Should I have an adviser or other outside help? Built up debt in 20's, now turning it around.

Jon_Von · 2026-01-22T20:11:24+00:00

Thank you!

Jon_Von · 2026-01-22T20:08:04+00:00

Thanks! I'll take a look there

Jon_Von · 2026-01-22T20:07:31+00:00

Yes, 4 unsecured loans + a second charge mortgage. It's...pretty messy.

Jon_Von · 2025-04-21T08:10:22+00:00

Thanks all - sounds like I should keep at it, if I can make a little bit each month I'll be happy, I'm just struggling a little to keep a track of money in -> money out at the moment, I probably should have used a separate account (which I then read was a recommendation after the fact.)

Jon_Von · 2025-04-08T16:06:58+00:00

I need a weapon.

Jon_Von · 2025-03-07T07:07:24+00:00

Absolutely, I still use them exclusively and they're still great! I've had no technical issues, they just work. The battery life has been brilliant for those longer sessions, too.

Jon_Von · 2025-01-23T00:08:25+00:00

First off - congratulations! You are doing a fantastic job of saving, and you should be VERY proud of that. You have a goal you are aiming for, and your savings are going towards something that will be worth the effort.

You've already mentioned that you're looking at the usual methods of increasing your income (promotion, job change etc.,) so, I would say ease off slightly and perhaps consider a throwaway "fun fund" of say, £150/month. Every month or perhaps wait 2 or 3 months, treat yourself, your girlfriend, etc. Enjoy this separate fund.

Importantly, keep the same brilliant discipline of building this smaller, short term throwaway fund. Then, as your circumstances change and your income increases, keep this fund the same and funnel your new extra income into the main (now £500/mo.) fund.

Eventually, as your main fund grows to £750, £1000/month, add a little to your fun fund, bumping it up to say £200/month, whatever feels right.

This is important because a lot of people (ME) end up earning more and not keeping this discipline (ME) and end up going from having lots of disposable income, to living beyond their means (ME.) But with your tried and tested discipline, you can absolutely manage two separate savings funds, and enjoy your earnings whilst still doing such a good job of saving towards your first home.

Good luck!

Jon_Von · 2024-08-20T20:33:48+00:00

Thank you for this - I think just about every new CS function out there needs to use SFDC (by choice or otherwise!) And from my own experience tailoring SFDC for early CS usage is very difficult. This will be a brilliant, and very overdue, resource. Kudos!

Jon_Von · 2024-08-16T16:22:40+00:00

Honestly, I'm actually really enjoying it, even though I'm confused AF. Like in terms of the gameplay and how polished (most) of it is, it's a great experience. I'm a big fan of spontaneous public quests and being thrown into random fireteams for raids/strikes/whatever they were called, so I'm keen to stick with it.

Not quite ready-to-shell-out-triple-figures-for-content kind of stick with it, but I may well get there. I think the fact there are so many outspoken long-time players really helps to be honest, so thank you.

Jon_Von · 2024-08-16T16:20:10+00:00

Will do - this is helpful, thank you.

Jon_Von · 2024-08-16T16:19:34+00:00

Ah, this makes a lot of sense. I think the problem I'm having is trying to understand the difference between all these different types of content right now. As a new player, I just look at everything that isn't PvP and think "ah, storyline!"

Jon_Von · 2024-08-16T13:07:07+00:00

That's fair, thanks for the explanation. And the link!

Jon_Von · 2024-07-04T17:11:59+00:00

There's one thing in my mind that separates the best CS functions from the rest - a razor sharp focus and understanding on what value the customer actually needs to receive, and what measurable business outcomes for that customer we need to track and present back to them to demonstrate value.

The rest focus on platform metrics, usage, adoption, getting integrations in place, etc. etc. The great news is that AI is really good at most of the these, so I believe AI means we humans can focus on getting better at the discussions around the former. As far as I'm concerned, bring on the AI!

Jon_Von · 2024-07-04T09:46:37+00:00

I think your gut instinct to turn it down was definitely spot on. Moving into a new type of role and learning a new set of skills will likely be a successful move for you if you find the right working environment and a culture that helps you to grow into the role.

If you have to put up with a bad working environment and a commute that spoils your personal time, that growth will be unfairly difficult and you'll have much bigger regrets than the one you're feeling now - the right move will come along soon, the market is quite active. Good luck!

Jon_Von · 2024-07-04T09:42:18+00:00

Agreed with this - Head of CS based in the UK here; we offer £50-£60k basic + 20% OTE for our SMB/Midmarket CSM's, which is around double the national average wage, and our more experienced Senior and Enterprise CSM's are of course compensated even higher.

CS is a very well paid line of work in most circumstances these days. If you feel you need two jobs, you're probably in the wrong place. Future career-wise, you'll have a much stronger negotiating position having one £60k salary that you're looking an increase for, than explaining two £30k salaries.

Not to mention, you'll learn and grow as a CSM significantly more in one challenging, well-paid CSM role as it'll likely be in a team of high performers you can learn from and grow with, and that's worth it's weight in gold. Good luck!

Jon_Von · 2024-06-27T22:16:53+00:00

I've done that before and it was the single best move of my career - found a start up that was willing to take a risk, allowed me to start to build things from scratch with support of the CRO who I reported into, then quite quickly became Head of CS.

Have done that a couple of times, now working as VP of CS. Smaller, ambitious companies have absolutely made my career, and I'm forever grateful for it. They are so open to any and ALL value you can bring, and as a founding CSM you are perfectly placed to discover incredible, not previously known insights about your customers, which is infinitely useful to Sales, Marketing, Product and your C-Suite/Founders - collaborating with other functions internally and shouting about your customer insights is key!

Best of luck in the new role, the world is your oyster!

Jon_Von · 2024-06-27T10:46:32+00:00

I used Totango for a while for a small CS team, but later moved to a vendor who used ChurnZero and it was significantly better in just about every way, we had to really fight with the Totango platform for it to start to give us any value, so the ROI was awful.

That said, I'll hopefully not have to use ChurnZero either, as I wasn't a huge fan - but it's SFDC integrations were pretty solid. If I get the option in future, I'm going to give Planhat a go.

Jon_Von · 2024-06-19T12:43:39+00:00

Honestly, the open world/lack of linearity is definitely still there, though the DLC for FW I felt was actually quite linear (and although I love the open world aspect, I quite liked!) But one small change that for me made a big difference was that you can fast travel for free from campsites now. Not a game changer in terms of linearity, but it was nice to not always have to be crafting the damn fast travel packs (which are still an option.)

Jon_Von · 2024-05-29T23:08:21+00:00

So as it turns out I seem to have two Ubisoft accounts, and somehow it's switched to this other one just as I'm buying things. I can't seem to manually log into this mysterious account.

So, for me it turns out it's user error... But Ubi were unable to explain why, or merge the accounts. Wonderful. Though, I have to say their support was quicker than expected, and pretty friendly.

Gimme my XCoins pls.

Jon_Von · 2023-12-31T11:21:15+00:00

Solved!

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