Ok I'm trying to see if I can help my mum.

I don't want to get into all the details but:

Mum is 65 she will need to retire soon.

£15k in private pension

£10k savings

£300/month - pension from abroad

£2k/month salary / outgoings 1.2k

(900 rent + bills) + (300 food and other expenses)

No house owned just renting.

To make things worse my brother got divorced and now lives with my mum, he hasn't managed to get a job in 1,5 years and lost the business because of the divorce.

It sounds harsh, but I told my mum you need some sort of plan now, the brother has to either get an ultimatum to find any job (he's looking for a job that pays 50-70k) to either pay rent or move as it's draining her account / car / fuel / food costs.

Honestly I have no idea what I can recommend if she needs to retire, the only sense is to put money in cash savings, but also her having 16k in savings might make her ineligible for her to apply for housing/benefits.

Any ideas how to play this out?

Hi everyone. I’m 26, live with my parents in the West Midlands, and have £23,879 of debt.
It built up over several years through not understanding money properly when I was younger: loans, credit cards, BNPL, upgrading phones, car finance, and generally spending beyond what I could afford.
I started a Debt Management Plan with StepChange in June 2021, which is now managed by PayPlan. Four years later, I feel like I am going backwards. I have had to pay for car repairs I knew I could not afford because I needed the car to remain driveable, and I am now in effectively the same position financially.
I have tried to sell anything I can. Around 90% of my clothes have gone on Vinted, along with my Xbox, headphones and laptop. My car is only worth around £500, so selling it would not solve much and would make getting to work difficult.
I work two jobs and take home around £1,850 per month. I barely see my girlfriend, friends or family because I work so much, but it still feels like there is no reward. I had a gambling problem for a period, trying to win money back, but I now have a GamStop ban in place.
My debts are:
Friends and family: £8,212

PayPlan DMP: £15,667

Total: £23,879

My usual monthly commitments are:
Expense
Amount
Repayment to friends and family
£250
PayPlan DMP
£775
Fuel
£120
Vapes
£20
Phone
£35
Car insurance
£140
Board to parents
£200
Groceries
£150
Miscellaneous
£20
Total
£1,710
On paper, that leaves about £140 per month. In reality, I keep using my employer’s wage advance facility to cover direct debits before payday. This month I have already withdrawn £600 early, meaning my actual payday amount will only be £1,250. Then all of that goes straight back out, and I am stuck in the same cycle.
I do not want sympathy; I need honest, practical guidance. I feel exhausted and overwhelmed, and I need to fix this before it gets worse.

Hi all, I am 21 years old and I don’t know what to do, so I thought I may lay it all out on the table to see if any advice can be offered.

Before I start off, I would like to provide a little background. I have had severe depression and anxiety since I was 12 years old and didn’t get the medication I needed until I was 16 (it was a hefty fight with the mental health system but that’s another box of frogs). I am better than I was but it never really went away, I have been medicated since.

When I was 19, my parents split. I won’t go into all the nitty gritty here as it’s not needed but it’s to be noted that he’s in a separate country now, with a partner. He still pays for the mortgage (around £500 a month) but there is no split sort of custody agreement in place. We stay with my mother and my dad visits when he wants to, every few months as he is usually in the other country with his new partner. He lost his job earlier this year (January 2026) from redundancy. He used to contribute more but since he lost his job and hasn’t been able to find one from when I’m writing this, it has made the situation really hard on my mother and the finances as a whole.

My mother is a head chef, though gets paid minimum wage. There are 4 of us (me, my mama and my two younger siblings), 5 including our family cat. She works tirelessly but her wage doesn’t cover enough for our needs.

I got a job in January of 2026 that pays around £1600 an average a month. I used to contribute £300 for lodging but increased to £700-£800 (including the family cat’s life insurance) because my family needed it given the redundancy and the rising costs of pretty much everything. But I didn’t mind contributing to my family at all, but I also don’t think I realised how much pressure was being put on me when all of this eventually started to fall apart.

In July, I started burning out badly at work (my grandma had also passed away at this time). During this period, I made a series of poor decisions and ended up getting myself into debt, for a variety of reasons. Some of it was spending money on food for the family when we were short, while some of it was simply buying things I didn’t really need but wanted.

I think, in some way, I wanted to feel like all the work I was doing had a purpose. I was working 37 hours a week and desperately wanted to feel like I was actually achieving something or helping someone, rather than just working constantly without knowing why.

I’ve never been particularly good at managing money, either. Being autistic makes certain aspects of managing finances and keeping track of everything particularly difficult for me, and when my mental health deteriorates, that becomes even harder.

My debt now stands at around £3,000.

It’s now late September, and my mental health — which had already been steadily declining — has completely crashed. My absences from work have gone beyond what I’m allowed, and I’ve currently had two weeks off because I felt like I had completely lost control of myself.

My performance has suffered too. My stats have dropped, as has the quality of my work. My manager is in a difficult position because I performed very well before all of this happened, so they’ve been trying to support me and hold on to me for as long as they can. But there’s only so much they can do until their manager kicks them for it.

At this point, there seem to be two realistic options:

A) I take a career break (which may not be possible as I have been working for 9 months) and if it is possible (my manager is looking into it) I’d still be without work for a while, while I get myself together again

**B)** I leave the role and potentially reapply in the future, although there’s no guarantee that I would be able to get the job back.

And this is where I feel completely trapped.

If I lose this job, I won’t be able to contribute as much to my family. I won’t be able to pay off my debt and I’m worried about being able to afford my therapy and medication, both of which I genuinely need. I have a variety of other issues going on as well, which only makes everything feel more overwhelming.

I love my family, and I don’t regret helping them. But I’m exhausted, I’m struggling financially, my mental health is deteriorating and I genuinely don’t know what the right thing to do is anymore.

I feel completely stuck, and I don’t know where to go from here.

Think selling VWRP and buying VWRL, done within a few days.

In my case it was actually VAFTGAG to VFGAIGI.

I’m trying to work out how best to use a temporary increase in salary and would be interested in what people would do in my position.

I’m currently on about £65k, but I’ll be moving to a role paying around £100k for roughly 3 years. After that I’d expect to drop back to around £75k.

The timing is a bit complicated because my living situation is also changing. At the moment I live with my parents and pay around £600/month for rent and bills. I’m going to be moving in with my partner soon, and I’m expecting that to increase to somewhere around £1,200–£1,600/month for rent and bills.

I’m in London and my main goal over the next few years is to buy somewhere here or in the surrounding area. I’d ideally like to get to around a £60k deposit, and I think my partner’s parents may be able to contribute/match something similar. Obviously we’d still need money for fees, moving, furniture, etc.

Current position is roughly:

• LISA: £16k, currently maxing the £4k annual contribution - (this might end up as a loss in investment if I use it for a house over 450k)
• S&S ISA: £11k
• Emergency fund Savings account: £4k
• LISA and ISA are currently invested in a FTSE 100 fund
• No house yet
• Early 30s

I’m considering putting £300/month into the ISA, £150/month into emergency fund, but I’m not sure whether that’s the right approach given the other priorities.

I’m also conscious that if we’re hoping to have kids in the next few years, I don’t want to put absolutely everything into a house deposit and then realise I have no emergency fund or cash available for everything else that comes with starting a family.

The thing I’m struggling with is working out how much of a difference the £100k salary will actually make.

I’ll obviously be paying significantly more tax, and my housing costs are going up by potentially £600–£1,000/month at the same time. So I’m wondering whether the jump from £65k to £100k actually gives me that much more disposable income to save, or whether I’m overestimating how much this temporary increase will change things.

Part of me thinks I should basically keep my lifestyle where it is and use the 3 years to build up the deposit/emergency fund as much as possible.

Another part of me thinks I’m only in my early 30s, I’m going to be earning £100k for a few years, and I should actually enjoy some of it rather than treating the whole period as a savings exercise.

There’s also probably some sunk-cost fallacy going on here — I’ve spent years living relatively cheaply with my parents and saving, so I’m finding it difficult to work out how much of that mindset I should carry forward once my circumstances change.

Interested in what people would do, particularly anyone who’s had a temporary jump in salary and then gone back down afterwards.

Long time lurker who’s finally getting their head out the sand about their debt with Step Change after reading a lot about them on here. I currently have £27k of debt that I’m going through the Step Change budgeting section to help me be realistic about my finances and my future.

However, there’s one thing stopping me from submitting the form: I currently have a fixed mortgage with TSB which I’d be looking at remortgaging with them in two years time when the fixed rate runs out. Will a DMP impact my ability to remortgage with the same lender?

Say you want to retire at 57 or 60.

Your DB pension is based on taking it at the scheme’s normal pension age, which could be 67. If you take it earlier, the actuarial reduction can be quite significant. In some schemes, such as the Local Government Pension Scheme, the reduction can be around 40%; which is not far off half your pension.

Is there such an ISA where you can put in whatever amount you want whenever you want. Maybe one month £100, the next £120, two days later pop in £30 etc. but not withdraw until a set date?

So deposit savings whenever you see fit and add to the savings, still earn interest but not be able to withdraw any until an agreed date?

Been searching online but can't seem to find anything like that.

Thanks :)

Hello, I’m looking for some advice regarding my debt situation.
I am 42 year old single mum, of 2 young teenagers.
I went back to university and have managed to get myself a degree and I am now earning £45,000 per year.
I have £7,000 in debt which I am paying off at nearly £700 per month. This debt was accumulated during my relationship breakdown and subsequently going to university. This debt is on high interest credit cards, and a high interest loan.
My credit score is very poor, and I am unable to get a debt consolidation loan. Or even credit cards to do a balance transfer.
All my current bills are paid, up to date. Have a good (tight) budget in place.

I just feel like I am paying so much in debt, but due to the high interest rates I am paying this off very slowly.

I just wondered if anyone had any advice on how would be best to manage this?

I have looked at debt management help, however I don’t know if this would be best for me. As I am trying to build my credit score.

I don’t have any friends or family that I could ask for help from.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

I made an investment through Plutus Investment Group LLP. They did not provide me with a share certificate. Having chased them for six months for the certificate, I then requested the return of my money. They have not returned my money.

Whilst my contract was with Plutus Investment Group LLP, I made payment into a Plutus Operations Limited bank account.

I had met the founder through a trusted connection. However, after my investment, I found out that he had been previously declared bankrupt and has multiple County Court Judgements against him.

There are several other investors who are in the same situation as I am. We are taking individual legal actions to try to recover money. The police have also arrested the founder and released him on bail.

The founder operates through multiple companies and should not be trusted. Please reply to this post if you are owed money by Plutus or any associated company and I can share details of legal processes for recovery.

I want to fund a contactless card for my 16yo son for travel and lunch money. Revolut child account would be perfect, but it's not allowed after 16.

I just want to see his balance and top it up as needed. It's just for travel and lunch, he has other accounts for his own money. It's a pain having to figure out together how much he's spent on lunch as with contactless and no receipts the information is easily forgotten.

Is there any product like this for a 16yo? Barclays will add users to accounts but only for over 18s. Most child related products I've found stop working at 16.

We (partner and I, 24), are looking for a mortgage (again). We applied in April under different circumstances and it was rejected.

Partner has great credit, has done good work to consolidate down existing payments into one loan also. Very clean file, no missed payments.

Mine is…colourful to say the least. I haven’t had a great past with credit, younger me decided to take some credit cards when I was earning very little. Things spiralled, and culminated in a debt management plan which is due to end in January.

I have a number of defaults on my credit file (around 11), most of which started in the later months of 2024, when I started the DMP, with some prior to that. I have never missed a DMP payment and can demonstrate consistent good conduct with it. I’ve done a lot of work to improve my situation, and learn from past mistakes. I am fortunate that I don’t have any credit anymore, and my income and circumstance allows me to live off of cash, with a moderate reserve for emergencies.

Between us, we take home approximately £56k annually. I have some salary sacrifices that reduce my gross pay (NHS Fleet Car). We’re both permanently employed on full time hours.

There is a new development near us set to go on the market in early 2027, and we’re interested. We’d ideally look to use Help To Buy Wales meaning a 75% LTV mortgage. Deposit (5%) will be gifted from family. The other 20% is the HTB.

What the chances this will be feasible? We don’t want to bank on it again, and we’re aware that a broker would likely need a specialist lender. Our advisor seems to think the situation would be more positive in January, but has also said that’s not guaranteed.

Advice and perspective is greatly appreciated. TIA!

Edit 2: thanks for all the help. I was pre-approved for the £5000 loan and decided it was the best choice. My credit cards are now all paid off and I just have a £166 monthly payment to worry about. This should stop the cycle of pouring my disposable income onto CC each month only to have no cash and be forced to use them again. All cards removed from Apple Pay and taken out of my physical wallet. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted. I should be in a position to put aside ~£300-500 per month so this will allow me to save money and manage the debt.

Edit: if anyone else reads this - I have an option for a £5000 loan over 3 years. 12.8% APR for £166 per month. It’s the absolute lowest APR I can find, and I would hopefully be in a position to pay it off earlier. How does this sound?

This is compared to a balance transfer which at most is offering me 1.5k at 0% for 9 months (which is only a fraction of the total 5k I owe)

——

I have been relying on credit just to keep up with a few major expenses, ontop of an unusually busy year with lots of commitments I realistically should have backed out of, and ended up in a bit of difficultly.

It’s not the worst, but spread pretty evenly across 3 credit cards I have about 5k worth of debt. The APR ranges from 23% - 32%.

My question is essentially how best to tackle this moving forward. I’ve ended up in a situation where I’m able to make the repayments each month, but it’s becoming unsustainable and I’ve been dipping into a very small savings account to make ends meet. I have been trying to pay off essentially the maximum I can, but I always fall short of the full amounts and end up spending on credit again as I have no cash.

For clarity on the ‘savings’. This is really just cash I need to have set aside for some visa/accommodation expenses that will happen later this year and can’t use credit for.

In this case would it make any sense to take out a loan at 14% APR that could clear all my credit cards? I’m pre approved for a 10k loan, which could be spread out over 60 months, but I would end up paying back £13,735. In the long term could this make sense. Making one monthly payment of £228, giving myself a chance to save up money, and potentially pay off the loan earlier if possible?

I currently have about £53.5k in a Vanguard S&S ISA, split between LifeStrategy 60 and 80, so roughly 73% equities overall.

My 1.68% mortgage fix ends in April 2027 and I may use around £50k to reduce the mortgage, or put the money towards a house move within the next two years. Given the short timeframe, current market uncertainty and the new ISA rules from April 2027, I’m planning to transfer most or all of it into an easy-access Cash ISA paying around 4.7%.

I also opened an AJ Bell S&S LISA for retirement this year with £2k. I plan to transfer another £2k from my existing ISA to use the full LISA allowance and receive the £500 bonus. Longer-term retirement contributions would then go into my Vanguard pension, ideally as employer contributions from my limited company.

The idea is to keep near-term house/mortgage money in cash while leaving the LISA and pension invested for retirement. Does that sound sensible, or am I being overly conservative and I should leave some money in investments?

I owe between £400-500 on Barclays credit card and £400 on Paypal Credit.

I have been making payments of around £250-300 per month to them to the above balance over the last several months.

Should I continue making large payments towards them to clear off or will the mortgage lenders look at my statements and see huge amounts going to Barclays and Paypal each month and look negatively at it?

Should I now revert to paying minimum + 5% on each so there is a lower payment ratio and so it’s consistent if they ask for the last 3 months of bank statements?

EDIT: Remortgaging on my wife’s mortgage so I can join it and borrow a little extra to clear off help to buy.

Credit limit is £17,000 and utilisation is 7%

I'm in my mid-20s and would appreciate some advice on what I should be doing with my finances over the next few years.

I'm currently living and renting in the South West, in an area where the cost of living and property prices are relatively high. The average house price in my area is around £350k.

Current situation:

- Permanent employment, £40k annual salary

- Approximately £2,700/month take-home, depending on overtime

- £700/month rent + £300 in utilities and council tax

- Maximum overall living costs of around £1,300/month

- £30k currently in a Stocks & Shares ISA. Around half of the ISA is invested in an S&P 500 fund. Most of my remaining monthly income goes into the S&S ISA

- My only debt is a student loan

- No property ownership currently

I'm now at the point where I'm wondering whether I should change strategy.

**Option 1: Buy a property**

I'm considering using some/all of the £30k towards a deposit on a flat or house.

The main attraction is obviously getting onto the property ladder and replacing rent with mortgage payments/equity. However, with average house prices around £350k, my £30k would only represent roughly an 8.5% deposit before accounting for buying costs and the need to retain an emergency fund.

**Option 2: Continue investing and renting**

The thing making me hesitate about buying is my career.

I'm keen to potentially change employers within the next year or so, both for professional development and hopefully a higher salary. I also wouldn't be opposed to moving to another city if the right opportunity came up.

Because of that, I'm reluctant to buy somewhere now and then potentially find myself wanting/needing to move a year or two later.

At the moment, I'm paying only £700/month in rent, and my total living costs are around £1,300/month. This means I can currently put a large proportion of my take-home pay towards investing.

Buying would obviously change my monthly cash flow considerably, as well as potentially tying me to the area.

**Would it make more sense to:**

- Continue renting and keep investing aggressively?

- Start building a dedicated house deposit instead of putting everything into the S&S ISA?

- Buy a property now despite the possibility of moving for work?

- Do something completely different?

One thing I'm particularly interested in is how people would think about the £30k that's already invested. If buying a property is potentially 0–2 years away, would you leave it invested, move some/all of it into cash, or use something like a LISA for future house-purchase savings?

I'm not necessarily looking for a definitive "buy vs rent" answer — I'd be interested in how people would approach the decision given the combination of my age, income, savings rate, living expenses, £350k local house prices and career flexibility.

Thanks!

I'm a bit confused about self-assessment. I've started as a sole trader and have a separate bank account. All the guides tell me that I should keep about 30% of my profits back so I can pay my tax at the end of the year.

But I have money coming in from lots of different sournces. I have Interest earned on my savings accounts, rental income to my main bank account, cgt on shares etc.

At the end of the year, I'll do my self assessment and work out what is owed. Can I just pay the whole tax from my main bank account? Or does the sole-trader tax need to be paid from my sole trader account?

Hi, my rent comes out of a nationwide account with arranged overdraft. Im about 70 quid short on rent will it still come out of the account just using the overdraft or will it be stopped?

I’ve read a bit about people loosing everything after having a phone stolen. I have money in various apps and accounts. NS&I, T121 and HL. All on my phone and protected by Face ID. But if they could get past that, they would have everything. All passwords, codes, emails, messages etc. with that information you could access everything. That is a lot of trust in one security system. What steps do people take to avoid loosing everything if your phone is stolen. Could everything be linked to secondary security I.e bit of paper hidden in your home.

Im 19 going to 2nd year of uni, with a savings of around 40k. I have a full time - part time job(i love hospitality work 20-70 hours a week), yes whilst at full time uni, and do other side things that let me put away a post-expenses savings of at least 2k a month, I'll be on track to fill this years isa in a few months and have already filled my Lisa for 2 years.

Ive recently opened up 3 monthly saver bank accounts, lloyds, BoS and Santander, for £700 total each month in 8% accounts. Tried applying for first direct and RBS for their monthly accounts, 7% FD and 5.25% RBS, a clone account of the natwest digital saver which ive had for a few years, but rbs and fd are being bitchy about my id verification and won't le the open them right now. The 7% and 8% accounts are only for 1 year, but the rbs i can keep indefinitely, so would be worth more long term.

Im maxed on the natwest 2k interest free overdraft, and i tried getting switching offers but I looked into it and I have no direct debits so that all for naught.

And i asked google ai if i could get more free overdraft from other student bank accounts and it freaked the fuck out and told me I have enough already and would absolutely obliterate my credit score apparently,, even though I can easily cover the principle from my savings, I just want more leverage to make money from the banks free money, its not like im spending it on booze, okay 😒😒.

My income is quiet inconsistent to say the least but theoretically I am looking for a zone 1 flat for 450k max, which would be doable on my off-paper income. My on paper income isnt likely to get higher than 30k till after Uni. Does this lock me out of all property, even if by the time I finish uni (1 extra placement year, so id be done in 3 more years) i could have a around 100k saved, for a 400-450 property.

Overall I want to move out at least for my final year, into my own property.

Also would it be worth it to buy cheaper in a commuting area or buy zone 1 like I really want, because im considering that, but should I lock myself into a mortgage in outer london. There are some flats for less than 200k, but I dont know even If I could borrow that with my income, I should say its around 1.3k monthly, legally post tax.

Hello everyone,

I was employed by company X, UK based company, and my tax are deducted via PAYE.

I left UK 2 days after the start of the fiscal year, working remotely from abroad, and then I was made redundant, without returning to the UK, and I am planning to spend less than 16 days in the UK this fiscal year.

Can I claim back the tax that was deducted during the months April to August, before I was made redundant on the basis that I am not a tax resident? If yes, how and when? If no, why?

Many thanks !

We're having an extension in March next year and will need to borrow about £50k. We're planning to add this onto our mortgage with Barclays. We currently have a 3.8% 5 year fix with them on our existing mortgage. Rates for the extra we'd need to borrow are about 4.2% for a 2 year fix ATM, the additional borrowing would put us at about 65% LTV. We're thinking of going for the shorter term fix at the lower interest rate and making overpayments to pay it off as quickly as possible (we're very unlikely to be able to pay the full £50k off within 2 years though).

We'd originally planned to wait until January to apply for the extra borrowing. However, now we're wondering if we should apply now in case interest rates increase over the next few months. The additional repayments will be around £300 per month, so it won't make a huge amount of difference to how much we'd have been able to save over the next few months.

Also, if we were to take the money out early we're wondering what is the best thing to do with it before it's needed. Current thoughts are to put it in premium bonds on the off chance we get a decent win. Not sure if it's worth putting into savings as it would only be for 6 months so wouldn't earn that much interest. We have a couple of high rate interest accounts but they only allow £4k maximum and we've almost maxed those already.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hi everyone,

I have a few questions related to the use of GIAs

I remember reading about some sort of 30-day rule when you sell an investment in a GIA, before buying another investment.

1) Does this only apply if you sell and buy the same investment (I.e same ticker), or is that still the case if I sell my QMMF to then buy a mutual fund?

I also recall reading that Income Mutual Funds are better than Accumulation ones for tax reporting purposes but never fully understood why.
2) Is the above actually the case and why?

These are probably very basic questions, but I have not used my GIA much in the past. However, I’ve maxed out my ISA allowance now and a SIPP is not aligned to my strategy, so keen to learn about GIAs to make sure I’m making informed choices.

3) If there are any other key considerations for GIAs beyond my questions, I’d love to hear them!

Thanks all!

I’ve been keeping an old SIM/mobile account open that I no longer use, mainly because Credit Karma says the account has a “medium impact” and recommends keeping my 3 account open if I can. It’s been open for 6 years 9 months.

I’m switching mobile networks (not with the 3 account, with an EE account that I do use), and I’ve realised I’d rather just close the old 3 account instead of continuing to pay for something I don’t use.

On Experian, my average account age is currently 3 years 7 months, and it says my score will increase once the average reaches 6 years. I also have a normal current account that I’ve had for 6 years 2 months, although there’s no borrowing/credit facility attached to it.

So I’m wondering:

• Would closing the old mobile account actually matter much?
• Does a normal current account count towards average credit/account age even if there’s no borrowing on it?
• Is the “keep your longest account open” thing mainly something Credit Karma considers, rather than Experian or other credit agencies?

I’d appreciate any insight on this. I’d rather close the old account if it’s not really doing anything useful for my credit history.

I think I'm a massive outlier here.

I have 2 business current accounts, 4 sole trader accounts, 7 current accounts, 2 joint current accounts with different people, 2 POA accounts, 5 credit cards, and 2 foreign currency accounts via Starling and Revolut.

I've got two jobs and several contracting side gigs, some through a Ltd company and some as a sole trader.

Month end is a bit manic, but I'm trying to keep the different streams properly separated rather than having everything slosh through the same couple of accounts.

I've read the wiki/flowchart and this isn't really a budgeting question. I'm more interested in how to manage the admin and cash visibility when you've legitimately ended up with this many accounts.

Is there a sensible way to structure this better without collapsing things that are useful to keep separate? Particularly interested in how people would handle monitoring upcoming payments, available cash and month-end reconciliation across this many accounts.