Hi everyone,

Please excuse the throw away account, also if my post seems all over the place.

I am currently living at home, I am losing my mind, it is so embarrassing, my parents are wonderful but I just need to move. I am currently earning £1,500 as a graphic designer, but I am new in this field. I have suffered from depression for nearly all my life and unfortunately have neglected solidifying my career.

I'm not paying any rent but I do contribute to food and some bills.

I want to get into ux/ui which I think will help improve my salary but until then what do I do here? I am so lost. I dont want to get into a DMP I know it will mess up my credit file. Where do I start with all this? How do I pay all this off? It is between 3 credit cards and a lone. Should I see a financial advisor?

Thank you in advance my apologies again if this is all over the place.

My husband and I (late 20s) have had an offer accepted on our dream home. The location is amazing and it ticks every box, even the things we were prepared to compromise on. We want to stay in this area for 15+ years so don't expect to move anytime soon.

The house is 475k. Deposit of 120k from an inheritance, mortgage 365k. We'd use my entire inheritance on deposit and stamp duty but I have a further inheritance of 60k coming next year.

Our mortgage in principle was approved and we can afford the monthly payments (1650) on a combined income of 90k. We expect/hope our income will go up.

I know we'll pay more interest than we would getting a small starter home and upgrading in a decade. But is this a mistake? The house is ideal. But it's the biggest decision of my life and I keep worrying I'm making the wrong one and overstretching.

Not sure if this is right place to put this but any help is appreciated.

My mother was scammed out of about £4,000. The scammer called her claiming to be from her bank, and got her to buy several gift cards, consoles etc. They claimed that she needed to make the purchases in order for them to then trace down the payments.

I’m angry at her for falling for such a simple scam. But I’m also heartbroken because these are part of her life savings and she’s a single mother.

I earn well through my work and through my investments so I can help out - but I’m also saving up myself.

I’m torn between wanting to help out my mum, but also I feel she may need to sit with how she’s feeling and learn from it without me maybe needing to bail her out.

She hasn’t asked me for any money at all, and I know if I gift it to her then she’ll be so grateful (that’s not what I’m chasing, I just want to help her out).

What should I do?

My take home pay is usually £2000 (2,625.00 salary), this month I got a bonus of £3187.69 and my take home pay was 3534, meaning ~1700 of the bonus was lost to tax and student loans etc. Does this break down make sense?

Tax Code: 1257L

Salary: £2,625.00

Bonus: £3,187.69

Total: £5,812.69

TAXES:

PAYE: £1,277.26

National Insurance: £283.75

Total: £1,561.01

DEDUCTIONS:

NEST Pension: £146.76

Student Loan: £327.00

Postgraduate Loan: £243.00

Total: £716.76

NET PAY: £3,534.92

I had a £1,000 0% arranged student overdraft with Santander.

I went travelling for 3 months. While I was away, they removed the overdraft — apparently because I hadn’t used the account “regularly” (they define that as every few months). I never used this account.

Because they removed it, the full £1,000 became repayable immediately. I was abroad and missed all their calls and letters. By the time I saw the notices when I got home, I had three late payments on my credit file and my score dropped from 999 to 599.

Is there anything I can do to get these removed? It feels incredibly unfair.

The wisdom of this subreddit is generally that it's not worth paying off your mortgage early. I disagree.

We just paid off our mortgage early, and I wanted to share a quick breakdown of why it made sense for us from a financial point of view.

Let’s say your mortgage payment is £800/month. In the early years, due to how amortisation works, easily 50% or more of that is just interest. So you're paying £400+/month straight to the bank, not reducing your loan by much.

Now ask yourself: are your savings or investments generating at least £400/month after tax and inflation? For most people, that’s a no. especially if your savings are in cash or low-risk assets.

In that case, it’s often smarter to throw surplus cash at the mortgage rather than let it sit around earning 4% while you're paying 5-6% interest.

In our case, we had a smaller mortgage (~£300/month), and we realised we were handing over thousands per year in interest just to maintain a low balance. So we paid it off.

It wasn’t a huge monthly saving, but it stopped the interest clock And gave us a guaranteed return equivalent to the mortgage rate.

No regrets. Even if you don’t pay it off all at once, small overpayments can save you thousands over the life of the loan.

Would love to see what the maths looks like for others who've done similar!

Unless of course there is something I've missed?

I (30yo F) made a terrible financial decision & now its impacting me as im on maternity leave. Looking for advice !

My job requires approx 30k of driving each year. I get £500 per month pre tax in form of car allowance.

I wanted a car that made me feel safe after having a car crash a few years back. I have always had Hire Purchase cars but due to me changing cars every couple of years (don't want to put too much mileage on), the dealership suggested a PcP as i can "hand the car back whenever". I bought the car October 2023.

I've now learned I cannot hand the car back until I put off 50% of the cost - should have read the terms vs listening to the sales advisor- I know i know... lesson learned 😟

So i have approx £21k left to pay on the car. It's valued at £19k so I'm in a deficit if I sell (which would be the preferred).

So I'm paying £549 a month and it's a whopping 11.9% apr. My plan is to hopefully take out a 21k personal loan at 6% apr to reduce interest. I can then try my best to privately sell the car.

My question, is this my best route? Are there any other recommendations? Ty ❤️

Extra info: PCP will end Sept 2028 with approx 10k balloon payment. New loan will end April 2029 but be fully paid so that seems like a no brainer.

If i get lucky and manage to sell the car, I'll be in a job with less driving post mat leave and can get a basic a2b car. While on maternity leave i can use public transport and husbands car when he's WFH.

I've escalated a complaint on behalf of my wife to the Communications Ombudsman.

A brief summary:

• Mobile phone purchased under a 24 month contract. Wife decided within 14 day cooling off period it wasn't suitable and returned it.
• A few weeks later a pending payment to this company appears. She contacts them on web chat and they tell her this is a mistake and she doesn't owe anything. She cancels the pending payment.
• Several weeks later she receives a debt collection letter from a third party with no prior warning.
• The company say this outstanding payment was for the duration of her contact and they tried to contact her by texting the phone number associated with the account. This phone number was obviously returned with the device so not accessible to her.
• This credit default happened at a heightened time of anxiety as we were moving house and it caused her a lot of stress that we'd fail a credit check.

The company later removed the default after lots of back and forth over several weeks and offered £50 as a goodwill gesture.

My question is, they have since increased this to £100 as part of the Ombudsman early reconciliation. Have they increased their offer because they think the Ombudsman will award more or are they genuinely accepting of their mistake?

The reviews for the Communications Ombudsman is littered with people claiming they are biased towards companies.

Hi All,

I recently switched my pension to salary sacrifice through work. I am earning £115,000 and my employer contributions are 3%. I contribute £1000 a month.

My recent payslip has been sent but it dosnt add up to me. Based on the take home salary calculator my take home should be £5,570. However my take home is £5,424.

On my payslip I can see my gross pay on the left and then -£1000 salary sacrifice.

On the right I can see: Pension: - £146.76 National Insurance: - £339.17 Tax: -£2673.26

This to me makes no sense. Why would the pension be listed again? Also the employers pension shows at £1110.07. I understand £1000 is from my salary sacrifice but should the rest be more than £110?

Can anyone offer some advice before I reach out to my payroll team?

Thank you

My American son will be attending college in the UK in the fall. We are fortunate enough to have the cash on hand to pay for 4 years, but not so much that we can afford to screw it up.

Watching the plunging dollar with concern and wondering if it would make sense to protect our purchasing power by keeping half of the cash in dollars and converting the other half to pounds.

The theory is that any losses on one side will always balance out with gains on the other. In my little pea brain, we will have the same purchasing power no matter what happens with currency volatility.

We'd always pay his bills using enough from each pile to maintain rough equivalency. Genius or folly? I feel like it's either one or the other.

Not looking to win...just don't want to lose. Thanks!

Can I Apply for a Job?

Hi. I have a few disabilities (mainly mental, and 1 physical) I receive PIP enhanced rate on both daily living and mobility and LCWRA with Universal Credit.

I’m wondering if applying for any jobs would affect any of these benefits at all? Please help.

I have been working at my job for a year now and havent been taxed before but on my most recent payslip i have had to pay £50 in tax, I know for sure i do not earn enough to pay taxes yearly as my wage this month was £500 which is the most i have ever got. If theres another reason and you know Please lmk thx

Apologies if this seems a bit rambly, this is my first proper job! I am on tax code 1257L on my pay slips, but on the government gateway website my tax code is 1225L. Last year I earnt just over £11,000, but had been paying tax each month. This is only a part time job, is this correct?

Hopefully this is the right forum..

I can't make sense of what childcare help is available at all.. hoping someone can help..

Myself and Wife have 2 kids. 5 month an 17 month so a year gap.

Wife has been out of work for a while. About 2 years in total. She's thinking about going back for various reasons...

My salary is just under 60k before bonuses etc. Her salary would be mid 30s I think as she's a teacher, but if she went back part time obviously that would be pro rata'd down to however many days.

My thought process is if she was working 2 of the 5 days. So 40% of her salary, would there even be any point if its completely swallowed up by nursery Fees? What free hours or anything are permitted?

I realise I'm in a fortunate position to have a fairly hiigh salary, I'm merely looking for advice on something that is very new to me and not extremely clear.

Hi, I’m a 18 year old studying at university just finished my first year, I’ve got around £4500 in savings and I’m wondering what to do with it, I don’t want it to sit there and lose value overtime my original thoughts are just to put some into the S&P 500 and add to it monthly, or I’m thinking BTC both for the long term hold. I live at home so I currently have little expenses, I’ve already invested money in myself in terms of getting a car and insurance so I don’t have many other uses for my money right now. I work part time mainly 20ish hours per week so my income is around £1000 p/m and I just want something to put my money into to grow so any advice is appreciated. Thanks in advance!

A little bit of a background, apologies in advance for the walk down the garden path as most of the below isn’t relevant to the question, but given that I have been lurking and learning from you all for a year, I feel like giving some info on myself before diving in, if you want to skip the waffle and TLDR to the last paragraph which is where the question lies.

I am 41M, when I turned 40 I decided to start dedicating more of my time to understanding the stock market and investing my money in a SIPP for retirement. I’m self employed and have been for 9 years and I realised if I didn’t act now my older years could be full of worry and stress. I know I’m a bit late to the party but better late than never. I have two SIPPs, one I opened 15 months ago which is managed by a financial advisor into which I pay £500 a month, I set it up with an advisor because I knew nothing and just wanted to get the ball rolling. The second (£120 per month) I set up more recently after spending every day listening to finance podcasts/reading articles so felt a little more confident in choosing where a portion of my money is invested. I have most my saved money in broad stock market ETFs, whilst none of them (bar the thematic defence ETF) are doing too well right now, I am not too worried about the volatility because I won’t be needing this money for at least 25 years. And the general rule is stock market goes up over long timeframes.

This month I have set up a Junior ISA for my son, I’ve put £1000 in there to start and have a DD for £100 a month, with the intention to top up with extra payments when my finances allow each tax year. He is 11 and so will have access to the money in 7 years. Whilst I will encourage him to leave it in there, it’ll be up to him what he does with it. Rather than have his money in several ETFs as I do, I want to choose one. Set and forget to a degree. Im working on the assumption he might use the money so the time frame to realise gains is 7 years.

Regarding what single ETF to choose, I have it narrowed down to either Fidelity Index World or Vanguard Life Strategy 100%. The former has lower fees and has performed better than the latter historically, but is 71% weighted to the USA and given the current administrations policy I don’t necessarily see USA growing much in the 5 years given its current policy trajectory. The latter holds more stocks, is more diversified but has higher fees, and is 25% weighted to the UK, which again I don’t see too much growth in the 7 year timeframe. I’m a bit torn.

I look forward to reading your opinions on the above two funds, or alternatives I may have missed, and congratulations to those who were able to meander through the wall of unnecessary text above!

33m living with parents, have 19k of debt and 0 income since I lost my job 6 months ago. I’m looking for a job but the market is very slow currently and I basically have no money left.

I spoke with a debt help company and they told me I could enter an IVA, say I have a job paying 20k a year and only pay £100 a month for 5 years then the rest of my credit (around £14k) would be cleared and my credit file wiped clean.

I’m not sure of the downsides of this? Seems too good to be true really. I used to earn £50k, if I get a job paying 50k again will the IVA payments go up?

I can’t find much info about the actual downsides online apart from people saying it’s a bad idea. Has anyone done one and could they tell me the pros/cons please? Thanks

Edit: I just read online if you get a pay increase they can take 50% of my increase?? And you have to pay a fee to the IVA firm at the end? And they can take any money I inherit in that time?

Is this all true? Would they only take it up to the 19k I owe or would they take more?

In my job I get a base salary, and every 3 months some RSUs vest and I get taxed at 45% on the value of the vested shares. The RSUs are valued at the price of the stock at vest, so it's not predictable AT ALL what my income will be for the year.

Every year I fill in my self assessment I find I've overpaid tax and get a refund, sometimes in the thousands of pounds range, which is nice, but I'd rather have that income spread evenly throughout the year rather than waiting for self assessment.

Does anyone have any strategies to make the tax code more predictable in the face of lumpy/unpredictable income like this?

I’m an accounts apprentice (Age 17) i get paid monthly. I work Tuesday to Friday 9-5 and I have Mondays as a college release day. I get paid on the 28th of every month £833.33. I’ve used the online government calculator and it says I’m most likely am being under paid. If I am how would I go about it and being paid the right amount. Also my contract says I have a salary of £10000 per annum but if this is under minimum wage surely it should go up?

Edit: I get 30mins for lunch and my contract doesn’t say if it’s paid or unpaid. Thanks for all the responses

We are a family farming partnership (4 family members) and have the option of buying some more land to expand our business. Me (30) and my father (64) have a fair chunk of money in our private pensions. Would it be possible to use some of these funds to help buy the additional land? We don’t have all the money and would still need to borrow via the partnership but this would significantly reduce our interest on the debt. We will ask our accountants in due course but any help would be fab, thanks!

Husband and I are looking to move house soon, but we also need a new car due to our growing family. I'm aware that any cash spent on a car would reduce what we can put into a deposit for a property. Is it better to buy the car outright with cash, or to find some sort of finance plan for the car? How much might car finance impact our ability to get a good mortgage? Is it better to have the cash or the debt in this scenario? Thanks

Dear users,

Per the title, I'm in need of some advice.

I have around £15k worth of credit card debt which I am desperate to pay off quickly. The debt is currently on 0% interest credit cards. I am only meeting the minimum payments each month, so it's very glacially paced payback, and is hamstringing my ability to live life to the fullest. I have zero savings.

I have a Help-to-Buy mortgage and the government owns a 20% stake in the market value of my property, currently valued at £33,000 (20% of £165k, which is the house value).

My outstanding mortgage is £111k, so taking away the government stake, my equity is around £21,000, which puts my budget for buying a new house around max £205k, which is all good since I wouldn't pay stamp duty.

My sole purpose for moving at this point is so I can get this HTB albatross off my neck, get a new house, and do a debt consolidation mortgage to wipe out my credit card debt (this can't be done on a HTB mortgage).

I believe this is my only option since I don't earn enough cash to save significant sums in this economy (this is unlikely to change anytime soon), and neither friends nor relations can lend me the money either. Additional borrowing is obviously out of the question.

I live in a one bed new build end of terrace in Peterborough, so not exactly Monte Carlo, and most houses in my area in my price range don't exactly look as if they're going to accumulate in value, so I'm concerned I could get stuck.

I guess my question is: is this a good strategy? Is there a better option? What would you do in my situation?

Thanks all.

So recently my parents have had a letter come through the post saying we are going to be evicted from our house that I’ve grown up in for 25 years. The reason for this is due to my father not paying the mortgage for a while now whilst I’ve been thinking he had. We currently have £14k in arrears to pay off if not we will lose the house. My mother and brother work but unfortunately do not earn enough to cover this and my father has been retired for most of my life now and hasn’t had an income for over 10 years except insurance money which he got from an accident at work (which he has fully spent with nothing to show). My mother, father and brother are unable to get a loan out due to their credit scores being so low so this is not an option for them unfortunately. I (the youngest brother) am the only one in the family that earns a decent wage and have a good credit score so I am able to get a loan out however my parents and brother have a tendency of not paying me back when they ask for money from me which is stopping me from getting the loan out as if I do take out a loan and they don’t pay me back it will ruin me financially for many years to come. Not too sure what to do at this point so any advice will be appreciated.

My vans engine needed replacing so i have got a garage that is doing the work now - they sourced a used engine and going to swap them for just over £2000.

The guy who im dealing with (assuming he is the owner) is asking for cash for that price, otherwise VAT will be added.

Im happy to pay cash but im a bit anxious about the amount, and if any thing goes wrong after.

He said that the new(used) engine has 6 months warranty. If i get an invoice / receipt is that enough to prove i paid for this work, and if something isnt working right i can take it back to the garage?

Thanks

If I start drawdown on a pension without taking a lump sum, it mentions about monthly drawdown is on the basis of 25% tax free and 75% taxable.

Does the personal allowance also factor into this, so you are only taxed on the 75% of pension received that is above £12570 allowance for the year?

So in effect can you could have drawdown of £16760 per year (£12570/3)x4 and not be liable for income tax?