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4 min read
New research has revealed that almost four in 10 of us feel uncomfortable talking to friends about our finances. Here’s how to have open and honest conversations about money, according to experts.
Ask anyone what the ‘no-go’ topics at a dinner party are, and they’d probably say sex, politics and religion. However, it appears that money may be the most taboo subject of all, with one study from 2020 finding that people in the UK would rather divulge details on politics, health and sex before they talked about debt.
And, recent research seems to agree with this. RiseUp recently discovered that almost four in 10 of us don’t feel comfortable talking to our friends about money. The financial wellbeing platform also found that almost half of us feel worried, anxious and stressed just two weeks into the monthly pay cycle, showing the detrimental effects that money worries are having on our mental health.
Many of us can relate to wanting to be able to talk to a friend about money, but feeling uncomfortable doing so. We’ve all had that hen do invite where we’ve wanted to say “Sorry, I can’t afford it” or the planned trip to a restaurant that falls just before payday and we’re down to the last £10 in our bank account. “When friends share their financial experiences, whether it’s about budgeting, saving, investing or managing debt, it fosters a learning environment that can lead to better financial decisions,” explains Myron Jobson, senior personal finance analyst at Interactive Investor. “Friends can be a great source of motivation and help keep you on track with your financial goals.”
If you’re reading this and feeling like you relate, there are steps that you can take to help make that conversation just a little less awkward. Stylist asked two finance experts for their three top tips on opening up to friends about what’s going on financially.
Accept your differences
Often, arguments or grudges begin over money when one friend has different views to the other. For example, you may believe splitting the Uber bill is the fairest thing to do or perhaps you don’t think twice about paying for the full trip.
Whichever side you or your friends fall on, the important thing to remember is that nobody is necessarily wrong. “When it comes to disagreements about money, people often try to ‘win’ the argument and convince the other that they are right and the other is wrong,” says Vicky Reynal, financial psychotherapist and author of Money On Your Mind: The Psychology Behind Your Financial Habits. “This, however, will often lead to a stalemate rather than help friends resolve conflict. It’s important to respect differences, and by that, I mean accepting that your view is not better or worse than your friend’s – it’s simply different. Your friend might prefer to split the bill evenly because it will save everyone time (and be equal), but you value fairness, so for you it feels more important to split it so that people only pay for what they consumed. But who is to say that equality is more important than fairness (or vice versa)? It’s just a different view – and we need to leave room for disagreement before we can be in the right mental space to seek compromise.”
Credit: Getty
Be open and honest
While it may feel stressful, it’s important to tell your friends when you can’t afford something. “‘It’s out of my budget’: these words seem so difficult to utter to friends,” says Reynal. “They may feel like dangerous words to pronounce because they will leave us feeling exposed, embarrassed or even judged. Yet, what most people don’t realise is that more often than not, when someone dares to say that a gift, a trip or a restaurant is out of their budget, someone else in the group will follow and say, ‘Actually, me too.’”
“It’s no guarantee, but because we don’t normalise money talk, many of us spend more than they would want to because of peer pressure,” she adds. “They struggle to be transparent, so being the one who kicks off the honesty chain can be met with gratitude and a sigh of relief from others, rather than the judgment we feared.”
Set your boundaries
Although it can be really helpful to open up to friends and be honest with them about money, it’s also OK to set boundaries regarding what you are and aren’t comfortable discussing. “It’s OK to set boundaries about what you’re comfortable sharing,” explains Jobson. “If there are certain aspects of your finances that you’d rather keep private, that’s perfectly acceptable.”
Jobson adds that if you don’t want to share exact numbers, it can still be good to discuss things more broadly. “There may be good reasons why you don’t want to talk about the amount you have in savings, for example, but there are ways of talking about money without having to reveal sensitive information,” he says. “Discussing investment choices, for example, is a good way to talk about investing without using numbers.”
Images: Getty
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