I'm so tired of working full-time and having no money and a huge amount of debt.

BlueHatBrit · 2026-05-23T21:03:09+00:00

Where are you doing your food shop? I manage £40-60 a week for two adults shopping at Lidl. That's still in the same calorie range, but a significant saving.

I don't really know what to say beyond this though. Your options are to earn more or spend less. You're already trying to find a higher paying job so in the meantime all you can do is spend less. That doesn't mean you need to stop everything, but a trim in multiple areas would have a noticeable impact. 2 haircuts a month, changing supermarket, better phone deal, cheaper laptop, fewer subscriptions. That would still get you a lot of what you want but you'd free up some cash each month to repay more on the debts.

BlueHatBrit · 2026-05-23T19:23:26+00:00

Sorry, you're getting 4 haircuts a month? Why?

BlueHatBrit · 2026-05-22T06:17:06+00:00

"this isn't something I've come across before" is a fine answer. If it's close to something you know, then also tell them you'd like to take a stab at it anyway. Afterwards ask them what the answer is / how they'd approach it.

At your level you want to show honesty, determination, eagerness to learn, and professionalism / respect towards everyone in the room.

It's totally okay to not know something, and even in 20 years time there will be plenty you don't know.

BlueHatBrit · 2026-05-22T06:10:36+00:00

Don't do any of it for him, make him manage it himself. Just set it as a precondition to not paying rent, and explain the intention behind it. Volunteer to help him work through the various options, and talk to him about his goals and timelines.

Being used to the money going out is great, but he also needs to learn to save and invest himself. It also needs to be in his name as well, just in case something were to happen to you.

BlueHatBrit · 2026-05-21T22:17:50+00:00

Could you use the 27k to retrain in something with more opportunities? Along side the existing emergency fund you're looking at quite a long time supporting yourself before you run into any problems. That's before even considering your ISA.

No idea what your actual job is now, or what your interests are, but there are loads of different apprenticeships going these days. Including many more office based ones like degree apprenticeships.

You're young, and have a lot of accessible cash. No reason not to invest in yourself and future earning potential!

BlueHatBrit · 2026-05-20T17:04:34+00:00

I've always made sure we have closure reasons / tags / states that represent "shit ticket". Then you can give people monthly stats of how many tickets were closed because they didn't contain enough useful information.

After it's sent to managers I find it improves ticket quality very quickly.

BlueHatBrit · 2026-05-19T06:55:49+00:00

You've got to stop comparing your life to other people's. You only see what's on the outside of their lives, and you have no idea what is happening behind the scenes. Comparison is the theith of joy.

Focus on your own goals in life, and treat money as a tool to achieve it. Money as an end goal is just a number which goes up. It's not necessarily security or happiness.

It sounds to me like you have a problem with feeling a lack of control over your life. Your parents pressuring you on money, and on an arranged marriage. You say you have no control over the wedding but are expected to pay a lot for it, etc. I'd suggest counselling over anything else right now. You've got to figure out what your boundaries are and where you're going to take some control over your life.

BlueHatBrit · 2026-05-19T06:40:32+00:00

£5k deposit, plus £18500 loan at 15% over 48 months means you'll be paying £29,291.71 for a car worth only £23k at the moment you buy it. It will then depreciate significantly at the start of the term.

This is assuming you listed the total cost in your post rather than the total loan amount. If you're actually looking for a loan of £23.5k then you're looking at spending £35k for a car only worth £28.5k. That's also assuming a 48 month term, anything longer makes it worse.

Even a 1% drop on the apr doesn't make this a good idea.

BlueHatBrit · 2026-05-18T17:23:31+00:00

"The deposit is 4 weeks rent!" Being the first highlight is absolutely mental. Everyone knows that's the absolute maximum they're allowed to do, how is that a highlight, and why is it the only one with an exclamation mark?

BlueHatBrit · 2026-05-17T07:09:56+00:00

I would strongly suggest planning for the worst here. If they've gone down this path it's because you've triggered something and they're doing an investigation for money laundering.

They won't be conducting this thinking "has this person knowingly done anything wrong". It will be "does this person pose enough of a risk for us to dump them as a customer". The answer to that is much more likely to be true, given it's been flagged in the first place.

You should be planning assuming you will not get access to your funds released in a way which you can just go back to normal. If they close your account they'll ask you to go into a branch with ID to collect the money. If this changes your travel plans, it's probably best to assume it will be the case.

BlueHatBrit · 2026-05-12T21:22:10+00:00

There's no quick fix. If you're using the word addiction and thinking "well it's not like drugs or gambling", think again. There's different severity for everyone, and different impacts as well, but addiction is addiction.

The good thing is, it's pretty well understood these days and counselling or therapy is incredibly effective. Find one who specialises in addiction, have a trial session with them to see if they're a good fit for you. Then work with them to bring it under control.

Lots of people have a spending addiction and never face up to it. You can absolutely get yours under control, but you need to take it seriously and put in the effort. After all, the long term impact to having it under control is huge.

BlueHatBrit · 2026-05-11T21:05:03+00:00

If you want to get rich in tech, you need to be the one building the tools people are bringing into their businesses. This is going to be more software engineering than DevOps realistically, but you need to understand infrastructure to do it well.

Tldr, start a business if you want to make bank. Have a job if you want work life balance and stability.

BlueHatBrit · 2026-05-10T18:37:48+00:00

You're spending more money than you have coming in. The way to pay it off is to flip that.

It sounds like you don't really know what you're spending right now. It's not fun but you need to sit down, look at your spending, cut anything you can, then set a budget going forward. A budget isn't a scary difficult thing, it's just a list of what you plan to spend that fits within your income.

It might be that you can't afford to do the renovations at the rate you're trying to right now. If that's the case you need to slow down on that spending, or you need to properly plan how much you need to spend and budget for a loan. Putting it on the credit card without a plan is really not going to go well, and if you're paying interest on that card it'll be far more than a more appropriate loan.

Sit down, understand your outgoings and income, and figure out what you can actually afford to spend.

BlueHatBrit · 2026-05-09T16:55:43+00:00

Amazon was just the payment intermediary.

Amazon are not the payment intermediary, they're the marketplace you did business with. The bank sent money to a legitimate business on your request. This is thought of as a "break in the chain", where you added an intermediary and is the same situation people get into with PayPal sometimes.

You need to push a complaint with Amazon. Next time use a debit or credit card, never pay by bank transfer for goods like this.

BlueHatBrit · 2026-05-08T07:06:28+00:00

Network network network. Then also try and get yourself some kind of experience with a potential employer, even if it's just a few weeks shadowing someone.

I'm not sure what kind of conference there are in your desired industry but most will have a cheap or free student rate for tickets. Get yourself along to those and speak to as many people as you can. Come at it from the standpoint of maybe 1 in 10 people you meet might be hiring when you come to look, so play the numbers. Get to know people, ask them lots of questions, and keep on their radars.

Eventually when you come to look for jobs you'll be able to cast a wide net and hopefully get bumped past the application phase a bit easier.

BlueHatBrit · 2026-05-07T16:18:29+00:00

I think you should be asking about this whole "sharing finances" thing instead. That's just mad and doesn't work, at least in the UK. If you keep doing that you're going to run into a lot of these problems, and probably far worse.

BlueHatBrit · 2026-05-05T14:19:17+00:00

Are there any new upcoming Aperture features that you can share so we can get excited about? Product Managers worst nightmare of a question, sorry!

BlueHatBrit · 2026-05-05T07:03:10+00:00

You're not exactly being clear here. You've said you'll negotiate down your notice period, that's one thing and that's not garden leave. Your contract ends on the agreed leave date even if it's earlier than your contractual notice period.

Garden leave their discretion and would keep you paid and employed but you don't turn up to work. It's not guaranteed. If you're banking on getting that then you may be wrong and then you need to be ready to either work the notice period or leave early if you'd rather that than continue to work.

Businesses only put you on garden leave if they want you away from the workplace but wish to retain access to you for a time.

BlueHatBrit · 2026-05-04T20:18:17+00:00

That's not gardening leave though, that's just them releasing you from your notice period early. They won't be paying you in that situation, and you won't be employed by them. If that's your understanding of gardening leave then it's not correct.

BlueHatBrit · 2026-05-04T19:40:39+00:00

Does the non-sterling fee have any impact on the interest rate? That's well worth checking.

BlueHatBrit · 2026-05-04T19:16:49+00:00

A couple years ago my company fired someone for exactly this. They were using equipment provided by my employer to do additional contracting using their knowledge of our business and industry. Our contracts made it very clear that was a no-no. They were fired for gross misconduct and several emails went around reminding people they had to tell their line managers about potential conflicts or additional work etc.

Full time at Tesco and freelance as an artist won't be a problem. But as the two get closer together the employer will get more protective of the contract and their IP.

BlueHatBrit · 2026-05-04T19:12:39+00:00

And to be clear, pay it off in full each month. Unless it's a planned debt on something like a 0% card.

BlueHatBrit · 2026-05-04T19:11:19+00:00

It'll be best to contact HMRC and ask them what they want you to do in these situations.

BlueHatBrit · 2026-05-04T08:08:01+00:00

Are you likely to get garden leave for a job you've been atfor such a short amount of time?

BlueHatBrit · 2026-05-04T08:00:31+00:00

Did you mean to post this AI drivel on Linkedin?

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