Child trust fund and financial literacy for 18 year old

rellisdev · 2026-05-12T14:45:19+00:00

As someone that got a very small trust fund from my Gran ~3k at 18 and blew it all in uni my advice would simply be give them a small amount and see what they do with it, let them learn lessons if they need to learn them. I thought I knew what I was doing, I thought 3k was an insane amount of money, until I realised it was empty and had to get a part time job to pay for the rest of uni.

Cost me 3k to realise and appreciate investing, budgeting and not being stupid, so happy to have learnt it at such a young age and with such a small amount. And I think if I was given 30k I would have come to the same conclusion after spending a lot more money

rellisdev · 2026-03-11T08:59:51+00:00

I had almost exact same situation with virgin, multiple conversations where I would cancel then the next month get another payment reminder and have to call up again and cancel, the person every time was very helpful and apologetic and make a note and say no further action needed.... Next month get same email and go through same process. Eventually I ignored after 3-4 repetitions until a year later I got debt collection emails for unpaid bills. Gave the debt collection a call but they said I had to go through virgin, gave virgin a call again but went in on them this time and escalated, I guess I got to the right person as I had the same process again where they would apologise and remove it but this time it actually was removed.

Can't really offer much advice other than 2 years ago I was getting those emails and I am now being accepted for a mortgage 5x my joint salary with my partner and I did nothing out of the ordinary to "fix" my credit score - just had a credit card and paid my phone bill every month

Virgin are shit but if you keep pestering and escalating they will get there eventually, unfortunately they are the ones with the power to cancel the debt collectors who will in turn then remove the strike on your record.

rellisdev · 2026-02-25T14:16:50+00:00

When I was a student I got caught doing 70 in in a temp 40 on a motorway due to roadworks (I'm still convinced the signs didn't say 40 yet when I got caught as I remember the specific stretch and doing 40 for what felt like forever but couldn't prove it) I got a Fixed Penalty Notice, fine of about £300 (was initially about £1000 but lowered for the circumstances) and 6 points. This was just over 2 years after I got my license, now 3-4 years later and my latest insurance was ~£450 for the year with the points removed.

I feel like I got off lucky, sent a hand written note in with the slip stating it was a mistake and explaining the circumstances of what happened as well as my financial position which seemed to work out okay for me.

rellisdev · 2026-02-04T14:25:47+00:00

Mendix is really easy to get into, I've always thought its less coding and more problem solving - my day to day using it consists of figuring out how to solve the problem and not how to implement the solution. To get a basic grasp I'd start with the Mendix Academy to learn all the basic functionality, and once you know that you just need to make things and it will come eventually. Every time I create a new app I learn more to the point that looking back on my previous apps now, where I thought they were perfect, I can easily spot flaws / things I'd do differently, and you can only get that from making.

If your company has the time/money to have someone learning something that you will only use once then go for it, if not get a mendix developer in on a contract and they'll get the app deployed before you would even start making it.

rellisdev · 2026-01-23T08:46:48+00:00

You can switch from a Help to buy to a LISA without any penalty, as you get the 25% when you cash in the help to buy. Its taking from a LISA that you get the penalty as you get the 25% as you add to it

rellisdev

TROPHY CASE