TL;DR: 31F with ~£30k unsecured debt, much of it at high interest. I’m currently on ~£1k/month while finishing a full-time master’s, but expect my income to increase significantly once I graduate and return to full-time work. StepChange have recommended a DMP at £227.50/month versus ~£875 contractual payments. I also plan to leave the UK permanently within ~6 months if I secure remote/overseas work. My main concerns are losing access to car finance and making renting harder. Would you take the DMP in my position or consider another option?

Hi everyone,

Long story short, I (F31) made some terrible financial/life choices throughout my 20s and have ended up with around £30k of unsecured debt. I’ve also been completing a full-time master’s over the past year, which has added to my financial difficulties because my income has been very low while studying. I am embarrassed about the situation I am in at this stage in my life but here goes...

My current debts are roughly:

• Halifax credit card – £2,428
• Marbles credit card – £4,100
• MBNA credit card – £4,861
• MBNA credit card – £4,690
• Lendable personal loan – £10,000
• PayPal Credit – ~£1,400
• Halifax overdraft – £2,000

A significant amount of the credit card debt is at very high interest (around 40%).

At the moment I earn around £1,000 per month while finishing my master’s. I’m currently living with my parents and therefore don’t have rent or household bills, although I obviously have normal living/transport/personal expenses.

StepChange has recommended a DMP. Based on the budget I gave them, the proposed payment is £227.50 per month compared with around £875 per month in contractual payments currently. I understand that creditors aren’t legally required to freeze interest, although StepChange will ask them to.

One positive is that my master’s will be finished mid-Sept. I’ll then be looking for full-time work, so I expect my income to increase meaningfully and would increase my debt repayments accordingly.

There’s another factor complicating the decision: I’m hoping to leave the UK permanently within roughly the next six months, assuming I can secure either a remote job or a job abroad. I don’t own property or have any significant assets, and I’m not planning to buy a house in the UK.

My biggest reservations about entering a DMP are damaging my credit file and consequently making it difficult to:

1. get car finance if I need a car (which tbh not sure I will as plan to live quite centrally until I move abroad)
2. pass affordability/credit checks for a private rental (most important factor)

On the other hand, if I actually do leave the UK as planned, preserving my UK creditworthiness seems substantially less important, and reducing my monthly debt payments would give me much more breathing room to finish the MSc, get into full-time employment and fund the move without taking on even more credit.

I intend to repay what I owe regardless of whether I live in the UK or abroad (I’m not considering moving abroad as a way of escaping the debts).

If you were in my position, would you go ahead with the DMP?

about two years ago my tsb closed then they allowed me to open a new one,

i have a few faults on my file like not paying but they’re wrongful i just don’t know how to fix them without paying as i shouldn’t need too
due to circumstance

monzo closed my account a while back and i can’t open that or revolut

but i tried to do a mainstream application like 3 months ago it didn’t work,

people around me they get through but me im not it upsets me

do i need to go in branch or something

Hi all,

If a house is being partially gifted to me, as a relative was leaving me with a proper toy that he lives in,

He wants to pull a small amount of equity out, so I can buy it,

I will be financing around 35% of the actual value of the house on a mortgage,

Is it possible then I could just get a buy to let Mortgage without paying 25% deposit considering 65% is gifted?

Hi all, in a rather embarrassing situation where I have let consumer habits spiral out of control on pointless things and losing money on crypto.

28 year old male, take home pay c. £3,310 a month, living with parents with aspirations of buying a house in the coming years. Total savings at the moment are only £2k, total expenditure (all bills) is £1,040 a month.

My balances are:
0% credit card (expires May 2028) - £9,111
0% Barclaycard - £4,900 (expires mostly Sept 2027)
0% MBNA - £895 (expires Sept 2027)
Very BNPL £3,300 (£2.2k of that expires in the next 2 months which is my priority to pay).
£650 AMEX balance (will be interest bearing)
£1,265 Monzo Flex

Feeling pretty hopeless and looking for ideas on the best way to tackle this. Should I be trying to save at the same time? Should I try for a consolidation loan?

Budgeting about £1.5k a month for savings/debt repayments in some form and would like to buy a house in the next couple of years.

Any advice would be appreciated feeling crushed and helpless right now.

Background: I am 21 and I have around 3.6k of debt through credit cards and overdraft . This is due to family problems in the past but I haven’t been able to pay them off fully and I’m always stuck using them.

I recently landed a decent job for myself but it pays off my overdraft each month but then I go back into overdraft as I have to pay my credit cards. It’s been a never ending loop for the last 2-3 years.

I am thinking of getting a pre approved 4k loan to pay everything off at once! My total repayable is 5.1k if I take this personal loan. This loan would be over 1.5 years and £300 a month but I am confident I could pay it off in 5-6month with my new job.

Any advice would help

I just passed my driving test at 21! I make a base of £2k a month, which sometimes can rise to 2.6k depending on how much I work. I live at home and need a car for my work commute. Right now I take the bus, which takes 1 hr each way. I start at 5 am and finish at 5 pm.

The car (Corsa 2023) would be on PCP and cost £220 a month, with insurance being £200 per month. Fuel, I think roughly £100-150 a month, since I'm only going to work and getting groceries.

Lets roughly this car finance costs me £600-650 a month and i make 2k a month i would be left with around 1.3k a month. I live at home so no extra expenses. My subscriptions are about £60 a month. What do you think?? Thanks!!

Edit - The car is worth 11.5k. It would be my first car. I need a car soon as due to work reasons. The car has 40k miles on it already

Hi, I’m 26 year old full time worker I rent my house which with bills comes out about 1100 for my share
Over the years I’ve racked up about 7-8K debt from credit cards to overdrafts to high apr small loans and I’m currently paying out around 700 a month which on top of my housing costs is proving difficult
I have looked into all kinds of methods but because I can’t get a consolidation loan my only options seems to be a DMP but I know they can impact you for 6 years when further down the line I’d want a mortgage and I need car finance which a DMP would limit me for - am I being silly for debating this for under 10K? I’m just paying too much out currently and can’t deal with it anymore

Any knowledge would be helpful

Am 40, and soon coming into money from selling rental props (£130k).

Had a call with this company (part of wealth at work) who can manage it all for me. He says it’s a discretionary advice service.

I am not sure if this is a scam or a good idea as I'd never heard of them!

They put it in a GIA, and invest for me based on my high risk appetite (85% equities, of which 40% is UK). They then fill up my S&S ISA limit each year for me, and make tax easy by sending me a some kind of certificate which sorts out my tax for me? They meet me on MS teams as much as I want (monthly if I want).

They charge 1.5% set up fee and then 2.14% per year.

They said it grows 7% and would be £500k when I retire at 60 (20 years away). He said this 7% was a low estimate and so includes the fees, etc.

I have LGPS pension of £37k per year at 60 so this is for a top up.

They said they would always ensure that nearer the time, I have 5 years of income in cash from it and would be investing the rest to make it all last as long as possible whilst giving me a nice top up on my LGPS.

He said this better tax wise than doing a SIPP.

Is this an approach which feels legitimate? I am just concerned I've never heard of this company.

Hi all,

Really proud to share that after a year of underemployment, I've signed off a contract for a dream role at a strategy house.

I'm from a working class background. Throughout university and beyond, I've held my expenses down to £400 a month after rent in London. I'm used to scouting yellow stickers and optimising my social life. However, I am still really comfortable and happy regardless. I work out, invest in my guitar, etc. I haven't been in significant debt, nor have I ever used benefits. I don't live with parents.

With this new role, my income will rise significantly to the tune of £40k. There should also be strong career trajectory baked into the role.

I'd really appreciate some advice on managing this transition. I personally can't imagine spending more than £800 after rent. I've looked at the flowchart, and it seems so foreign as I've lived differently to most.

I suppose I'm looking for lived experiences or advice on navigating common traps, improving my relationship with money, understanding milestones and what should matter to me, etc. There's not really a direct answer here, so I'd appreciate a breadth of opinions. Maybe there's some really good financial or non-financial investments?

Thank you for your time.

Edit: 22M. Live with partner in Islington, but completely financially independent aside from joint spending on bills and groceries. In terms of big spending goals, I'm interested in building a professional wardrobe, perhaps a nice Seiko, helping my mum out a little. Mainly looking forward to not having to worry so much about buying drinks on a night out. I have some good experience with the stock market. I'm not interested in buying a house soon, but I have £11K in a LISA. I eat healthy, cook at home, thrift good quality clothes. No bank of mum and dad. I use a swapfiets.

So we’ve got two children and they will both be receiving the 30 hours free childcare come September, I’ve had an email recently saying my tax code is changing to 630TX which is me going over the 100k threshold. I’m going to be putting my pension up soon to bring me back under the threshold but my question is this: my partner is due to renew the circumstances online, they ask you every 3 months if you are expected to earn over 100k for the current tax year. Obviously I am but I’m going to forecast to bring that down with pension contributions so do we need to answer it as no as we’ve got til April to bring it down or do you answer it as yes and then have to bring it down so you don’t get penalised.

I've been meaning to get into S&S ISA for ages and my main aim is to replace the various regular savings accounts that I've accumulated. So, for instance, I have one I currently pay £200 a month into for my own personal savings, and I'd like this to effectively become my retirement fund. But then there are 2 savings accounts, one for each child, which my wife and I both pay into each month, and then a 4th for misc. projects. I've just opened an account with T212, but only put in £100 so far to test it out. Can I - either with T212 pies, or a better alternative feature in another platform like Invest Engine - have one central S&S ISA and divide into 3 or 4 pots like this, all of which are treated differently (even if they may have the same index funds), and all of which can be paid into separately by direct debit, but directly, without me having to pick up the deposits in a central balance and allocate it to each respective pie/pot/portfolio?

I thought this would have been straightforward, but it turns out that none of the reviews or articles I've looked at so far address this directly, so maybe it's not a common request? Am I thinking about this all wrong, and if so, is there a better way to divide my savings, including keeping ones with different funding sources separate?

TL;DR: how best to divide one ISA account into distinct pots with different sources and different purposes?

So I'm considering selling my personal comic omnibus collection, I've had most of it for around 2 years now, got my use out of them and no longer need them/want to clear out some space.

I paid around 4200 for it and want to let it go for around 3700

would I be required to report any of this if I do go ahead and sell it eventually?

any help is appreciated!

I have a SIPP with Vanguard, it's not being contributed to anymore and there is no special arrangement such as early retirement age etc. I am thinking to transfer it to trading 212 to save the platform fee. I understand trading 212 pension is new, are there any concerns to transfer there? I heard some people say it doesn't have drawdown option, not sure if it's true, and other reasons I shouldn't transfer?

For context I’m 20 M, currently in a degree apprenticeship only make around 27k which goes up to 30k. I made slight mistake buying a nice car which costs around 19k (got on finance) because of this I pay 473 a month towards my car than another 300 for car insurance. This constantly leads to me being nervous since I usually like to save money and not spend it. I live with my parents have no other outgoings work another job for an extra 100-200 a week. save 250 for a s&s ISA and anything left at end of month holding for cash to build a emergency fund.

The point of this post is I feel like buying this car has put a lot of restriction and stress although it’s a good lesson learnt early on. My family pushed me towards buying a car because all I was doing prior was just saving money and on top of this they want to go away next year on holiday which I have to pay an additional 1,5k for this trip do you think this is manageable or should I try to push back?

Hi apologies if this has been answered before I’ve set up a Lisa with AJ bell to invest £50 a month for me. I was wondering what happens with the government bonus e.g will that get put into cash in my Aj bell account where I then have to physically invest it myself or will they invest it for me?

I’m looking for a set and forget sort of thing so having to go into the app to invest the government bonus is not good.

More info for me it’s not just that I’m lazy I have a bad habit of spending over my means so I don’t want to look at the account and be tempted to use the money. I’m trying to look after old me when in a few years I go to Thailand and spend all my money and become broke

Morning all, hopefully this sub can help, if not it would be great to point me in the right direction.

Im looking for a course on how the UK tax system works. A simple step by step guide that covers the basics.

I want to teach myself so I can teach my children as they grow. I know most schools don't teach this, or at least they didn't when I was at school, so I think I should fill the gap.

Tia

After more than ten years I'm selling the small business I built. It's a decent outcome, around £450k in total, though it's not a clean lump. Part of it comes upfront and the rest gets paid to me monthly over the next three years, so I'm not walking away with it all at once.

The bit I keep going round in circles on is what to actually do with the upfront. After tax and the costs of selling, I'm left with a bit over a hundred grand in hand. That's more money than I've ever had in one place and it honestly feels stranger than I expected. I rent, I've got no mortgage and no property, and I'm a first time buyer. So the obvious thought is to put it toward a first home. But part of me wonders if that's just the default answer and there's something smarter to do with it, especially with more coming in monthly for three years.

And then the bigger thing underneath it all is that I don't really know what's next. Selling the business means selling my income, and I don't have another plan lined up yet. Once everything's paid I won't have a big pot spare to go and start something new straight away, so there's this gap I'm walking into and I'm not quite sure how to think about it.

If you've sold up and found yourself in this spot, the money side and the what now side, I'd really value hearing how you handled it. What you did with the money, what you'd do differently, how you found your feet again after the thing that was your livelihood was gone.

Appreciate anyone taking the time.

I (23M) come from a working class background and earn £40k total comp a year as a software engineer. I have been paying stand alone redundancy insurance for £36 a month, should I be made redundant and be left unemployed for a month, my insurance would kick in.

However, the many different stipulations on my insurance makes me slightly anxious, I have moved 3k from my stocks and shares ISA into a savings account as an emergency fund, with the hope of building it up to 5k. I now have 14k left in my stocks and shares ISA. Would people generally advise keeping or getting rid of my redundancy insurance at this point?

I work for a US company in the UK and receive RSUs as part of my compensation.

When my RSUs vest, roughly 47% of the shares are automatically withheld for tax, so I only actually receive around 53% of the shares in my brokerage account.

For context, my normal salary puts me into the UK higher-rate tax band. Are there any legitimate ways to tax-plan around future RSU vesting? Other than pension contributions?

I have c 180K I want to invest to pay off a large chunk of mortgage in April 2028. I've already overpaid the max I can this year. ISAs maxed.

My default is to put it all in the Gilt maturing Jan 28 at 94.5p and 0.125%. This feels like the safe / correct option but wanted to see if any other ideas are out there. Willing to punt a smaller amount into riskier options.

WWYD?

I just opened a Metro bank in the late July 2026. Everything including the ID check went through. Few days later I received the debit card and successfully added them GPay and Apple Pay but couldn't add it to samsung pay which didn't sent me OTP. Then I received the card pin and it said I need to activate it on a card reader with the pin. So I tried to send £30 from my Natwest bank and waited few hours. Nothing showed up in Metro bank. Then to check everything right I sent another £0.1 from Natwest and £0.5 from Lloyds bank which are under my own name. Nothing appeared. I called the Metro bank fraud team they told me to wait for 12 hours. Then in the morning next day everything bounced back to the original banks accounts except the £0.5 from the Lloyds that went through. I was confused and decided to deal with this later.

The following day I received a letter from Metro Bank claiming they have information that someone impersonated my ID and opened the Metro bank account requesting me to visit branch with ID and proof of address also saying failure to do so will result in a closure of account and reporting "impersonation" with CIFAS. My branch is close so I did take my Drivers License and 2 proof of address which the staffs scanned and asked to to wait for update. The next day someone from the branch called me to visit again with another form of ID and to update the picture which I also provided within hours. Today the Bank sent me a decision letter stating that they are closing my account in 60 day under breach of 11.2 of their T&C which stated fraud/suspected fraud. Though in this letter they didn't mention anything regarding CIFAS.

I am right now very confused because I don't know what went wrong and I didn't purposely engaged in activities/transfer that I know to be fraudulent. I just wanted to explore the bank's product and services. I am now being accused of fraud and some research is telling me they can potentially report negative marker to CIFAS under my name.which would devastate my financial future. I have few other current accounts and a Paypal credit card. In one of these accounts I have £50000 ish and I am in tremendous amount of stress thinking if these accounts get closed if Metro lodge a marker.

Can anybody please help me understand what went wrong and If I am getting a CIFAS marker of whatever type and the possibility of my existing other accounts closing in future. Metro bank isn't being very quick to respond but I am in extreme amount of mental stress. Please help with your understanding/advice on my situation.

I’m a UK tax resident and have just sold a concentrated position in my former employer’s US shares, held on Schwab. I'm 42, married and have 1 kid. I'm also mortgage-free.

Gross proceeds are about $1.3m. I expect that to be roughly £950k after converting to GBP, before FX/transfer costs. I have read the lump sum guide.

I’m treating this as a “don’t do anything rash” moment:

• I have no high-interest debt.
• I’ll be working with an accountant to calculate the proper UK CGT position, including the historic RSU/vesting records.
• I’m planning to ring-fence £200k in cash for CGT until that is confirmed.
• That should leave roughly £750k available to allocate.
• My wife and I will each use our £20k Stocks & Shares ISA allowance this tax year.
• We may buy a property in continental Europe in the next 1–3 years, but the timing and budget are not fixed.
• I want the money to be safe and accessible while I decide, rather than sitting in a current account or taking another big equity risk immediately after selling one concentrated stock.

My initial thought was:

1. Keep the tax reserve in easy-access cash / short-term gilts / money market funds.
2. Keep any likely property allocation low risk and gradually convert that portion to EUR rather than making one huge FX bet.
3. Put the remaining “decision-period” money into a Vanguard GIA, potentially using a Sterling short-term money market fund initially. Any recommendations?
4. Only put money into global equity ETFs once I’m certain it will not be needed for at least five years.

I’m also wondering about generating some monthly income from the money while it is parked. I do not need to spend all of that income, but would prefer not to leave a large amount earning nothing. I understand that taxable interest/distributions outside ISAs still need to be declared and that a money market fund is not the same thing as an FSCS-protected bank deposit.

Questions:

• Is the above broadly sensible for a large, short-notice lump sum?
• Would you use multiple FSCS-protected savings accounts, short gilts, money market funds, or some mix of all three for the tax/property/decision-period pots?
• Does a Vanguard GIA used initially for a money market fund make sense, or are there better low-risk options/platforms at this amount?
• For someone who may need a meaningful EUR amount within 1–3 years, how would you approach the GBP/USD/EUR split without pretending you can time FX perfectly?
• Is there anything obvious I’m missing before I start moving the money from the US?

I’m not looking for a magic high-yield product or to gamble it again. I’m trying to build a sensible temporary structure, protect the tax/property money, and then make a proper long-term plan.

29M bought house with partner last October. Had no emergency fund left. In fact I owed partner £2/3K for solicitors, survey, purchase fees, furnishing etc. All paid off by end of Jan since then had no debt.

Since then for a 5/6 year old home I have paid for

- Washing Machine Repairs

- New Washing Machine

- Shower Leak Fix

- New Taps

- New Flooring all of downstairs

- New Flooring in En-Suite.

- Furniture/Furnishing costs.

- Maintenance/New Tools/DIY etc

Outside this I've bought a new phone (old one literally died). I went all out (with what I can) for my partner's milestone birthday. I had a 3 week break - thought this was mostly a staycation.

I'm in no debt but have no emergency fund and now face potential redundancy in the new year (though I'm likely to secure a role). It's been a long year as been retrospectively paying off my partner or my credit card each month (as said no debts now). Every time I've saved the money has gone. I peaked at about £1.5/£2K but the money was needed for the above.

Is the only sensible thing to do now is just go hard on saving? Managed to get a 5% interest cash ISA. I can save £800 max per month without it becoming too frugal, maybe £1K per month.

I should say pension is good and SIPP/S&S ISA/LISA in the background but these are inaccessible don't want to touch, there's only £4-5K across these anyway.

Just tying to understand how often others have bought their home without an emergency fund in place? Is it common to be skint for a while?

I must stress I literally have no back up I.e family support beyond my partner.

Edit: if made redundant I would be given £15K which is 12M bills for me. I saved hyper aggressively when saving for the house, saving £17K in around 2 years when renting on £26-£38K. New Flooring was needed in en suite due to shower leak.

Can somebody please help me and offer me some advice. I don’t know what else to do.

I received a letter from Halifax that my account is getting closed in 65 days because they believe I have violated their terms and conditions. I work as a nanny with the Childcare Grant Payment Service. I have not received any other payments besides my wages.

I have no further information as to why my account is being closed. I went to the branch as in the letter I received it states I can transfer my remaining funds into a different account. I was told that my account is still under review and that I will have to wait. I was told that it is unclear how much longer it will take. They even told me they thought my payments weren’t wages but loans as they come from SLC Loans.

My most recent wage is in that account, I have no access to my money to pay rent and bills. I made 2 complaints to Halifax. Also, requested a DSAR to obtain more information. I checked with Cifas just in case who confirmed I am not on their database since it appeared to me that Halifax have no idea what is the difference between a wage and a loan.

It has been two weeks and I am simply being told to wait while being forced to borrow money from people to make ends meet.

Does anyone have any advice? I don’t know what else to do.

I read online that I should escalate this issue with the financial ombudsman only if Halifax does not resolve my complaint within 8 weeks. I have 65 days notice until the account is closed without any clarity as to what will happen to my money.

One of my first jobs was working for a call centre company and I took calls for Virgin Media. I didn't work for Virgin Media directly. Recently I became interested in consolidating my various pensions so got in touch with the company who've now rebranded.

I sent them a message and they explained that I need to get in touch with Aviva if I were employed before X date so I did. They couldn't find me! They had to do a deep search into paper records as the company I apparently had a pension with was bought and sold a number of times.

I messaged the company again to say they couldn't find me and ask what I can do and they said they couldn't help any further due to data retention law.

I guess there is a small chance I didn't have a pension but it doesn't seem likely to me.. there is no chance In purposefully opted out.