The Vault with Financielle - UNLOCKED: Why Debt Is Holding You Back

Episode Date: January 13, 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.In today’s episode, we’re diving into debt—the thing no one wants to talk about but so many of us face. Debt can feel like a quick fix, but over time, it starts to hold you back. Whether you’re in debt, working to get out, or celebrating a debt-free life, this episode is for you!Here’s what we’re exploring:Why debt feels manageable at first and why it sneaks up on youThe real cost of debt—how it impacts your career, health, and relationshipsHow to break free from the debt cycle with simple, actionable stepsThe mindset shift you need to get and stay debt-freeThis is your guide to understanding how debt holds you back and the strategies to take back control.💬 Have 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.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 they don't talk about this the way that we do at Financial. So brace yourselves. We on this very fine Monday, if you're listening to it on the day it came out. We're going to lean in to debt today. Now this is going to be for lots of different types of people so don't switch off of it and think it's not for you. So it's for people who are in debt and happily in debt. It is for people who want to get rid of their debt. It's for people that are debt free it's to send to people that you think have a particular view and have never been I guess shared this angle before you know this perspective um and so you may send this to someone else someone may have sent it to you so if they have welcome this is

a safe space this is judgment free on debt and I really really want you to understand um that this is coming from a safe space a nice space this is not judgmental but I'm going to be the big sister kind of calling you out on certain things so brace yourselves. We're going to be leaning into consumer debt so we're not really talking about mortgage and we're not really going to be talking about student loans I think there's lots that can be said on that would love to hear your thoughts and perspectives on the different types of debt um but we're going to be talking about consumer debt so what do we mean by that we mean credit cards car loans um buy now pay later payday loans anything that's kind of financed

to buy something that really isn't a you know a, a true asset. So not like a house. We're going to come at it with no shame. We live in a society that throws debt at us, doesn't it? I mean, every single corner of a billboard, every single checkout, every single ad on social usually has some kind of finance connected with it something that can remove the friction or the hesitation of you thinking you want to buy something I mean consumerism has absolutely gone mental we all know that lots of us fall victim to it no one is safe but it is being thrown out so I find it so strange or kind of ironic that something that is literally plastered everywhere and thrown at us, we suddenly tend to become quite secretive about. You know, people are ashamed of being in debt.

People are embarrassed. People keep it from their partners. They keep it from family. They keep it from friends. We're probably more likely to share much more intimate things than how much debt we have. And I think that just helps to show how, yeah, worried we are as a society about our debt. And this is where we want to create this safe space. Because I feel like if I'm honest, I don't think people tell you like it is when it comes to debt. But I am prepared to be that person telling you like it is because I believe it's for your best interests I think your financial well-being will benefit from it and I think it's ultimately how you're going to build wealth like I said and this is because facts and figures have shown us this and you know my own personal experience now if we think about how debt makes

us feel at first it can make us feel. It can give us access to that thing that we want without having to pay for it upfront or without having to find the money or without having to worry that it doesn't derail our other financial goals. You know, it seems too good to be true, doesn't it? That you could just have something immediately and not have to pay for it. And it's only when you step back and think of it like that that you think wow like it does feel like magic that literally I can say I would like this phone I don't have the money for that phone and let me borrow oh look I've got the phone and I think you can understand how children really don't really grasp that you have to save up for things

and that you can't just get everything you want from the shop because actually even as adults we are living out that dream of anything you want you can have it whereas you know decades ago this kind of wasn't available that easy finance you used to have to save up in advance for something and pay for it over time though that initial feeling of freedom can really start to weigh you down like I mean mean physically weigh you down. It can really play on your mind, it can play on your anxiety and you're kind of carrying that decision, the weight of that decision around with you. So in this episode we're going to be looking at how debt impacts your life even if it's manageable debt because I think that's really important to remember that it can impact us in many ways even if we can handle it, if we can afford it um but we're also going to be looking

at strategies to break free from it and i think it's really important that if you are someone struggling right now with that and there is a kind of a spectrum of this isn't there there's kind of like manageable little payments here and there or let me have a little learn about what i shouldn't shouldn't be doing and there's the other end of the spectrum which is like you might feel like you're drowning and i think this is the point in the whole pod that I just want to call out that you are not alone if you are someone struggling with debt really worried about making payments worried about your family worried about your health then please go to the wonderful debt charities that are out there you've got step change

as a minimum and you can go to citizens advice in the uk but go look for debt charities and just pick up the phone because i promise you just sharing it with someone will make you feel so much so much better and obviously there are people with you know regulated debt companies that can take you on a journey and hold your hand through it and so i feel like i still want you to listen to this pod i still want you to feel like you're not on your own but if you're really really struggling don't suffer in silence um but like I said walk with us through the rest of this pod and there may be things that you can do um immediately to feel better but if you're in the middle and if you want to get rid of that debt you are in the right place and so like I said for those of you who are

debt-free huns who have like done the work or never got into debt before please stay around and stay with us because I feel like one you'll be reminded of what a great decision that you made to be debt-free but two it might I don't know make you watch out for someone in your life that you think you could help or you could um help you know on their journey become debt free so um we've kind of talked about you know people that have manageable debt people that are really struggling our debt free people and everyone in between you are all welcome um and i just wanted to lift up a community post actually we see quotes all the time in our community in the app you know if you've not downloaded the financial app, please head there, download it, meet your people,

see the wins. It really helps to bring to life, you know, what we're doing here at Financial is facilitating you guys just hit your money goals. And one of those is often to become debt-free. This post in the community says, this community really keeps me focused on paying off as much debt as possible.

I've turned around 25,,000 of credit card debt to a £14,000 overpayment on a mortgage in four years. I'm feeling so proud of myself. And just for context to explain that, if someone didn't quite get it, what that means is someone entered the community in around four years she's gone from being in £25,000 worth of credit card debt to kind of paying off that debt to building up savings being a position where she can save up £14,000 and she's whacked that off her mortgage and that's the journey that you can go on that's the turnaround that you can achieve. Now I want you to think about the psychology of debt. It is positioned to us as manageable and it makes sense like we want to know what a finance payment would be on a monthly basis just the same as we want to know mortgage payments or car finance

payments because we tend to get paid monthly and so there's no use as knowing what the whole thing would cost up front because most of us cannot do the mental maths of what the impact of that would be on our regular budget. And so when debt is positioned as a monthly payment, it makes it feel so much more manageable. Kind of until it isn't. So I call this the minimum payment trap. You know, you have a thousand pound balance on a credit card and it's got a 20% interest rate, which is like banging low. I know often we get 0% which we'll come on to, but that's kind of low for a credit card. It could take over 20 years to actually pay off that initial thousand pounds just making minimum payments.

It'll cost you double that in interest. And you all along were just kind of sat looking at the minimum payment and same for finance deals, same for buy now, pay later. Oh, I can afford that bit. And it really does mask the true amount of debt that you're taking on. And this, you know, I think the other part of this is the normalization of debt in today's society. It is so normal. We talked about this a little bit earlier. It is thrown at us. It's like opportunity to use finance at every um every every corner you are offered it especially when you're looking to buy something i was absolutely floored by this stat that keeps going up year on year the average total uk household debt excluding mortgages was around 15 501 pounds which has been an increase of 79

over 10 years i mean you can imagine with all the different things that you can get on finance now, and that's a household, you know, you throw a couple of cards in there or some loans or some overdrafts or some credit cards, you can see how that would happen. You know, buying phones on finance has been made completely normal. You know, most people don't get a SIM only and just keep the phone. We get these prompts to upgrade, don't we? And, you know, get the next one. And these devices, I mean, we use them a lot. Don't get me wrong. I'm not suddenly saying, we should kind of revert to super, super cheap phones, but we use them a lot. But what do we actually use on them? We could probably get a really good phone for a lot less and not get into this upgrade cycle,

but we don't. We kind of wrap it up into a finance contract and a sim contract, and you end up with it being quite a punchy part of your monthly budget. Not many people would buy the new iPhone out of pocket with cash, but they'd probably pay an extra 50 60 pound a month in their phone contract that that smaller number is manageable but you don't see someone handing over a debit card and saying can I buy the iPhone and maybe in financial land but generally people wouldn't do that and do you know why it's because you realize how much it costs. You're kind of going, oh, do I really want to hand over over a grand for a phone?

Do I want to or do I want to distribute that to other things to kind of investing it or saving it or helping to buy a home? So you can see how we kind of are skewed by the normalization of the monthly payment when we would never dream of kind of parting with that amount of cash for the bigger payment. I think we've also seen you know the memes and the jokes about credit card debt and listen it's like I'm here for some of that I think we look we need to be able to laugh at ourselves a little bit it's often laughing at women and maxing out credit cards you know talking about two pence in your bank account oh it's payday I've gone crazy I'm all about laughing um at ourselves but I think often it's women laughing at women or men laughing at women the jokes about the wives and the husband and dynamic I just there's just something in all that that actually now I just makes me feel uncomfortable and I'm less likely to laugh at

and maybe you will be next time you spot one of those memes you'll go ah they're laughing at me hmm another element to this is the concept of like delayed consequences so a financial hangover I will I will delay the impact of a decision that I want to make today and I'll sort it later maybe when you've got more money maybe when you've got a better job maybe when you know you've not got as expensive a month but we can justify anything to ourselves and you find people like kicking things kind of um down the road i think it's probably a good moment to have a call out to say that we are talking more about consumerism and impulsive spending here some people are in such dire straits financially

that they have to make a decision to put something on a card to buy themselves time and they've no choice but to sort it out later. And so we're definitely leaning into the impulsive spending decisions rather than the emergency I have no option decisions. And it's really important to remember that because this is where we're targeting this energy today. This is not being targeted towards the people that do not have a choice. You know, they've got kind of enough on their plate without having my finger pointing at them. It's those of us that are just overspending and we're kicking something down the line and we'll justify anything to ourselves but you know next year's you or summer's you will not be happy with your

decision that you made over Christmas or over New Year's you know or impulsively like kind of getting a holiday or whatever it is to have later you deal with those consequences. You know finance is a slippery slope we've talked about how buying a pay later is a gateway drug for lots of, you know, young people nowadays to the world of credit. And for millennial generation, it was absolutely not percent credit card. And please do message in and tell me

if this is how you got into debt. Did, you know, the mighty Martin Lewis promote on his website some not percent cards that if you're a savvy switcher you know you could do this and you could do that but absolutely you know he gave the right caveats he told you to make sure you pay it off in full he told you to diarize for the end of the periods but we're human like we don't remember that kind of thing we're busy we're like living our best life we've got things to do we've got kids to look after and then it can start out early with you know a student overdraft or these not

percent credit cards or um a little overdraft or a buy now pay later and later it ends up being two cars on finance and sofas on finance and you know extension loan and just loads of different things and you can see how it can start small but build into a huge cycle of debt i got another quote actually in the community someone said I spent my 20s relying on credit cards and even though I earned a good salary I never used to pay the full balance off each month. Big lesson learned after finding out how much I ended up paying in interest over the course of a year. I've now paid off a five-figure credit card debt bought a house built an emergency fund and I'm now one year debt free and that's the kind of light bulb moment I guess that people can have when

they're suddenly kind of facing the reality of decisions that they've made here and there the impact of them what they've built up to be become and then like what they then did about it you know there are so many success stories of people who've come to this realization and I think you know so far we really really have looked at how it sold to us the impact of it and we've got a little bit more to do on impacts but I think you can understand how someone goes I've done I've absolutely had it I am not doing this anymore I'm not being a slave to debt I'm not not going to use it. And then it's kind of like a big turning point for them in their financial lives. At Financial, we always like to say debt isn't evil, but it absolutely keeps you from your goals. The big reason for this is it steals from your income. If you think about your financial budget and you have all your expenses, when you have monthly payments going out to all these different finance companies, that is reducing the amount of your income that you expenses gives you an excess and it's the excess cash each

month that you can grow and put towards your goals if you didn't have finance payments you would have a much bigger excess so you can see how even if debt isn't bad even if it's absolutely fine and it's manageable it is stealing from your future self because it's slowing you down in your ability to absolutely hit your financial goals. Another element that people don't consider is the opportunity cost. So we've just talked about how having finance payments can slow down you hitting your goals because you've got smaller excess, so less money to throw at your goals. One of those goals could be buying a home. Now we have seen that 60% of millennials delay home purchases due to debt. It's not just that you want to be in your home and you want to be decorating it and you want to kind of put it on Instagram and enjoy that time. It's also the capital increases that you're missing

out on because you don't own that property. You know, typically over time, the house market's going up, property values are going up, but if you're not in the market, you know, typically over time, the house market's going up, property values are going up. But if you're not in the market, you're not benefiting from that. And sometimes it can be because of a decision with consumer debt. You know, you're stuck over here paying off debt and you'd much rather be in your own home. It's also the same about investing. You know, every time £100 is going to a finance payment, it could have been going into the market being invested for you know like an easy five six seven percent return um over time that's the cost the cost is the six seven percent compounded that

you could have been making on that amount of money instead it's going to finance payments so this opportunity cost is a massive one that i don't think people often sit there and consider what else could my money be doing? Oh, if it wasn't over here, it could have been over there. I want to lean in there again at this point and kind of say, please don't blame yourself for the situation that you're in. I think you need to take accountability. We're all better people for doing that. You know, we are all human and we've all been there.

But you are up against the machine. There are billions of dollars spent on trying to get you to part with your money and the marketing tactics of credit card companies especially is up there with the best of them. And so when people get tempted by cash back credit cards air miles points I completely sympathize because it can be very tempting realistically less than five percent of people can gamify the system why do you think points systems are in place it's because they work at getting you to put more on the credit card we know that we spend more it's a harvard business review study i've shared this before that we spend more when we use credit it's like an absolute fact and so when the credit card companies sit around and go how can we get people

to spend more let's give them this and let's give them that they're gonna win because they keep doing it like they're not you can't outsmart visa or amex or mastercard and so for some people in some scenarios playing with points can work you could have for example a business that has high spend um you need to buy stock or you need to buy trips or you need to book rooms and and putting it on a credit card through a business and you're going to spend it anyway it's not because you've decided to spend it's because all these things are needed you can understand how people then can kind of get this like cash back all these air miles um it's hilarious like the big thing with air miles is like people get air miles if you're from manchester like us um and you get airways british airways

miles useless you want to fly out of london all the time like you and what ends up happening interestingly is you then you change your plans to fit the points and you've no idea if you could have got a better deal without the points you just fixated on the points and so we're not going to detail on it but i just want you to be aware i want you to think i want to be the little like jimmy cricket on your shoulder hmm am i winning here or have I spent more than I would have done? In all these points and all these prizes and all this cash back, did I win or do we think I probably spent more? Because science tells you, you will spend more. But if you can be part of this small minority gamifying it, no problem, you do, but just be aware of that okay this next bit gets me excited because this is where financial and the community really comes into its own we are going to build a plan

to break free from this debt cycle and pay off our debt and we are going to become debt free and i promise you it is one of the most invigorating and empowering things that you can do and I think for those of you that have done this journey enjoy this next bit because I think you need to reminisce and pat yourselves on the back and say oh my god like I did do that and for those of you that haven't get excited because you've spent all this time feeling bad about yourself and feeling bad about the debt and stressing about it and now you're going to actually do something about it with a proven plan with a proven system that hundreds and thousands of people have done before you. So we are going to lean into building a plan to become debt-free.

This whole thing starts with awareness, understanding your debt. So what is it, where did it come from and why? Because this really is about lifestyle and habit change. This isn't a math situation and we are going to look at numbers but this is about unpicking where the spending came from. What was it spent on? Was it spent on food and eating out and I've seen often that people call themselves a foodie and it gives them an excuse to go out and spend money on food but like you can be a foodie and stay home. You call themselves a foodie and it gives them an excuse to go out and spend money on food. But like you can be a foodie and stay home. You can be a foodie and go out once in a while. So was it that?

Was it I want to be the latest restaurant and I'm lazy and I don't want to cook? And you can think of a life where that will be you, by the way. This is not like a forever thing. You can't never go out to eat again. But was that the thing? Was it the Amazon, like running up an Amazon bill? Was it a clothes and I need a new wardrobe and I need a new interiors? Whatever it was, it holidays.

Was it just like I didn't budget properly? So I kind of ran out of money and I would need to use it to get to the next payday. Have a look. Why? Because you're going to have to build that into the new plan that like understand what it was and what can we do to overcome that? And and so you need awareness so you need to create a list of your debts and the way that we we facilitate this in the app

there's a free debt tracker where you can list out all your debts a super easy way to do this is to do a free credit report so have a look run one in your name don't pay for one you shouldn't need to and you'll get a list of your debts the provider and the outstanding amount so you're going to be able to see that and like i said add it to the free debt tracker in the financial app if you don't have access to that and you want to do it on scrap of paper first do it but list out your debts for those of you that listen to the playbook episode you're going to benefit from this system and so go back and watch it if you want to refresh yourself but we'll just high level talk about the next steps. So debt awareness is super important, having a list of all your debts.

But when you're building a plan to pay it off, we're going to annoy you because we're going to bring you back a step and we're going to ask you to save a mini emergency fund. This will typically be a minimum of one month's expenses. You need to pick the right amount for you. This is going to frustrate you because you're going to want to dive straight into paying off this debt because we've got a plan and we're very excited. But we're going to pull you back because this mini emergency fund of a minimum of one month's expenses is going to be the thing that's going to protect you in that emergency scenario where you may have typically used credit before and it's going to protect you in the scenario that you don't get your budget right which is the vast majority of

the time we often don't get it right especially the first one two three budgets and so just paying minimum payments on all your debts and making sure that you focus on building that mini emergency fund first is going to be the best thing you can do. And it's going to set you up for success in paying off the rest of your debt quickly. So picture this, you've got your mini emergency fund set up. We're now going to tackle the debt. Now you have two main ways that you can overpay debt. You can use the debt snowball method, or you can use the debt avalanche method. Both are amazing. They are kind of driven by two different systems. One of them is like mathematical system, which is the avalanche system. So you order your

debts in order of highest interest to lowest interest rate. And so if you know all your interest rates and in the app, actually you can move the debts around and order them. So once you know the interest rates and you've got an order, you can kind of move them around and you pay off the highest interest rate first. This is mathematically proven to be the best way to pay off your debt more quickly. However, step in the snowball method. My favorite method is a snowball method and this is because it's based on motivation and momentum and how you feel. So the debt snowball is where you list your debts smallest to largest and you start by paying off the smallest one first. And a really key thing about this is you get momentum because you get a win. You pay a small, say if your biggest debt was £50,000 but your

smallest debt was £50, you're going to get a really good dopamine hit from paying off the 50 more than you are paying 50 off the 50 000 if that makes sense and so again in the app you can reorder them smallest to largest and that's my preference but both work super super well lots of success stories on both but now you've got a plan so if you think about it we've done our budget we've got a mini emergency fund in our back pocket hopefully making some good interest if you can kind of find somewhere to park it accessible and now we're going to overpay this debt and the wonderful thing about this and this is like what's really important with financial is trying to do one thing at a time because not only did you do the emergency fund

first and just paid your minimum payments on the debt when it comes comes to the debt, you do one debt at a time and honest to God, you get bloody obsessed. Say it's a Tesco credit card. Sorry Tesco, I'm picking on you. We're going to pretend there's a thousand pound Tesco credit card bill that you want gone. And honest to God, all that happens is you focus on this one debt. And any money that you find you want to overpay that credit card any tweaks you can do to your budget you know reduce your takeout budget reduce your eating out budget cut some Netflix subscriptions whatever you can do to get excess money you will throw at the Tesco credit card debt because you're obsessed with it and once you pay off that debt and you close the account you close the credit card and you say bye bye you feel awesome and you should feel awesome

because you are awesome because you've done everything that the credit card industry does not want you to do you have gone after that debt with a vengeance I really benefited from the snowball method because I really needed that motivation I was on a debt-free journey on my own and I had to kind of focus and these little debts gave me the strength and the courage to take on the big one, which was the car loan. And honestly, my excess was bigger then because minimum payments had gone. That's what happens with a snowball. Once you've paid off that Tesco credit card, the minimum payment that was going on there can be applied onto the next ones. And you can really see how you can build in confidence and motivation to tackle the bigger one later. Now you will work through each debt one at a time until your biggest debt goes, and then you will be debt free. And you know what? You will not owe

anyone any consumer finance and you will have an emergency fund and you're now going to build a bigger emergency fund. And so for anything that comes up, whether it's, I have an emergency fund and you're now going to build a bigger emergency fund and so for anything that comes up whether it's I have an emergency tire situation, I have an emergency roof leak, I need to pay in excess, I would like to go on holiday to Dubai and enjoy some very expensive cocktails. You can save up for that and you will not need to use credit cards to fund your lifestyle. Now I've said this like it's gonna be freaking easy and it's not. You will need a support network especially if you are doing a debt-free journey on your own or if you've kind of not got your partner buy-in and you know you're starting it on your own. Being in debt comes with so much guilt, it's such a taboo that you need to meet like-minded people just like you who are embracing this like debt-free journey. So make sure you find your people on TikTok.

There's a great debt-free community growing, especially on Instagram as well, but obviously in our own community in the financial app, you'll meet other people. Share with other people that you're going to go on this journey. Your partner should be supportive. Your friends should be supportive.

Your family should be supportive. And if they're not, then maybe it's more of a question about how supportive they are generally rather than just being around debt you know you need them in your corner if you're taking on this big challenge because there's going to be moments of weakness or they're going to tempt you and say oh we're going to go out this big night out or should we do this big trip and you can kind of manage expectations and go look I can do some things but not everything like I I want to I want to be able to live my life and I'm going to budget for some

things but I'm on a debt-free journey and I need your support in doing it. And you'll be surprised how some amazing heroes come out of your circle and just want to back you and support you and do whatever they can to help you hit your goal. I just want to say though, there is no point going on this journey. If you're going to revert back to going into credit, because do you know what? You're just going to make yourself feel so much worse because you'll have paid it all off and then you'll have loads of guilt about going back into debt and that's why you kind of need this that's why the playbook works really well because you've got another plan you've got another plan you've got another stage you can move on to

you've got goals you can hit and you honestly the people that have just said bye bye to debt and put it into their past are so much happier so much more financially well so much more at peace and so really think about that because I don't want you to get this amazing goal and then just go straight back again and run up a credit card bill and go I've done it again I've seen people do it it's very upsetting and and where it's avoidable especially and with that in mind I kind of want to close with you thinking about a life without debt for those of you that are there you might take for granted this feeling because you might be so used to it that actually you don't realize how amazing you are and how

weird you are and how um in the minority unfortunately you are and be proud of that and for those of you on a debt-free journey or about to embark on a debt-free journey or even thinking about it i can't tell you the impact it's going to have on your life i want you to picture that moment where you are making you know offers on houses or you're investing extra in the stock market and you're not worried about these extra payments that, you know, that are flying out, you know, you're not worried if illness hits your household or a job loss or anything. These like payments that are so annoying just won't be a part of your life. I think we're really lucky at Financial that we get to hear from you guys so much, whether it's in the community or on social

or an email email you tell us about your wins about your revelations about your light bulb moments your dilemmas and then your follow-ups and I think by far the most prevalent you know thank you and celebration is when people become debt-free is when it finally switches in their head and they go oh like I don't want to live like that anymore that is the biggest thing and so I just and so the people can't be wrong like there's something in this and you know I'm gonna be playful with you why don't you do it why don't you pay off your debt and if you don't like it just run it back up again go use the credit cards I don't care I do care I really don't want you to but you know try me have a go if you don't like that feeling and you want your credit card for safety and for holidays

and for you know extra spending then you can go back to it but just try it because I just feel like once you're on this side and you feel how we get to feel I say we like this is privileged for you but like the debt-free community all someone will do who's done this will tell you to do it and I think you have to listen to other people sometimes and go there's something in it if so many people are messaging in and so many people say it's amazing then try it and if it's not for you you know no shame and no judgment but at least you know like unlocked the vault unlocked is about you being informed and understanding why. And if you choose not to follow the process, that is no judgment. That's no problem. But at least, you know, you're informed we've unlocked

kind of, you know, a topic for you. Um, I saw that like another comment in the community, actually, um, there's two different ones. Actually, one said, I never realized how much my debt was holding me back until I cleared it. And I think that's a big thing. Um, it's, it's manageable. If it's not toxic debt, if it's not stressful debt, you just kind of limp along, but you're limping along in all areas of your financial life. If you're relying on credit to kind of fund your lifestyle another one was it's been a journey from spending on my card until it got declined in the shop and having no clue about where my money was going to knowing my numbers paying off my debt building savings having a long-term plan and now almost being a solo buyer owning my own home that is just it is a journey the j word but it is it's slow and steady and there's ups and there's downs and there's backwards and there's forwards but you get there and then you kind of see what people can achieve it's really hard to achieve all these things if you're playing around with debt early on and so you know I do want to go back to what I said at the beginning that you're

not alone and this isn't a shameful thing but there are lots of people on this payoff journey and this debt-free journey and you are just one of many people who have been in that situation and you know whether it's anonymous or not I do urge you to nip into the community give a post tell us if you're going to start your debt-free journey tell us if you're halfway through it tell us if you've done it but stories drive people and inspire people to achieve great things and i want you guys the financial community to be at the forefront of this this podcast is me starting this and kind of putting it out there to kind of stimulate conversation bring awareness but it's going to be stories and other people that's going to influence um our amazing you know debt-free journey people to pay off pay off their debt become debt-free and just like grow

wealth like build wealth like stupidly crazy wealth that just would not be possible and with all these payments being made so you can put stuff in the community but also before i lock the vault today if you want to email in you can email to hello at the vault.com either with your comments or stories to share or you can message with a topic that you would like to hello at the vault.com either with your comments or stories to share or you can message with a topic that you would like to learn more about or that you want us to delve deep into we're obviously if you don't know on youtube and spotify so please make sure that you do the like subscribes it really helps to take our show and our podcast to more people that it could help and just a disclaimer the vault unlocked is is a lighthearted chat about money topics.

It is not financial advice. Bye bye.