The Vault with Financielle - Where to Start with Investing | The Vault Episode 92

Episode Date: November 27, 2025

Send us a textThe 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 with Finance Child. This is a safe space where we talk all things, life and money and no topics are off limits. We've got a fun episode today. I think we've been wanting to do this episode for a while. This episode is in partnership with AJ Bell Doddle. So we're going to be getting into investing, basically everything investing this week. So many people ask us for like an investing special and we've kind of kept on the back burner because we wanted to find the right product.

like we want to find the right partner for people we do um obviously it's individual to your own needs and whatever you're looking for but like it's taken us a long time to get here like we've spoken to a lot of partners i'm not going to lie and been like no yeah no holly's like no it's like speed dating yeah like am i getting the vibe am i getting the ick yes a lot of them give us the it like they don't speak to people like us so many people so many of you ask for this one and we are going to be doing more and more investing content especially because firstly, well, we're passionate about it. And secondly, it's actually where we are at in our financial journey.

So we talk about the playbook, we talk about everyone has to start from getting the right together, getting the money shipped together, doing the budgets, making sure that we look after the basics, take it one step at a time, get rid of that consumer debt, it's not serving you. You know, we really don't advocate or like people investing loads over here, but still using buying our pay later, like you've got to do the work and do the basics. but as you graduate through the different playbook stages, the most exciting stage for me is grow. And that's where you have created a budget where you have excess cash, which firstly feels amazing, feels fantastic, feels powerful.

And then with that excess cash, especially if your budget includes like your big life goals so that you're traveling and you're buying things that you want to buy and you're eating nice things and you're buying expensive butter, Lucy, I see. But once you're doing all that, so you're taking care of life, the excess cash goes to things that improve your network. And, you know, a big part of that is investing. It's investing to grow your money, to grow your wealth while you sleep and having that compound and doing it in a consistent way. So we are at that stage and we talk about this in financial team meetings. We're like, okay, how does you're doing? How much you're putting in?

What are you working towards at the moment? We do that. It's like group therapy, isn't it? And we don't do that for the camera. And we thought, actually, now's a time to lean into some of your investing questions. but share a little bit about what we do as well so I am excited yeah I first of all wanted to talk

before we get into the dilemmas about our investing journeys and like I feel like we've all got very different goals and we're all at different points and for what we see investing for so I'll start with you Laura so I am a person that when I was 22

I opted out my pension because I thought I thought I needed the money. I needed the money for my busier apartment on Deansgate and for Vodka Revolution and for Mac makeup. I would really prioritise my finances and opting out to that my venture now. Luckily, I went on a bit of a money journey. As many of you will know the story. And if you don't know my personal money story, if you're kind of new to Finchelle, the very first Fan and Shell unlocked episode, we went into my story and the playbook. So please do go back and listen to that for a bit more context. But I very quickly was like, okay, that's the worst decision

I ever could have made, I should at least be doing my employer pension, employer contributions. And so I have been investing consistently since 23, 24 now, only for a long time the defaults, you know, contribution from your pension with an employer if you're employed, where you get that match and obviously you get a tax contribution. But then other than that, I was paying off debt, I was saving for an emergency fund, I was buying a home, doing all the other things. and so now I am at a point where we always say this we start we do this for all your dilemmas as well don't we're like start at the top I work to a budget I have a mini emergency fund I'm consumer debt free I have a large emergency fund I have the home that I want to live in

and with no immediate plans for renovation my budget includes big life goals because it means all the travel that we want to do if we want to do any like recently we built a little bit of a gym outside and that was cash flowed and funded in our budget so every time we want to do something it goes in the budget and then we have an excess and with our excess we do um mainly three things sometimes four and i because in grow you can do things concurrently we have got a 21 before 21 challenge for our kids so whilst this doesn't increase our net worth it is something that we use the excess for and we contribute to the kids junior ices and we want to get 21 000 before they're 21 and and actually we don't include like the growth

this is all we want to contribute 21 mainly because I just couldn't bother with the math I was like I'm overthinking this like what's a round number like surely anything above 21's a bonus and so things to bear in mind with that with a junior eye series it actually does belong to the children and so if their little shits they get to keep it

you know when they're 18 and if they don't like the parents then I'm so you know it's theirs and that's not in your net worth no not in the yes good question at good part actually not in our net worth doesn't form our net worth calculation but I do allocate for it out of the excess. And so I do that. And then Cal and I contribute extra to our pension. And we have a set amount in there that's equal, you know,

transparently, I think it's about £300 each that we kind of put in to our pensions. Again, if the excess allows, if it's been a particularly expensive month, then that's the first to go for us. And we'll all just pull back on that. Likewise, if there might be a month where there's a bonus or expenses are a bit lower and that goes higher, we may be, we may push that up. And then we have stocks and shares, Ices, that it's kind of like for bonus money.

We are more aggressive into our pensions than we are stocks and shares ices. However, I know, I say this every year, but that might be the thing for us next year to have a play around with like some challenges, some extra money that's, that I could pull in to make that excess them bigger. So that's what I do with my excess cash. Pension is really important for Carl and I. if you are a high-rate taxpayer, it's a great way to kind of reduce some of your tax liability.

It's also practicing like delayed gratification because you are absolutely putting it away until you're a lot older. And we were chatting about this. I'm going to get it up because I was looking at my investments. Even since, I think it was 2022, wasn't it? We were looking at performance. I was speaking to a friend of mine who is self-employed. He needs to get his act together. He needs to, he can get some contribution from one of his contracts into the pension. but he's just not sorted it yet and he's done amazing like he's got an emergency fund who bought

his house on his own he doesn't have any credit card debt but he's like you know 40s and should be prioritising pension so I'm like the devil on the shoulder or angel whatever you want to call me going have you done it yet I've done it yet I've done it yet and I was transparent with him I shared my pension with him I just opened it up and showed it to him and I showed that since it 22 when this particular one was opened, it's gone up 53%. Now, the market's pretty high at the moment at the time of recording and it will absolutely caveat that there's lots of different reasons for that, you know, going up and down, and this is obviously over a, you know, three to four year period. But it's gone up 53%. I've done nothing other than put it there and made a couple of

extra contributions, but again, this isn't, this is over and above contribution. It's not, it's not growth from my contributions, it's growth from performance. And I just said, you're missing out on that. You're not missing out on that. It's, and it kind of made him go, right, okay, I need to get my act together because this is where we want people to get to. But get to it. I think he's overthinking it. And I think if you're listening to this and going, I'm just, I do need to get that sorted, but I might have a few pensions here and there. And I'm not sure how much I can contribute. And I don't, what would I pick if I get in there? And then they just don't do it. People overthink it so much. And that's like, oh, then I'm going to have less.

money like it's still yours but it's that mindset switch of just not not not yet people want it to people like we're just bred to spend money like and not put it away like especially as women as well like we want the tangible thing like if you put money somewhere or like if money goes out of your pocket you want something in return and you want it now like and it needs to be like physical tangible it needs to be a holiday or a new kitchen or a handbag or a this that and the other or a meal you don't it's so against our human nature to have delayed gratification. And everyone's like, live for the here, live for now.

Like, I hate, and it really upsets me when I see social media posts with people being like, just live for today because you don't know what's going to happen. Like, we've been through a lot of trauma this year in our family. And we still don't have that mindset of not putting stuff away for a rainy day because arguably 90% of us will see the rainy day. Like, we will see retirement age. So I hate when people, yeah, when, because it derails a lot of people

and they just go, oh, life's too short. Well, I think life is. too short and I still live for today like the way that my budgets can figure is that I have a lot of money putting away for things like holidays and for house renovations and interiors and things that make me happy on the day to day but I also have a gyser for my children to put away to make sure because we all know how hard it is that when they get to a certain age that they don't feel like they've got to start from scratch we are going to give them a leg up and I feel like that's such a privilege position to be in but I'm not from privilege like we're not from wealth like we're not

for, like, we've done, our parents did so well for us, like, we definitely did really well for themselves, but we've not been, like, handed, like, hundreds of thousands of pounds of inheritance, like, but we've managed to build wealth for our kids, and I think that's such an amazing thing to be able to have done. Definitely, and crucially, we both went, and lots of you listening to this, have been on the same journey, where, for a couple of years there's a struggle, and for a couple of years, there's not the holiday, and for a couple of years, there's not the like boozy meals out or the nice things and it's cutting back and it's going down to one car like you guys are like there's lots of sacrifices it's buying the house the ugly house on

the street our favorite house is like I tell everyone like if everyone comes to my house I'm like you look for the ugly house that's us because I wanted to live in the village that we live in because it's like safe and wholesome like we can walk to the park and we can walk to the local shops and like we can walk to the local like brew, independent brewery. It's expensive. It's expensive to live there. But you pay for that privilege. And we have the ugly house on the street and that's okay.

Like, and I could be embarrassed about that, especially because I care about interiors and like, but my inside of my house is great. Like come inside and everyone's always like, oh my God. You did not think your house would look like this inside because it's so ugly. We could have done, still can.

You could. And that would reduce your ability to invest, reduce your ability to travel, it's what you choose. And so for a period of time, you absolutely slogged it and didn't, you know, you still did your default investing, but you didn't do anything over above. Over and above, yeah. Whereas now, like, Laura, we're in that place.

Like, we've laughed before we started recording this because we're just financial sheet. Like, anything Laura does, we're always like, oh, yeah, let's, we only tell us how to do that. We need a choice of better. We need to up our pension contributions. Do you know, crucially, though, like, listen, And if I have to be the, am I a sheep or are you, am I the sheep dog?

You're the sheep dog. Yeah, I'm probably biting at your ankles, to be fair. But that's what positively influencing people is. I'm not trying to influence you to buy clothes or interiors because I can't pick them. But even if I could, I would much, I would love it if I have influenced you, whether it's through the sponsor of the podcast, because we've genuinely chosen to work with them and really love the product, whether it's the fact that you're just going to go away and love it. look at a pension.

Just do something. Like a pension, don't forget, people don't realize this. Your pension doesn't have to be connected to your employer, especially if you're self-employed, but a pension's a bank account.

Think of it like a bank account. By definition, it's not a bank account and it's not a bank, but it is an account. You get an app, you get an account number, you transfer money into it. Yes, there are regulations

and rules around it, and you can't get the money back out again if it's gone back in, like it's gone in for pension. But over and above that, and over and above providing that relevant, you know, documentation and an ID documentation and navigating like the risk profile, which just basically

asks you a few questions. We literally hold your hand. Like people must like. It's harder to get an aesthetics appointment. I'm telling you that. Literally. It really is. I agree.

Like it's, I was so terrified the first time I like chosen. But we've got so much helpful stuff coming up alongside this episode. Like you will be a couple of weeks into we've got an investing challenge with Doddell as well. Like AJ Baldor, we've got this investing challenge in it. literally could not, we hold your hand, like, and it's so... We're basically doing it for you. Oh, God, like, couldn't make it any easier. I'm excited, but it is that the, um, if, if you can all be sheep, I'd really appreciate it

because it's for your own good. Yeah. But in terms of like what we're trying to achieve, like Laura's gone through hers and echo Laura, like, again, she'd done exactly the same thing as Laura made sure we've got, it took a while, I think, to build our emergency fund. that felt like a long slog for us. I'm not sure why. I think we dipped into it for something. I can't quite remember now. It shows you. It's like all in the past. You moved very quickly on to the next thing. But I know when people are in that emergency fund stage, they find that

quite frustrating. But let me tell you, when you get over that hump of building the emergency fund, the freedom of having excess cash to go to investments is like no other. Like, Laura said, growth is a favourite stage. And it is for me because I feel like that's true adulting. Like, I actually feel like I've graduated. So we focused on Gisers for kids and then we opened Eliza as well because I'm under 40 and I love remind you. I love reminds all our friends though. I miss Carl's Calding. Well, that's what I mean. I'm like flexing on call. Yeah. I forgot. I imagine that. I kept thinking about it and then you have to open it by 39 and 40's gone. You don't get to have. I've got

years. But like we did open an AJ. Doddle. Lysa. Yeah. So we pay into that every single month, overpay pensions, because my pension was really poor. Like, I had a very poor amount in my pension. Is that because you opted out or a couple of reasons, low salary? Like I think we mentioned in a previous podcast, I did an internship, didn't qualify to pay into a pension, it got paid enough, then did qualify to pay into a pension, but really small amounts, really small amounts. And then had two kids, so I didn't contribute. My employed, but I didn't in that time, didn't realize the significance of that. If I had known that, I would have treated it very differently. Niels got a really good pension, like working in

medical, like you do tend to get really good pension. So that's always in the back of our mind to help. But you're trying to catch yours up. Yeah. So we agreed as a family that we would overpay into mind to try and make that up. It makes sense as well. Like, you get the contributions from the government. Why would I not? It's free, technically free money. Sat there, like, your pensions can go up as well as down. I'm the same provider. as Laura at the moment and my pensions have grown considerably as well which is so exciting to see especially when you've started from not very much to have then quite significant jump because Holly was like building an emergency fund and looking at my pension and going yeah

and I was like you'll get there you'll get there don't worry you have to do the emergency fund first you have to like even do the defaults but even with my emergency fund we put that in a cash ice so like don't have it sat in some random account going backwards like with inflation really you can make everything work and I think people forget that small incremental changes here and there by changing, putting your emergency fund in a place where you can get money back potentially. Don't sleep on it. Like that's really easy to do.

I remember one month and it must be three years ago now, maybe even four. It might have been when I first moved my like moved roles like and was messing around with pensions and stuff. And it went up more in a month than. my salary did. And my salary was bigger at the time than it is now, way bigger. And I can't describe what that feels because you've heard like a lot of investing gurus or rich people talk about making money while you sleep and, you know,

I make $10,000 while I sleep and my investments and stuff. Everyone scrolls past those videos, don't they? Because it's like a bit triggering. When I saw it, it literally like the percentage increase. The way I saw it had actually been driven by the net worth calculation. So there was a month when the net worth went up. for us by quite a big amount that's two of us so I went to the pensions again I was like how much did it go up by this month and they went up by more than my salary now it's going up by way

more than my salary per month obviously some months it goes backwards it goes down that is just kind of the life of long-term investing and you do have to look at the broader picture and that's why investing your excess cash when everything else is taking care of means you care a little less about it going up and down when a lot of you always share with me when you first start it you watching it and it can get a bit like demoralising. I never look at it. I always say, try checking literally once a month. About the third, fourth of the month, I do my net worth.

And that's the only time that my husband and I check in with our pensions. Once in a while, I look if like if a market's particularly performing well, I'm like, all have a look. And, you know, the younger you are, you are invested in more equities, which is the stock markets, you will be, you know, impacted more by that. Our parents' pensions are far less invested in equities. And so don't see the ups, but they also don't see the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, downs as well as much. It's all a relative, but it comes from a place of peace when you've got

all your other shit together. It's when people are trying to, you know, leverage it, which means borrow to invest, which is a common type of product, or when people are trying to buy individual stocks and shares and read the financial times and go, oh, how's like Apple and video and so, you know, Microsoft doing. I'm busy. And people like it, like Alex, we know, well his hobby even is looking at the market like and that's fine that can be a thing for some people yeah exactly but don't be worried if you're not but don't be worried if you're not in that camp because I'm very much not in Alex's camp and that's okay what about you and your investing journey I'd say my access right now is split between pensions stocks and shares I sir and I do have a little

bit of like fun yeah investing time um I wrote a blog a few quite a few weeks ago and it's I basically treat that those individual stocks as like shopping. Yeah. Was it like your investing era? Yeah. I remember it was a great blog. I just like the idea of buying something. Yeah.

Like buying it into a company. Yeah. Yeah. And like keeping a check in them on them like once a week. Yeah. And just like I feel like it's fun of me and Alex are in competition with each other. But do you know the story about historically, male stockbrokers in the US in the 50s and 60s would ask. their housewives what brands they're buying from the supermarket because back then fmcg where you're

like the food and goods is literally what people that's what the stock market was made up of it was companies that made physical things you know we didn't have the tech companies necessarily and stuff like that it was big industry and consumerism was getting bigger and bigger like the old-fashioned coke ads and the call gate ads and stuff and so they would look at what their wives were using to clean the house like what they were feeding the kids what brands they were buying and they'd go bloody by the stocks and shares. And then the guys are like doing really well. Popter and gamble. They've got all their inside info from their wives. It's hilarious. But, you know, it is something a bit more tangible like that. I do like the idea that you can

resonate with a particular brand and track and see how it does. You know, stand with the values. Like if it's a company that's like really pushing forward on rights for certain people or raising awareness or something, you can be like, I really care about this. And I can put my money where my mouth is a make a positive difference, especially with the climate change funds and... Can we talk about how you are also the most risk-averse person in the world and you do that?

But if I said to you, this is why I think investing platforms and funds are really important because if I said to you would you put your whole excess in individual stocks? What would you do? For one month I'd be like,

go on then. Go on one month. Not always. This is because you're... Okay, I'm going to take your emergency fund away as well. No cash. You wouldn't, would you? Yeah, you've got such.

this is the bonus and problem with financial like the risk of us stuff but this is why invested it like we have to have this conversation because you can make it so passive and you can make it so accessible once you've got all these things in place like having an emergency fund and being okay that the money that you put in you might not get out yeah 100% trust the process yeah you have to be okay with that to invest but we help people do the pre bit of we think we do it very differently to other brands in that we help people with the before bit other brands that are like investment brands would kind of just come in and go, right, you need to invest. And we're like, no, no, you do need to invest.

But first come, we get all these things in place first so that you can be a confident investor. You see it like, oh, investor will as little as a pound. I love that. I love how accessible it is. I'm here for it. But for anyone to make any decent return, like we want hundreds going in. Yeah. And so how did you get to a position where you can deploy hundreds into a pension,

an ISO, junior ISO, whatever? It'd be okay with it. I'd be okay with not having it back. Yeah. And not having access. to it for every day and that's the hard jump and for a lot of people right now you may be listening to this thinking that's never me I'm never having hundreds of months spare going to my pension I that's just not possible I promise you it is like we and hundreds if not thousands

of others in this community have managed to do just that but at the start you're in a negative excess you don't have any spare money you've got all these payments you've got high cost of living you might have gone through a trauma lots of things you just just start at the beginning. And you eventually, you take control, you build up a tiny emergency fund, you get rid of this consumer debt. Like, we, I was so much prefer to be paying a couple hundred pounds a month into your pension than you pay your plan a debt.

I did a TikTok the day, which was like, and it was, I was moving my, because I don't automate my investments. I automate my pension, main pension, but the pension top up for us depends on the budget, as I said. So some months it's more, some months it's less. And I'd forgotten to do my transfer and I was having lunch at the kitchen island. and I was like, I'll do it. I've been thinking about it for about three days,

or three days out the market, I'd miss. And I was like, I'll just do it. On Instagram, 24 seconds, it took me to move the money in. And I think I've put something like, if Netflix get my money, why shouldn't I? Like, literally it's a lunchtime payment. And there's a really cool girl on TikTok that's, um, watch me as I do the task that I thought would take me four years

and I've been putting off for two years and actually takes me nine minutes. And it's like cluing at the closet, clearing out of cupboard. And I think it is that I think you overthink how long it takes. Going back to my friend, I'm going to talk, talking about him again, but with his pension and getting, he has worker status with one particular person that he works for. And so he does get a contribution if he asks for it, but he's not asked payroll for it. And you can back date as well, usually.

Most companies just don't care. They go, yeah, yeah, fine, Hitch, I don't care. They're just like, going through the motions. And he's like, I need to, I need to. Like, he's a super organised guy. Like, give me the phone. So I said, here's the payroll number, here's the email address, this is what you say to them, come back to me. And you've reminded him that I've not asked him.

And it was like, he'd overthought it into this big thing. And I was like, I've just done it, just done it whilst making up a cup of tea. So don't overthink it. And I'm going to say, wait, I'll ask him. You need a buddy. I'll text him. Ladies, welcome to the great lock-in of 2025, a time for you to intensely focus on goals and self-improvement. With the help of our friends at A.J. Bell Doddle, the next few weeks will be dedicated to helping you lock in on your investing goals.

Everybody talks about the importance of investing, but it can often feel overwhelming. Not anymore. With Doddle's low-cost, low-effort investing app, there's no better time to start, and the financial team will be holding your hand every step of the way. The lock-in investment challenge will help you pick an investment goal and set a plan to hit it, teach you how to practically invest using the Doddle app, improve your money, mindset with our habit stacking techniques and create a plan of action for 2026. What's not to love? If you want to join the financial investing challenge with Doddle, download the financial app now. And just remember investing comes with both risk and reward. Okay, this leads us quite nicely onto our first dilemma. Is it even worth starting small? Hi girls. I've been really working hard on getting my finances sorted over the last year and your podcast has really helped. So thank you. I finally paid off my

credit card, built a small emergency fund and now I really want to start investing. The problem is, after bills and saving for a few things and prioritising my emergency fund, I can only afford around £25 a month to put away. I keep seeing people online talking about investing hundreds every month or building massive portfolios and it feels like it's not even worth it unless you can go big. I want my money to grow instead of just sitting in savings but I'm scared that starting this small won't make much difference. Should I wait until I can invest more or is it worth starting? So with what I have now, thank you so much. This is, she's really helped with what we just decided to explain, which, yes, I did

make the comment like, you don't want to put little pounds in. But this is a journey. I don't know why this is my analogy, but I'm thinking of Straitly Come Dancing, right? No one peaks week one. In fact, if you do, it's not helpful. It's not good for the arc and the storyline. But you have to start somewhere. And it's really, this is the comparison is the thief of joy because you think that you have to

you where everyone else is. She says something which was interesting. Like I'm saving for a few things and I'm saving for an emergency fund and I can only afford 25 and therein lies your answer, you are trying to do too many things and being too hard on yourself for not then achieving all of them. So I've always said with investing. I'm a massive advocate of, I mean, investing through the pension as a minimum for most people you should just be doing and getting the match for an employer if they can.

And otherwise for a self-employed person, even if you, even if you're, you know, you are paying off debt, I'm still an advocate of mimicking the percent. So whether it's the 5 percent that the employee would usually contribute or the full eight that comes in if you have the match, it at least helps to put you in the same position as an employee would be. I really hate it when I feel like our self-employed friends are behind and it does, you know, it's tough being self-employed for lots of reasons, but there are lots of benefits to it as well. That's why people do it. So doing the minimum in terms of the match, and she doesn't mention whether she's like employed or self-employed, but I suspect she's putting money into a pension

because I think this is extra money. So then I say, if you can fit 25-ish quid into your budget where it's like fun money and you want to practice that investing muscle, flex, that investing muscle, do it because you're not in grow, you're in build, you're back in the middle stage, which is building that emergency fund, the larger emergency fund and ticking off your big life goals. It's a slug. It's hard. It is mentally hard. We get a lot of dilemmas in from people saying I'm just bored. Because you're not getting that dopamine hit and saving to buy something. You're not getting anything in return whereas actually, once you get there, you go, I've got a financial piece of binder that is actually worth much more than anything I could have bought because then

I can't go on to do investing in the market, put overpaying into my pension, like all the things that people back in survive desperately wish they could be doing. And it's like a, this is why it's all a bit of modeling it and tweaking it and looking. So if you're saving for things, and let's say there might be a holiday or a new boiler or, you know, house decoration, whatever it is, and you're also saying into an emergency fund, total up those amounts. That's probably a few hundred pounds, it sounds like. That in the future is going to be your investing contribution.

It just can't be yet. But it's not right for it to be yet because you've not done your emergency fund. Now, if you are saving, if this is going to go on for like two, three, four years, then you're spending too much money. Yeah. Or you agree more because there's too much going to goals and nice things that you want and not enough going to your future self. So it is always like an adjusting exercise.

And I always say like look at things in six, 12 months trenches, you know, when will that emergency one be done? And then when will that be redirected into investing. You need a hard stop, don't you on some things? There's always be something. We can always save for something. Oh my God. The amount of money that we spend on travel is terrifying.

But it's not because I look at the investments that we're doing and I'm like, no, no, we're okay. Yeah, but if it was the other way, if you didn't have anything going to investing, you'd be like, oh, come on now, Bridget. I mean, because Carl will, he is literally, he fulfills every random idea that happens to come to my head and it's lucky that I'm not a spender. I'll be like, I feel like if we're going to do a pagola, why don't we have a gym? Jim, don't bill.

Yeah, he's like, woo! And we have to have seen. thinking funds for things but he is a spender only like a bit which just because he wants to like deliver on a project like it's not usually his thing but if i drop something in it goes goes goes goes and then and then it miraculously happens and um so if for example i said i really think we could do with getting you probably only me you wouldn't get it for himself me a new car he would have researched 12 000 cars by the time we've driven home from this podcast and we'll have a short list for me to look at and we don't have a car

fund, but we do have the money for like an emergency fund, for example. And he would do it because he's not from, we're both not from an investing background and from a background where our parents did this on a repeatable basis. We've had to learn it. We've had to train our mind. And so there's always something that we could save for. There's always something you can buy. A home improvement to be made. Like it depends. Depends what lane you're in, but there's always something to buy. So like to reframe your brain to investing, I get that it's such a big jump. and like alien for people because of how we've all been brought up but there's so much freedom in it and like doddle do actually push the you can invest from 25 pounds a month that must be like

their entry level of like getting people to go I can do that I can do 25 pounds a month it is it is very clever but it is that I would I would recommend that she totals up how much she is saving towards things and the emergency fund and let's say that's three 400 pounds once she's hit those targets, all that's going into investing, not 25. So I like the 25. I think you keep going to, because it keeps it front of mind and it keeps you practicing that I'm doing it. You're not going to get a big return on it. Habit's not going to. It's the muscle. It's the habit rule than it is the return. But soon there'll be zero on the end of that. And that is literally within grass, given you're already seeing you're saving. And for someone who is in debt right now,

I challenge you to total up your monthly payments. We always say this. Because that's going to you is like, that's game-changing and they're going to make a bit more homework, investment calculator, just Google investment calculator, add all that up, put it into an investment calculator, pick a return like a 6, 7%, which it could be lower, it could be higher, but just pick something like that over like a 10-year period or to retirement, a 30, 40-year period. See what it comes to. You will be shocked and that money will be going to you and not the debt companies. The message is to go.

Do it. Do it, but like you said, was the end. We need a hard stop. Hard stop. On the things that we're saving for. Everyone needs a hard stop. I've got a hard stop at two.

I love that. People can't challenge you on it. When we go to events and people like want to chat forever, we're like, we've got shit to do. I've got a hard stop at two and everyone's like, she's got to leave at two. Which if you're like, oh, I'd like to leave by two. No, I'd like to leave. I've got a hard stop. Two very different things.

Hard stop. I need to use it more in my life. Hard stop. I've got a hard stop. So what do you want? Okay, time for a community win. I'm having a quiet Saturday evening to myself, and I thought it was about time I redid my net worth. I've not done it since March. Day to day, I feel like I don't have

any money, most of it sitting in sinking funds. But the podcast recently reminded me to look at the bigger picture. It's a nice uplift and a reminder of all the saving I've done so far. Next on the list, a better understanding of investing. This could not come at a better time. I know. I was more thinking about, I was having a quiet Saturday night. I'm like, this is a dream. I'm having a quiet Saturday.

That is the win. To myself. Oh my God. And I'm trying when we talked about off my TITS on Picky Bit, M&S Picky Bit. Yeah. Needs to get an apron. I don't know why I don't cook. But the net worth graph is my favorite thing in the whole world.

And you know what? You know, coming back to my wonderful husband, who literally everything, just, if I want it, it happens. When we, four years, the apps was four back in October. And I kept saying to him, you remember in the anticipation of us building it, and we bootstrap the first version of that app. Like we literally said, I said, this is what I want, but make it pink. Yeah.

And it came back pink. Yeah, yeah. It was beautiful. And I was like, I want to see my net worth, your net worth. I want to see an aggregated community net worth. And that's what we have, like, every month. month, those of you on premium, record your net worth and stamp it and the community's net worth is growing. And you just should be so proud of yourselves because you're paying off debt,

you're building savings, you're overpaying mortgages and crucially, you're investing. And that's game changing. And honestly, it's going to break at some point, I think, because when you flip it to all time, mine's got that many dots because I've done it literally since the app launched in 21, that it's like all squished together. You can do like past three months, past six months and stuff, but I love that I've got that data and I can't wait for the next 20 years. I don't know. I start the app. We'll have to fix the app so it can fit 20 years and it can fit for him. But that is work. That's hard work. That's choices. That's sacrifices. So everyone's net worth graph, whether it's like one month or whether it's, I can't do math,

let's say it was like 50 odd months, 48. Yeah. Some people get like absolute game changing when they do the net worth and they go, oh, it makes sense now. Do you like, they're like, they know that they've been doing good stuff. They feel financial poor. They feel like there's no money in the bank account. They know they're hitting goals because they're tracking goals in the app and they know they're paying off debt because they're paying off debts in the app. But to we call it that like the money progress. Like how can I see how I'm progressing on my money journey tracking that yeah. If you'd like to tell us your wind, head to the community in the app or email it to the vault at financial.com. Struggling to make it to payday, the financial app helped me

track my money, pay off debt and finally feel in control. I've built savings. I've started investing, and I actually feel financially well. Download the Fanichel app and start your money comeback today. Okay, time for our second dilemma, and I've got some figures, so no pads out, brains switched on. What she means is listen. I usually listen to the first detail and then go a daydream about the person. I'm not listening, so I'm in. Okay, time for a second dilemma.

Investing to retire early versus buying my first home. Hi girls. I love the pod and always get excited for a new episode every Thursday. I'd love some advice on investing versus buying my first home. For context, I'm 23. I graduated last year and I've been travelling around the world this year. So far, I've built a 5K emergency fund, a 10K lifetime ISA, a workplace pension and 2.5K in my stocks and shares, Issa. I was fortunate to be able to live at home whilst saving for travelling, which meant I could also save in my LISA and invest at the same time. I lived very frugly and was so determined to meet the saving and investing goals I set for myself. Through investing, I'd love to reach a point where I could be work optional by 45. However, my partner and I would love to buy our first home within the next five years. So, my question is, do I keep investing as much as possible to achieve my goal of retiring early? Or do I increase my Lysa or cash-yser contributions to speed up the house purchase? I'd love your thoughts on this and any advice you have for young investors who are

trying to do it all, but sometimes can't? First of all, can we give a round of applause? This is like A-star student stuff and I remember this dilemma dropping in and I like, straight way to Lucy on Slack. I was like, you need to see this dilemma. I'm not seeing this one. I did see this one in advance because I was like, this is like a win slash community. I know. I was like, it's not giving dilemma. It's actually giving community win. What a dilemma to have. 23. 23. If I could have, if I could have had all those things in place at 23. oh my god what would I look like now 10 years later plus the worst you need to say that because we think you're young but you just incredible incredible scenes yeah the the and

she's going to be annoyed because I don't think we're going to be able to give an answer because we always say this you can have anything but not at the same time you have to you have to decide because maths is maths and the concept of someone that wants to retire early what does that mean? It means that you need to build up a portfolio of assets which can give you an income which can sustain you. And what do we mean by that in terms of sustaining? It's food and travel and bills and it's home, it's residential property. It's a roof over your head. And so it's a bit chicken and egg about which way around you do it because there's no rules about buying a home. In fact, on the continent, lots of people don't is a big thing in Britain.

and it is something that I do generally advocate at some point because I like the optionality that you've got, you've not got the risk of a landlord like selling a property from under your feet, you know, you can get, so you can at least set down routes and know at least, even with a starter home, I've got rid of my head, I'm in control of it. That doesn't have to be straight away, but at some point, especially when we're thinking about looking towards retirement, even if it's early retirement, it's important to think that through. Now, it might be that you don't buy at all and then you buy in retirement as part of the the asset portfolio that you build up,

but ultimately any income that you get from your asset pile needs to be able to cover you for housing as well. So there's two ways you do it. You either get to a point where you buy and have paid off a mortgage by the time you're 35, at which point your asset pile doesn't need to have mortgage costs in it. It was still anything like insurance and council tax and other stuff. Or you need to make sure that there's enough in your asset pile

that can pay for rent. so that's where you kind of go that's the maths and there's a few different modelling scenarios that I just sounds like she would really love and enjoy doing the other left field thing that I just would love our A-star student to think about is pension

because she's very focused on pre-retirement and I don't think you're checking that, Lucy's checking that I actually listen and I was like, oh my God, did she say I've got a really big pension and I'm fine. She's so focused on pre-retiring pre-pension age that she will be missing out on the tax benefits of investing into a pension. So like for like, when you put money into an ISA, it's after-taxed money. And that means also,

by the way, when you take money out of it, you don't have to pay tax and it's not counted as an income. Whereas vice versa, pension, it's you get your tax back, but actually lead to when you draw down on it, you're taxed. But just the quick nugget on that is when you get to retirement age, you probably are earning less than you were in employment. You can be tactical with your tax. You can get your tax free lumps. some. So there's still benefits to taking that out. But she's missing out on that tax efficiency with her pension because she's focusing on what we call pre-retirement investing. So even the LISA, you know, is not the 60, is not like the 60, well, 65 is obviously a state pension age

going up to 67. The Lysa element would come a little bit after when she can access a private pension, but then she could be using it for a house. So she's just got this, she does have this dilemma where if she's not careful, she'll box herself into a corner with healthy option, but have missed out on a couple of the things. And so I love the goal of wanting to retire early. But I think there's a reason when we did the playbook that we put by a home and build. Yeah, because like, you're looking, you're like, want to retire early, but then you've not even got a home yet. So you're going to be pushing, surely you're going to be pushing that retiring early because retiring to me means being able to have the funds

to sustain and not having like a big mortgage hanging over your head and like because you need the funds to be able to pay that mortgage every single month so we've not even bought the house yet and we're already looking at retirement like how much you don't know you can't model it how much what kind of house price are we looking at how much are we going to contribute each month are going to overpay on the mortgage because you want to get to a point of retirement whereby your expenses or fixed expenses are so small you don't have to be working to bring in that salary every month to colour the expenses. So it is very chicken and egg. One thing that I think is a great idea for people that have this mindset is, if they want to do

that, they're not going to go for bougie houses, they're not going to overbuy. I love the idea of building a plan to buy a cute little thing. Yeah. A manageable, cost effective, low bills, energy efficient. You know, is there a little new build somewhere that's a nice little star to home that feasibly you could keep? It may even be good for a rental later. Should that be right? Again, I'm not advising that because there's lots of complications with becoming a landlord and tax efficiency on that level as well. But I like the idea of getting a little starter home that's cost effective in the next few years

and get paying down that mortgage. Part of the fire movement, the French independence retire early, involves being mortgage-free a lot of the time. It's your biggest expense, isn't it? Usually. And you're just in so much more control when you own that property.

And so the optionality that you're going to have at 45 is massive. So I would say, let's make sure and you may well be, you're investing in your employment pension if you've got one or you do start thinking about a pension. She's got a workplace pension. So keep cracking on with that. She's doing that.

She's doing the defaults. If she doesn't want to put any extra into it, I think that's fine. I think at some point in the next five years getting a cute little property that's cost effective that you can overpay. And it's just as good sometimes to get that and overpay that

than it is to only invest. You might split that. Because once she's bought it, you'd be in, grow, and you can, like, allocate your access accordingly, but... So a sip you would, can ask her to think about, no? No, I don't, well, not because of the... Because she's paying a pension already. So you're happy with that?

Because of her goal. If her goal is to retire early at 45, if she put into a sip, she can't access that until later, obviously, as we're getting older, that age might go up. She's tipped that off. She's doing a workplace pension. Because if she wasn't, then I'd be like, make sure you do that. Don't ignore pension. She'll be getting those benefits.

And so if retire early is she needs to navigate between, I think, stocks and shares, I say, really good emergency fund and probably make a plan to buy a home at some point. But with a view that we're not borrowing the most we can borrow. When you feel to pay off quickly, we're going to retire at 45. We want those fixed assets to be as small as possible. Just picture that though. Like you approached 45, because I think what will happen is you won't retire, but you might not work as hard as you work. Like, what will happen is you'll be like, do I have options. Pick and choosing, flexible working.

I could, you know, so you could have a property that's paid off because she's got loads of time to be able to build, build a really good, like, you could pay a home off. She could be mortgage free easily by then. That's what, like 15 years, a bit older that, 17 years. And then have a stocks and shares, Issa pile. A lot of people aim to be stocks and shares, Issa's millionaires, which I think is a nice thing. There's not many people. That's about how can you max out your 20,000 pounds at the moment, you know, ICER, get stocks

and shares isa, max it out year on year and year, have it grow, and then eventually have a million pound ice a pot. That is possible. There are people in the UK that have them. I went for a message really the day. She was like, I've had this, my dad told me to get a stocks and shares ice. Like, when I first started working and I need to do something with it now. Oh, really? Yeah. And I was like, that's so cool, like, because we're talking about it now. But the fact that she did it so early in her career and stuff and managed to put, you know, when she didn't have, like, dependents and a big mortgage to pay and stuff, like, she actually did focus, like, quite a lot of her efforts into it.

This is so cool. I wouldn't know that taught us about Ices more than our mom and dad did. It's because she used to love going into the bank in Wigan and speaking to the people. And they obviously got commission for selling ICE and she used to get cash ices and save up. She would withdraw cash and then put the money in. If it was the same bank, she would go outside, get the money. Physical handing over of cash.

And then she'd spend it on a holiday. There's never any money in the ice. I was like, oh, I think we're kind of missing it. Oh, well, you do what you do you. You're living your life and go on holiday. but she actually was the first person now all I had talked about an ice there. She loved the ice there. It was just, she didn't know what it was.

Holiday friend. It was always a holiday friend. Oh, God, that was a great, not a dilemma, but. 23. Love to know what she decides to do. Really good. And she said that she has lived very frugly as well. So like, I don't think she's going to go out and buy a massive house.

No, we're not getting the vibe that she's then going to go crazy. No. Being more excited. I think she sounds like she'd love to overpay a mortgage. Yeah, she's like she's in survive mentally. She'll be aggressively, yeah. Our friend who's 48 is now mortgage-free. She sent me a screenshot of her Santander account the other day.

Who? Claire. Yeah. She what might be saying? Mortgage-free. That's incredible. Wow. Queen.

Incredible. I was like, what are you going to do now? I'm going to call her out because she's looking at finance in a car and I was like, Don't you dare! She will not. Niels of her and they're like a married couple I'm like the single friend and like tags along with them both

because they're like husband and wife like and he was like don't you dare it's like you could buy one in two months she literally could yeah that's exciting I'm glad to know that 48 mortgage free

we might ask us some questions yeah let's get her on the sofa oh god we never get her off okay that is all for this episode the vault is now closed and just a quick disclaimer the vault is just a chat our own life of money topics

we're not giving financial advice. And just remember, investing comes with both risk and reward.