The Vault with Financielle - “What's the point of saving if life can take it all away?” | The Vault Episode 120

Episode Date: June 11, 2026

If you won the lottery tomorrow, would you take a lump sum of cash or Set for Life?This week's dilemmas:💸 “My dad worked his whole life just to pay for his own care”💸 "Help! The spreadsheet is his Bible…”Got a money win or a dilemma that's been living rent-free in your head? Share it (totally anonymously 🤫) in the Financielle app community or email us at [e-mail] 💌You don't have to figure this out alone. More honest money chat at financielle.com 💖💸Connect with our Partner🫶 Protect yourself and loved ones with our friends at Lifesearch **The above is a tracked link, which tells our partner we sent you and may in future result in a payment or benefit to our site.

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Sure, you can level up your teamwork skills. You also get a chance to receive a Tim Hortons Scholarship Award. Ready for what's next? Apply today at careers.timhorans.ca. Welcome to the vault with financial health. This is a safe space where we talk all things life and money and no topics are off limits. Hi, everybody. I thought you were going to say a howdy.

And I've got only reserved once every three episodes. So people start writing dilemmas in with howdy now. It's really cute. Yeah. It's caught on. Yeah, it has. Howdy, hello ladies. In the next few weeks, we've gone, Ola.

Ola? Ola. Ola. Hola. I thought you said holla. I was like, I mean, holler. I was literally looking at your mouth flat open, like, is that Greek? Olla.

What do you say Greek? Wait, what did I say? Olla. Olla. Ola. Ola. What about when we all went to Finland? What was it?

Hey. Oh, yeah. Hey. Is it H. Hedge. And we were like, oh, what can I? We were like, what is hello? We were like looking online.

It was like, hey. We were like, surely not. And it was like, hey. It's literally hey. It actually is. Oh my God. I don't. Lucy predominantly and Holly look at the inbox.

So Lydia gets nice surprises. I get nice surprises because we don't haul keep access to it. Mainly this is the art of surprise as well. But Holly sometimes reads two lines and goes, I don't want to say it. I'm going to send it on to Lucy. Yeah. So Lucy's the gatekeeper of what you.

you guys send in. So apart from inspirational openers, which please keep them coming. You've seen now what we get. Holly just gets so excited when she opens them. She's like, I've got another one. Oh, there's a really sad one. Or this is, we need to push this to the top. This needs attention. Or we've just really done this one, but we're going to, so can someone go back to her one on one? Sometimes we don't want to repeat them or them be the same. But they're so

varied, considering like life's wild. Like everyone has a very different story but then a lot of the times there'll be a common thread or theme throughout so everyone who's listening maybe that's not happened to you but you'll know someone that it's happened to or you'll have a really strong opinion

about what that person should do but yeah the dilemmas are so loving and every single person opens up with I absolutely love this podcast you've changed my life like some of you run to it which is absolutely unhinged like sorry about that I don't know how

yeah that's crazy I wonder what you meant run to we mean the good winning too actually are you on 9K right now yeah wow Listen to us. You're doing really well. And then people save it for the walk.

The lady wrote one the other day, she was like, I save it for my Thursday walk with my dog and like people have little routines around this podcast. I save it for cars and cars without people talking. It's like if I've got a journey, I'm up for that. That's really cool.

Me and Alex listen to a podcast in the car for the first time the other day together. And it was so weird. It was actually a fellas podcast, which is quite rogue for me. Do you know the fellas? It's like MGK Barry. Yeah, the fellas owned like the production of that.

It was really rogue but enjoyed it but it felt weird that we both just sat in silence out while someone's having a conversation you two and just sat listening and then I'd be like oh yeah and pause it and then talk because you can't just turn it down because it's so overstimulating

I love I save like my favourite pods are table manners by Jessie Ware and Lenny him on nice we've got we listened to that on the way back from this pod don't we? Yeah we do we save that I love my therapist ghosted me Like it's iconic. Like Joanne McNally is just hilarious and we've been to watch her. Vogue is very funny as well.

Onderated funny. I went for a walk last night. I saved it and I was howling at Vogue. I was laughing my head off. Obviously, Joanne is amazing. She's a comedian. We've been to see her couple times. But Vogue and her timing.

Yeah. It's like she probably doesn't seem as funny because Joanne's so funny. But she did really well on Hart when she did Heart Radio. Funny gal. Yeah. Yeah. I love her. Community question time.

So if you were to win the National Lottery in the UK, would you choose set for life or a lump sum? What do you mean? So set for life is where you get 10K a month. Is it for 30 years? I think it might be. I think it was. So consider a lot of time. But it was, was it 10 a month?

Yeah, 10K a month or a lump sum. Did we ask the community to this? Yes. But what would you guys do? before I give Give me it up front Give me up front I'm confident

In my budgeting I don't need to space it out You know what if I wanted something Big or to pay off Like to become mortgage free And I can't have to do it in chunks No give it me up front Because I trust myself

Yeah Mine would be up front Because I would Of always the pessimist Would think that that company Is going to run out of money Or not exist So true

In 10 years time Or there's some sort of like You know Like the legal people You'd want to see the trust deeds for the client account and make sure that it's ring-fenced. Yeah, I think I would be worried that for some reason, something would go quite wrong. And that I would be five years in and it'd be like, oh, actually, you know, within the contract, we can pull it at any time. And I know that would, well, you don't know.

Yeah, I'd have it up front. And give myself a salary. I think if I was a millionaire, I would be making sure that I'm investing it and doing all the right things and paying off the house and da-da-da. But I think there could be a risk of just like splurging it. And you see so many fallouts of people being millionaires and then literally spending the money and it being gone. Oh, there is a high percentage of bankruptcies from lottery winners.

Do they need a bit of budgeting help? You need budgeting help. You absolutely need a financial plan at that stage. Yeah, surely. We know a mate that looks after the lottery winners, regulated and officially qualified. So if it happens to you... I'll see if he's got referrals in place for a present.

But if you, yeah, it must be you. It might be you with the big finger. Only have you old, I bet Do you know what we're talking about? No, they do it now. It's on an advert. I've seen it. No, but not the ad

comes out the sky. Lucy's looking at us blank lately. I don't know if we watch TV. It must be you. It might be you. Nothing? No. Nothing.

Dylan. Not in a long. Oh, thank God. So the old national lottery advert was like a big finger in the sky that went it might be you. Yeah.

It's like point on someone. Is it to say like it's you, you've won. Just divided our audience into that those that know it don't know it. Why have you got a bobble on your wrist? I've always got a bubble on my wrist and you're lucky I've not woke up with no circulation in my hands

it's not a tight one obviously you never wake up and it's like I would never have a bubble on my wrist National Lottery Program used to be key viewing on a Saturday night Prime Time Is that where they do the You would watch the balls

Yeah You literally watch him balls Roll around in a washing machine And come out onto like an egg Egg like an egg tray And then it would be Mystic Meg who I'm I used to have the same hair, it was, like a bold fringe and a bob black.

And she'd like, tell your fortune. And then it'd be, I don't know, Noel's House party and Man O Man and Blind Date and all that stuff. But you would sit and watch the lottery. Sometimes there would be like, even like if you would perform, sometimes there would be an act on. But your parents would be sat with the paper, the piece of paper, the slip that you would go by and pitch the numbers. But yeah, because it wasn't on phone. Yeah. No, I do remember the little.

And you can still get the tickets, but that is so true. Basically, it's like home bingo. Yeah. You wouldn't sit and watch a bingo on telly. I'd do that. Right now. Oh, God. I wonder if it's still on TV.

I can't say it would be. But who knows? Who watches? So on that point, did they... How do we know with the draw? It must be on TV. Yeah, true. Yeah, it's good.

Okay, we're going to find that out. What would you do, let me see? I would do lump sum as well. Okay. I feel like I trust myself. Like you said, Laura. What was the feedback from the community? So we've got someone called Lucy, who is not me. Lump sum, easier to decide how you want to use the money rather than getting it every month. Someone else called Laura, who's not this Laura.

You could have made up names if no one responded to the question. There is like duplicates of all of us in there. Lump sum, if you want to move house, you would still have mortgage and pay interest. Lump sum, I'd be mortgage-free and earn interest. Yeah. I like the idea of set for life feels like a great wage. Enjoy my life as is with elevation. Also, someone else mentioned 30 years not guaranteed. I think there's a clause on there that can be passed to another if you don't last the duration. Oh yeah, that didn't even think about that. Loss the duration. That was a lovely way to put there. I thought, hang on, what thoughts going from my mind? What did you say then? Oh, so the idea of what I felt was lovely about that one was you already love your life. Yeah. Yeah. And that you actually actually. could leave a job. So say if you really didn't like your job, but you like your life and maybe you wanted to do some extra fitness and go on the odd extra holiday, but otherwise you were very content. 10K, it might be net if it's, um, I think it is net. I'm sure it is. If it's a lot win, you mind, that's a lot of money. It's like if you have a low month, a low spend month, suddenly like it does start to build up a little bit. I like the phrase elevate my life.

And we talked about lifestyle creep a few weeks ago on the pod, remember, like when you get a pay rise, it should just be a slight elevation of your life, not a whole. A piece of mind elevation. Yeah. I like that. If you knew you were getting 10K a month, like, let's say for the rest of your life. Yeah. Would you still like set money aside and everything? Or would just just be like, I think my main goal would be wanting to pay my house off.

so I would be coming up with a plan of how to do that as quickly as possible. Organising it all would make, so much of money is about how you feel, isn't it? And so having it randomly sloshing around in a current account, not a great idea. And this is where, in fact, there's, I think I was on an article on this where I was to find it, about how I would spend 50K.

I know it's not 10 grand a month, but it was going through the motions of, it's helpful to see things divided up and named and cat, and categorize. So this is my mini emergency fund. It's going in my Chase pot, my Revolut pot, my Stalin pot, my Montoe pot. But that's what that is.

Oh, and then this is my larger emergency fund. I know you join it together when you build a larger one. This is my house deposit if you need one. This is my mortgage overpayment pot. So maybe you don't want to overpay it all at once, but you decide it. And then when it comes to like investments,

especially if you get a lump sum, you need to think carefully about where you want it to go. So if you're not getting a lump sum and you're getting 10 a month, you might have this like, the first three months is it adds to my emergency fund. And then when you've done that, your next mini plan might be, we've always wanted an extension.

That extension is going to cost, oh, God, I'm going to say 60,000. A hundred grand. Okay, well, that's going to take us a year to save up for. Let's save up for a year. And then when you've done that, you go about, okay, we'll do some extra investing now. So I have the 10, how much is going to go into planning for holidays, how much is going to go into long-term investing,

how much is going to short-term investing, then we do the case. But you do it in that order so that it is quite cool whether you'd get the lump sum or the lump sum would accelerate some things, but you'd still have to work out how to replicate that income if you crept up your lifestyle as we just said. You still want like sinking funds and stuff for holidays like you rightly put, you know, you can spend 10 grand very quickly. It sounds amazing and it absolutely is.

If you're not planning, if you're not going to plan in place, things could go awry. You can see how people can mess up. I don't see how people can mess up multimillions on a lot of. lottery and be bankrupt. That's bizarre to me, but it's human nature. Like, people have, you know, addictions and give a lot to family and, like, I can imagine it just kind of goes a bit crazy. The thing is people stop in work. I know I joked then, but that stopping work is an awful idea for lots of people because the depression that can come from not working and the lack of self-identity. And there's the number of, like, successful people that don't need to work,

but have lump sums in the bag. That get up and go, isn't it? Why are you getting up in a morning? Like, what are you passionate about? What do you want to do? And, um, Well, when do we buy this ticket? I don't put, you know I don't play the lottery. Jenny said lump sum in case the lottery tried to go back on the deal. Years later, my parents were on a short-lived game show called For the Rest of Your Life. Do you know that? Do you remember?

Of which you could win a certain amount of money each year for the rest of your life. They won enough to pay off some debt, so a meaningful amount enough, but not loads. After they won, they were asked if they wanted annual payments or a lump sum. They took the lump sum in case a lump sum. something happened years later, which meant the show couldn't pay out. So, they didn't happen years later, do you reckon? So I think it... It did go bless me.

Yeah, so they took the lump sum. Right, so that's a case in point, isn't it? Safety. Well done. Get it in your hands. 100% lump sum. It's a bit morbid, but 30 years isn't guaranteed. I'd prefer to set me up and my loved ones for his life as much as possible.

Yeah. Take the lump sum. Lump sum seems to be the... Yeah. Which is interesting, by the way, because you have... because you also didn't use figures, so you didn't ask, you said, would you want lump sum or 10K for life? No one knows if it's the same number.

Like, you didn't feel that. People are just like, it's the one sometimes about the marshmallow and I want it all now. Giving me the marshmallow. I don't need to wait. I want it now. I don't like the gratification.

Give me a little hand. Quick financial win. One listener said speaking to Chelsea at Life Search made sorting income protection and life insurance so easy. And she finally feels like, a boss with her cover sorted. Want the same piece of mind? Head to financial.com forward slash protection to get your free quote today. Okay, time for our first dilemma of the day. My dad worked his whole

life just to pay for his own care. Hi ladies, I have a dilemma that I'd really appreciate your opinions on. My mum passed away a few years ago, quite young, and my dad has just been diagnosed with dementia. He's worked his entire life, built up a home and some savings, and I've just found out that if he needs full-time care, all of it could be used to fund that. Not passed on, just gone. It's not about the inheritance. It's just the horrible realization that a lifetime of hard work can be completely wiped out by something you can't control. And it's made me turn the mirror on myself. What is the point of saving and building for the future if circumstances can just take it all away? Should I be living for now instead? I know there's no clean answer, but I would love to

about what you think on this. Wow, this is like a reality for a lot of people. Like we talked about at the beginning of the podcast, the dilemmas that come in, you might not necessarily be touched by it right now, but you might well be in the future. And we all know that one friend whose parent has gone through this where literally their life's work is then spent on the care that they need

and there is no clean answer to it. There's not an undercare point. Like what, there's a legal answer to this that I'm not going to give because it's not a legal podcast. And I don't want someone to go where. and try and DIY something off the back of this. But if you speak to a Wills and Trust lawyer,

coming back to the situation that our listener has given, there is a way that you can structure the way that the house is owned and it's not transferring it to children, God forbid when people say stuff like that, like there's so much people don't think through. It's kind of like escape care home fees. You can't, but you can structure it in a way that if, for example, you're in a couple and one of you passes away first.

Instead of their portion passing to the other, it actually is held in trust for family and for, you know, descendants and, you know, children and beneficiaries and stuff. And so it protects half of the value of a property. So it has to be done properly. And that's why I'm not even using the proper names for what it is because I want someone to go away

and DIY it because you have to speak to a solicitor about it. But a legitimate and regulated solicitor will walk you through. That'll explain why it would work that way and why it is perfectly okay and perfectly legal to do, but you absolutely cannot do things where you move it all. You know, like councils are struggling. They're all, you know, they have to pay for the care. It feels unfair when it's like, depending on person A versus person B.

And if someone was super, super wealthy, you know, maybe you can kind of be at peace with it a bit more. But when they're just a little bit more wealthy than the other person, it does feel unfair. It really is. But it is just one of those things. So if you're in that situation, you want a little think about it.

We might do some content on it at some point. I'll tap up some lawyer friends and get that out there so people can read it. But it is difficult. So parking that, the bigger question is, what's the point? What is the point? Why should we?

Why should I work all my life? And kind of then have like nothing to show for it. Side note. there's a book I'm about to read called Die with Zero. If anyone has read it, I would love, Jimmy Carl spoke about it on a podcast and I'd heard someone else mention that. There's two people now that I'd be super interested to read.

So if any of you guys have read it, please message in the vault at farnshall.com. Did it change you when you think about things? But it's a little bit more about the balance of making sure that you can look after yourself in old age and that you have a fulfilling retirement, especially after working a long time. And this is me summarising because I've not read the book, so I'm looking forward to it, but this is kind of what Jimmy Carr was saying.

But also making sure that you have lived your life. And there are, everyone's got a story. And I think this is the thing that like skews how you think about this. So some people lose someone in their life and they're young. And it's pre-retirement age even. All it's just after retirement, you know, we lost our uncle literally the year after we retired. And that's one thing that. that mum says a lot.

Like he just worked so hard. Like it was his time to kind of enjoy it. Yeah. You find out a lot of people that happens to, doesn't, doesn't it as well. I think just you know the story. I think obviously it doesn't happen to a lot.

It doesn't happen to a lot of people. A lot of us are living a lot longer. But, you know, you could have saved and invested and not gone on the holiday and not done the nice things and not shopped at Marks and Spencers

and done the things that you feel as like treat, you know, don't drink that red wine bottle because it's a special one. We're going to open it on a special occasion. And you just never know. And at the other end, you have people that live a very long life and didn't save enough for retirement and didn't

invest, you know, spent maybe the 50s in a relationship they didn't want to be in, in a house they didn't want to be in, you know, they might want to live by the seaside, they might want to live in the countryside, they might want to travel, and there's loads they can't do because they either like didn't think to do it or had this like, what's the point mindset. We just don't know. And I think I always just say a balance of the middle. And that's what financial is designed for in terms of our budgeting. That's where you've got to be because no one's got a crystal ball. So if you have balance, and we've always said this about investing actually, where especially with investing, you're locking stuff away. If you're doing retirement

investing, you can't get access to it. If you have a really good emergency fund that's generating a return and a high yield saver, but you've got access to it, you feel amazing, you feel peace of mind. You can understand how that's helpful. If you have a nice budget that gives you room to do nice things proportionately. So like you can eat out nice, you can travel, you can gift things to people, you can treat people. That is such like an amazing place to be. That doesn't need to be extreme or unreasonably high. You actually don't need that much of that to really feel like you're living your life. If you've not got it, you really feel like you're missing out and you feel

like you're going without. But then if you've done all that and then you make sure there's still an excess cash in your budget, you don't actually need that much to be put away. that if you never ever see that money, it kind of doesn't matter because you still live the life you want. So you either put it away and you get to use it later or you put it away

and the state ends up using it for your care. That's kind of one of the rules of our society that we decide to live here so we have to buy into that. Or if you pass away and you can't use it, your family, you know, I accept inheritance tax but lots of us won't get caught by inheritance tax. It's an asset.

So a pension is an asset for your children and their children. And so having a bit of everything and having that balance is the way I try and pitch people to go, well, fine. If you don't do it, what if you do live or what if your family would benefit from it? But I've had other examples where, I don't know, I had a friend that did pass away whilst he was still working. And he was in a big, big investor and had a massive portfolio. He'd also lost his wife quite young because it was awful, didn't have any children. and if he'd have known he didn't have long,

would he have done things a little bit differently? I still think he lived an amazing life. I still talk about him all the time. And I remember his travels. He loved to walk. He loved to go on holiday. Like, he was a really big garden. I had a gorgeous house with a gorgeous garden and garden.

So he ticked lots of boxes for him, but I can't help but think, oh, if he knew, would he have squirreled away less and done a bit more? Do you think he, I know he talked about it? Do you think he would have been as, like, clinical with his finances? if he knew. Did he get enjoyment out of that? I think he did.

He liked that element of like control and organisation. He used to make a really rubbish mushroom soup on a Sunday. I like mushroom soup. And he used to have it like Monday to Thursday. And then a Friday he would treat himself with like a shop bought purchase for lunch. Mushroom soup? For lunch. Just for lunch.

Because we were in work. And so he would and that I just like, I know I said his name then. But I was like, for God's sake, we're going to Nando's. It's like, I'm not, we can go on Friday. We're not going to go on Wednesday. But the Thursday suit was always pathetic. And the bread had always run out. And I was like, for God's sake.

Like, got some of my suspenses. Little things like that. He minded it. But maybe not. I think he liked it. Yeah. It's like a little game. Yeah.

And so whilst I, he definitely did not go without. And so again, coming back to his DaW with Zero, we really want to read this book to explore more about that kind of balance, which is. Are you making sure you're doing both? So if we were to go young, if we were to get poorly, if we were to live until 105 and get a card from the king or queen or whoever's around then, will we have gotten a had the right balance?

And I think that's the right way to look at it for our listener, who is obviously, by the way, and we've not acknowledged this, but going through some massive parents, it's just that absolute worst. And another thing with DiWo Zero actually is it may be quite a privileged position, but not feeling like you owe things to children like people should never expect inheritance there's been some crazy stats on the number of like millennial waiting on an inheritance

I know I hear people talking about that's because we're not from money so like we've never expected one or like had a significant one like when my nan died we knew for years because she told us you'll all get £1,000 each like it didn't change what do we do with it? It didn't change

it didn't like increase inflation No. Do you know what I mean? So we were, yeah, that's like what we've expected. What did we spend it on? A holiday. I think mine was like, she would want me to go on holiday with it. So I think it went towards a holiday. It wasn't like I'll go on shopping spree. It was she loved to travel. She would be thrilled if I, if I traveled. And I didn't overthink it. I was like, travel, obviously, straight away. A little bit of a segue. Tiny, tiny point. I know I would say this, but a lot of people do ask me about that nest eggs, care, home fees, wanting to have money for children, especially of your single parents and stuff

and people forget life insurance all the time. So when one thing that you can do to protect your assets to know that they definitely go to someone is invest in life. I say invest is not investing, but buy a life insurance policy. So have you got to financial dot com forward slash protection, you'll see articles on this.

If you ring our partner life search, you're going to get one of our amazing agents that look after you and just chat them through with this because this is something that you could, because this is something that you can ring fence it. It's not part of your estate. It absolutely is never used for care home fees, but ultimately when you pass away someone that you love

and that may be dependent on you or maybe that you just care for, even if all the care home fees are drained and everything's gone to care home fees, there is something, you know, and house is used it for, and lots of other awful things, there's still something for someone. So worth bearing in mind because, God, for like, between, I'm making up like 15, 30, could a month, like nominal figures depending on you. your age.

Just chat it through with them. Like if you just don't know, be like, I heard this on the podcast. Just say, Laura and Holly and Lisa say, they'll know who you are. Ring for a chat. Yeah. I mean, to be fair, you could book it in your lunch hour and have a chat. I've done that before. But yeah, they're said to ask this question.

It's a no obligation question. Yeah. They're great. Okay. Brief interlude right now. I'm begging you. No, I'm not going to beg. I'm going to guilt trip.

I love that. Scrap that. So many of you who listen are not subscribed, you're not following this podcast. You will say, love this podcast so much. Number one fans, I would like you to prove it. Please subscribe, please follow, please save, please share with friends. What else can you do? Stop gatekeeping.

Stop being selfish. If you listen to it in the car, be safe. Volume 100, windows down. Megaphone. This is a public service announcement. No one needs to hear, are we going accents that loud. People love our accents.

When they write in, they're like, I just love, and then... Feels seen. Yeah, a girl the other day was like, I could just hear your accent. I was answering something to a friend and all.

I could think in my head was Holly and Laura's voice. I was like, God help you. But like, take this moment and help us out. Lucy will be upset. Yeah. I will. I'll be very upset. Yes.

And I'll... No, wait, isn't. It's a sad face. That's like, slight disappointment. We don't ask for much. We don't. We really don't. We actually don't.

To our detriment a lot of the time. We are too polite. Believe it or not. So let's just take a second. Yep, click off that. Yep. Subscribe. Yep.

Just that button there. Perfect. And we know, and we know, by the way, if you've done it on it. Yeah, we do. There's a way we can know. Yeah, we can see device. Shut down the 20 tabs.

Yeah, boots. Yeah, shut that one down. ASOS, shut that one down. Instagram on your own. Yeah, shut that down. You can do it in a hall. You can subscribe to Financial. Absolutely.

Thank you. Glad we've got that out of the way because that was awkward. Yeah, I've been dreading that. You made it awkward. Not you. You. Personal finance, let's face it, can be boring. But at Finchelle, we do.

it differently. From guilt-free spending to the perfect payday routine, our blogs help you feel confident and in control of your money. Head to Fanonchelle.com to get informed, entertained and empowered today. Okay, time for a second dilemma after you've all subscribed. I'm only going to read it out. If you subscribe. We look at analytics, by the way, as well. We will come back next. We will actually know if there's an increase. Just saying, so we'll be back. Okay. Help. The spreadsheet She is his Bible. Hi, lovely ladies. I am on paper smushing my finances.

I live in the southeast and work as an in-house lawyer. I took a pay cut to do this, but my husband was promoted in his role so our family finances balanced out. We have three young children, own our car outright, have no consumer debt and have moved into a new house using 600K of equity we'd built up in our property to upsize. We also have over 250K in private pensions. Up until now, we have a new house. have budgeted, but there has always been a significant flex. We saved for holidays and paid outright

if we wanted new clothes or wanted to do certain activities, that was all fine. We have always been sensible with our money, always overpaying the mortgage, always putting savings into stocks and chairs, ISA, always paying the majority of bonus money into our pensions, whilst enjoying the life we want with holidays, weekly coffee shop trips and days out. We now need to be much stricter with our budget because the current flex just isn't there as we take on a far bigger mortgage and have increased childcare costs with the arrival of number three. My husband has always taken charge of finances and is very regimented about his Excel spreadsheet. My question is, how can I get him to discuss finances in a way that I actually understand? Up until now, the fact that he documents

everything in a way that I'll admit I don't understand hasn't mattered because I've known generally what is needed were. And if we've ever gone over on what thing we can always recoup from somewhere else. I find the spreadsheet, his Bible, to conflict with the way my word document brain works. And I'm worried we're going to start having issues every time we try to discuss finances and the whole thing is going to become incredibly stressful. Do you have any tips on navigating discussions around finances when technically everything has been working but in reality that's probably only because there's always been a flex every month. P.S. Please keep this anonymous as I'm trying to get him to listen to the podcast.

He's going to know if you're a spreadsheet king or queen. Don't you? You know if that's you. It's not known. This is it? We've moved to the salary. We've bought a house at 600K. And also, do you know what?

This really helps illustrate because we talked about this a little bit earlier, didn't we? Like the very big reality of lifestyle creep and sometimes lifestyle creep is intentional, mortgage bigger house or it's because it's not intentional. It's needed, which is bigger house because we've had more children or more children. or more children and childcare. And those are the two biggest expenses in your budget. It just helps to articulate, or not articulate,

but it helps to show what it's like when things are a little comfortable. You're a little less on it. So, you know, speaking from personal experience at the moment, I'm very lucky that we're comfortable. We are quite measured in the way we spend money and we, like, We're not earning loads more.

In fact, we're in less than we have in the past as well. Like, this is just a relative that we've got. But what I mean is like, there's just room. Like, everything's just manageable. So it kind of, when you hit in everything, when we go over on food, which you always do, we can take it from fun because food's fun. And we can move it around and we're still doing some invest. And then you still do some investing.

You still put away for the kids and you can still go on holidays. And that honestly is a lovely bliss. It also is where you're underperforming. Like, I am absolutely underperforming when I look at, you know, because we've prioritised pension investing, my lisa is languishing and it's going, me, come and put some more in me. And the kids are doing really well, actually.

It's because nothing falls down. Nothing falls down. There's no dramas. No, it's not on fire. And we're not like getting to end of the month going, oh my God, like, we're literally, we can't, we're going to have to take money out on an emergency fund to pay bills and stuff. So I've been there as well.

and but it honestly is quite freeing and it is a point where I want everyone to get to grow where you have this like I collect fat in the budget a little bit of because we're not all about the food gallery here like we want people to relax about decisions I want to say should we go out for dinner and it not break the bank should we or not feeling anxious about a money decision

or the last minute things comes up and it's like yeah go on I'll do that yes we'll we'll make that work spontaneity can have spontaneity you can when things go then go tight So she talks about the two big things in her budget that are for the most of family's budget. So housing and childcare costs, which one in trash weight swing, the housing costs can go up. Child care goes up and they put it up every year and it is so expensive. It's for a finite period of time usually, but it still then translates to after school care and before school care and holiday care.

So it kind of never goes away and it's just one of those things. So I get it and I just think it's important that just because a system worked before, I think it worked before because you were just you were okay. And then suddenly when actually the pennies might count and the pounds might count a little bit more, that system doesn't work for you. So one of the biggest tips I would give is we're not going to, he's green flagged to us so you can share this podcast with him and it's no judges. So if you're listening, Mr. We're on your side because we're obviously on her side,

but we're not on sides. We get it. And so it's okay for someone to be the spreadsheet geek and someone to be like that. I'm the creative. I love as she said word doc. It's still not that creative, but it's like a measured and listical.

And I get that because I'm more that. And that's why we built the app because actually we wanted to, it's effectively built on a spreadsheet. That's how it works. But it divides it up. It sections it. So obviously we would say use the app,

go and replicate the budget in the app because also it's got the donuts. So you can see how. how things are spent and where the room is. It's much more visual than a spreadsheet. And it's like a shared thing as well. And you could do both. Yeah, yeah.

You could like, oh, he can have that spreadsheet, you're right. Yeah. Especially if things are getting tied to him. There must be some sort of anxiety going on in this relationship when it comes to money because he's going downhill on the spreadsheet, obsessing maybe over a little bit. And she's feeling that tension because he's going, everything's going to get more extreme.

So we need to buckle down here. Maybe there's tension over moving it around. said Lucy, like he can have the spreadsheet that can build the budget based on the spreadsheets. The spreadsheet is the source of truth. If you, like, I always ask people, if you want to keep the spreadsheets, keep them because some people just connect with them really well. But if you don't, the app is really visual. But the other, their next layer down, and I think they think she's stressing more about is the day-to-day spending, which is what the majority of females, 85% of household spending is looked after by women. So she's basically, effectively, he's doing

the sums and just giving her, like, the spends. I know he's not, but like, that's kind of how it's working. And there may be conversations about, you've gone over on food again. And I think before she felt like they could move things around a bit, maybe it's tougher. So using a banking gap that allows for pots for not just sinking funds, but flexible expenses can really help

because she can see what she's got to work with if she's doing the spending. And he can be like, look, it's tight. But he can see exactly what it costs as well. I'm not saying he doesn't see that right now, but if he's just doing the planning and then going off you go. Yeah, the practical day to day. It's like the burden of carrying that is quite heavy, I think.

Like it's, yeah, to do the planning's great, and that's a burden as well in its own sense of feeling the stress of managing this money. But actually the practical, you're right, the day to day, there's nothing more stressful than thinking, oh, groceries, it's not big enough. And it might be saying, there's no more. Like, where do you want me to get it from? Whereas before they could have gotten from the entertainment fund or the, I don't know, the half-term fund or the holiday fund, whatever it might be. But because everything's much tied to the microscopes. Yeah. And maybe, you know, I wouldn't easily advocate for this, but ask.

him to work through, I think God, giving the playbook, because he sounds like he would love it, but when he's building the budget, especially the things that go into investments and savings, have those been pulled back a little bit? Because maths is maths. So either you need to decrease your expenses or you need to increase your income. And one of the expenses actually is investing. So what would be interesting to see is, did that get slowed down? Because I love the fact that they're investing. I think it's really important, but not to the detriment of can you afford things every month and are you happy together?

Are you stress-free? The financial well-being, like is it being stretched? Sometimes you pull back a little bit there and put it like, so maybe the answer is, you know, $250 pound a month or even $500, I don't know the size of the family,

they're nearly on baby number three. There's a contingency pot. Yeah, so it gets a buffer. So that, because what she's anxious about is she feels like she can't take from one and move to another because there's just not enough. Either re-budget them properly based on expenditure and be accurate or buffer it.

That buffer could bring them such, she might never use it, but such piece of lines. Also one thing to remember, it just reminded me, my mortgage rate is going up at near the end of the year to double check your emergency fund as well and that you're modelling it on your new home expenses. So some people just pick a number. I've literally just come to me down.

Like 10 grand feels good, 20 grand feels good. And you model it on like, oh, if something happened with our jobs, let's do a six month and our mortgage is £1,000 a month, you base your emergency fund and your fixed expenses. But if they're going up to a much, you know, more expensive house, your emergency funds need to go with you and another child. Your emergency funds need to go with you. Guys, that's all of us.

Yeah. Look at your financial budget and what are your like minimum expenses. So not like your boozy, boogie stuff. But what are they? And what's your multiple? I've literally just gone. We won't have. That's not our, that's taken maybe two months down.

Do you know, because our mortgage rates are going to go up significantly. You have to model it on your. your changing expenses, whether that's a new job or a deep, I don't want to say deep promotion because she's not, she's just gone in house and taken a pay cut for a probably better working conditions, you know, she's about to take, she's about to take her, maternity leave. Like, you have to consider all these things when building your emergency fund. Yeah. We have to have a funeral for Holly's interest rate. Oh, God. I'm dread, I look drained. I feel drained.

Exhausted. One point one nine is it. talk about it every day. And I'm like, I just, what can I do? Let it go late. Stop bringing up.

I buy 1.19. Yeah, 1.19. You need like a swear jaw. Yeah. Oh my God. That would pay for the overpayments. Okay. Okay.

I mean, luckily, I think I've talked about in the pod, we did start to overpay a while ago because we knew that it was coming to lessen the blow. You've been talking about this for two years on this card. People have lived and breathed it with your health.

Yeah. But then like other people just wake up and go, oh shit, our mortgage rates has changed by, you know, a lot and we weren't even ready we've not prepared like I like to think that we've kind of prepared that stuff done your best

okay that is all for this episode the vault is now closed and just a quick disclaimer the vault is just a chat around life and money topics we are not giving financial advice