We need to talk about money

I started my career in New York 30 years ago. On the night I arrived in the Big Apple, I went to my hotel room and turned on the TV. I was surprised to find not just one, but several money channels, all entirely dedicated to the wonderful world of the Greenback.

In the workplace, people discussed openly what they were doing with their 401Ks (employee pension). They compared notes about whether to take out or switch to ‘ARMs’ (adjustable rate) mortgages or fixed rate. They talked about the weekend that they were going to devote to filing their tax return. Everyone discussed what they were ‘making’, and they comparison price-shopped with each other, boasting in some cases that they ‘never paid retail’. I was openly asked by colleagues about my salary, and whether I was being paid in pounds or dollars. For someone with a very British financial disposition, the openness took a bit of getting used to.

To be in control of our financial destiny, to be in control financially, we need to emotionally engage with money. We need to make like my colleagues in New York who were further ahead 30 years ago than we are today.

The finance industry hasn’t helped matters. We’ve tended to focus on WHAT people can do. WHICH funds they can buy. HOW they can access our products via websites and platforms. We hardly ever focus on the WHY. Yet all of us need a compelling reason WHY we should do something before we feel truly motivated to do it.

Part of our discomfort lies with the typically complex relationship that each of us tends to have with money. To engage, we need to really, genuinely ‘get’ where someone is coming from. So at the risk of embarrassing you, I want to share my own relationship with money. At least a few highlights, anyway, that I hope will convey what I mean. It’s quite personal – but I’m hoping it might start a trend of sharing financial anecdotes that can help us all think more about the relationship we have with money.

So here are eight seminal moments in my own money story that shaped my attitudes today, attitudes that mean I favour security over making lots of money.

1.     I learned at a young age how confusing money can be and how frustrating and exasperating the language is. I had just learned to count money, taught by my very patient father, but I learned in pounds, shillings and pence. When decimalisation was introduced the month before my fifth birthday, I was annoyed (not least because I had learned a quite difficult system that was no longer in use). But I also felt a sense of injustice – I became aware, through listening to my parents’ conversations, that some shopkeepers had taken advantage of the conversion to increase prices. Money seemed complicated, and not to be trusted

2.     As I approached seven, I learned something about the value of things vs. experiences when my mother – a wonderful parent in all other respects! – offered me ￡10 NOT to have a birthday party. Now I really wanted a party. My parents – both teachers, but at that point my mother wasn’t working – didn’t have a lot of money. I knew it meant a lot to her that I DIDN’T have a party. She valued that more than the ￡10, which in other circumstances, she would have conserved first. For me, that ￡10 was emotionally charged. It wasn’t just a transaction, and money took on a whole new meaning  

3.     At university, when I was considering career options, I realised the limitations of not having lot of money. I thought I wanted to be a barrister – but my parents really couldn’t support me through further study or non-earning years, especially if I had to live in London. Luckily I changed my mind, but the pressing need to earn to look after myself was very clear. Money felt like a restriction, and now carried with it a new emotional association 

4.     I then landed on my feet financially and went off to New York. I was paid in pounds and almost every month throughout my two year stint, the dollar weakened. In effect I got a monthly pay rise. I ended up being able to live very well for a graduate trainee, and was able to save a lot of my salary. It was a bit of a windfall, but I looked at that growing bank balance a bit uneasily. My previous associations with money were being challenged

5.     It turned out to be easy come, easy go. When I returned to the UK, my boyfriend and I wanted to get married, but he had negative equity that trapped him and his flatmate in their small flat. I was able to use my savings to get them out of their negative equity problem. I could now see that money could be powerful. But having bought the flatmate’s share we then struggled with double-digit mortgage rates, and money felt a big source of stress

6.     I then moved firms, got promoted and rapidly began earning a much higher salary. Although I became the sole breadwinner in our ever-expanding family, money became liberating. We could send our children to private schools, we could move to a proper house (at the time that was a good investment) and we quickly moved up the housing ladder. Although I felt very aware that this was a bit of luck, after that first adverse experience of the housing market it felt high risk. But as my income and wealth grew, I learnt to enjoy the security that money could offer - and I liked the choices it gave my family

7.     As I moved up the career ladder, I also learnt my value, what I might be worth to a business. There was one occasion where I was passed over for promotion, and another where I thought I was being underpaid relative to other colleagues, both of which gave me clear insights into when it came to pay inequality and a determination to be remunerated fairly for my work. Money could, once again, be synonymous with injustice (as when I was five). Except this time I could fight my corner     

8.     And finally, I learned the power of money to help change the world around me. That through either giving wisely or investing in purposeful companies, I could back those people and initiatives that I cared about. I learned the possibilities, the potential impact of money. Money became a tool, a resource to do more than just acquire, consume or alleviate – today, for me, money has the power to make a positive difference

Now forgive me for taking you through the details of my personal money story, but it’s essential that we break the taboos. We need to be conscious that money is a fraught subject, it’s not just another thing on the ‘to do’ list. Our childhood experiences of not having enough money to do the things we wanted, or the stresses in our lives when we have been in debt, are all critical aspects of how we might truly address the issues around money. From debt to savings, income to investments. Money needs to feel relevant, interesting, appealing, and not daunting, scary or boring. Only then, once we’ve overcome our natural reticence to talk – and think – about money, can we create a strategy to look after ourselves and our loved ones financially.