If I Speak - 116: I can’t stop worrying about money. Is there a way out?

Episode Date: June 9, 2026

* Come to see us at Crossed Wires in Sheffield on 4th July! https://crossedwires.live * Moya tunes into the background hum of money worries. Does our upbringing predict our attitude to finances? And does more money always equal more freedom? Plus: when to let go of a long-term romantic hangup. Send us your dilemmas: [e-mail] Music by Matt Huxley.

So you might feel that you've had more than enough of us for one summer, but just in case you are a thirsty, thirsty little piggy with your snout at the content trough, why not join us at Crossed Wires Festival in Sheffield on July 4th? You can get tickets at crossedwires. Live and there are going to be other live podcasters there as well. So just in case you want to add to your yapping diet, as well as if I speak, they'll be Blind Boy. There'll be bold politics with Zach Polanski and many more to boot. So go to crossedwires, dot live and grab your tickets there.

Oh, there's things falling. It sounds like when in wrestling, they're doing a backstage segment and they're trying to convey chaos. So they just knock some pipes over, like behind the camera. Oh, fuck. Oh, no. I've been reading more about your precious wrestling. What have you learned?

Vince, whose name I can never say. Macman. MacMahn, that's it. I keep calling him upon, and my boyfriend goes, what are you doing? Vince Macron. You saw Macron? Sorry, I'm a pan-African. Okay, anyway, not a nice man.

No, no, no, no. I mean, like, okay, one day I want to do a podcast. It doesn't even have to be a podcast series, just an episode of something where I just get to talk unfiltered about wrestling the whole time because it is there's something which Triple H. Paul Levick once said, which is that it doesn't create the American condition, it reflects it. And I actually think it's both. but when you peel back the layers of the story on Vince McMahon,

which is his father was a wrestling promoter, Vince McMahon Sr. But who wasn't in his life for the formative years of childhood. And the formative years of childhood were spent in like horrific abuse. Like, I mean, everything, the kitchen sink. And that combination of a horrendously abusive childhood when he was living with his mother and his stepfather, and then the sort of world of pageantry and power and exploitation that he witnesses when he moves in with his father,

that then sets the tone of everything that he does when it's WWF, WWE, including the sex trafficking. I didn't even get to that bit yet. I didn't even get to that bit. I just got to the bit where he did the bizarre... Storylines with his family and then the allegations against him and then also how they treated that, those boys who, got sexually abused.

Yeah, sorry, I should say alleged sex trafficking because alleged I've got to say allegedly fam but like there is like within the storylines

also sorry hello this is if I speak I'm Ash Sarka speaking with Moya Lothian McLean No this is a cold open this is the backstage and then we'll clink around some planks

and then we'll introduce ourselves do you mean a stone cold Steve Austin open I do I do indeed um there is like so he

he alleged I suppose trigger warning for discussion of sexual violence and childhood, he alleged that he was a victim of sexual abuse by his mother, as well as physical abuse from his stepfather. And there is something of this like compulsion to repeat

through the storylines, like infidelity, it's like strange, sexualized and also like, inflected by violence relationship with his own daughter, the blurring of the lines between sort of, a pantomime of sexual access to female talent, in particular, a wrestler called Sable, and then what was also going on behind the scenes. So it's become a cliche to say an abuser hiding in plain sight.

But what you're talking about is an alleged abuser, I have to say, who, if everything that's been alleged about him is true, is staging what he's doing on this huge stage that millions are watching and cheering for. It's crazy. It makes me tired thinking about it. We love to ignore what's being said to us directly. I don't think it's necessarily ignoring.

I think that it's bamboozling. I think that we have expectations of secrecy, which when they're not being fulfilled or upheld, is genuinely confusing. Yeah, like when Jimmy Saville, said, guys, my nonce and everyone, Jim will fix it. Jim will fix it. Jim will fix it.

All the other ones who's named, I can't name because of legal issues. But we know. Yeah, I'll ask you some questions that won't get you in trouble legally. Yeah, but they might, knowing your questions. Go on there and ask me some questions. Okay, this is our segment called 73 questions minus 70. Question one. who are the writers whose style in some way has influenced your own writing?

Oh, I mean, we say influence, but my writing is so fucking boring compared. But the people I think about and the people that I want to, I guess, emulate, be like one day and be able to capture the kind of things they do. It's weird, because there's people who have influenced me massively, but I would never be able to see their style. It's just the feeling. I would say Andrea Levy massive one Bernardine Evaristo

also if you haven't read that much Bernadine Pat Barker My Holy Trinity Pat Barker's great My Holy Trinity My Holy Trinity for the way that

They all do different things They all write very differently but they all elicit I guess a similar feeling in me I mean it's not it's not really coincidence that I guess they all deal with some form of historical fiction as well a lot of the time

but I think Pat Barker is so surgical in her dissection of people but they're so rich at the same time like I always remember descriptions of people and sex and it's like you're there with the blood and the guts and the you know the orgasm and the fluids and all of these kind of things and on the battlefields and in the sanatorium but at the same time there's this real like surgical element to it. Oh, it's so, she's so good. She's my number one. She's my top, top lady. And then

Andrea Levy for just the way that she can bring the past to life and the people to life. And they felt so real, like they're breathing in your face with slightly sour 1940s breath. And, you know, all tons this little white gloves. Oh, she was such talent. And Bernardino, and Ruth did for the, similar, there's a lyricism. There's a real lyricism. There's a real There's something about all the way these women write that just I one day would love to be able to elicit a similar feeling. What about you? Ooh, I asked the question and I realized that I didn't have answers for myself. I suppose when I was writing minority rule, there were two writers who were looming really, really large for me.

One was Stuart Hall. I don't think I write in a Stuart Hall way. but the shape of his analysis and also like the provocation that he offered of politics doesn't reflect majorities it constructs them that's so neatly encapsulated the thing that I was trying to write and I do love his style I love the poetry of his style I don't think that that's how I write but it's something which I love and there are a couple of pieces actually where um like there was a piece I wrote about Enoch Powell ages and ages ago for the Independent

where I could feel my little poundland Stuart Hall kicking in. I was like, let me write some poetry here, motherfuckers. The other is obviously Naomi Klein. I was going to say that's got to be. She's got to be in yours. 100% is in there. Though I think that she, well, no,

she writes in a way which is sort of lightly ironic sometimes. and there's also a willingness to look in the mirror at, you know, when she's talking about the dominance of brand identities and then she talks about how she brands herself, which I really, really like about her writing. So I suppose those would be the two big ones. Okay, second question.

Fridays or Saturdays? It's so hard because they both have their pros and then cons like Friday. you lose a day to work, but you are starting the weekend and that evening is stretching before you. So it's full of promise. Saturday, however, you have a full interrupted day to do anything. I think ultimately Saturdays. I think Saturdays because Saturdays are the meat of the matter, whereas Fridays are the anticipation. See, for that very reason, I'm a Friday. I'm trying to live in the moment and not in the future.

Do you know what day of the week you were born on? Yeah, of course. But Thursday's child is far to go. It was a mantra in my house. What that says about our family? I will let you decide. What about you? I was a Friday.

What's Friday's child? Monday's child is fair and face. Tuesday's child is full of grace. Wednesday's child is full of woe. I might be saying something's wrong. Thursday's child is five to go. Friday's child is, I think you're loving and giving. Saturday's child works hard for their living.

Or maybe it's Friday's child what's hard for living. No, I think it's Friday's child. I think you're loving and giving. but the child that is born in Sabbath day is Bonnie Blythe, good and gay. So I think you might be a Friday's child, so you might be loving and giving, but I might mix it up with Saturday.

I'm pretty sure Saturday is hard for their living. But I always had far to go in my head, my mum would be like, you're going to travel and you're going to go far in life. Oh, well, so. And my sister was very pretty, and she's Tuesday's child, so. The rhyme was right.

Okay, final question. If you could ask any person living or dead, a question that they were compelled to answer 100% honestly who would it be and what are you asking them? My father. Did you think about us? I think would be the question. I think that would be the question.

That's the honest answer. The first answer I had was Jack the Ripper, but I don't know who is. Well, that was the thing. I was wondering, like, would you go historical or would you go personal? Because if it's personal, I think it has to be father. And I think actually loads of people sort of would feel that way. Like, you know, it's almost a cliche of like that the father's love that you don't get and is out of reach and you want an explanation for.

Yeah. Yeah, I think it would have to be my father. Did you think about us? But then it would be good to know who Jack the Ripper's, but I'd have to know who it was first. If only get one question, you have to ask the person. I could, they just be like, no. No, I think you could say Jack the Ripper and then you could ask, who are you? It depends if this is a seance.

so if this is like they'd come back as a ghostly form, you know. Oh yeah, he better not be embodied. I'd be armed to the teeth if I was summoning Jack the Ripper. And now we're summoning. Like, this has turned into a coven situation. Don't fuck with these fucking ghouls and zombies, man. Like, it gets messy too quick. Yeah, I think it would have to be my father.

It would be like, did you think about us? Not why did you leave? Because I think I know why he left. Yeah. I think it's more, did you think about us? You know, did you regret it? what did you do with my money? What did you do with my money?

That would be the question. What about you? Okay, I think that despite similar situations with father, I actually feel in my heart of hearts I know the answers to the questions that I have.

And the only reason why I feel compelled to ask them again is because I'd want a different answer. But even the thing is also, like if you're asking these questions and you, they're compelled to answer. They're only compelled to answer their truth. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it's like you've met your father and you probably know that the truth he gives might not even be the truth because of the layers of denials and defense that's piled there. So still, still proper shit. So then maybe it's Robes Pierre when he, you know, because there's a real turning point for him,

or he has this, like, illness. And then he's like, okay, time to build a religion out of reason and, you know, rename all the months and, you know, rationalise, rationalize, rationalize. I think that it would be, did you just go mad? Or was this a real program or project? But would he be able to answer? I think he could

In my head he could answer Can a mad person recognise their madness? Yeah, I mean maybe Oh, or like there's got to be What was Shakespeare up to for those years When no one really knows what he was doing Like was he running off with some Catholics? Elizabeth I first

Did you shag? Did you shag? Did you shag? Like so many questions, so many important constitutional questions to ask, did you get laid? Did you get laid? Terrible question.

I think your questions are very like good and high-minded. There's so many questions you want answered from historical figures. If you, okay, right, sorry, I'm attacking on a last question.

If you had a superpower by which you could ask any question of anyone at any time and they would have to answer honestly every time you asked it, would you want that superpower? No.

I don't think that full honesty is actually always good for us. I think, I also think that, you know, like, it's really difficult because I think there's like, you know, I think I put people on my life. And if I was honest with them all the time, we would not have a relationship because I think dark things. I mean, human being, you know, like there can be things that you act from or think in your head and don't act from. And that's meant to stay in your head. That's something for you to deal with. And if I had a friend or a new partner who's asking me that moment, what are you thinking right now about this thing?

And I answered, honestly, like, that would be torpedoed. Don't touch the stove. Do you know what I mean? Don't touch a hot stove. I remember, yeah. Anyway, yeah, that's my answer. You actually, before we move on, before we move on, I've got a thought to share with you.

Oh my God, can we do instead of my fucking. No, no, no, it's not a real thought. It's such a short thought. So last week, as listeners may remember, I was in, And it was in Barcelona for work. But part of the reason why I wanted to go and do the work that was asked to do was because it would give me an opportunity to spend time with my best friend and her baby. And that was great.

Loved it. Had a great time. But the whole time with this baby, who's like a real happy little chapy, and he's very expressive now. So, you know, he moves his eyebrows around. His favorite things to go, ooh, because he's trying to communicate to you, the adult that he finds something interesting and you might find it interesting. And he's got a particular way of smiling.

And it was driving me mad because I was like there's an adult. Is it me? You remind me of. No. No, no, no, no, no. Who is it? It was your boyfriend. And it was only on the final day, I was like, oh.

Wait, my boyfriend. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The way this baby expresses himself. And he's also got a bit of the old strawberry blonde going, going on, which I think... It's the Celtic, isn't it? And something about his teeth and the way in which he like angles his face when he's smiling at you, I was like, ha!

That's my boyfriend. He's going to be listening to this because he listens to every single episode and we have a pact that he's only allowed to mention it once a month. He gets once a month. He's going to be listening to this and he's going to be fighting, fighting with every... Cell and his body not to text me about this and he's going to lose and he's going to text me. because I've just tipped him over the edge saying that

and he's going to love it he's going to love that he loves babies it took me so long it was like for the whole week I was going who the fuck do you remind me of I'm like racking my brain she know that is that's that is the power of Irish genes yeah that is the power

of Irish jeans has he got a big Irish head too he was born with a small head mercifully it'll come it's become a big head now it'll come it's the big Irish heads you know You either look Italian or you get the big Irish head. He's super chunky now as babies.

Or to be. Right. Take us to the meat of the matter. Oh, it's going to be a depressing one, folks. Trigger warning. Cash money. This is actually quite a triggering topic for a lot of people. But triggering in the way that we use triggering now,

which is a colloquialism that has been diluted from exact. meaning to, you know, something that's just like I find this mildly uncomfortable to talk about and I don't want to think about it, so I'm going to ignore it. That's what this trigger warning is. Right. Here's my intrusive thought. And it's really an intrusive thought because I think about this all the time. I am obsessed with money. I am obsessed with money and it's trapping me. The fact I've sung half of what I've just said tells you how uncomfortable and thinking about money. like if I start doing umdd um um um that means that means the cortisol is my system it means it means it's actually a great side of distress and you should put me down um

so yeah i have come to this realization that i possess with money over the last i think people around me knew probably knew much earlier than i did but it's taken six nine months maybe with a therapist to realize that the drumbeat that is perpetually in my hand is cash, cash, right? And that it's both not one of, I don't, I'm not driven by it, but it plagues me, which is a terrible position to be in, because at least if I was motivated purely by money, I could go out and get an evil corporate job and put all my moral side. Sorry to our listeners, you have an evil corporate job, I'm with you, I love you, and put, you know, be working for MasterCard

and just be like, it's fine, I've got my money. But because I'm not prepared to do that, yeah, let's see if I can sell out, I instead am in a period where I just ruminate it, ruminate on it all the time. So I feel really trapped by financial pressure. And I'm sure a lot of listeners can relate. You know, like it's to keep a roof over my head,

to maintain a lifestyle, to put money away, for the future, which is the hardest one of all. So at the moment I do, I would say regularly three different demanding jobs, and that includes a full-time one. And, but I'm not sensible with the work I'm doing because I do it all in industries where your wages are sort of capped, if especially in the UK, your wages are capped. I don't also have an ICER for savings because I'm like, well, what's the point? because I might need that liquid cash soon.

I can't get it out. I haven't invested in anything. I also live in the most expensive city in the UK, which is silly. And I'm not very good at selling myself. Like probably my friend's always telling me you should be able to sell your platforms and yourself a lot more than you do. But I have no idea how to do that.

And I'm also bad at networking. Like I'm very bad at going to someone and saying, hi, I could do this work for you. Would you like me to do this work? just really shy away from doing that. But the problem now is that I'm getting really tired and burnt out, which I've been on a cycle of doing like every year and then I've managed to shift something and it's fine for a bit and then it gets worse again. And I really want the time to pursue more long-term projects, but to do that, one, I'd need more financial cushioning and I also

fear earning less, you know, I feel like I can't drop something or change course. And I think one of the reasons I'm so stressed about this at the moment is because there was a point recently where I thought that I had made that financial cushion for myself. Like I'd got this book deal and I'd worked. I don't want to say hard enough because everyone I know works hard, whatever their earnings are. Like you can be looking job. You'd sort of been able to align the work you were doing with certain financial outcomes. Yeah, exactly.

And it's like I really, I worked like seven day weeks for a year. all my holiday was taken to write the book. So I didn't have holiday. And I don't think I have that in me again. It's like when you do something painful the first time, you can get through it because you don't know how much the pain's going to be. And the second time you can't get through that same thing because you know what the pain's like.

You just can't mentally make yourself push through that wall. So that's not really an option again. And I thought I'd built this cushion. And then just because of like light, I kind of have it in a halfway, but like life and tax, you know, that you don't realize how much you get taxed. It's so silly. It's like, you know, tax is good.

I shouldn't complain about tax, but it does put a further barrier on you if you don't have full generational wealth. And I just feel like so many people I know are in the same boat. And I'm from the middle class. Like I've had familial help, you know, but it's now the level of familial help you need to live independently for and do kind of like what you want to do

or be able to change careers or do these kind of things, is so much, so much that it's out of reach, I think, for most people I know. There's like two people I know who can do that. And it's hard to envisage your future without money. It's really hard to envisage your future without money or a stockpile of money. And so instead we're surrounded by this hustle culture

and this like you can't stop. And I think it burns you aren't even thinking about it. It's really impacting me. It's making really me resentful of friends who don't. have to worry about money who are just like well just do this I can't fucking do this I can't do this it's not an option to do this you know and it's I think other people in the same thing it's like this feeling of being trapped in the walls closing in and I'm envious of people who can muscle their way into role in

places just by asking I never ask so I'm in this terrible state paralysis and uncertainty and that is not a good place to be in and ultimately I'm like I need to learn a way to stop ruminating about money but I don't know how. There's my thoughts. Can you build a future without money? Um, okay, I have so many ways into this and I'm sort of torn between do I talk about sort of societal, cultural, structural elements of this or do I go, here's how I think it relates to you, the specific person who's talking to me about this and what it is? I feel like the list I want the second, but the The listeners were won the first.

No, the listeners want the second two and you're bullshitting. I don't think they do. They think I talk about myself too much. They do, they do. Look, I'm going to do both, but like I'm going to start with you. Because I'd love to talk culture and what that just was. Because there are some like structural elements to this, right? Like, I do think that there is a very particular thing about being middle class

where your expectations and the ones that you are socialized with about what education is going to do for you and what your life is going to do. to look like is coming up against, you know, falling prospects. So lofty expectations and falling prospects, I think, is a particularly middle class thing. And I think that there is a, you know, I think the left can sometimes be, you know, we turn the working class into a sort of, you know, uniformly decent strivers, that kind of thing. But like attitudes to money, in a sort of recollections may vary, attitudes to money may vary.

And actually a difference between me and my partner who, though I would say where I started out in life was lower in the socio-economic scale because of my mum being a single parent, she was definitely raised more culturally, middle class, passes that one to me. And then when she marries my stepdad, that's our like Jefferson's moment. So to say overall, I have much more of a middle class experience than he did growing up,

he has more of an easy come, easy go attitude to money, which is less anxious than mine. And I think that there is a class dimension to it. And I think that that's something which tracks with other people in my world who come from more working class backgrounds. It's not to say that there isn't. extreme precarity that comes from money, but there's sort of an expectation of like, well, this is what life is with money.

Like, it's not stable, and that's what it means to be alive, whereas the sort of the lofty expectations of the middle class is coming up against that financial precarity, I think, creates a particular kind of anxiety. And so I think that's part of what's going on for you. But I also think there's another thing.

And this is just coming from, you know, that some of the things that we speak about off the pod is that I think that you're a person who in your life you manage a load of contradictions all the time constantly constantly

and they're like these plates that you have to keep spinning and they're also spinning off in different directions and you're trying to contain it all within yourself and then what happens with you is that something snaps and you make a hugely transformative life decision.

So could be quitting Navarra, it could be moving to Glasgow, could be moving back to London, could be some of the things that you're considering and trying to do now with your life. Yeah. And I think that you,

I think that's something that is like maybe still to come for you in your life is going, here is the through line of my purpose. What if there's no through line? And also, how will it make me money?

But I think that, you know, money anxiety is like, it's a sort of, you know, it's real, right? The money anxiety is real. But like, you're not as financially precarious as you were. I mean, like, you know, your living situation is a lot more stable, yada, yada, yada. I think that money is sort of becoming a way to make tangible and legible. and it's also a condition which is shared by lots of people and it's a conversation which is very prominent within the circles that you move in and I move in.

It's an industry-wide discussion within the context of writing and journalism but it's also a preoccupation of the left. It's a sort of way to, yeah, make graspable this lack of control that you may feel that comes from, I'm a tumultuous mass of contradictions that I'm managing every day and then what happens is that it breaks and then I make a massive move in some direction. I mean that all sounds very legitimate.

I guess that's just my read. That's just my read. No, no, no. I do concur with that. I guess the, I think that's definitely part of it. I think the other aspects is, is the future stuff as well.

like I am thinking more about what a life would be like if I let some of the plates fall and what that could look like and what possibilities there are and it's difficult because I'm in a place of less precarity but it's still precarious like the flat that I live in a shared ownership right which means in about five years I won't be able to afford it either buy it or I can't afford it anymore because of the way the rent structure goes up so there's a limited time in which I can live here

or I have to make a lot of money and somehow buy it but that would be a stupid decision because it's going to be the price or four so much because London house prizes are vastly inflated and already stagnating. And it just seems like very, it seems like a stupid investment to me to do that at full price. But it's,

but like I think this is a question, which is, is a flat or a house, whatever is an investment? Or is it a forever home? By investment, I mean, I don't think what you buy when you're 30 is going to be the home you end up living in

because I'm also someone who knows that they want to move around little bit. When I say investment, I mean like you put your money in there for a bit. And I don't expect to come out with a profit. It's just like you want to sell it for what you've made so you're not a negative equity. That's literally what I mean. I'm not talking about profiting from it because I don't think housing should be something you profit from. But I also am very aware, like people move. And that's another aspect on this as well. It's like the idea of travel and people moving around and those experiences that I do find really important for me. Those are only possible with

a bit more money like having money and I have a partner who lives in a different country I mean still the UK but over the border and when you think of like how you would build lives together even in the short term

there's a lot of travel involved in that it's like how do you spend periods of time together my life is probably more flexible I'm able to do that more but yeah when it comes down to the money question again something I've been thinking about because we've been, you know, we're talking separately about property and like, oh, you know, you want to buy a house.

I've got friends who are trying to buy houses, etc. And it's just, it's really impossible for them. And they come from the same sort of backgrounds as me. And when I think about what this psychologically does as well to people, both of my class and in classes that have lower financial prospects, it's like that feeling of nihilism and hopelessness, that's what I think I want to get rid of. And I think of thinking about money leads me always this dead end of their, there is no hope.

And that's really difficult, an individual level. To feel like that, though, there's no avenues out. And I won, it was like, when you're surrounded as well by the hustle culture, it's these twin hammers of there's no hope and you're going to be tired all the time if you ever even want to, like, grind your way out of this. So I don't, and I think we're pressing on the wrong levers. Like it's this individualist, you've got to pull yourself out of this mess. You've got to, like, pull yourself out by your bootstraps.

Instead of, okay, is there any way we could, you know, force the gun? government to change policy, but maybe there isn't, that's the problem. I go over this stuff again and again in my head and I just see a dead end. And I think, what does that dead endedness do to us culturally? Like, what generation does it make? I mean, what you're talking about is a lost generations that are a product of a social contract which is broken down. and the understanding is that each successive generation from, you know,

2008 onwards, is going to age into an economy, which is more precarious and more extractive and less stable in terms of being able to form a life, form families. And I'm not just talking about having kids. I'm also talking about forming a couple, forming a household that can provide you with emotional stability, like all of these things. I think all that stuff is true and it's real. And I also think about the expectations of hustle culture,

which is, well, are you really working if you haven't monetised absolutely every single second of your day? it's the intrusion of work into everything that you are. And that's something which is being reflected back to us through our means of leisure. So, you know, if you have a phone and a laptop which you use for purposes which aren't just work, your leisure activities are themselves, something is being extracted from you and then you're going, well, should I extract back a bit? You know, should I monetise all these things that I'm doing?

So I think that tiredness is structural. I also think that there is a psychological component. And I was thinking about this with relation to gambling. So I just, you know, I have many advice. I love all my vices. I tend to them like a beautiful garden. But gambling has just never been one of them. and I find it other than like occasionally playing the lottery in the euro millions

I just can't part with my money in that way and in a really I mean you know I'm not saying my partner has a gambling problem at all because he doesn't it doesn't gamble but I remember we went to south end on sea and we went to the arcades and he was like just playing the you know the penny slots with the shelves. And I could, he was just like, coin after coin was going in there.

Like it was becoming like really compulsive. And I was like, no, no, that's enough for you. Let's play, you know, the motorbike game or something where like,

it's, you know, I could just see that it like hooked something in his head. Like it just sort of, um, you know, really hacked one of the reward cycles in his brain in a way which like, it just,

it doesn't for me. And he was like, yeah, no, I was like, this is a kid as well. And I think that there is, is an element of how we've been raised and the way in which gender works for us, which is

for me such a huge part of my childhood, particularly when my mum's a single mom was understanding how unsafe she felt. She felt so unsafe because economically she and therefore we, her children, was so precarious. And I think that she did a very good job, you know, of, like, containing that and creating a childhood which felt happy and full of possibility. But you can't contain all of it. Like, it exerted this, like, gravitational force within the family.

And a big part of how she's raised me to think about money and not just her, but also my godmother. who was her best friend, Sarah, she was always like, she's Australian, so I'm about to do an absolutely awful accent. She was like, you know, you can fuck with anything you like in your life, but not your money, not how you keep a roof over your head. Like, and I'm like six years old and I'm like, okay, auntie. Let me write that down.

And that's become hugely informative. So for me, money has this meaning of safety and safety, and survival. And the death drive that I associate with men and how they view money, right? You know, they just got to keep putting the coin in the penny slots. I'm just like, oh, that's scary for me. That's very, very scary. So like, yeah, me and my partner have relatively separate finances,

which for me is a safety thing. So I think that it's part of this question of like, how do I stop ruminating on money? It's like, well, you can't. That's the world you live in. But for me, a question is, well, what does money mean to you? Because for me, it's so woven into that story of childhood and how I think about heterosexual relationships and the vulnerability I feel within a heterosexual relationship. Those are the overt things you learned about money, but I'm interested in also what the subliminal things you learned about money were, because I'm thinking there's two different things in my head about what I learned overtly from my mother.

and then the other messages I got about money and where it comes from. Ooh, okay, well, why don't you tell me yours and then what you mean? So when I think about this, right, my mum was always, she tried so hard to financially educate us. It was always, you know, here's books on how to, the teenager's guide to saving your money. This is what money means. Like, you get pocket money and she'd be, say, like, you should put this away, don't spend it all. Like, you know, you have to get Saturday jobs the moment you turn 16. that I'm not going to give you loads of money,

et cetera, et cetera. But the subliminal message I got was there was never any money, but it was also always there. So she was always like, we don't have any money. There's no money. We get child benefit. But then I had my stepfather who did have money and he would always keep us afloat.

So there was a constant stream of, I guess, patronage. Patronage is what I'd call it, for the important things. Like I didn't miss a school trip. If I needed a new school uniform, I got a new school uniform. But it wasn't, luxury spend so we weren't going on you know like big holidays the Bahamas etc but we still lived a very middle-class lifestyle you're like we went to the late district that cost fucking money you

know but I was told constantly that my mother didn't have any money I don't have any money there's no money I can't you know I remember one of my most vivid memories is my um French teacher yelling at me on the year 9 school trip because he was he had anger managed problems I was you know when we saw these things were like kids only later do you realize that that actually was was totally abnormal on Aberra and that shouldn't have happened, that he was that angry and everyone was so scared of him. And finally a child was like, actually, this isn't normal, complained and he was fired.

But until then, there were generations of children who talked of his legend because he was so scary. Anyway, but I happened to be his target for that day. And he yelled at me so much and it made me cry and wouldn't let me go down the fucking Glacier because he, I'd worn normal trainers to go on a walk. We were like doing a walk in the hills. And there was a girl on the trip who had the same fucking trainers as me,

but he picked me out. And he, like, screamed at me about these trainers. And I said, well, we can't afford any new trainers. Because that's what my mum had told me. Like, we can't afford walking boots. And he obviously got angrier because I'd made him look like Fagan. Like, like little of a twist. I can't.

Sorry, sir. Please, sir. So he screamed at even more. And I just remember that so distinctly of this like, oh, yeah, like, we couldn't afford this thing that he just assumed should be possible. But as I've got older, that sort of has fallen away as well. well, like when I've asked for help or, you know, for big things, like the deposit for the shared ownership, then my stepfather gave it to me. So it's like, I actually have a lot of financial advantage and privilege, but I grew up thinking I was constantly precarious. And that has, and also

that men hold money and you ask them for money and I never wanted to be in that position. And yet I still am. Like I've asked my stepfather to help me at times. So I'm con, like you say, it's this massive of contradiction and shame around money, I think, as well, that I'm not holding my own properly, that I have had, you know, X, Y, Z help. And even when I earn the money, there's also a guilt with it. Like, I need to pay this forward immediately. Like, I need to give it away because I don't, I don't, like, I want this money so badly that it must be a shameful thing and I must get rid of it. So, and when I was young, when I was in like my, you know, I got an overdraft and I got into like loads of debt with my overdraft. And then I had to take out a big loan to pay it or

to consolidate it. And then I had to slow. slowly pay back that loan, which in the pandemic, luckily I finished it off thanks to like working three jobs. But there's this constant state of there's money always there somehow, but there's always precarity. And those two things don't reconcile in my head. So even when I have money, I don't recognize it. Yeah. I mean, I think, I think that's quite a common thing. I mean, for me, um, the subliminal thing. Because like, you know, mom didn't give me like finance lessons or anything like that. That didn't happen. Um, but, what I saw from her is that she, I mean, she's retired now, but she's still a working obsessive.

Like, she, I would say, like, you can take the girl out the local authority, but you cannot take the local authority out of the girl. And so she just, she, she creates projects for herself, and then she attacks those projects with a sledgehammer. And that's a quality I really like about her and I wonder where I got my poor sense of boundaries between work and life from. But, you know, it's a good thing. But she was, she was always like that with work. So that was one thing I was picking up subliminally, which is that if you're, if you're going to work, you smash it with a sledgehammer. Like, you know, you just, you go all out all the time for the thing that you're doing. And the other was a real contempt for wastefulness.

but then what that means is if I lose something or I break something, I feel so immensely guilty about it. I feel so guilty about it. Like I can't remember what it was, but I was with my partner somewhere on holiday and I lost something, right? It just, you know, I lost it. and I was beating myself up like crazy and he was just like what do you you can afford to buy a new one of these like you know you're so fine and it was because and those odd times where you know it didn't happen often but I just remember it because the strength of her emotion was so um was so clear to me is that when my mom was really really stressed about money and you know

I'd lose a new hairband or something and she would just you know she would take it out on me and it wasn't often, but it was just, you know, no one can be perfect all the time, is that that really impacted on me, because I had an understanding that I had a role even at that age to play in the family finances, and that was to not waste and to not lose things and to not, not fritter. And I've internalised that to the extent that, like, I just feel awful about myself if I lose something or break something. Like, I feel dreadful. But then also a tiny bit contemptuous because, like, my partner is a man who is spectacularly unencumbered by guilt. He's encumbered by other things.

He experiences existential dread and I don't. Like, he'll wake up and he'll be like, I'm going to die one day and I'm like, yeah, we all are. It's fine. And he's like, but no, for real. But he's not encumbered by guilt is that if he loses something and he's such a, I don't mean he's a loser, like, loser, but he's a, he's just constantly like shedding items as he goes.

And so whenever we're out together, I'm like picking up things which are fallen out of his pocket. And so inevitably, he loses themselves. is that there's this part of me that I have to really get a grip on where I'm like, don't you know the value of money? Don't you know the value of things? And that's my mum's voice ringing in my head. That's your mum's voice. Yeah, I'm, my mum is also very contemptuous of waste, but I didn't quite get that because I think I lost so many things when I was younger that I, I'm like, it happens. Like you just have to find a way around it. You know, you have to,

it's more the adaptation after the waste. When you've lost a phone, I'm like, well, okay, just buy a flip phone and just carry on with your day. And people who flap about and be like, I need the phone back. I'm like, no, get a new phone. So I have a moving on. It's gone. I find that so hard to do.

Because even though I know, you just lose things. You cannot go through life without misplacing things. Like, it's going to happen. I self-flagellate like a motherfucker. I think, I wouldn't say my boyfriend is quite self-flagellating, but he will go and just try and find the thing.

he loses things at a massive rate but he's a finder of things and hence you know finding getting the phone from the roof when he lost his glasses he'd go ring the bar three times I'm not ringing the bar of my fucking words they're gone they're gone

now I'll be wearing the petrol station glasses but yes okay so money you have a fear and shame around the idea of waste of money do you feel comfortable now do you feel secure in your financial position it depends it really really depends

And what it depends on is am I thinking about it? If I'm not thinking about it, I feel great. The minute I start thinking about it, I don't. And I am more financially secure than I've ever been. And I suppose this is the thing which I'm trying to get at, is that there are these conditions. And part of, I think, these feelings of anxiety are a reflection of conditions. Even if they're not always an accurate reflection of your position within them,

there's that fear, right? There's that fear of how fast things can change. But then there is also, I think, money. you know what is it Mark says you know it's the social contract in your pocket you know it is a it is a tangible expression of social relations which are to do with class and property and inequality but also gender also family also all of these things

and so that's why in this conversation I'm quite keen to get to what is the emotional function that money plays in your life because it's not just about your purchasing power. It's not just about the assets that you do or don't have to your name, though that is a really important part of it. It is also what does that create or do to your sense of self? Well, it's freedom, isn't it? Like money, this is the thing, I associate money with the freedom

to organise my life as I wish without the same, and the ability to provide for people, so that I don't feel guilty. But that's so funny, right? Is that like, I agree, right? For me, I say, well, money, I would say maybe, because I think freedom and control are the same thing, and I think that you may as well,

I'm like, oh, well, money gives me mastery over my life, therefore that's freedom, right? Whereas if you think about broke hippies, right? And I know that, you know, hippies are unfairly maligned as coming from privilege, which many do. But, you know, there's someone that I'm thinking of who,

I met in Provence, who we used to joke like, oh, he sleeps under a mulberry tree. No one really knew where this dude came from, but he's like a sort of real itinerant, broke hippie. And he would say, well, you and your pursuit of money is not a pursuit of freedom. I have freedom. I have it because I'm fine with living a... itinerant, unrooted, not particularly luxurious lifestyle. That's freedom.

And so that's the thing is that like it's not, you know, it's not that money equals freedom. It's like, well, you know, for us it does. And that's a product of certain assumptions and ideologies as well. Doesn't mean it's wrong, but it's a product of those things. I think that's true because I feel like I'm trapped in circumstance because of my monetary goals. I think obviously it also depends on the,

person. Like there is a single mother out there who for her money would mean a lot more freedom. But I also know within the sort of, I guess, loosey-goose creative class that I inherit and inhabit inhabit and habit in London that there's multiple people I'm thinking of who are fuck all money and seem to be everywhere all the time because they get by on sort of twigs and bits of string and calling in favours and, you know, room swapping and just getting cheap things and foregoing certain things in order to do other things. And they live a very lot, almost like, borderless life. I think of people in certain squats who live like this borderless life. And I get really envious because they don't play by the rules as well. They, you know, they'll break into

things. They'll shoplift constantly. And they're not burdened by this sense of if I do this, play by these rules and I do this thing and I pay my tax on time, then I will, you know, it will return to me. Whereas I feel so burdened by it. Different set of burdens though. That's the thing is that like... Everyone's got burdens. Yeah.

The grass ain't always greener. Everybody got burdens. I choose to get burdens and suck to this bread. I mean, there's someone I know who lives in a squat and also has a young child. And in some ways lives that, you know, loves self like a maximum freedom in terms of like not being super tied to a structure and a rhythm of earning money. And there are things about that which make him a very adventurous and alive person.

But I've also seen the other side of it. And I've also seen just how much he's struggled to manage all these contradictions in his life and the obligations that he has. So that's the thing is that like, my hippie under the mulberry tree lives a life which is like relatively free of obligations but if you want a life that includes obligations to other people,

whether it's having a child or a partner or a family and all the beautiful things that come with it that then pulls you into this thing of having to interact with money to a certain degree and so I don't know I genuinely believe don't romanticise anybody's life like don't and don't see the lives other people lead as a sort of like, you know,

fantasy escape hatch because, because nothing is. And I think that this is one thing, which is, you know, as someone who is riddled by anxiety and self-loathing, I actually really love my life and don't, and I actually like really embrace it with all of the problems that it has because like this is my one. Yeah, I mean, I think there'll be listeners who are like, well, I don't even have that level of like comfort and security. So they'll be, they'll say, I really wish I had more money. And that's like the emigreed always says, you know, your money doesn't solve your problems, but it solves your money problems. Just to be clear here, I'm not talking about like, you just love how little money you have if you have,

if you have little money. It's a, that's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is don't rail against your attitude towards money, thinking that if you had a different disposition towards money, you'd feel better about money. That's what I'm saying. It's about disposition rather than actually how much money you have. I'm saying like you have your disposition towards money.

You're not going to change it. Maybe, maybe. I guess the ultimate question to wrap this up is, I think everyone who's listening, apart from if they are in the top top sort of like one percentile probably is plagued by the same feelings of like no future even if that's not quite accurate for their financial position how do you get out from under that and live your life anyway

I would say two things is that lower your expectations increase your political activity yeah like and that might sound odd but by lower your expectations like if you are saying I need this level of security before I have kids you're probably not going to have kids but if you go actually like

I'm going to have kids we're going to have a really happy life but we're not going to be able to have middle class lifestyle which includes this this and this you can have kids you know this I mean by like I think that a lot of the people who are most anxious

about having children and going money's that's going to stop me from having children tend to be like people who have raised middle class like me and you Like friends mind who come from my class, black friends are like, oh, we did it.

Like it's like really hard sometimes but we've done it because it's the thing that's worth doing because the expectation isn't of a middle class life for their children. So lower your expectations, increase your political activity. Because like I said, those structural conditions exist. And you are not going to find an individual solution to them

unless you win the lottery. We'll start a partner scheme again. or like a two-person fund to buy a house. Maybe I should do that. Let me should start a fund to buy a house with a friend. So, well, we did. That's true. That's very smart. Okay.

I'm going to start thinking about that. Right, dilemma. Do you want to read it? Yes, so this is, I'm in Good Trouble, our Dilemma's segment. If you are in Big Trouble, email if I speak at Navaramedia.com. I've just been hit by anxiety. that I feel like I was sounding like, just don't worry if you don't have money.

That is not what I'm saying at all. That is not what I'm saying. But I think I just feel anxious out of nowhere. That's fine. That was my, I'm in big trouble. Right. Now, for a listener, I'm in big trouble. Hi, Moira and Ash.

I have a dilemma that is equal parts, romantic, psychological and complicated by the hubris of my academic ambition. I love the word hubris, by the way. I always loved it. was never certain of what it meant until quite recently. For the last few years, I, 23M, have been desperately hung up on a boy I was never quite properly with, which I think has made the whole thing worse.

He repeatedly drifted in and out of my life in ways that left me emotionally stranded, and although after one resounding final heartbreak where I decided we're no longer speaking, I've never fully managed to detach him from my sense of self-worth or my idea of what my future was supposed to look like. With time, both myself and the people close to me have come to suspect that part of the reason this has lingered so long is that he became mentally entangled in my head with the very prestigious university that he attends. He studied there while I was still elsewhere, and I think I quietly absorbed the idea that this institution represented intelligence, beauty, sophistication, confidence, or the things I worried I lacked and knew he possessed almost naturally. I'd be lying if I said that my eventual application, at this very university for a master's degree was entirely unrelated to him,

which along with much of this story is admittedly mortifying to confess out loud. Somewhere deep down, there is a tiny status-obsessed goblin in my brain that should know much better than to mythologise elite institutions or anything or anyone this much. The problem, I actually got in. And to be fair to myself, I'm proud as fuck, and I really do want to study this program with all my heart. After a bit of understandable scepticism, the people in my life have rapturously come around to the fact

that this course is genuinely perfect for me. It's only taught at two other institutions in the country, and this is the best one. I'd be silly not to go. It's exciting. So now I'm moving there later this year, and I'm having the deeply surreal experience of achieving something I genuinely worked very hard for,

while also feeling like I'm walking into the physical setting of a four-year emotional fixation. complicating this further is that we're both from the same hometown and from strangely overlapping social worlds not just mutual friends but the kind of overlap where families vaguely know each other and your mom knows their mom I think there's something oddly boy next door about it all except queer people don't always get clean culturally recognized of that story I sometimes wonder whether I've romanticized the whole thing partly because it felt like access to a narrative I'd unconsciously wanted my whole life not just desire but familiarity recognition social symmetry, maybe also competition. Because if I'm honest, there's probably a comparative element to all this too.

With similar in age, background, interest, politics, social circles. Sometimes it's felt less like a straightforward heartbreak and more like being haunted by an alternative version of myself, which seemed more effortless, more desired, more self-assured. I suspect the psychoanalysis of this particular element, along with the queer dimension, could run deep. not be surprised to hear I've already undertaken plenty of psychoanalysis on this myself. Despite my initial naivety, I've accepted that the chances are higher than not. I'll probably bump into him at some point. The university is socially small and mutual acquaintances already exist. I flip between the dread, disinterest, irritation and I'll admit,

indulgent excitement at the thought of a run-in, and when I care, I'll find myself obsessively rehearsing possible encounters in my head. I think what I'm really asking is, how do you meet someone again once they've stopped just being a person and become a bit of a symbol? How do you stop treating an encounter like the climax of a story you've been delusional narrating to yourself for years? And practically, and frankly, more importantly,

if I do bump into him in some corridor or parlor-terrible party, what on earth do I actually say? I'd like to stop ruminating and just be equipped with my pre-prepared line. That's such a contradiction in terms. pre-pre-pre-preparing and stop ruminating. So I can attempt to move on in my life and my exciting new chapter.

Love you, love the podcast, your ever-faithful special one. P.S. Aschmusa really is that cat. I know. PPS. Coise. Yes. Coys. I want you to go first, but I have one thing to say, which is help. I'm trapped in an Evelyn War novel. Okay, go on. Brighthead Revisited.

Revisited. It's literally, Bricehead revisited Too Fast, Too Furious. My God. Bride's had revisited, Oxbridge drift. Literally. Like, also the other thing I thought was, so you're at Oxford or Cambridge. Now what?

Get onto the student rooms. Special one. Special one, we're not laughing at you. We're laughing with you because you wrote this in a way, which is also very, very self-aware and very entertaining. So I don't think we're going to tell you anything that you don't know about yourself. This person is a fantasy.

And I think that you've probably done a bit too much psychoanalysis and you're tying this fantasy to class, to status, to queerness, to this, to that. You're doing something which is actually universal to the human experience. And I say this as a common or garden heterosexual, which is everyone fantasizes about a love object and blurs the line between what would happen if I possesses, this love object and what would happen if I became this love object and you are not the first person to make a crazy life choice because you're trying to both become and come into contact with

and catalyze a relationship with the object of your desires like I've done this I mean not like this exact thing, but on a smaller scale, I've done this. I've got some friends who've done this on bigger scales, where they're so deep into the fantasy of this other person that they've moved homes, neighborhoods, cities, countries, you know, they've put themselves in these different settings because the fantasy has become so powerful for them. And my advice would be, do the course because sounds great universities are big and they're intense um you will meet more people than just this other person but actually your you know the psychoanalysis is giving you the illusion of insight and that illusion of insight is becoming a permission slip for continuing

to ruminate and think about and fantasise about this person. It's not actual insight leading to greater control of yourself or the situation. It's an intellectualized, quite frankly, way of going, I'm just going to keep thinking about my crush. I've got practical advice, which is this. I think you should write this into a small 30,000 word novella. I think you should. I think you have obviously an active,

and maybe a bit frustrated imagination and fantasy life. And the people I know who have the richest fantasy lives and have a similar propensity to you to do what you have done, which is turn this person from a person into a whole heap of nightmarish, terrible, wonderful visions. I, and they are the best writers I know. and this letter is written really well and I think genuinely

you might actually find some closure if you write yourself a new ending I think that's the thing is that actually like you know lean into something which you're clearly very talented at which is storytelling

and maybe it'll help you arrive at the conclusion that this man is just a man yeah there's like a really silly I've really loved the comedian Dylan Moran you know the Irish

dude. Black books. Black books. And I can't remember what the show was, but it's become like a real touchstone for like me and a particular friend

where he talks about the differences between Protestants and Catholics. And he says, you know, Protestant walks into a room and he sees a biscuit. He goes, oh,

a biscuit, how lovely. Might put it in my pocket, might eat it. I'd save it for later. It's just a bickie. And then like, the Catholic walks into the room. He's like, oh, fuck!

Oh, there's a biscuit. And then it's like, Oh, the shame. And then, oh, I can't tell what tastes better the biscuit or the shame. Like, it's just like going around and around with it. And that phrase of, it's just a bickie. It's just a bickie. It's become a sort of short hand for a quality that I would long to possess, which is, it's just a bickie.

It's just a man. It's just a boy. Yeah, you thought your way out of it. You have to make it boring to you. And I think what you needed something else is exciting. And I actually think having a written project that draws on these themes, Evelyn Wall style. I think you could actually do something quite fun with this about you've got all these interesting character traits already

you know like this this boy next door narrative this man who follows his crush or his on-off lover to university without the knowledge and then builds a life without him like there's a great constantly thinking about what happens when you bump into each other when you're never to be bumping each other by the way it's just going to be an awkward high and then move on it might be some frizzon flirting but like it won't come to anything And look, you might be someone who experiences life in this way, right?

You have these, like, very intense fantasies about people. You play out the story for a bit. But if what you want is a real relationship, a real relationship doesn't exist on narrative and fantasy. Like, actually, like, the extent to which you can narrativize the other person, it just diminishes. It just goes on diminishing. But what you have is this like really rich knowledge of their idiosyncrasies and foibles.

And so they become less of a type or like you actually start understanding types through them, right? So you start seeing like, you know, Joe Blogs type beat wherever you go, right? Because you're seeing the person like in all these other people rather than seeing the person through archetypes that exist in. romantic fantasy. And I think that's a really beautiful thing. But that is very different from, and, you know, I'm just thinking about what you've said about like longing for the boy next door, is that that's so different from like trying to play out fantasies in real life and, um, shoehorning. Well, it's actually a very like rich and one of one experience into recognisable categories. And the more that you lie in bed at night thinking about all the different ways that

your encounters will turn out and how it will play out, the more, look, the more detached you are from the actual reality of the relationship. And the more it's a sign that maybe you've got some things going on there. But my main thing is I would write this. Like, turn into a book. I don't, I don't lie in bed away. I don't lie in bed at night thinking about what I would say if I ran into my husband. Because the motherfucker is right there.

I think about what I would say if I run into any one of my nemesies, right? Like they've sort of taken the place of a love object for me. And then, um, Oscar Isaac when he was playing the dad in June. Oh, God. Good thing. The only thing I fantasize about in relation to my partner, the part is sort of not safe for work kind of stuff, you know, because he's so real to me that I don't have to, as you say,

fantasize in that way. There's things I dream about doing with him, but it's very different to this constant playing out of storylines. He's not a story, he's a real person. Anyway. Anyway, special one. Have a great time at your unnamed institution, which is either Oxford, Cambridge,

or maybe Durham out of push. Have a wonderful time now. Have a wonderful time. Bye. All right. Bye.