed away young and one in particular, he, you know, was an amazing investor and very frugal and was a multimillionaire and would make like this homemade mushroom soup and would have it Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday at work. And was like you know a running joke around around us and I'm sure he enjoyed the mushroom soup on Monday and Tuesday but I promise you by Thursday and Friday we were like she would go get food from downstairs or you know she would go to Nando's for lunch and stuff and but he was very strict with his money management and And I do think later in life, he learned to spend a little bit more and and therefore learned to enjoy life more.

And but I do sometimes wonder, oh, I wonder if he wished he'd have been a bit more extravagant, treat himself to that car, treat himself to that extra trip. He did treat himself. So it's not a great example, but it always, I always come back to that, which is like, I don't, I want to learn from him and learn from what he taught and also respect the fact that he enjoyed the frugality, like you can enjoy it as well. But maybe I wish I'd have pushed him a little bit to, to indulge, but he, you know,

had an amazing life and a amazing man and left an amazing legacy to his family. And I don't think any of us will ever get it right. Even asking that question means you're on it and you're thinking about this balance. And you know, it's gonna be a constant challenge. We're always here to help you. I am even here for the specifics. Like if you want to message in and go,

okay, I really want this watch and I'm a watch guy and I really like it and I want to message in and go, okay, I really want this watch and I'm a watch guy and I really like it and I want to invest in it and I want to buy it for me. But you know, I've got these money goals and I wonder if it's been a bit for us. Like, come with a specifics because that can sometimes bring to life the problem that you're asking the situation that you're in. You know, we may then think about, okay, what does a watch cost in proportion to your net worth or your disposable cash, this trip that you wanna go on? Are you paying with it with cash?

How far back does it put your goals? As opposed to, I'm gonna buy it with credit. I've got this watch, I really want it. It's gonna be amazing. I've always wanted it. I wanna enjoy my life and have this watch and I'm gonna put it on finance. The answer is gonna be different, isn't it?

So come with the specifics. They're always welcome. So that's a wrap, guys, on this, the Vault Q&A unlock. I hope this was a way for us to answer some of the questions that you're sending in that may not be right for the longer vault or we just don't have capacity to get them in. If you were listening to this and you had a perspective and you want us to pass that back, we can share it back on here as well. then feel free to email in with that as well. So any questions, any comments, the vault at financial.com,

we'll endeavor to get through them and find the right show for them so that we can share it within the community and people get the answers and validation and support hopefully that they need. And as the episode draws to the close, I just want for those of you listening to take a moment to reflect on where you're at

in your money journey. How hard you're finding it, how easy you might be finding it. Do you wanna ramp things up? Do you wanna get to your destination quicker? If you've been listening to us for a while and you've been doing the financial method, how far have you come?

What are your wins? Where did you start? What place were you in and where are you wins? Where did you start? What place were you in? And where are you now? If you're brand new to us, where are you at? What's your situation and where do you want to get to? I love, this is the Fanshell train, like people are getting on at different destinations

and people are getting off at different destinations. And I love hearing about your progress. And when you share it in the community and app, like you inspire so many other people that I want you to keep doing that. This stuff is hard. Sometimes we'll have life hit us. Sometimes we'll have relationship breakdowns. We'll have, you know, deaths in the family.

We'll have marriages and children and all the complicated relationship issues around that. We'll have house moves. We'll have emergencies. So much is going to come at you. That's what's the beauty of the financial methodology. It all stays the same. That stays the constant as life changes. So, yeah, take that time to have a think.

Where are you at? What do you want to achieve next? And can we help you with that? Because that's literally, literally why we exist. So send us a message if you found it helpful. I would love it if you could share with friends, family, drop it in your WhatsApp groups, get people following, get people sharing,

because it'll then appear in people's podcast feeds and YouTube feeds and we're gonna be able to get more people help. And just to close, a disclaimer, the Vault Unlocked is a lighthearted chat around life and money. We are not giving financial advice. Bye bye.

Bye.