Six years ago, a podcast called The Receipts exploded into our ears, bringing the best ever WhatsApp chat to life – it was like having three best friends in your pocket, on hand to help you unpick the light and shade of being a woman in the world today. Now, the show – hosted by friends Audrey, Tolani and Milena – have more than 100,000 listeners every week tuning in to their Spotify exclusive podcast, and a Sunday Times bestselling book, Keep The Receipts, under their belts. 

At this point, the trio are bonafide agony aunts, trusted with working through the knottiest of topics with their listeners each week, and so when it came to the Stylist Live 2022 stage on Friday 11 November, what better to talk about than what they will happily be leaving behind in 2022? 

For Tolani, the answer was unsurprisingly relatable. “A bad habit I have is procrastination,” she said. “I’ll make a plan and say, ok, I’m gonna do this, this, and this and then it just won’t happen. I am a hard worker and I have days where I just bang things out but I also have days where I think, why work hard when you could just not?”  Hard relate. 

This, however, brings up another issue many of us are currently wrestling with: burnout. “I’d like to learn to stop myself before I get to that point,” said Audrey. “There are times when I try to cram in everything – I hate having things left on my to-do list – when actually, I could just carry some things over and that’s OK. I don’t have to do everything all in one day.” 

Women undeniably turn to The Receipts for relationship advice, and it’s here things took a humorous turn. “I would like to leave men with bad hygiene in 2022. Women are dating men who don’t shower and smell and don’t know what to do about it.” On a slightly more serious note, the trio all agreed they’d like to leave friendship breakups in 2022. “Friendship breakups are so real and so heartbreaking. In 2023 I’d like to keep all the friends I have, thank you very much,” said Audrey. 

Tolani agreed: “It takes a lot for me to be done with friendships, but when I’m done, I’m done. But what I don’t do is ghosting – I think it’s really cruel, let’s also leave that in 2022.” 

When it comes to what to keep with us in 2023 – after a rocky, hellscape of year for lots of us – Milena was quick to land on self-confidence. “I feel like the way that I’ve been speaking to myself lately has been nice and I’d like to keep that up.” For Tolani, it was a sense of playfulness. “I just want to be a bit naughty and bring a sense of playfulness into my style, my beauty looks, everything.” We second that. 

Image: Bronac McNeill