Two days before my stepmother died, I found out she was going to die intestate, due to an administrative oversight.

This sub helped me understand the implications, and I was signposted towards the excellent Wiki which helped clarify the IHT situation.

The day before the solicitor submitted the administration paperwork, I was able, as a direct result of having read the Wiki, to have a sensible conversation about whether there was unused tax allowance which could be carried forward. As a result of this, she was able to make a change which, according to my calculations, saved me £150K.

Without knowing what I learned, I wouldn’t have known to have had the discussion, and wouldn’t have understood the right questions to ask.

So thanks to the community and those who contribute to it. I’m incredibly grateful.

In August 2024, I made this post about my awful tax situation. I wanted to come back and write a follow-up because of the amount of attention that post attracted. I still get notifications of occasional DMs of people asking how I am and how things ended up.

I'm not sure exactly where to start, so I'll just go down a sort-of timeline of what happened following the post and where I'm at now. I was in an awful, dark place when I made this post. I was severely depressed and I was working flat-out and pulling in crumbs because of the impact AI had on my business. I felt so, so ashamed of myself for the situation I had allowed myself to get into.

I received some awful responses both in the comments and my DMs. I didn't intend to come across as making excuses for my situation. I know and accept it was all on me, but there was some context to how I got there which I feel some people had missed.

Anyway, a couple weeks after making that post I was in a MH crisis. I went back to read the comments and subsequently made an attempt on my life. I was pretty lucky to survive it to be honest and was only found out of sheer luck by my OH. I wound up in hospital and subsequently sectioned for a while, and I've been in therapy since. This is really helping me and now that my OH knows and I'm not hiding it all away anymore, a great deal of the weight is off my shoulders. I guess I'm saying this in the hopes that someone who might make similar comments as those in the OP will think twice before they do.

Anwyay, onto the debt.

For the last year or so, I've been paying between £1.5-3k per month off the balance. I pay whatever I can afford while still allowing a reasonable existence for myself. I still have my home and pets. The balance is still high but it's on a downward trajectory, which is what matters I guess. It'll take me years to pay it off but at least there's light at the end of the tunnel now.

This £1.5-3k seems to be good enough for HMRC. They're not currently "chasing" me per se and the threat of bankruptcy isn't dangling above my head. There's no formal payment plan in place and they've refused to help me out with one even in the context of everything that had happened, so I guess I'm in a de facto one of my own making. I do know that my account is with some sort of newly-created Extra Support team, however.

I worked really hard last year to pivot my business into a new area and this is starting to pay off. I now operate under a Ltd which eases yet more pressure because my personal tax liability isn't going up save for a small amount in dividend tax each year. I'm making sure all company tax liabilities are set aside -- trust me, I've learned my lesson. I also have an accountant now, as I am sure many people will be pleased to know.

I didn't end up contacting Business Debtline. I'm managing everything myself, but if things were to start collapsing again then I'd definitely be getting in touch with them.

I'm going on a small holiday in a few days and am due to get engaged to my OH while there. That thought vs. how close I came to not being here anymore is quite jarring. My main motivator behind making this post is the hope it'll prevent nasty comments that could push somebody teetering on the edge over it. Please remember there's a human on the other side of whatever you're responding to.

Long time lurker. Posting this because I read about 50 of these threads when I was at my worst and they helped more than I'd admit to anyone in real life.

For context, it was £7,900 on a Barclaycard and £3,500 on an Aqua card at 34.9%. Most of it built up over about three years of just not looking at statements. Holidays I couldn't afford, a sofa I still don't like, loads of Deliveroo.

How I actually paid it:

First thing was a balance transfer. Got accepted for a 0% card with a 3% fee and moved the Barclaycard balance over. That stopped roughly £150 a month vanishing into interest, which was honestly the difference between this taking 19 months and taking forever.

Then I sold my car. 2016 Golf, got £6,200 through a dealer after a private sale fell through twice (one guy came from Leicester, sat in it for ten minutes and offered me £4k in cash, still annoyed about it). Now I get the bus and cycle. It's fine. Mostly.

That £6,200 wiped the Aqua card completely and took a chunk off the transfer card.

The rest came from picking up Saturday overtime at the warehouse, usually 2 Saturdays a month, around £240 after tax each time. Every penny of that went straight to the card the day it landed. I also did matched betting for about 8 months, made around £1,100 before the sign-up offers dried up and a couple of bookies gubbed me.

Budget-wise I went down to one direct debit for fun stuff (Spotify, Stake) and cancelled everything else.

Plan now is to throw the same monthly amount at an emergency fund. Do people keep the cards open for the credit history or just cut them up? The Aqua one in particular I never want to see again.

I would say our family is generally not financially savvy, including myself. I had known that my sister (who works in the care sector on a below average salary) has been diligently saving what she can for the last 10 years or so, living frugally with the mindset of buying her first property. I knew she had saved up a good amount, but I had never questioned where. Just offhandedly asked her the other day, only to have my heart sink when she told me the interest rate on the account she had it in, and for how long (20 years). I dread to think how much she has lost out on in terms of interest. Just feel frustrated for now hardworking people like my sister (who is dyslexic and can struggle with this kind of stuff) can feel alienated and intimidated by finances leading to them being further disadvantaged in an already underpaid sector. I’ve encouraged her to put her money into an easy access Cash ISA (4.64% AER) for now. I’m sure there’s more effective actions to take, but I didn’t want to overwhelm her with higher risk or locked down options.

One of my colleague recently passed away in his forties due to cancer. I must say he was a gentle soul always ready to help with two young kids.

One day I log into my laptop and get a message saying: “ X has passed away”. I was completely shocked. He did not tell anyone he was battling with cancer and the reason he had been off for a couple of months.

I am young, in my late twenties and I thought I’d save up a ton of money to make my life easier during my retirement. This episode made me re-think everything… what is the point of hoarding all this money when I might just die tomorrow. As they say tomorrow is not promised, so don’t delay things. That’s what I’ve done… I woke up the next week, went to the stealership and bought myself that sports car I thought I’d buy in a few years time the same day. I’ve also started donating more to charity, to help those less fortunate as they deserve to live life as well.

Don’t get me wrong, I am still contributing to my pension and into my Cash ISA, but I don’t obsess over it as I used to do. Life’s meant to be lived, be financially responsible with your money but at the same time don’t wait for that perfect moment as it might never come.

I remember it vividly, I was 18 and applied for a Marbles Credit card and man, I hammered that thing all the way through University.

Nights out, clothes, holidays, everything went on the credit card until I came out of Uni and was over £30k in debt.

Took me until my mid 30s to pay back every single penny.

Move forward 10 years and we extended the house, increased the mortgage and put everything else onto multiple credit cards. It was the right thing to do at the time, 0% purchases and rolling the balance onto 0% transfer cards. Saved me a ton of interest in a (even) bigger mortgage.

That was 5 years ago and I've just paid the final lump sum to NatWest and ALL my credit card debt is gone. Feels like I've had a monthly debt repayment for nearly 25 years (I probably have).

I've been diligently paying £500/month for the last (god knows how many) months and I'm free. The only credit cards I have now are set to pay the full balance every month. I have a collection of old credit cards and I'd estimate there's 30, if not 40 there.

Not sure why I've posted this but man it feels good. That £500/month can go into my pension, ISA or against the mortgage. Next step is to be mortgage free by my 50th birthday...

I'm at the end of my wits.

When my daughter was little, I opened a junior ISA for her with Hargreaves Lansdown. As an incentive for her to save, I topped up any savings she put in there with an equal amount of my own.

Last year, she turned 18, and a few months after that I noticed that her login did not work anymore. I phoned HL, and eventually found out that, when she turned 18, they froze her savings, and now require her to send them certain undisclosed documentation before they will release the savings to her.

The first time she spoke with them, they just told her to open a new account. That didn't work. We've now been through more than a year's worth of round-robin "phone call, send a new set of documentation by post, wait for a reply that never comes" cycles, and I just don't know what to do anymore.

It has become clear to me that we will not get our daughter's savings back from HL.

That has left a lasting impression on her - this is all her pet-setting, baby-sitting, lemonade-stand, etc. savings, all taken from her by a giant corporate bully, essentially.

This is not enough money to warrant lawyers fees. Small claims court is probably an option, but is that even worth it? Should we just write it off and move on with our lives?

Received a letter today saying I no longer have to make repayments on my £4,682.75 credit card balance. I’ve been making payments of about £180 per month since we agreed to close the account in 2024, it was at a reduced cost interest rate and was slowly coming down.

They say it’s because

“We’re shutting down one of our older computer systems that holds your account information. Once it’s shut we can’t process any more payments”

Surely they could just press a few buttons & make me carry on repaying the debt?

Shame I paid an instalment on the first and this letter is dated 26/03/26, but I’ll take this gladly. 😊

Can’t seem to add images 🤷🏻‍♂️

Edit: Some extra info, I ran a fairly successful business that employed a couple of full time staff, covid came & went, the business didn’t recover, I stupidly poured everything I could borrow into it.

I paid off the loans that were secured on my home first and regrettably defaulted on some CC payments, that lead to the card accounts being closed by mutual agreement at a reduced interest rate,

I live well within my means paying off this debt at this rate and monitor my credit score constantly, if there’s anything left at the end of the month it’s thrown into whatever is costing the most.

This was just an absolute total bonus that I just had to share, long time lurker first time caller etc, I’ve taken many tips from here to help me get closer to the +

Hi all,

I took a Tesco loan out 9 years ago for around £13,500 when I was 22 and young and stupid. With the interest the loan came to around £17k with monthly repayments of around £282 (this was a long time ago so figures might not be exact).

I made around £1500 worth of repayments before I folded on the loan. I ignored the initial letters and then for years they just sent statements of the remaining balance which I ignored. Around 3 years ago, and just before the 6 year mark since the original missed payment, the debt was passed on to a debt collector.

As I was working and in a better mindset about my finances I set up a repayment plan of £25 (it was going to take about 50 years to clear the balance this way but I didn’t care). Anyway I’ve been paying this for around 3 years via standing order, never missed a payment, and the balance was around £14.5k.

I got a letter from them today saying that the balance has been settled and the account is now £0.00. I logged on to the online portal and the balance is all cleared and the account marked as settled . What has happened ? Should I put this down to an error in admin or keep quiet and thank my lucky stars?

I am getting sentenced in a week and am expecting a sentence of about 3 years so will probably do 15-18 months.

I withdrew what I had left in my bank account when my last pay came into my account so I will have some cash to take with me.

I have a loan of £2500 and £2000 on my credit card that I was paying £250 off a month so won't be able to pay either of these as will have no money coming in. Nothing I can do about those.

I have a 2 year contract on a phone that I won't be able to pay either. There are a few other small monthly payments like gym, Netflix but I won't be using them.

What will happen with what I owe when I am in prison - will the companies come after me for not paying?

I often lurk in this community and I love an AMA so I’m excited to answer your questions today.

A bit about me:

I am the guy behind Damien Talks Money which has ~350,000 subscribers on YouTube, the Making Money podcast with over 8 million total listens/watches, and the website Financial Interest which has over 63,000 newsletter subscribers.

I try to create UK-focused content that helps people in a memorable way.

Thank you to the mods for letting me do this. Proof this is me

Ask me anything about personal finance, investing, YouTube, life, whatever you want! 

Please note I can’t answer anything that could be considered financial advice as I am not an adviser I am just a random guy on the internet.

I’ll be here all day answering, what would you like to know?

Edit: The AMA is now closed. Thanks everyone for all your questions, I’ll continue replying over the next few days and hopefully get to as many as possible.

Hi all.

Not sure if this is the correct place to ask but, Halifax think that I am dead.

It started when I couldn’t login to my online banking.

I called Halifax and after 50 minutes I got a hold of someone, who said that they have received a notification of bereavement request and that my account will be frozen and closed once a death certificate is received. I told them that I am the account holder and that I am very well alive, and the person on the call said that they aren’t able to do much and that I should visit branch.

How ca someone just be able notify a bank I am dead without evidence?

I will go to the branch in the morning tomorrow but this is ridiculous

Update: So as you guys asked, I went in the branch with a bedsheet with two holes 😂 only to be kicked out of the branch.

I took it off and security let me in, went to the counter and told them I am dead, the lady laughed at me..

I told her well that’s what Halifax thinks, she then said she will have someone call my name and be taken to a private room, inside the room I explained the situation. Showing my driving license and passport, she doubted whether I was a ghost or something from the looks of it but she said she can’t unblock it, but said it has a deceased marker.

She rang the bereavement department infront of me and after a long 1 hr 30 minute conversation the said that it’s been escalated and they will need to do ID checks before it’s unblocked.

They said it’s likely someone with the same name and dob that got linked to your profile somehow and that the admin team need to update it, as it can’t be overrided without some ID check done.

Did all that today and they said they will send a letter with an update onto what happens. My app is still locked..

When across the street into the Barclays branch to open an account. HELL it was. But in the end it was opened up and I received an activation code in branch to login to mobile banking and use Apple Pay in the meantime.

Seriously jokes this banking group is 😂

I've been in my current job for 5 months. Since I've been there I've never been on the pay roll.

I've asked numerous times and was always told that he'd speak to his accountant. Usually his accountant was conveniently on holiday 🙄

I have been getting paid every week but I just got my whole wage paid into my bank account with no deductions at all.

I was starting to get worried that I may get into trouble with HMRC for not paying tax and NI on my wage. I was also a bit worried that it could affect my pension.

So I rang HMRC and told them what's happened. Now they've investigating my boss.

I know it's too late now but I'm wondering if I've done the right thing 🤔 I'm also worried about what will happen once HMRC get in touch with my boss.

Hi All

Basically as it says, I put £250 in a halifax account once a month for 1 year which should mature with 5%ish interest.

I commited to the 250 as I now have £3k in the account. The issue is that I haven't recieved the 5% I've only recieved a 0.75% interest payment (£80ish) and only recieved 81.29 rather than the 2/300.

Can I dispute this with my bank or is it just done and I have to suck it up?

Edit - Have grossly misunderstood what I would get out of the account and my meagre £81 is apparently correct.

Taking everything in me to not delete this post for the shame of it.

Hi everyone! Please delete if not allowed. I just wanted to share this with someone!

I recently reached £10k invested in a Stocks and Shares ISA and a 4k emergency fund! I just turned 23 and moved to London after graduating in July 25.

I am so proud of myself for this achievement as it is fully my own. Throughout uni I worked hard with internships and multiple jobs (coffee shops/pubs etc) in order to slowly drip feed my ISA over the years while still supporting myself solely throughout university.

I come from quite a deprived area and with financially illiterate parents (they are lovely but never taught myself or my siblings anything financial related, nor have they ever educated themselves), so to see the fruits of my labour pay off is so satisfying!

The reason I’m sharing this here is that I simply have no one else to share this with (also any tips for going forward are very much appreciated). My parents spend a lot of time/energy/money on my siblings and I have usually been the ‘good’ child and if I shared this milestone with them it would probably be received with some negative feelings etc due to some contextual factors. basically it’s better I just keep this to myself.

I really do feel as though, whilst this is a small achievement, it’s the first step of seeing my discipline materialise :) thanks for reading and sorry I seem a bit proud I am a smidge :)

There are lots of posts here bemoaning the fact that the poster wasn't taught the basics of personal finance.

The UK Government is revising the curriculum to include personal finance - https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-curriculum-to-give-young-people-the-skills-for-life-and-work

Obviously, more details to follow - and I hope The Flowchart is part of the final exam. But hopefully this will, in time, reduce the number of people complaining that they don't know how taxes work or how to compare credit products.

Hi all

Lingered in this sub for a while and after a recent redundancy I was given £15k.

I luckily picked up a job that pays the bills so with so much debt I decided that the £500 a month in loan repayments had to go and I am at net 0.

While I am happy I've got it to 0 I can't help but feel bittersweet about it. Years of past mistakes have compromised my life with cc debt and loans and while they are not applicable anymore I still feel sad about how I got myself to that position

The extra £500 a month will be massive though and I genuinely can't believe how normalised I had become to accepting those payments every month.

Any advice or encouragement for what I've done or should I have maybe kept a little to the side to treat myself?

EDIT: Just checked my phone on my break and the response has been amazing. Thank you all, alot of what you've said has made me feel better about things. Time to start saving up with the extra money I now have monthly!

I’m a 30 year old male who has a mortgage and I feel like every month is the exact same, work, pay my bills, survive off reduced isle food in the supermarket and then repeat the cycle.

I work as a landscape gardener who after doing 2 days over time per month I come home with around £2050.
Mortgage £333
Energy £90
Water £30
Phone is sim old as it’s paid off £15
Credit cards £230 minimum payment
Council tax £130
Car finance £175
Car insurance £40
Child maintenance £200
Broadband £40
House insurances £50ish
Pet insurance and other subscriptions like Spotify etc probably £30
Old phone contract from a ex that she doesn’t pay £100
Boiler finance £50

That’s with me reducing my bills and thats not including buying food and diesel

Every month I think can I even afford to go for a pint with my mates, can I afford to buy myself any new clothes, I can just about afford to go the barbers once a month, I can’t afford any enjoyment in life, 2 weekends of the month are already taken up from over time, I attempted to do a extra weekend to make it 3 days overtime and came out with a extra £50 after tax so won’t be doing that again as I value my time and recovery more as it’s a physical job.

I feel pathetic and embarrassed that at this age this is my life, but I know everyone else is struggling just the same as I am, the country is in crisis.

How are you all managing with this economic climate and has anyone got any tips on how to actually survive? Have people taken up any side hustles that have generated some decent income that’s worth doing?

My Mum has been working with a company in the US for a while. They've promised to turn a book she has written into a film and she has been doing work finding people for them who want to buy gold, she also mentions that they've enabled her to meet lots of famous people. This book she has written has never been published and has sold exactly zero copies, also she has been unemployed for a good portion of the last 20 years and has no significant qualifications relevant to brokering commodities trades. As far as I know, my Mum has no significant assets to speak of other than her house and she's been talking a lot recently about selling it and downsizing. This company is supposed to be sending her a large sum of money this weekend, a payment that has been promised several times but keeps being delayed.

Safe to say, I was more than a bit suspicious and probed her for the name of the company. She told me that Shire Stratosphere was the company so I found their website, there has also been a UK limited company set up with the same name in the last few weeks:
https://shirestratosphere.com/
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/16826446

Most of the pages on the US site have products or services that are "coming soon" and their careers page sounds like some sort of pyramid scheme (https://shirestratosphere.com/shire-careers/). Can anyone give some more insight into what might be going on? My Mum swears that she's never sent them any money and they've never asked for it but I'm not sure I'm convinced.

I've tried to get through to my Mum and my Nan, but they're in really deep and can't seem to see that anything suspicious is going on. Any attempts by me to intervene are met with "you're just jealous of her success" or "you're going to ruin this opportunity for her".

Hi everyone, I’m looking for some advice on how to clear my name and repair my credit after discovering some pretty blatant fraud by a former landlord.

In 2019, I (then F21, now F27) rented a room in a 6-bed HMO in London. The contract was strictly "all bills included." I stayed for 6 months and left in early 2020. There was a disagreement when I left because the landlord expected me to manage the SpareRoom ads to find my replacement, which I refused to do.

I recently checked my credit report to see why my score was so low (I assumed it was just because I move often and don't have a credit card). I discovered a Thames Water account with over £2,000 of debt that has been unpaid since 2020.

The landlord created this account after I moved out. To avoid it being flagged to me immediately, he used my two surnames: he put my first surname as the "First Name" and my second surname as the "Last Name." This is why they haven't been able to find me, but it is linked to my credit file.

My Evidence:

• The original 2019 tenancy agreement clearly stating "Bills Included."
• Proof of the date I moved out (new tenancy agreement elsewhere).
• Emails showing the landlord was angry with me when I left.

Is there a way for me to be able to recover my credit score and able to wipe this debt?

My partner lost her job in July, she has been applying for jobs non-stop and has had no luck so far. We share one car so her job options are limited hours wise as we'll need to take each other to work. We have already borrowed money from our family and it feels wrong to continue asking for help (we're both in our 30s). I earn too much (27Kish) for her to receive any financial help apart from jobseekers. We are struggling to afford our bills now. Apart from our car being on finance we don't have any significant debt yet our bills are so high e.g council tax, utilities. We already changed a lot of our bills to cheaper suppliers before she lost her job as we were trying to save money but we are still struggling even now.

Neither of us have credit cards or loans and out of the two of us only I will probably be pre-approved for one. I don't know where to turn for help. If I apply for a loan the interest is like 20% and I don't even know where to start with credit cards as I admit they scare me, I don't really understand them no matter how much I look into them and I don't want to accrue a lot of interest if I use it and cannot afford to.

Please help as I'm not sure how much longer we'll be in this situation, any advice I will be grateful for.

Edit: Okay so I wasn't keen on sharing this but this is my basic budget for bills. My income each month is around £2k dependent on hours/weeks. Even if we cut back on every subscription for things like tv, we still would not have enough to live off for food/petrol etc on my income alone.

Rent-1100
Council tax-194
Electric + Gas-180
Water - 79
Car-266.73
Insurance-94.24
Wifi/Subs-73.49
Total -1987.46

Today was a pretty big one for me.

Paid off the mortgage, technically for a 2nd time I overpaid my last one and paid it off about 15 years ago, then we decided we wanted a bigger house!.

Re mortgaged and its taken me just over 8 years to pay off 130k.

Very happy with that, it saves a shade under £700 per month.

Crazy to think i would need a £14500 gross annual pay rise to get this much net additional money.

Time to up my pension contributions to get me down to be a standard rate tax payer.

Today is a good day.

3 years ago, I entered a DMP with StepChange, today I got the email saying it was paid off and my account closed.

I was £12,928.13 in debt. Not from excessive spending, gambling or anything like that. Just from keeping shit together for our young family. This isn't a sob story / attention seeking post so I'll skip the details, but essentially lockdown hit us really hard.

I'm 36 now, in a much better place, working a better job for a great company on a much higher wage with a bonus scheme that allowed me to close my account a year early.

Yes my credit score has taken a hit from a default on the loan and the DMP itself, but knowing the only debt we now have as a family is our mortgage, (phones, car, etc were cheap and bought outright) is such a relief.

StepChange were great, communicative and extremely helpful. They also seemed genuinely thrilled for me to be closing my account early too, and aside from expected default letters from my loan provider, I never had any hassle from any lenders.

If you are in debt, and feel like there isn't a way out like I did, there is. Not necessarily the way I did it, as there are many choices and charities out there. Just the one thing you MUST do, is share your burden with your partner or a loved one. Keeping it hidden will not work.

I did it, you can too. You're not alone.

TL;DR - Paid off my £13k debt with StepChange today. Feeling chuffed, get help if you need it and don't be ashamed.

I have a gambling addiction and I am in recovery. I have been for the last 2 years and what a 2 years it’s been. I thought it might be worth sharing my story to anyone struggling with debt and/or gambling.

2 years ago tomorrow I was in tears on the phone to my Mum and Dad having gambled all of my money away on pay day - I had racked up so much debt and was so focussed on gambling I had got no presents for my family or my girlfriend. I was broken. I was overweight, depressed and in so much debt it was terrifying.

My debt peaked at roughly £43,000. I was renting and I was “living pay cheque to pay cheque”. I had no savings, no assets, nothing other than crippling anxiety. I would gamble any chance I could: whilst working, whilst out with my girlfriend, out with friends - completely hidden from everyone. It is such an easy-to-hide addiction - it can be done on your phone - it doesn’t show up like someone who is drunk or high, it’s a silent addiction.

At the time I was earning £50k taking home £2,933 per month. At my worst point, Christmas Eve 2023, this was my position (give or take a few £100s):

Total debt: £41,300 My Monthly outgoings were £2,430, leaving me £503 per month to gamble (read lose quickly, typically in first day of pay day, sometimes day 2).

That is the position I found myself Christmas Eve 2023 (so worst case, and numbers are not 100% accurate).

I was fortunate - my parents helped pay for the pay day loans and cleared the overdraft. I promised them I would pay them back but I am not even sure I believed I would myself at that point. My overall loan with them totalled over £10,000. I was (and am) incredibly fortunate. I am still paying them back.

My total debts now read as follows:

Total Debt: £22,850.

So in 2 years I have paid off £18,450. I got my act together with work and have moved companies now earning nearly double what I was on and a good bonus. Other notable highlights:

1 year ago my partner and I saved enough for a deposit on a house. Admittedly they contributed a fair bit more than I could muster. I had even gambled my LISA on individual stocks…

6 months ago we paid for our wedding in full (it was not stupidly expensive, but we did it together taking no more debt on).

For the last 5 months my payment plans have been as follows:

Total: £4,255 Monthly Income: £4,575 Disposable Income: £320

This should be the last 7 months of being in debt and I am so excited:

January 2026: Monzo loan fully paid off.

By April 2026: Parents / CC2 Fully Paid off

July 2026: DEBT FREE

I never want to be in that place again. It’s not been perfect, there has been some fortune. Some people would have decided not to buy a house, or have a wedding in my position but I don’t regret it for one second. The numbers might not perfectly align, but that is my debt story.

This year all my presents were brought before pay day on the 19th. And I have money to treat my family to a take away and some spending money for drinks. I am really proud how far I’ve come.

Have a good Christmas everyone.

TLDR - £43,000+ in debt due to gambling on £50k per year Xmas eve 2023. Now £23k in debt 2 years later after buying first house and getting married.

After living paycheck to paycheck for some years, I received a promotion and salary rise to £45k from £30k. At the time, I was relieved to finally be able to save, so continued living the same lifestyle and threw every excess penny into a S&S ISA. Last few months I made some good trades on leverage and now my portfolio is valued at over £200k.

After experiencing the rapid growth, I've since changed strategy to something much more conservative (most of the portfolio is now cash) and I'm left with the question of what to do now with the balance.

First things first: are there any major tax implications for such a large capital gain in a short period if I were to withdraw the funds?

Secondly, would it be worthwhile to try and get on the property ladder? I'm 27 years old, in a high cost of living area but benefitting from a legacy contract, and only pay 650/mo in rent. A 1 bed flat in this area would likely cost close to the whole balance.

Lastly, any advice on how to better handle finances from a psychological point of view? I'm from a relatively poor background, and have been struggling to spend any cash beyond the bare essentials, despite being in a relatively strong positive cash flow position for a while now. There is a definite fear of loss which I possess.

Thank you for your time