The Vault with Financielle - UNLOCKED: Money Talk, Mum Guilt & Pensions—Your Questions Answered

Episode Date: March 31, 2025

Send us a text*just a note - we had the video and some audio files error post filming so you may hear a couple of glitches - so it's not perfect but we still wanted you to have the episode so we put it out anyway. Team Financielle xxxx*💸 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 answering your questions. Coming up in this episode:1️⃣ How do I talk about money to my friend if my salary is 3 times bigger than hers?2️⃣ How do I avoid the mum guilt for not being able to afford all the activities or take annual holidays with my kids?3️⃣ Do you keep your emergency fund in a cash isa or in a savings account?4️⃣ How do I convince my husband that a budget means we have money, not the opposite?5️⃣ I feel like I’m behind on my pension, how much should I have in my pension in early 30s?💬 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  💸Check out The Money Playbook course here: [https://financielle.thinkific.com/courses/moneyplaybook] 💸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. And it is the end of March for those of you listening to this the day that the episode comes out. We have got spring firmly in our sights and there's been signs and we've had the daffodils and stuff but it has still been cold, like a couple of sunny days but it's been cold. Long weekends will start, hen-doos will start. We've got a lot going on and so I'm here for that. I'm here for the Instagram pictures,

I'm here for the celebrations but I want you to stick to your budget. I want you to be clever about this. We don't wanna get through this change of season with less money. You've probably just been recently paid. Have you done your budget? Is your budget in order?

We just have to be, we have to have a plan because if we don't have a plan, we will find ways to spend our money and not on the things that we want. So don't sacrifice your money goal. Are you trying to pay off debt? Are you trying to build up savings? Are you trying to buy a home?

Are you trying to consistently invest over and above your default pension stuff? Because if you are, and if you're listening to this, you should be, and if you're listening to this and you're not doing any of those things, come see me and, and if you're listening to this, you should be, and if you're listening to this, and you're not doing any of those things, come see me and we'll find you a goal. So yeah, if you've not done the B-word budget,

get that done, if you have, well done, and try stick to it. Your future self will thank you for it. So we are back with another Q&A episode. We have an endless supply of amazing questions from you guys. And obviously we pick up some of the longer dilemmas on the main vault that comes out on a Thursday. And we do hope you find this Q&A useful because there's so many good questions that come in that there's no point as answering like just in the community or just one on one.

We want to be able to share them with you. Always, always love your views on some of the questions. So again, the vault at financial.com, message in, and or just one-on-one, we want to be able to share them with you, always, always love your views on some of the questions. So again, the vault at financial.com, message in if you have a perspective, and I'll always go back and revisit it, and we'll make sure that the person that emailed

the dilemma and we'll get it to them, like it is that important to us that people have guidance. And just because my perspective as founder of financial and years of kind of looking after my money and helping to support other people to look after theirs, I'm just one person you'll see often on The Vault, there's like a disagreement or a different side's taken and that's okay. And so welcome other perspectives, message him.

And also before I jump in, we would love you to rate and give a review to The Vault. The more people that do that, especially if you enjoy it, for whatever reason that you enjoy it and tell us why you like it. That helps this get to more people and so we would really, really appreciate it. The podcasting world is a busy world and we don't do it just because we fancy having a podcast. It is a lot, it's a lot to plan, it's a lot to film or to record, to edit. It's worth it when we share your stories,

it's worth it when we can bring real money issues to life. And so with that, let's dive in our first question. Okay, how do I talk about money to my friend if my salary is three times bigger than hers? Wow, so this is, there's a lot in this one. How do I talk to my friend about money if my salary is three times bigger than hers? I have been there actually on both sides as well. I love talking about my experiences with friendships and money.

I've always said that the Sex and the City girls talked more about money. A lot of us could have been influenced in much more of a positive way alongside the fashion and the drama and the men and the women and NYC and stuff. But yeah, I think I've always wanted this aspirational money relationship with my friends. And I think, and I'm going to shout out to you and I'm not sure they listen. They're very busy. But two of my best friends growing up, we had like a little bit of a trio tricycle. We do actually have a what's that?

Well, we have what's that group called the tricycle and stabilizers that we that we set up because our little girl gang was the three of us and my little one. She's definitely not stabilizers anymore. She's bigger than us, but tricycle group. And I'm really proud of the fact that we spoke about money very transparently early on. I think in my upbringing,

money was spoken about transparently and we were super lucky that we didn't struggle. Like I said, we weren't surrounded by wealth. We didn't want for anything. My parents both were from super working class backgrounds. And so money was a big topic of conversation for people like my Nana in the fact that she had none. You know, and she would literally manually have a ledger, a manual budget on a piece of paper, a little notebook, so a tiny little notebook and you know she would check at the cash machine most trips to Wigan to the shops to check to get a bank balance and to know how much she had in. I mean they just didn't have phones then, she would never have had a banking app. So I have come from a space where

Muniz talked about and with my friends especially, which is this scenario, we were from different backgrounds, different earning backgrounds, different experiences, different experiences of university, how you funded yourself through it. We all managed to get the same job. And so we started on the same level. And since then, lots of different things have happened.

We have had, you know, one of them go on to be super senior in a business, be a super senior lawyer in a business in London. And so whilst two of us were up in the North, one of us was down in London with the, you know, corresponding living expenses. I'm sure she won't remind me sharing, but getting good salary jumps versus us and she never

didn't share that and she always shared it in a very transparent non, she shared it in a transparent and sensitive way it was and I'm just in awe actually looking back of how delicate she was with it because the other thing was when our friend left for a job in a scale up, which was very risky for her to do at the time, like it was a big decision for her to do that only this kind of really stable law firm job, she left for a lot more money.

I don't think I'd ever actually known what my parents had earned. So when we talk about money, like I'd not actually put my finger on salaries and things like that, especially when we were younger and God inflation anyway, it'd be very different. It was the first time like I'd heard these salaries, this size of salary, the idea that someone,

you know, similar age to me, my friend, same education as me, same kind of background was suddenly earning so much more than me. It was inspiring and it was amazing and it motivated me to want more. As she said, if she can do it, why can't I? It was a I'm proud of you moment, but thank you for sharing that.

We would talk to her about salary negotiations and bonuses, which really wasn't a thing in private practice law firm. I'm confident it wasn't. I don't ever remember getting a bonus from the law firm when I was there. And then at different points, I'd left to go in-house,

and so my salaries weren't jumping up as quickly as could have been in private practice. I think what I'm trying to say is, I've had that experience where I have been on a good earning end, and then I've come right back down and become a startup founder at different times, been on maternity leave and not earned any. And we've always tried to keep the relationship

transparent about money, and I think that's what my guidance would be here because I found that successful and I found that has really worked and it's never caused resentment. I do think that the quality of the friendship is super important there. And if you're in a good place, you need to be pretty good friends. I don't think this should be with acquaintances and distant friends but if you're in a good place, you need to be pretty good friends. I don't think this should be with acquaintances and distant friends, but if you're in a really good place,

and if it's not too sensitive or confidential to share what you're earning. So then we go on to why do you wanna talk to her about money? And if it's because you have a question and you've got a dilemma and you need some guidance, I think it's about being very self aware. So if you earn three times what your friend earns,

her problems will be very different to your problems. She may be trying to, for example, and I'm generalizing here, but she may be trying to balance the bills and work out which of the her basic needs is more of a priority and she may not be planning nice holidays or she may never be planning to buy a property or she may be struggling in some debt and your problem might be and I'm making this up but if you earn three times as much as her you it might be how much you wanna borrow on a mortgage or whether to go for a promotion at work

or just something that is very different to her reality. And so I think you have to be very self-aware that you may have a first world problem versus her problem. We know that earning isn't everything. You could earn more and have more expenses and struggle on that basis, but the fact that you've raised it as the salary could be an issue.

Being aware of that and knowing your relationship, you shouldn't just jump in, share your salary, and go, I've got a problem, can you help? I think this is like, this is like maybe talking about relationships. Maybe you have had a friend who has been single This is like maybe talking about relationships. Maybe you have had a friend who has been single for a long time and who hasn't met the person

that they want to meet and you're complaining about, married life or complaining about something, I guess something relationship wise that's maybe not a big deal. And your friends would love to be in your position, would love to have a partner, would love to be in that space. I feel like it's similar with,

it could be fertility or it could be children. It might not be fertility. It could be the fact that you haven't met someone and haven't had children. So if you're sat there complaining about the lack of sleep that you've been getting with your child or the play dates that you have to go on to or the fact that you're tired. A good friend is self-aware and so is the person you're speaking to.

On a different journey to you, has struggled with that. Again, would want to be in your position, you're sat complaining and I think it's similar with money. So firstly, being self-aware I think is really really important. It's important for any friendship. It doesn't mean though you can't ask for help and talk to them and share but otherwise it's kind of a bit of a superficial friendship because there isn't that ability to be very vulnerable and be open. You don't have to share numbers. I think it's really good when numbers are shared. I shared that story of myself earlier and it really helps you to know what's possible and we need to help each other out.

God, the gender pay gap is bad enough. And so being transparent in a place where you know you're not gonna be judged and you're in a safe relationship with your friend can be helpful, but you don't have to. So you could talk about what problem do you have, what is it in regards to, and you don't need to mention numbers. So that's if you have, if you need advice

and help from your friend. I guess another, you've not put this, but if you want to stage like an intervention, if you want to talk to her about money generally, about money principles, about how to improve with money, and if you're kind of suggesting that she should, you know, work on that at any point. And I know you're not saying you are,

but I'm just very mindful of, you have to be super careful with that because you can't come across as preachy and we can't make people be better with money just as we can't get them to look after themselves, improve an area of their life. You know, if someone's not eating well, if someone's drinking too much, if someone's out all the time, if someone's in all the time, you know, there's nothing wrong as a friend with staging a mini intervention which is checking they're okay and checking if they're

in a good place, and asking if there's anything that you can do to help. But once you've kind of asked those questions once, and as long as you provide a safe space for them to come back to you, you kind of have to leave it there. If it is you'd like to help with suggestions or advice, just be very careful of that.

I've always found the best. People come to ask for advice when you're in a good relationship with them and you are confident with money and relaxed about money and you may give a non-judgmental perspective voluntarily. That kind of thing can really help trigger something in people's brains, trigger something to get them to make a change, to ask more questions.

So yeah, it depends on why you want to talk about money and it really depends on the depth of your relationship. But if you can navigate those things just as you can the other life issues, like romance, it might be health- like relationship and parental or non-parental issues, then you'll be fine. And let us know how it goes. Okay. That was like a bit of a share. Sorry. I went right on with that one. Let's look at the second one. How do I avoid the mum guilt for not being able to afford all the activities or take annual holidays with my kids?

Oh this is so common and Parental guilt is is really really hard It could be impacted by so many different things It could be impacted by where you live by family members by who you follow on social media by your friends that you follow on social media by your friends that you follow on social media, by your financial commitments and by your financial situation in terms of what you're earning and what your expenses are and what your goals are. Remember, we are all in different

phases and chapters of life and the sooner you accept that and be at peace with that, it definitely is easier to navigate. Someone could be in a rapid growth phase financially, someone could have had help from family in a particular place, or someone could be struggling way worse than you are. And unfortunately, so much of it, this is about how people portray their life.

So the mum guilt comes from a couple of places. One, children asking, can we go on holiday every year and can we do this activity and that activity? And it also comes from the pressure that we put on ourselves to do the activities, to collect the memories. And it really isn't easy. In fact, today in the Family WhatsApp group, we were talking about Lapland UK prices. And it's just like, they are so, so expensive. And I think they're similar to Lapland overseas. I used to work in travel and there was a real moment,

especially with our eldest, to be like, oh, do we do it? We're gonna run out of time. And it just wasn't worth the money versus what we, what else we wanted to do and what else we wanted to achieve. It would have really, really hampered a lot of other things. And it wasn't something they wanted to do.

It was something that we as parents felt the pressure to do. You've got this moment and it's gonna be so beautiful. And everyone I speak to really, really does enjoy doing it. I've spoken to a lot of people who have stretched themselves to do that and that's just one example. And honestly, if we would have had more disposable income and were further on with our money goals, it probably would have been something we would have done

and would have enjoyed and would have grabbed those memories and would have framed them and would have take them off. And so I make no apologies for that. But I know that I would have been also part of this perpetual problem, which is these iconic moments. You still kind of like have to bring yourself back down a little bit and go, right, okay, that's not reality, let's reset, and let's genuinely look at our situation and what can we do that fits. What I'm trying to say in this very long-winded way of saying it is so much of this is about us and not about our children, and so the thing we have to work on is two things. We have to work on our money because some of these things are possible in moderation.

And some things are about us not having that impulsivity, not doing a comparison thing, and kind of building in strategies to do it. We are all on our own course. Sometimes people are on a really intense money journey, and you have to sacrifice, you have to say no, you can't say yes to everything. Other times, people are in a real abundant moment,

they may be in a financial position that enables them to make certain decisions and do you know what, we have to be happy for them, we have to not get jealous, we have to not compare. And I'm so grateful that I feel like in my 30s especially, I have been able to, and maybe it's because I feel financially well, maybe it's because we are in a comfortable place.

When I see friends buying new homes, getting new cars, going on life changing family holidays, or new homes, getting new cars, going on life changing family holidays or individual holidays, I honestly am at a place of good for you. There's never ever an ounce of, oh, should we be doing that as well? Like, should we stretch ourselves? Like, I'd never sit down with Carl and go,

you know, these people doing X, Y, and Z, should we? I might have done in my 20s. I got to this place of peace where I wasn't constantly trying to be on this treadmill of improvement and it's not one-upmanship. Maybe it is one-upmanship but it's okay to be on your own journey and it's okay for others to do more things than you're doing. So I think getting to a place where you're okay with your journey and you also respect other people's is really healthy, really, really healthy. I think identifying triggers is also helpful.

So if there are people, it could be friends on your social media that share a lifestyle that you struggle with. You don't have to unfriend them or do anything dramatic, but you might mute them, or you might take time off social media and not be in this space for a period of time and see if it changes how you feel,

because if you're not seeing something with a link to click it and to do it, you never saw it. You just didn't see it, so it didn't enter your head. And so having some control over where your triggers are, it could be family, family, I think we've had questions on that before, where it's always, you know, what does Holly always say? If we're going to 10 aref, then go into 11 aref.

And again, if that, then just control your boundaries. Do not put yourselves into situations where it's about comparisons, you know, control the narrative, control the conversation, or just don't go into those places where, you know, that's talked about. And ultimately, if you do want to do some of these things, like you do want to do activities sometimes and you do want to maybe go on a holiday, it may not be an annual holiday,

but a holiday, try and put it in your budget. You know, the holiday may be an every other year holiday that comes by way of a sinking fund and it may not be overseas, but it may be somewhere where your children can build memories. And that might be your goal and your priority over other money goals. Obviously, financial would like you to be in a safe and secure place financially

before you're putting money into holidays, but I would like to think that there could be something for you that is just creating memories for your kids and does feel like a holiday, but it doesn't need to involve a plane or a long trip or extra expenses. And the same with activities, you know, I forget about the concepts of inflation,

which is ironic for a personal finance BBC expert, especially, I just can't believe how much things cost sometimes. You know, sometimes the cost to go into a fairground, to go into the cinema sometimes. And it does get overwhelming because you're like I can't afford all these activities, especially around half terms and things. But this is where you can overcome the monguilt and do some activities, but be really savvy about how you pay for them. So can you get deals where it's buy one, get one free?

Can you go off peak and go in evenings? Can you get some of these bank deals that have free cinema tickets and you go to the cinema and then you take your own snacks and stuff? Can you go to the park or the beach and do picnics? And what are the things that you can do to do those activities and build memories without it compromising your financial goals

because your financial goals are really, really important for the long-term financial wellbeing of you and your family. It is the putting your gas mask on first conversation again. And so I'd like to think that this isn't a forever period of your life. If you're following financial, our goal is to get you to grow.

And so we get you through survive, you build up emergency savings, you pay off your debt, you then graduate through to more stable, building bigger emergency funds, maybe buying a home, and then you invest extra. And in the middle of all that is big life goals and build,

which is once we've got you to a place where you're consumer debt free and you've got a big emergency fund, aside from whether you do or don't want to buy property, you also start building up these sinking funds. And big life goals is about changing your budget at that point to live the life that you want to live. It's not a life of extravagance necessarily, but it's the indulgence is it might be the family meals once in a while or the family trips and King funds or the you know gift-giving whatever it is for you we want to get you there you're not meant to stay and survive and so yeah hopefully this is this is just one chapter and of your book so hopefully this is just one chapter of your book and you've many more chapters to write where you can overcome this, you know, mum-gult. It's super hard so don't give yourself a hard time.

Okay, next, do you keep your emergency fund in a cash ISA or in a savings account? So just to be clear, your emergency fund, whether that's the mini emergency fund of around one month's expenses or whatever you choose to be your bigger one, be it six months expenses, even 12 months expenses some people in our community have. We obviously wanna hold it in a savings account. So a savings account where the money is held in cash, is held by the bank, it is not being invested, it's not anything fancy,

it is literally just a savings account. We want that savings account to make as much money as possible while you sleep. So that's about making sure it's a high yield savings account. When we say high yield, we mean good interest rate. So trying to get the best interest rate. Not having money sat in your current account, but in a specific savings account.

So in the UK, you have your personal savings allowance, which is a thousand pounds. It means that you have to make more than a thousand pounds per year in interest before you start paying tax. So the reality is lots of us don't have as much in emergency savings to, well, savings altogether to carry us over that on an individual basis as well, because don't forget, if you're in a couple

and you combine your money, you get a thousand pounds each. But regardless, I just always feel it's best practice to navigate to an ICER. You can put 20,000 pounds per year in ICERs. And it is true that, say you put a thousand pounds in and then you take 500 out, you have still used a thousand of that allowance. You haven't gone down to 500,

even though the cash has gone down to 500, you've used a thousand. So there is don't you you haven't gone down to 500 even though the cash has gone down to 500 you've used a thousand so there is this issue where taking money out and putting it back in again you still only get to put 20 000 in regardless of what you take out and you know the relatives of an emergency fund might be money coming in and out but essentially unless you're maxing out that 20 somewhere else in the stocks and shares ISA as part of your lifetime ISA stuff, then you may as well put it into an ISA. But at the same time, it doesn't matter if you don't, because really, you may not be paying tax on interest anyway. So a regular savings account is still fine.

Remember, your emergency fund should be accessible. So it's probably not great putting in a fixed rate return savings account that kind of pays you in a year's time if you need access to it, it's your emergency bill and that's what it's for. But yeah, I think that the ISA versus regular savings account is more about are you likely to have to pay tax on interest and if you are, just get it in the ISA, especially if you're not going to fill the ISA anyway. But if you put it in a regular savings account and you don't hit your thousand pound threshold, you're not paying tax anyway. Next one, how do I convince my husband

that a budget means we have money, not the opposite? Yeah, it's so common this one. It's like the budget word, the B word, scares lots of people. It scares people that find financial for the first time, that like to spend, that like to enjoy a nice standard of living. You people often go, oh, does this mean I'm not gonna be able to do nice things?

And we're like, no, no, no, no, you've come to the right place. This is the place that allows nice things and a nice lifestyle, but in moderation and in proportion to your income. So we are the place that's gonna say, yeah, you can't afford that. You are definitely living living beyond your means and the community will do that to you. They'll be your best friend and hold your hand but tell you, you know, quite frankly, where you're probably

overstepping. But they will never say destroy your life and pile money up and, you know, don't enjoy it. They just won't do that. That's not how we're built at financial and so the important thing to remember with partners is and it could be family members as well as partners but we are dragging them kicking and screaming into the financial method it is weird to live on less than you make most people use credit to fund their lifestyle whether it be to fund a car that you know they couldn't necessarily buy outright or whether it's dropping into overdraft from time to time, whether it's using the credit card for points but kind of having it sit there in the background and building up as a debt. You know most people don't operate like we operate so to come to it new and to be told if you're

overspending actually you need to make the budget balance. You can't spend more than comes in so what are you gonna take out? Or you can have to take out golfing, or you can have to take out, you know, cinema trips, or you're gonna have to take out your favorite takeaways. That, people don't like hearing that. And so you can imagine that someone may be reluctant

when you suddenly go, right, we're doing a budget. And it all just also depends on how, and how intense you go. You know, I say this often, which is, you have had weeks usually, if not months, It also depends on how intense you go. I say this often, which is you have had weeks, usually, if not months to get used to Fanshell and to get used to the method and to get comfortable. And because you get excited about it,

especially when you see other wins, when you see people who have done so well, paid off so much debt, bought so many homes or stocks and shares or whatever it is, or they just feel amazing and they have these non-scale victories as I keep seeing people say in the community. It gets, it's addictive and it's like osmosis that you just, you wanna do that too.

And so then you've taken all this time to learn and to consume and you've read the post and you've listened to the vault and you've been reading the playbook and you've been doing the online course. And then suddenly you tell your partner and you've read the post and you've listened to the vault and you've been reading the playbook and you've been doing the online course and then suddenly you tell your partner and they, he or she has to kind of go,

oh my God, okay, right, what are we doing? Suddenly you're quitting all these things and why? Why would I do that? We're having a nice life, why would you spoil it? So lots of people are stressed about budgets. The other thing is a budget can be bougie. We talk about bougie budgets. A budget is simply a plan.

It's a plan that has to balance, which is why some people see that it, or some people say that it feels like you have less. But a budget is simply just a plan. It's a framework that can give us a space to operate within. And we have some people that track every penny in the actual section of budget. They are on it and they are so determined to beat the budget

and it's super intense, super exciting. Quite frankly, I forget to do that. I do it some months if I'm doing like a no spend challenge or if I've got a particular goal with my excess, I do track actuals. Might do it in April, actually, that could be a good thing. I'd have to go back a couple of days because I've not done any actuals

for spending this past weekend. But you don't have to. The budget can be kind of a framework and can, especially if you have a banking app with pots, you can do your budget and move all the, move your money into pots for budget categories. And so you'll have 400 pound in groceries and you'll have 200 pound for eating out

and you'll have, you know, 200 pound for wife's fun money, girlfriend's fun money, husband's fun money. And like no judgment, kind of use it for what you want. And I think when people see that everything's allocated, there's a different feeling of like abundance that comes from that, there's loads of feeling of like abundance that comes from that, there's loads of money in there, it's just not in one place that you find shall pour

because in the current account it looks like you've not got a lot of money. But all the money has been moved and it's been allocated and it's neat and if you have any questions on that please do jump to the community, ask the community, DM us because we often forget that you may be new, you may have come to us and you don't know

about that way of managing money. There's a really good unlocked on budgeting. I would say it's really good, I did it. But it helps walk through practically how you do that. I mean, send that to them as well and see if you can get them on board. But ultimately, a budget's permission to spend, it's not restrictive.

It's restrictive if you overspend. It's not restrictive if you have the money. It's about choice, it's about where you put the different categories. And show me your budget and I'll show you what's important to you. The best budgets have this balance about them. They have a balance between overpaying debt,

building savings or investing depending on whether you're in survive, build or grow. But they have sinking funds, which is planning for the future. Planning those holidays, planning for Christmas if you celebrate it, planning for when your car's gonna need new tires. And then there's this element of enjoyment in your budget.

It could be giving to other people, it could be spending on frivolous things once in a while. That's a really good budget and so I wish you luck and hopefully you can get them on board. But take them slow, don't rush rush them don't intimidate them we can be scary okay last one I feel like I'm behind on my pension how much should I have in my pension in my early 30s I'm gonna cheat a bit with this one and say and not actually answer how much you should have in your pension in your 30s because it's

that great old it depends answer. So many of us have not taken pensions seriously either because we don't like the idea of getting older and we kick it down the can and we just don't think about it or because we don't know really much about it and it's this weird thing that someone talks about once in a while at work or we just don't feel we've got enough money to put into it. You know you could be self-employed as well I see this all the time with self-employed people, you know, starting looking at pensions when they come to financial and kind of panicking and going, oh, and you may be behind on your own progress with your pension versus anyone else. It really doesn't matter. You shouldn't give a shit, but you may be behind on

your pension journey. And so what a good place to start is going to Money Helper or to be honest, lots of pension provider websites do have pension calculators and the support to work backwards from where you want to be in retirement. So a good place to start is pick the age that you want to retire and think about the lifestyle that you want to live then. What salary do you need? And this is like, you have to think about gross and net salary because you do get taxed on income all your life, even if it's pension income, which is not going to go into, but you have to think of what gross salary do you need to have an okay standard of living? Now you may or may not be entitled to state pension, which can help supplement that. But honestly, I always like calculations that just see that as a bonus and and don't bank on it and concentrate on your own pension pot

and how how big can you get it. So then you need to use pension calculators to work out okay if I want that salary let's say it's 30,000 pounds because I've worked out my expenses and I've guessed that I might be mortgage free not everyone's gonna be mortgage free by retirement, so please bear that in mind. But I've worked all these on these assumptions and I think I need 30,000 pounds to have a nice retirement, annual income sorry, to have a nice retirement. You then can kind of work out what pot of money you need to make sure that you can pay yourself out of it, 30,000 a year and it doesn't yourself out of it, 30,000 a year, and it doesn't run out.

It kind of, the ideal is that it grows at the same rate. That's not super realistic. But you can work out what approximate pot you need to pay yourself. A lot of the apps have this actually. I have a pension being pension as one of my pensions. There is a analytics and you click retirement planner and my pot and my app tells me that you're projected to

have X at retirement. If you take X amount per year this will last until X age so this is like rubbish because I'm like X in this and X in that but basically a lot of the apps have their own calculators in them a lot of the banks have their own calculators in them where you can play around and go okay if I wanted this income per year what pot do I need and they can also tell you what contributions you need to make so my fuzzy answer to this is you need to do the work to find out what you need to live off in retirement and what part you need to build. And then you look at where you're at. And that will show you how far behind on your pension that you are. Obviously, that's assumption based and and just a caveat.

If you go and see a, you know, regulated financial planner, you will be able to do this in such detail. This is where they come into their own, because they'll be able to sit down with you and talk about aims, ambitions, early retirement, mortgage pays off, what's important to you, how risk averse you are, what disposable cash you have to invest in investments. Like it's great to get a handle on yourself,

but it is just amazing to be able to do it actually with a financial planner, if they're right for you. But ultimately doing that work first will help show you whether there's a gap and it'll show you how much more you should be contributing at age 30, because you've got less time for it to grow, than you are already. And you just start in the work to close the gap.

Some people know the gap but can't move anywhere else because they're overpaying debt or they're doing something else. And I think that's super important that sometimes you can't act on the gap straight away if you've got other financial priorities. But the minute you can get to it, I've seen people do things like deploy bonuses into pension

or increase pension on pay rises. Little things like that can suddenly start to ramp up your contributions to your pension without you feeling it in your back pocket, without you really noticing in terms of your lifestyle. And another tip is also, you don't have to just contribute into your work pension. You can open a self-invested personal pension in the UK.

You can do the equivalent in other countries and treat it like a savings account, knowing that you obviously can't get access to it. And once it's been, if it's been invested, obviously it's at risk, it's capital, and it could go down as well as it going up. So, all the usual caveats around that, but treating it a little bit like a savings account,

lots of people have found that helpful. Picking a brand that has an app on your phone, like I've just talked about Pension B's then, and there's a million others that you can pick from, it's in your pocket and you're just a bit more connected to it, and I think lastly, tracking your net worth in the financial app is super important because it helps to really show where your priorities lie.

Focus on the right things, keep an eye on retirement. What's also making sure that your budget is in a good place and you're enjoying life and living life as well. We did five good questions there. That is a wrap on this Q&A episode. If you have more questions, send them our way, especially these little ones. It doesn't have to be a longer dilemma like the bigger ones.

You just DM them, email, put it into comments. We see them all and we do collect them. We are like hawks. And obviously make sure you follow the vault in your app because if you're in Spotify and Apple podcasts and you follow it, it'll tell you when we've got a new episode out and put it to the top ready for when you're bored on your dog walk

or at home watching it. Some people watch it on YouTube or maybe you are going for a run and you don't want loud music sometimes. Sometimes you want chat which is what I've been embracing recently actually. So yeah, that's it for today, have a really good rest of week and just a disclaimer, The Vault Unlocked is a lighthearted chat around life and money, you're not giving financial advice. Bye bye.