The Vault with Financielle - “Why Can’t I Just Enjoy My Pay Rise?” | The Vault Episode 73

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

Send us a text“Life events have gone too far” - we unpack this week’s controversial opinion, then dive into your dilemmas:💸 ”I Got a Pay Rise and Now I Want a New Car… Help!”💸 ”I��ve Saved £27k in My LISA… But Our House Budget Is Too High to Use It”Got a money win or (totally anonymous) dilemma? Share it via the Financielle app community or email [e-mail] 💌You’re not alone in figuring this stuff out. Get honest, helpful reads at financielle.com 💖💸Connect with our Partners🐝 Consolidate your pensions with PensionBee (capital at risk)🫶 Protect yourself and loved ones with our friends at Lifesearch✍ Write a will that is tailored to you with Octopus Legacy🏡 Meet our Financielle approved Mortgage Brokers💸 Commission-free investing* with Trading 212 (capital at risk)🛒 Cashback on your shopping with Jam Doughnut (use code FINC)*The above are tracked links, which tells our partners we sent you and may in future result in a payment or benefit to our site.The Vault is an entertaining yet thought provoking podcast that answers our community’s dilemmas and confessions surrounding women and money.Visit https://www.financielle.com to download our app.Watch the podcast on YouTube.Follow Financielle for more:▶︎ TikTok▶︎ InstagramAbout Financielle:Financielle is a female focussed finance app helping women to take back control of their money, ditch debt, increase savings and invest in their future.Recorded and Produced by Liverpool Podcast Studios▶︎ Web ▶︎ Instagram▶︎ LinkedIn

Welcome to The Vault with Financial. This is a safe space where we talk all things life and money and no topics are off limits. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. Good morning. Happy Vault Day. I thought you were going to say Happy Valentine's Day. I thought I was going to go, what month are we in? Definitely isn't, don't you worry. I feel like we're all fresh from holidays.

Yes, you've not noticed already, Lucy's got a glorious tan. It's not real though, is it? It is. I've not got an ounce of fake tan on. Have you not? Oh wow. She did a scrub before she went and you did a few weeks before,

so you body, I remember. There was a bit of warm weather a few weeks ago and she was like, I'm gonna get my skin summer ready. You were a factor 50 girly though, like 13. No you're not. I just thought you would be. No, I'm not really a high factor. Why?

I just do short, sharp bursts. Okay. Yeah. I do it wrong because, do you know how it's like, oh you sit out of the sun like 12 till four. I just do short, sharp bursts during that window. You do interval sun tanning. Yeah. You do intervals, sun tanning. Yeah.

Like 20 minutes on, 10 minutes off. I did burn a little bit this time because I fell asleep on the beach, but it was fine. Holly could never. When people say, oh, I'd love a little like, I love a little snooze on holiday. Our friend sent us a picture of her on holiday. She's literally in a bikini

and a little girl's asleep next to her and she's just like, yeah, that's me. And I was like, how? Have you fallen asleep? Like falling across my face. I can't bear the thought of someone seeing me sleep, like a stranger seeing me sleep.

I literally don't care. That's the bigger thing for her. It's not actually, well one, she would struggle. It's the comfort, I want a duvet. Yeah. An eye mask, earplugs. On the bed. On the beach.

And a comfy mattress. Doesn't ask for more. So I like La Vailand when they sleep outside. That's true. And you get a duvet. I probably could do that. You have a great sleep on La Vailand, but they're doing it at night time,

and you'd be like, one PM nap. But it's like rogue naps. Like Neil could just, if we went on a plane, Carl's the worst for this. Literally, it's taking off, Carl's like. No, no. He's like. Oh, it's taking off, Carl's like. No, no. He's like.

Oh, he's asleep the minute he sits down. Yeah, as people are still getting the bags out. And he's just an aisle person, so then you have to try and get past him and he's fast asleep. No shame. My dad fell asleep on the beach on holiday and he woke up and there was literally a beach wedding

like right next to him. They would do, as if they didn't wake him up and shove him out of the waker. I would have to wake him up. I'm sorry, that's not what we're here for. I'd be like, excuse me, there's a wedding going on. In the photos. That's the thing with beach weddings,

you don't own the beach, unless you play, maybe pay a lot of money to have some sort of private cove beach. Like if you're on a public beach, you've got to deal with like Derek and his little- Derek. Speedos. There's nothing you can do about it.

No. How do we get on to Derek and his speedos? No, you've been on holiday, where have you been? I've been to Caffe Le Neur. Stunning. Where have you been? I've been to Corfu, Greece, Greece Girlies this year. I've never been to Greece before,

and Lucy has sold Greece to me. And now I'm addicted and I just wanna go back and kind of discover more islands. That was really fun. Where have you been? I've been away for a weekend. So stretched out the long weekends. What's it like flying quite far for like a long weekend?

I think it's fine. I think we felt like we got a really, really good deal and we didn't have the kids, so we did an overnight flight. And you felt like Sunday was wasted because Sunday was when we traveled back and we left, but we left hotel 11, so we got up early and had breakfast quickly and went by a pool

and chilled until literally half time when we'd packed the night before. That's the thing when you don't have kids, you can squeeze every, and only when you don't, when you've had kids, do you realize how much time, what you waste so much time faffing and sorting and dealing with. Oh, a million, one thing, because one thing can derail.

You're like, we couldn't find my, because Carl had packed and couldn't find my, because Carl had packed and we couldn't find my watch, because he packed and I was like, did you put my watch in? And it was just my sports watch, like not a super expensive one. And he couldn't remember, so we had to tend to the whole case. And it was 10 to 11 and we were being picked up at 11.

So calm as a button, just like, yeah, no problem. As you've had the kids, you'd be like, get off the balcony, start running water. Like, stop pushing your brother. Absolute chaos, so yeah, no, it was amazing. But our big trip award of the day goes to Lydia. Where have you been? Oh, I went to the Philippines.

Oh, she thought she'd outdo us all, didn't she? Honestly, I mean, so you went to meet other people there, didn't you? Yeah, my friends were traveling in Asia and they were like, come to the Philippines. Come to the good bit. And you went. All right then.

Yeah, I've been calling it traveling. It went traveling. Did you have a backpack or? I had a backpack. It was staying in a nice villa, but I still called it backpacking. I'm literally wearing a backpack. You did not backpack.

So it's backpacking. If you're wearing a backpack and you're going to Asia, in my world, you went traveling. You roughed it in a beautiful villa. How was your bunny while you were away? Oh, he was fine the other nice time at my friend's house. He had his own little bunny holiday. Yeah. Well, there you have it.

We're all well traveled, but we're all well back and ready to answer any dilemmas and have any wider chats that you've got. We're getting loads at the moment. We still want people to send them, don't we? Like we've got, sometimes we do some of the shorter ones on socials and stuff. We will make sure that everyone gets an answer.

And especially if you put it into the community, you're definitely going to get people's feedback. Had some really, really interesting ones and different ones and some same old, same old, like even if you think your dilemma is a little boring or it feels like a stupid question, you don't not know who else is hoping that that stupid question gets asked.

So no judgment, make sure you send them into the vault at financial.com and Lucy will decide which ones come on here, but everyone gets answered. Definitely. Okay, I'm going to start with today's controversial opinion. Life events have gone too far. What do you mean life events? I think we need to call out the gender reveals.

Oh God. Hold on guys, we're talking about gender reveals again. No matter what happens, we're having a party for it in our gardens and like people need a new dress and it's going to be blasted across social media. What do we think? And it's like the, the dress thing's interesting. I feel like we're going back to the mid to late 2000s when Facebook and MySpace was a thing. Instagram, not a thing. Like it was a picture app, but it wasn't as social as it is now at all. There was a story. It's got to the way out of stories for years. But for you to do the Facebook dump and I think the mid to late 2000s for us millennials and older will remember that that's when suddenly you were conscious of a dress for an occasion and being photographed in it and then needing another one and another one. It was very rare that you would re-wear and that

was brand new. I mean, Primark was just coming out like, other than that, it was like your top shops and it was quite, it wasn't cheap, but it wasn't expensive, but it also wasn't cheap. So you were paying quite a lot for your outfits because it was about the pictures. And I feel like it went through the fast fashion cycle. And I do think it's calmed down a little bit more with sustainability and people look like,

people do loads of capsule stuff. But I am seeing this coming back. So the halls I see that people do and influencers do to try on outfits for the dress to the races or the dress to the hen do. You need to dress her every night now. It used to be like you'd wear one white dress, which years gone by you didn't. But now I mean, I saw Grace Beverly getting ready for her hen do, which just looked iconic. And like, we have to remember, her life and businesses are rooted in products.

And it was basically- A campaign. An amazing campaign. And so like they did like, did you see they did a sports day? So like musical chairs and they're all dressed up in like the towel stuff. But she had been planning the outfits for weeks and it's multiple multiple outfits and so every outfit would need jewelry and every

outfit will need a hairstyle and what shoes you don't own the bags like I know she's quite a big fan of rented bags but that's the example of if everyone sees that that's a multi-millionaire business owner that owns product. What are we all gonna do? Sharon going to Benidorm is trying to do the same thing. She is. There's no need. We're all living this, I just get so frustrated

because I'm not like that at all. I feel like I used to be. So I'm giving a bit of empathy with people because I think it's certain place and time. Once you've got kids and once you've got running a business and this, that and the other gets, it can be like I'm choosing. You've been the main character.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've done it so I, yeah, we did it for our own do. We've talked about it on the pod before so. What about Lucy, so Lucy, if that were to happen to you and you have had news in your family about a new recent engagement. Do you wanna tell the world? My brother proposed to his girlfriend.

In Coffoo? Yeah, in Coffoo. We're very, very congratulations. Probably don't even listen to the platform. We will now. It's our family, so we'll say congratulations. But, you know, if that were you all, you know, now there's a bride to be, all she sees on, if she's on her socials, especially, you know, a time when everyone's

documenting everything, the pressure to be like this life event is like you're a celebrity, but you're just an everyday person. Yeah. You're Sharon. Yeah, you need a reality check sometimes, I think. And like, it's not getting plastered over social media and that you don't need to kind of perform. I think. And like it's not getting plastered over social media and that you don't need to kind of perform. I think that's the biggest thing. What would the outfits be if there was no social media?

Oh yeah. Well, it's like that whole thing that you say people wouldn't do Pilates. Pilates would not make, no one would do Pilaus apart from the hard coffe. Me and Lucy so would. We've been drinking for years, can we just say? None of this. Yeah, but you only tried it because it was pretty. It looked pretty. I can't remember where I tried it. But as in like now it's a thing.

You see every girl's walking down the street. Like they don't even like it, you can tell. Like the people that just don't like it, they're doing it for the aesthetic. Like they want to go in blank street and come out with it. And then they're taking the picture with the nails and... I'm exhausted, I don't know about you, and I don't even comply with these things and I'm exhausted consuming it.

So imagine the person that's got to keep up the pretence all the time. I've seen a few gender reveals are still going strong, like how people still got the energy to put coloured confetti in a cannon or bake a cake and then cut it open and it's blue and is it pink? Our parents didn't even have scans. They just didn't have a clue. No. I love seeing all the ones from Texas and everything.

It's like, my name's Helena. I'm your baby daddy. I think you're gonna be a boy. Oh my God. But how do you do the reveal? It's just like really underwhelming. Like there's a whole crowd of like a massive family and it's like, woo. And it's a girl in the dad's house.

Yeah, yeah. People must be so fed up going to them. If someone asked me to go to theirs, I'm not coming. Like it's an ick. No, she's not. She would say, she would say I'm not coming. No, I an ick. She would say I'm not coming. No, I think, but I think you're right. Life events have become all too much,

especially I feel I have a lot of empathy for our community that are going on a money journey and they may be seeing friends that are living out this or the feet we talk about hen do's quite a lot. And I know we've just mentioned it, but the pressure to go to someone's 40th birthday weekend to London and we're gonna do a show and we're basically just talking about the trip

that we've just been on. But we planned it so that's okay. But it's when the main character is just like upping the game all the time. I've got a few friends and it's like every single birthday it's like, so my birthday plans this year are dinner here. And I'm like, I couldn't even imagine doing that for myself. Like, you think a lot of yourself don't you? I know I'd just be like, oh my God, I don't want to go. We're like, I couldn't even imagine doing that for myself. Like, you think a lot of yourself, don't you?

I know, I'd just be like, oh my God, I don't wanna go. We're like, we're going to pizza. We're going to the local Italian. Like we never do any, and it's not to say you shouldn't enjoy birthday life. It's so short. If you wanna go and celebrate every year, but the pressure to bring people along with you

and spend money when they don't have it, we're obviously on the other side of the coin because we see all these dilemmas that are written in by our community saying, I feel like I want to say no, but I don't know how to say. My nightmare would be like late twenties, mid to late twenties girls trip. Girls trip my age now,

we'd all be swapping each other's outfits. Yes, we wouldn't look nice and you'd want to take some nice pictures, but it's like one picture then kind of like, you done and you're cracking on. It's not for the pictures. It's not for the pictures. It's for each other.

And like, you know, I do like the idea that imagine if there were no cameras, one, some people would feel a hell of a lot more comfortable because people don't feel comfortable in getting like, because we can't all Alex Early. Like we don't all look like that. And so, you know, we are not. Oh, my God. It's such a funny TikTok of this girl who was on a sun lounger. She was eating some ruffles crisps. And she had sunglasses on the edge of her nose

and she had a hat, but it was on top of her head because she had a bun in, you know, and you can't properly get a hat on. And it's, so you undo the back and it's like a flat cap, really. And she said, I don't know how people look so good on holiday, because this is me belly out. Yeah.

Chris is stuck in your roles. She's like, she said, this is my bliss life. The idea that someone took a picture of me right now. And she's on camera, which is the, uh, the irony, but yeah, the, um, I was listening to a podcast. It does make me how it's so funny. They were talking about, um about on holiday and what you wear and like, oh, so there's an amazing resort store

in I think it's Nutsford or Wilms, I can't remember, called Rumpus Resorts, I don't know if you've heard of it, it's like swimwear and they've been going for years, it's like an OG where it's not swimwear, it's caftans, it's cover ups, it's cords, it's handbags. It's wedges. Yeah, but they're all like,

your cheapest bikini in there is 80 quid and they would see that as like bargain basement up to like 400 quid for a bikini or whatever. And the girls were talking about wearing jewelry like by the beach and she was like, you know, you just get a really nice black costume and you just layer it with like gold jewelry and all that kind of thing was like,

can you imagine sat in Tenerife eating Cheetos with your kids trying to drink Diet Coke and then you're literally like, oh, wait a minute, your necklace is on fire, like you've burnt yourself. I'm such a tan line. Or it goes green. I was like, it's just not practical. I was literally snorkeling in a t-shirt.

You live in your winning the pre-life. Coming up sputtering. Playing mermaids. Yeah. Yeah. Life events have gone. It's got, you've blown them lads. You've absolutely blown them. Yeah, yeah. Life events have gone.

You've blown them, lads. You've absolutely blown them. Yeah, but it's like, it's okay for it not to be so intense and to not get carried away with it. And I saw another TikTok, I was on holiday, so it was on my holiday once, coming out. I had no kids and a great wifi, and I was in the shade. But these Americans had gone to Europe, so these four girls were in Mallorca and they

were by the pool. And one of their friends had a Pinterest board of candid shots that she was like, so this is what we're taking. And she was like, look what my friend is doing. It's not our birthday. It's not a big trip, but this is just every day. So she's got a big trip, but this is just every day. So she's got a list of shots.

I'm pointing at Lucy because this sounds a lot. The effort, but that's how you get the pictures. I always laugh at people in our group that want to do like the pictures. But then our friend the other day was like, made this amazing reel, we'd been camping with the kids and it was so wholesome and lovely. It's always Sus.

You're so glad, you're all chastised me at the time for another picture, another video. And I don't know, she went, but aren't you grateful? It was so wholesome and lovely. She was like, You're so glad you're all chastised me at the time for saying, Oh, another picture, another video. And I don't know, she went, But aren't you grateful? Cause these memories like, and it was just the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. Suzanne and Sarah carry our group.

Yeah, they do. They carry our group photos. Sometimes a tripod pops out, not going to lie, but the pictures that you get, if it were up to me and Holly, They wouldn't exist. They wouldn't exist. Well, it wouldn't exist if you were all.

And the only really nice picture that people have commented on from my trip to Abu Dhabi was I did a pyramid of Pironi cams when the sun was going down and it was beautiful and they kept blowing over and everyone was like, oh my God, that's so cool. That's the only thing I offered. I was in this five star hotel with my beautiful husband, but it was the Peroni Tower that represented my trip.

So I went on around then. How long are we in? Sorry, guys. Is this still the welcome? I know we're past the welcome. We've done well. This is actually a controversial opinion. Oh, you do you.

But now, want to go on holiday again? Which we are. So we'll share that on the next one. Okay. Time for our first dilemma. I got a pay rise and now I want a new car. Help. Hi girls, I'm currently trying to get better with my money habits. At the start of this year, I got a new job with a large pay rise. I only have to go into the office one day a week at the moment, but I've been told that from September, this will increase to three days a week. That means my fuel costs will triple. I own my car outright and it's held its value really well

So I'm thinking about selling this car putting some of that money into my emergency fund Which currently only has 250 pounds in it and using the rest as a deposit for a new car Is this a bad idea or not? My thinking is, if I get an electric car, I'll save money on the fuel and road tax as my current car has really high tax. But is this just the lifestyle creep? Yes, 100% lifestyle creep. And everyone always reverts to when they get a pay rise,

I'm gonna get an electric car as if it's like some holy grail of, my life will be sorted, I will save the planet, I will be like a better human for having an electric car and that might be right on some levels from a sustainability point of view but you've said it yourself like and you know by writing this down and we always say you said the words lifestyle creep you're already thinking that. If I got a big pay rise and my emergency fund was £200 I'd be thinking about building that up. So

I'd keep everything the same. You own your car outright, so the only cost that you've got is a sinking fund for your tax and your fuel, which you can manage monthly, it sounds like, even though it's going to triple in September. But it's time to grow your emergency fund. And if you've got a big pay rise, you should be getting a nice healthy excess at the end of the month. And that emergency fund will build up quite quickly. And would you not rather go on holiday and travel and invest than buy another car? She's getting the feels. She's getting the guinea feels, but you have to let them go. We can convince ourselves of anything. So the electric reference is the, like, I can, I picture most things

like this, by the way, because of my background as a lawyer, you know, for and against arguments. Like it's, you know, you probably from philosophy and religion years ago. So there's, you know, all the essays we've ever done through it. Like, you know, think of it like this, right? And there are always arguments for and against most things, especially when they're quite sensible decisions. We're not talking about anything serious here, we're talking about a purchase. So you can always stack it whichever way you want it.

It's like flipping a coin. Do you wanna flip a coin? Do you know what you wanna do? And so the electric thing is something that someone, yes, it's great to be electric, it's great to be sustainable, they're really expensive. So if you can't afford to buy an electric car in cash, you can't afford one, whether you decide to finance it

or not, to finance it or not, you are still deciding to spend that amount of money, whether it's in credit or whether it's in cash. And so, you know, lots of things are very sustainable, a lot more sustainable than some of the things we do, but you have to have the money to fund it. It's not an excuse to overspend. Definitely getting excited about the pay rise,

definitely like, but you spend the money before you've got it. She's getting it, she's got the pay rise immediately, I think, hasn't she? I know she's got to commute from September or maybe it's from September. Yeah, commuting from September. But pay rise maybe from now, we'll see. But like Holly said, we always advocate playbook.

So that emergency fund of 250 quid, terrifying. Pick what your amount is and go for it and use that excess in the new pay rise. You don't have money for extra things with your nice pay rise. You behind? And we really want a bit of a, I could have got a pay rise. No, you're behind. It's this big sister moment where we're like, well done, but, but you know, that

you, because, and this is a real message for everyone, this is a pivotal moment because most people will spend. They will. Most people will go into, I can extend my lifestyle. I deserve this. I should treat myself. And that's completely normal. The weird thing to do is to have the discipline to go,

great, I've now, let's say the pay rise means net, she's gonna get an extra 300 quid. Say her excess is already 200. She's now got 500 excess and she's behind on the emergency fund. So stacking up the cash to get that to a minimum of one month's expenses, making sure that there's no other debt in her life.

And then building an even bigger emergency fund, whilst to your point Holly, we need a maintenance fund, we need insurance, we need car tax, and she's obviously factoring in extra fuel and a budget. There can be more new, nice cars in your future. This isn't a no, it's a not right now. I think having, if you can let that pass, that like surge of dope.

That feeling, that scratch, scratching the itch. Come down the other side. I think the fact that she owns it outright is more frustrating for me, because I'm like, like you don't, how lucky you are, so many people have paid off a finance car and they're chained to these monthly payments and then you're arguably, it doesn't sound like,

you can't buy it out, I can't imagine you can buy the new car outright, that's not what she's saying, is it? No, she's gonna use it. No, a deposit. And to put someone in the emergency fund. But yeah, she's kind of like, we'll be going backwards. You're chaining yourself to monthly payments.

Like you are free. Like right now, unless you've got any other consumer debt, which amazing that you've got to pay your rise, that can go towards in the emergency fund. But you are free. Like, oh my God, people will be shouting at the TV now, our community that are stuck. Yeah, yeah.

Like, please don't do it. Don't do it. And I wish you were there. Did you see the dilemma in the community or the story that a member shared about her friend had got a brand new car and she said she'd gone round in her head. I was like, she'd gone round to see it.

Like, you know, do you want to come round and see my new car? Like do you want to see my new baby? With the bows on it. Do you want to come see my new car? Another life event. Party, do you want to come see my new car? Another life event. Party. Do you want to see my new car? Right. Car reveal. On that, how many people have bought like a Fiat Punto and the fucking garage has put

a black curtain over it and they're like, are you ready to see your new car? Start a G-Wagon. It's like, oh, cannons. It's like, what is going on? I can't, I can't. If a car, nah, like maybe, you know, oh, cannons. It's like, what is going on? I can't, I can't. If a car now, like maybe 20 years ago, if a car now has a sheet over it,

it's because they've overcharged you. Yeah, they're like, thank you. Thank you. Of course they're gonna make a big deal out of it. Of course they've got a bow in the corner. It's not for you. They put a bow on everyone. I'm just trying to say.

Bobbu's getting it in you. He's getting it next. Can you imagine my dad going in and them doing it to me? He'd be like, can you not It's for them. It's for everyone. I'm just about to say. Bobbu's getting a new. He's getting it next. Can you imagine my dad going in and them doing it. He'd be like, take it off. He'd be like, you're not. Yeah, yeah. He'd be like, you're not. Yeah.

As if it's an achievement, but they're gonna share in the achievement because they've sold the car to you. Yeah, they get the commission, the girl's buzzing that's putting that bow on because she sold you the car. Yeah. I can't remember what I was gonna say now.

I was, I was. She was inviting her around. Oh, yeah. I was like, I was... She was inviting her around. Oh yeah. I was like, well, on the pitch in the new, I was pitching like, yeah, Vauxhall in Bolton, going like, surprise. And then you go. She's, yeah, so some of the community said

that she went around to her friend's house and she's got a brand new car. And she was like, oh, like it's really nice. And her friend made a joke. Her friend said back to her, when are you getting rid of your banger? And I chatted about this a little bit. I chatted about this a little bit, talking about,

there's one level of like banter in the UK, which is you can take the mick out of stuff a little bit. Like there's something that's more natural or normal for us to do that. Everyone takes the mick out of my husband's car. We've talked about it so many times. All of our friends are driving like off-rovers. They bought Range Rover, the retired man on the corner.

Land Rover Discovery. Everyone's got a new Audi. Everyone's got a new car. They've either got a company car that's really nice because they have to be with the jobs that they've got or they like cars and they've got enough money to be able to do so great. Neil's car was like, was it like seven grand or something?

It's like a Mercedes. They call it a taxi and it's so funny. It's like Joeville and he's like, was it like seven grand or something? It's like a Mercedes, like they call it a taxi and it's so funny, it's like Joville and he's like, could not give a shit. He's like, I'd rather go on holiday four times a year than have the car. And do the extra investing that you're able to do. So you allowed that banter, that goes down quite well.

It's funny. Like I said, you allowed it. And I think this, I think it's about how confident you are with you. And sometimes that's a journey because firstly, and I said, there's two ways to handle this. One, there's a straight back, which is, yeah, but can you really afford it?

Which like, maybe not for all friends, maybe. Maybe say it in your head. But just be, yeah, think about that. Be mindful of if they've got a brand new car and they're showing it off and they're so proud of it. I mean, careful not to judge, because actually, you've worked fucking hard for a car all your life.

And it's your thing, then fine, but this girl's been brave enough to dish out the banger comment, so. But let them be them and let them do them, because you're on your journey and embrace the banger, give it a name. In fact, if it's nine years old, it's a lot younger than my car.

My car's 12 years old and literally I'm gonna run it into the ground. I keep taking it to our lovely friend's garage and they just keep maintaining it for me. I've got my maintenance fund and I'm very, very blessed that I've got it and it never enters my head when I'm getting a new car. Whereas when you're in the car finance routine

and it's not because of a company car, it's not through work and actually, it's a big amount of your budget, that amount's going up every single year. And so for our original dilemma writer who talked about thinking of doing it, like Holly said, we don't want you to go backwards because I promise you, you will,

because of the way you are now, you'll wanna go back. You'll hate that finance payment. You'll hate the fact that at the end of it, you don't own that car unless you find the money for a bullion payment. So then you're gonna have to do another one and another one. And then if you'd like a mortgage, and then if you'd like to invest extra,

and then if you'd like to go on holiday more, your budget is squeezed with a huge chunky finance payment and that's what we're dragging you back from and going, no, no, no, like have the moment, have the feels and if you'd like to plan for an upgrading car at some point, cash is king. So make sure you do your emergency funds, make sure you build up cash

and it is possible to get a nice electric car, you're just not ready for it yet because you can't buy it cash. Yeah, that like big excess payment that she's gonna get every month, I hope. So it sounds like a big pay rise can go so far, but by taking it all with a car payment, it's spent and it's done.

Whereas if you can stagger it, so like you can do your emergency fund first, once that's done, it's done. It's not, it's done. You move on. So then that excess cash builds back up again. You go, okay, what do you wanna do now? Like you can do so much with it if you're clever with it.

Or if you chain yourself to a car finance deal, it's painful. We see so many people writing dilemmas in about car finance. Yeah. And we see some really good wins when they get out of it. And they say like, never again. And I think it's definitely something that divides listeners. We're here for like emailing messages, your opinion,

if you've got a different perspective on it, is it really good for you on tax? Have you got a business? Do you, have you just, are you overwhelmed with choosing a car? There's loads of different viewpoints. We know what we have done and we know what a lot of people in the community

have done and that kind of qualitative feedback is plus the quantitative data in terms of how much you can save and how much you could invest if you didn't, it's just a no brainer. So don't do it. You've got your answer. Okay, I've got a community win for the app. This is the best app. I managed to clear my debt in two months after trying to clear it for over a year and I've just secured a mortgage.

Ooh, amazing. You know, a big thing that we get a lot of people asking about, oh, should I clear my debt before I save for a house and people get overwhelmed by credit score and stuff. The biggest thing when we chat to mortgage advisors, who love it by the way, when someone's used the financial app

in the, on the journey to saving their deposit, because it means their finances are so sharp. They know the stuff when they do that first meeting and you collect all the data that like, you're just, you're dealing it. How much do you mortgage? It's not like going through the paperwork, like this, this, this.

They get the app out and they just go, there you go. They know their full budget, they know what they can afford and it makes such a difference to your affordability. So because you're not having these minimum payments going out, you've got excess room in the budget. So you can possibly borrow more than someone that has debt. I know it's a bit of an oxymoron given it's taking on more debt, but it's leveraged obviously on your house.

But it puts you in such a good position. So people don't often like paying off debt while they're saving for a deposit because they'd rather put the money for the deposit because they want the house quicker. But sometimes paying off that debt, you go backwards a bit to go, not go backwards, but you slow down a bit to then really accelerate.

You can leap forward. You can sprint. I feel like we're building some type A home buyers. Yeah. They show up. I'm picturing like Elwood's folder. Honestly, that must be what it's like. Some people turn up and go, I want a house. I want a house.

And they've just not thought through what's needed. All they do is go to a mortgage calculator on Rightmove. We've all done it. When you look at the mansion on the end of the street and he goes, do you want to see if you could afford it? And you go, I'll have a go. I don't quite like that pool. You're like, we're always good at that.

Don't we like that third-on suite? Yeah, the seven-figure, you know, issues that I have on our right movies, crazy. But yeah, that's amazing. If you'd like to tell us your win, head to the community in the app or email it to the vault at financial.com. Time for our next dilemma. I've saved 27K in my Lysa,

but our house budget is too high to use it. Hi girls. I love the pod and have been an avid listener for a long time. I have a dilemma and it's a long one, so settle in and thank you in advance for your help. I'm looking for some advice as my partner and I are saving up for a deposit to hopefully

buy our first property together next year. For context, we're 26 and 28 and have been renting together in London for a couple of years. We're planning to move further out when we buy, but house prices are really high in the area we want to live in, even for a smaller house that may need work. We're both high earners working in sales, so while our income can be inconsistent, we do earn commission and bonuses. This means

we're able to save both in chunks and regularly. We don't have any debt apart from my partner's student loans which he pays as normal. I've always been good with savings as it was drilled into me from a young age. Now that my income has increased significantly over the last few years, I've prioritized saving into my stocks and shares as I set to max the 20k limit and I put any excess into my SIP. My question is where is the best place to save my house deposit now this is our main goal? I currently have about 15k in a high yield savings account as well as a fully funded emergency fund. But as a higher earner, I'm taxed 45% on the interest so

I'm looking for the most cost effective way to save that still gives me access to the money next year. I've looked at a cash ISA as I don't currently have one, but I'm nervous to stop contributing to my stocks and shares ISA since I'm investing for long-term gains. And I think the 20K allowance is shared between the two ISAs, please let me know if I'm wrong. I also have a lifetime ISA, which I've been paying into for over five years.

There's around 27K in there, but the houses we're looking at are above the 450K threshold. So it looks 27k in there, but the houses we're looking at are above the 450k threshold, so it looks like I'll need to withdraw the money and take the 25% penalty. This would leave me with around 20k. I've paused my contributions to the Lysa whilst I figure it out, and my partner is in the same boat. He had a help to buy Lysa but already removed the money as 250k isn't realistic where we're buying. So here's what I'm unsure about. Do I take the Lysa money out now so it can sit in a cash isa instead?

Should I keep it there and just put future savings into a normal high interest savings account or is there any other way that I can save up money in cash whilst keeping it accessible for next year and do I just accept the high tax rate on interest? I know I'm speaking from a position of privilege with the numbers I've shared, and I really hope I don't come across as braggy. Money still feels really taboo and I don't have many people I can talk to about this. Most of my friends are still renting and living at home. I've always saved and invested with long-term goals in mind, but now that we've got this exciting goal to buy a home, I'm struggling to know what's the smartest,

most cost-effective way to do it. Our aim is to save as big as deposit as possible so we can keep our mortgage low. Thank you so much for your advice. Thanks, Giselle, as a round of applause. I know. Absolutely. To be celebrated.

First of all, problem's the whole problem. Absolutely. It's all relative, isn't it? And sad that she can't share it with people. I imagine that must be really hard where they could turn around and say, what are you complaining for? Yeah, like I went with my mom,

I'm never gonna get out of here and I can't save a deposit and it's impossible where we live and blah, blah, blah. Like you're in a different lane and that's okay and it's not something to feel bad about. And I'm glad that you've written into the vault because hopefully we can thrash this out together. Yeah, and for those people that are thinking about

the license and why this person can't necessarily use it, they came out in 2017 and basically it's used either as a savings account where the government help top up and you can use, they top up and use it to help buy a house with a house deposit, or you can use it as like a bit of a retirement vehicle. So I think you access it at 60.

And it came out in 2017 and there was a cap on the price of house at 450 grand. In some areas of the South is not going to get you a one bed flat. It's not going to, you know, if you want to buy a house with it and this is like, you know, your first opportunity to buy a house and the houses that you're looking at are above that, then you can't use the lifetime ISA. And if you've been over saving into it, because you think, you know, you plan to use it as a deposit, that should deposit. It's not for retirement. It's not for something else. And I was looking actually at this a couple of weeks ago that I think that the

price, house prices have increased that much since then that really it's like a house worth 575. They've not linked it to inflation or they've not linked it to the house price increase index. So it's the equivalent for 50 house would now be 575 and you can't buy it. So whilst it's a lot of money to lots of us and a high house price, it might not do the trick. And so that's the kind of dilemma that she's having. And the other element to this is you get a top up in the lifetime ISA, but the penalty is on the whole pot. And so what it basically means is you can end up with less than you've actually put in. That's crazy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not just the interest. It's not just the contribution from the government plus interest. It's 25% penalty on the whole pot, which ends up being some of what you put in. I think that's so unfair. Honestly, a lot of people have campaigned against it,

especially because a lot of people are having, well, firstly, you might have to withdraw it for financial distress. Like, I suddenly need it, I need access to my money. And I think everyone's probably on board with, as long as I could just take out what I've put in and I forego any contribution that goes back to the government, then fair play.

But you can't. So she's left with, I've got 27 in there, that is a lot of money to contribute towards a house deposit. And at the moment, and I have not heard anything about it changing, I know that lots of people lobby the chancellor on this in terms of increasing the cap.

I've heard that because of the house price increase. And it's for people that live in the South, it's just like, are you kidding me? Like how am I meant? Especially when you're buying with someone it's more realistic to be like, we probably would get a 450 grand house together, but the fact that you can't get one.

No, you can't exactly. And so it's not increased. They obviously set it, they chose that level, but they've chosen not to increase it and the penalty. So, because one of your questions was, should I withdraw it yet and get it growing somewhere else? I don't know what I do in that scenario. There's part of me that is it wishful thinking

that they may change it and you've got a couple of opportunities for the chancellor to look at it because they're being actively lobbied on it. It would be a win for like, you know, younger generation, first time buyers, people in that space. And so given you're going to have to write, I wouldn't contribute any more to it on that basis that you think it's unlikely you're going to be able to use it. It's up to you whether you withdraw it early because you

never know like if they change something in the next 12 months, and you're not buying for another 12 months, you might suddenly be able to use it again. So just bear that in mind. How much could you possibly gain by putting it somewhere else compared to sitting tight a little bit? Yeah, it's not enough.

Because you're able to save quite a lot, and you've got a lot of savings. And so there's part of me that thinks I'd probably leave it, because sometimes over fiddling and you are crystallizing that penalty. Cause when you take it out, you definitely get in the penalty. What if you might not get that penalty?

So I think it's a little bit of a risk-based appetite to it, but I'd be tempted to leave it and just keep an eye on what's happening and don't worry about the loss of game because typically you're not going to gain that much in a 12 to 18 month timeframe anyway. So the next interesting thing is looking at her Isis and Isis you get a £20,000 limit at the moment. Again, something that it has been rumoured government would look at and maybe look at bringing down. I mean, only-

Oh, bringing down? Yeah. I was going to get excited. No, no, going down. It's not been 20 for that long either, really. It was something that got put up and it might be brought back down again because then the government can get extra revenue income through the taxes on extra savings. So that's again, something that we just don't know.

But at the moment you get 20,000 pounds and it's across all ICERs. So it's your lifetime ICA, stocks and shares ISA and your cash ISA. So, and everything just has to add up to 20 and that's your max. Exactly, and you can only have one type of ISA open at the same time, which is going to be another bit.

Yeah, so you could have like a cash one and a stocks and shares one, sorry, but you can't have two cash ones at the same time. From the same year. Again, it's confusing because you could have seven different cash ices, but you just had one a year. Yeah. So, but in one tax year you get 20,000 pounds. This is why the wealthy have people managing the money because otherwise you'd be like, what month did I open that? Just to clarify, that's how much you can put in, isn't it?

It's not the total that's in the account. No, because it can grow and you can roll over from previous years. So some people think I have to open a new ISA every year and you don't. You can stick with the same account and you get a new allowance every year. And that helps keep things simple

rather than having it across different providers. Sometimes it can depend on the interest rates that you get into some people move the whole thing around to different providers and it's all about the contribution. So that's correct. And so she's really wedded to the stocks and shares, I said, but she needs this money on a shorter timeframe, some of the money. And so what she needs to decide is between now

and the date that I think I'm buying my house, how much money do I need to save and or hold? I really would think about leaving the 27 for now. And if you need that in the next year, industry-wide guidance is cash and get the best rate of return that you can get because markets are so volatile, as we've talked about on this podcast so often, and it can go up as well as down. And when you get in large amounts, once you get some big wins, you get some big losses.

Like we've had some great debate in the moment. Especially what's been going on over the last few months, like when you've looked at your pension and investments. Oh, chaotic. It's like, pfft. Chaotic, you know, you've got, you know, not to spook anyone, but you've got people like Warren Buffett selling his position and keeping lots of money in cash,

foreseeing certain things, you know, we've seen lots of political disruption globally, not just in the States. There's so much that, you know, it doesn't mean that we pull money out of investments like he does, he has, he's got a lot enough to play around with. But it's being aware that things could boom

or things could bust. And that's just the way of the capital markets. And so if you're putting house deposits into stocks and shares ices, and you need them in the next one to two years, it's still fine. I think there's a big rule about, oh no, you shouldn't. It's just be aware that that could go down.

And it's all about your appetite to risk and how much you need that exact money. If it were me every day saving for a house deposit, it's cash iso because I know the rate of return, I know it's not going backwards. It's a bit of peace of mind. You can exactly access to it and that's another thing, obviously, making sure that you don't use fixed accounts where you think you might need it in the next 12 months because sometimes you can't get it out or sometimes there's... It's hard work. Yeah, we've been there. We've tried. But so she has to fill that allowance per year in the right tax-efficient accounts so that she doesn't get taxed on it. Thereafter, she's

going to get taxed on interest. I think there's an interesting on partners, making sure that her partner is optimizing his tax free allowances. I wouldn't suggest her, if she's got more money than him, putting money in his name, keep it in your name, both of you, because that's- Keep it clean, because you just never know. Because sometimes you can try and nick returns from here and there, and actually,

we've talked about this before, like it's 10 pence decisions and not 10 grand decisions, like keeping things clean and not being too worried about returns when compromising them for sticky or messy situations. So then she just opened, again, if it's all for the house deposit, get it into cash savings accounts. So you can get some really good rates and yes, you still get taxed, but you have to have a lot of money in them to actually get taxed. And you get taxed on the interest that you've made. You don't get taxed on the amount.

So I sometimes tell people, play around with the interest rate and calculate the tax. Cause even though no one wants to give 45% of your earnings away, actually. When you do the calculation, not so bad. It's not a lot, and so it's because you're saving it for a temporary period of time, so you buy a house. So yeah, that's your flow, you go to your tax.

When you're prioritizing your house deposit, let's go ISIS, let's go cash, if you're worried about risk, then let's go into general savings accounts, and massively optimizing those rates and watching for fixes that doesn't get locked away. And then the left field thing is more pension because she does put money into a SIP. And so if you can keep going with that, that obviously is massively tax efficient. And so this is about looking at what you need for your house deposit. And if you're okay,

then actually if you really bothered about that 45% tax rate on your interest, you could just sweep everything that would go and get caught by that 45% rate and put it in your pension. Obviously you can't use it for your house deposit but it's, as Holly said, this is why when you hit a certain earning level, a financial planner can really help you look at your short, medium and long-term goals and go, right, based on your tax rates and based on what you could do, do this and they walk you through that. And that, you know.

It's like that comfort reassurance, like making sure, you know, you don't want any nasty surprises. But I think you worry that a lot of people don't do anything because they go, oh, I just get taxed on it. So I'm not, do you like- Oh, so many people go-

Making assumptions without looking at the calculator. Like Laura said, it might actually, on the grand scheme of things and your earning and how much you've got across the board, you might go, oh shit, I've like made it into a beast that it's not and I've missed out on all these other amazing things. Yeah, interest calculator can work in a couple of ways. Calculate the interest that you would make

on an account in a year and then put your tax rate through it and it's not always a lot. You have to have an awful lot in savings, especially because interest rates are coming down a little bit as well. So we're not seeing like the four or 5%. So we're seeing them lower. So.

I love that she's paying into a SIP as well. I'm assuming you've already got a workplace pension because of the careers that you kind of hinted to at the beginning. And the fact that you get a lot of commission and bonus and they're like seen as a bonus. Yeah. I like the way that you do it.

And the exciting thing for her, cause it sounds like she's in build in the playbook. So she sounds like she's debt free and obviously got emergency cash. And she's got like, so this left field issue with the lifetime I set to navigate depending on the property that they buy. But once she's bought a property,

the exciting thing then is she's in grow. And again, that's where you do a reset and you go, how much excess cash on a monthly basis across the year can I generate? And where do I want to put that? And you take into account your tax rates and if it's quite high, then pensions is a good place to go. But actually you've just got a big mortgage. You might be tempted to do some automating of overpayments of mortgage because that's a nice thing to get going. Or you might go all into the SIP because you

want to put money into investments for pre-retirement. All these are so cool as options. They just depend on what you want. And actually sometimes, and I've done this in my position, you actually do all three. But if you decide and then let it go, you're not constantly thinking, you know, where does it need to be? You know, we're always doing things like optimizing interest rates on savings accounts, that makes sense to do. But the other stuff, it's really nice to pick some amounts and kind of go, off you go. Go make money for me. And what about, she said about like the kind of mindset shift between she's always been like investing for long term stuff and now she's gonna have to like

stop that a little bit and focus on her goal for the next year. Like how does she deal with that? It's a really good question and I think for a year, again this is about putting math through it and compound interest needs time to grow. And so for a lot of people that are really good at investing the idea that they stopped for a year is really hard.

This might happen again for maternity leave. We hope it doesn't because we hope that you can continue to invest during that and that you and your partner can work on that. But sometimes we have pauses and as long as they're temporary, that's fine. I think she's also making this effort to get into the real estate market. So if she doesn't do this year, she then is not diversified and all her investments are in typically equities, which is one market of itself. And so I think she should see it as a bit of patience to enter a different asset market, which is property.

And she's then going to have a double horse race, three horse race, if you think cash, she's going to have assets in both areas. So a lot of people panic about if I stop investing what will happen down the line and it's not linear. Like we have moments of- And you're hoping that the contributions aren't as like big as they are. You could keep up small,

if you want to ensure that you're still getting compound interest and feel like you've keeping that muscle going, you could make small contributions. You might not say, oh, I'm going to stop it completely. I don't think. That's all, this is all driven by the house deposit she needs, you're totally right.

And so this is where we always say as well, like you can have anything, but you can't have everything. So what's the size of house you're buying? How much deposit do you need? She's torn between wanting a really big deposit so that it reduces the mortgage that she needs and it might get her a better rate. But then she's conflicted by this long-term investing thing.

I think if it were me, I would make sure I'm doing my regular pension investing through employment if that's what she does. And I say, focus on one thing and I'll go ham on that deposit. And because you know there's a timeframe, this isn't pausing this extra investing for a long time. It's like broad as long as she wants

like this big juicy deposit so that her mortgage goes here. So she saves down. Yeah, so she's worried about losing out over here. You can't have both. It's like double bubble. Like that's what you're trying to do. And you're feeling bad.

Like you can't do everything. Or you can, but you do it on a smaller scale. So you make the decision. Like what's it's more comfortable with you, but very impressive. Love the dilemma. Like send us some right-move links. We need a follow-up when you decide what to do.

And then we need a follow-up if the law changes. And then we need a follow-up with the house pitchers. I think it's really nice to have an aspirational dilemma. Like our community is so diverse as people that are struggling with paying anything, like drowning in consumer debt. Like it is possible to get to this place. Like it's not a million miles where you are moving

in circles with people like this. And if we can talk more in the community about these types of dilemmas, it just lets people see that this is possible. And it's a thing for females to talk about, Isis, cash Isis, investments, mortgages. Like it's very aspirational. And I'm really glad that you picked this dilemma.

One day you're writing in saying, I'm addicted to buying an appellator. The next year you're saying, I've got all this money. How shall I be making the most of it? That is a genuine path. It's not a leap. No. It's like, you know.

You've got to do the work. You've got to do the work, but that is a genuine dilemma. And like you said, for lots of people, they can't comprehend maxing out a 20,000 ice reliance. Yes, you can. Yeah, you're moving in the same circles as these people are all in this together. It's good.

Good one. Love it. That's all for this episode. The vault is now closed. And just a quick disclaimer, the vault is just a chat. We're on live from Mini Topics. We're not giving financial advice.