MONEY TALKS
PRESENTER AND WRITER LAURA WHITMORE IS FRONTING A CAMPAIGN AIMED AT GETTING WOMEN UNDER 40 ABI JACKSON LEARNS WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
FEEL like you can talk to your friends about anything? Okay, when was the last time you had a good chat about money?
It wasn’t something TV’s Laura Whitmore and her mates did “much” until recently. “You’d talk about everything else under the sun; you’d talk about your mums, people you fancy, but talking about money and how much you earned was a bit of a no-go,” says the Dublin-born writer and Love Island presenter.
“I’ve heard my male friends talk about finances – pensions, how much they’re earning, or rises they’re getting – a hell of a lot more than I’ve heard my female friends talk about it,” adds Laura, 36.
‘Buy now pay later’ provider Laybuy surveyed 5,013 UK adults earlier this year and found many women are more than twice as likely to discuss intimate relationship details (16%) or politics (17%) with their closest friends than finances.
Talking about cash with friends has been seen as vulgar
a quarter of women under 40 say they worry about their finances daily. And while the pandemic has been an opportunity for some to grow their savings, Laybuy found the average millennial woman (aged 25-40) only has half the savings of the average UK male under 40 (£6,213 compared with £12,880, since March 2020).
Let’s open up
LAURA, who recently became a mum (she and husband comedian Iain Stirling welcomed a baby girl in March) and whose debut book, No One
Can Change Your Life Except For You, became a bestseller after its release in spring, thinks this needs to change.
“Money is not the most important thing in the world, but it gives us more choices
in life,” says
Laura, who also hosts the Castaway podcast, and wrote and starred in the 2020 short film Sadhbh, about a mum struggling against a backdrop of social media pressure and heartbreak.
She’s teamed up with Laybuy on the launch of their ‘Master your Money’ campaign, which aims to “open up this conversation”.
Of course, there’s a bigger picture too: the gender pay gap. Not long ago women had no access to financial independence at all – the UK didn’t even allow women to have bank accounts in their own names until 1975. The work that’s gone into changing these things can’t be overlooked and there’s still catching up to do.
Lots of things can make money chat feel taboo. “It could be because of embarrassment, shame, or you don’t want to be seen as greedy or bigging yourself up in any way,” says Laura. Plus, many of us never really got a ‘money education’ – budgeting and saving wasn’t taught at school.
Making a plan is important
Laybuy found “many women under 40 are living under financial stress and perhaps have no savings”, says Laura. “Maybe it’s something they haven’t thought about because they’re just living in the now – and that’s lovely – but what if [their circumstances change],” she adds.
“I think a reason a lot of people don’t have savings is
because that conversaYet, tion was never really had. And then we turn around to our friends who go, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve had this savings account for years’ – and you’re like, ‘What?!’ So I think it’s good to talk about that.”
Laybuy has created a financial ‘health check’ tool on its website, along with expert tips. It’s easy to ignore things that stress us out, but Laura thinks we should treat our ‘financial health’ like our actual health.
“If you have a health worry, it’s always best to go to the doctor, get it checked and sorted, and it’s the same with financial health. Rather than burying our heads in the sand, it’s about thinking: OK, I’m going to sort this out.”
TO DISCUSS THEIR FINANCES MORE.
Talking to pals is empowering
“Talking to your friends about money shouldn’t feel shameful. It should help you feel confident, help you set boundaries, communicate more effectively and also, just give you a bit of a kick up the bum,” says Laura. “Like my mate who is really good at her job and should be getting paid more. I’m like, ‘Ask them!’ The worst they’ll say is no!”
Laura says she and her friends have talked about the importance of money to tide you over if your circumstances change. She explains: “Like if they need to get out of a relationship, or need a new job, or something like a pandemic happens, it’s important to have that back up.”
Money is not the most important thing in the world, but it gives us more choices in life Laura Whitmore
It’s OK to say you’re on a budget
How do we deal with pressure to spend more than we can afford, though? Nobody likes being the friend who doesn’t want to split the bill or keeps saying no to fun things. It’s a toughie - but isn’t it about time we normalised these conversations?
Laura says: “I’ve been out with friends for dinner and we split the bill at the end, and I’ve noticed one friend hasn’t drank at all – and maybe that’s because they can’t afford it. If someone says, ‘Oh, let’s just pay for what we had because not everyone drank’, that makes it fair for everyone – and it’s OK to say that.”
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