The Netmums Podcast - S10 Ep3: Some sound financial advice with Claer Barrett

Episode Date: May 9, 2023

Claer is the Consumer Editor of the Financial Times and presenter of the "Money Clinic" podcast. Here she talks to Jennifer Howze about ways that we can all make our money go a little further. This episode is sponsored by Aldi.

This episode of the Netmamas podcast is brought to you by Aldi. Wendy, I don't know about you, but buying everything we need in our weekly shop, it can all add up. And I'm starting to dread going to the supermarket in case prices have gone up even more. I know exactly what you mean. But do you know what my secret is? Oh, do tell. I shop at Aldi. They have an excellent range of great value products. They even have an award-winning baby and toddler range, which includes weaning essentials, nappies and wipes.

It's funny you should say that because another friend told me that she switched to Aldi Mamiya and it's giving her big savings. Yes, plus with Netmums and Aldi, new parents can get a pack of newborn nappies absolutely free so log on to our site and let your friends know about this awesome opportunity with netmums and aldi perfect i'm off to aldi you're listening to the netmums podcast with me wendy gollage and me jennifer howes on this week's show even if the financial situation right now is dire, just don't lose sight of thinking about the future and even the current economic environment, the cost of living crisis,

runaway inflation, it's not going to be like this forever. But before all of that... Hello everyone, I'm Jennifer Howes, Editorial Director of Netmoms, and I'm here today to talk to a guest whose new book may just change your life. That's because this guest and her book are all about money. I'm thrilled to be chatting with Claire Barrett, who's written a new book called What They Don't Teach You About Money. That title gives a preview of what's inside. Now, if like a lot of people, you feel like the words financial literacy or learning about money makes you instantly scared or bored or confused or overwhelmed or even guilty and depressed about the state of your own bank balance and finances.

Then keep listening. None other than Martin Lewis, a money saving expert, has praised how clear Claire's writing is on the subject. He's called her a great champion of financial literacy. Lorraine Kelly has called the book indispensable in these tough times and bursting with common sense. You're going to want to hear what Claire has to say about the real ways we can make changes to our money. So welcome, Claire. Well, thank you for having me, Jennifer. It's an honor to be on your show. Well, we are delighted to have you here. Now, just quickly, a little bit more from your bio.

You're a Financial Times columnist. You've been a financial journalist for 20 years. And you also run the Money Clinic podcast, which I love. It's a fantastic podcast. Thank you. And on Lorraine, you are part of their Saver Squad and you run credit card clinics. I think what's really interesting for Netmums listeners and Netmums readers is that you not only know about the kind of big stroke finances and the financial world, but things about like benefits or government schemes. You host discussions on maternity leave, saving, spending, all those things that can be a big

deal, especially in women's lives. So I think let's start off with one of the things that you start off your book with, with that idea that you don't have to be good with money to actually make changes when it comes to money in your life. Tell us about that. Absolutely. And I would say to anyone listening to this podcast and thinking, oh, I might not like this episode because it's with a money person and it's going to be really intimidating and she's going to finger wag at me and tell me all kinds of things that I should be doing. I promise I won't do that. The secret that I share at the beginning of the book is that even people who work in finance

and even financial journalists like me find dealing with money matters a chore. We find it intimidating. We find it anxiety inducing. And, you know, certainly I am speaking as somebody who makes a good salary. It's even worse in the cost of living crisis for everyone who is getting to the end of the month and thinking, hang on a minute, where did all the money go? So in the past, we've kind of been able to maybe get away with neglecting our money a little bit, not having to think about it too much. But at the current time, you just absolutely can't do that. So for people who are a bit averse to dealing with money, which is pretty much all of us, if we admitted how we feel, it's even harder for us to engage because now there really is that fear factor with finance. And that more than anything is what I am looking to dispel through the book, through my broadcasting, on Lorraine,

on LBC radio, I do a little stint on breakfast time with Nick Ferrari now and I just try to get through to people there are things that you can do no matter how desperate the situation there are steps that you can take but being the ostrich putting your head in the sand nothing good is going to come of that approach but what I try to do very much through my journalistic work is to make it much easier for people to understand the core issues without having to spend ages scrolling online wondering what the answers are and easy practical nuggets of information for for them to follow that's that's my kind hallmark, explaining things that are hard to explain in a non-threatening way with a smile. Because let's face it, life is boring enough without

having to deal with money. So if I can make people smile slightly as they do it, then that's a great thing. And I think the most common thing that people have said to me about my book is that I didn't expect it to make me laugh. And that makes me very, very happy indeed, because it's breaking down the barriers that exist around money, the secrecy, the privacy, the worry, the stress, the concern, and that can only be a force for good. Yes. Well, we're going to get to some of those really funny, piquant and interesting tidbits in our discussion. First, I wanted to address an idea that so many of our listeners may have. When I did an investment podcast a few years ago with some friends, this was something we heard from a lot of our listeners, is that they feel

that the money advice that's out there is always for people who have lots of it. What can I do to make the most of my money when I don't have very much of it, when every month I'm getting to the end of it? Well, our latest episode of the Money Clinic podcast is about just this. We've got a 22-year-old listener. She's on a graduate trainee scheme. She's earning what is an unimaginable sum for somebody from her background, about £50,000 a year. It's more than her parents are earning. And she's just been sort of catapulted into the financial world, working for a bank, earning this big salary, but is completely at a loss to know,

how do you handle having this much money? I mean, obviously, the answer many of us would pick would be, well, spend it all. But she knows that there will be more sensible things to do. But nevertheless, it's been really hard for her to find a financial advisor who will take her on. I mean, good thought. She thought, I'll go and get some financial advice. But, of course, the advice industry in this country, we talk about the advice gap.

You know, there are millions and millions of people who have significant sums in savings, like £10,000 or more in cash, that really they could and should be investing, but they don't know how to get started because that's not enough for a traditional full service financial advisor to take you on. It is very geared towards the top 10% of earners. And clearly, they're almost going to be all right anyway, because they've got loads of money. It's the people who have less money who can ill afford to make a mistake with it, who really need some basic financial instruction, even if that is bad news, frankly, saying what you're saving now is not going to be enough. At least you'll know. And I think politically, there is perhaps a desire from the current government, from previous governments, not really to communicate

this huge transfer of risk that has happened in the last two or three decades, as pensions have become less generous. You know, there's no magic pension tree that's going to spring up when we get to the age of 60 and 70. The provision for retirees is much less generous in the future than it's ever been. And it's all on us. If we don't make the effort to educate ourselves about this stuff and put some money aside from every paycheck, then when we do come to think about retiring we're actually going to find that we're that we're not able to but then that is a further barrier because that makes people think well that you know there's no point I can't afford to make any savings from my current budget so therefore I just can't try I'm just going to stick my fingers in my ears and shut out this

this money world so it's it's very very very difficult to find a path through this. But for your listeners who are saying, well, I find it hard to get advice, I don't have enough money for a top flight financial advisor, where can I go to get this information and knowledge? I think the good news is that- The good news is there's a new book that will help you with that, surely. a book but you know lots of the lessons that I draw in in the book are really very practical common sense measures which are repeated in various ways through responsible financial influences on social media I think social media has been a game changer for like getting the message out there about personal finance and also breaking down the barriers and breaking down taboos because you're

talking about investing with, you know, a group of like-minded people. Perhaps you're not friends in real life. You don't see each other socially and that's got to help because if you're talking to your family about money or to your friends about money, there is always at the back of your mind this sense of, you know, am I oversharing? Am I making myself look, you know, grander than them? Because I'm saying, well, actually, I have got spare money at the end of the month and I want to learn how to invest it. You know, a lot of people, as I said before, are getting to the end of the month in minus figures and racking up debt. So it is hard to talk about investing because it's seen as something that only wealthy people can do. But actually, it needs to be very much a part of everyday life for all working people. Now, the government has done some good things. We've got

auto enrolment now, which will scoop you up and put you into a pension scheme when you start working full time for a company by default. That's been going for 10 years now, and it has pushed millions of people into pension savings, young people especially, because my biggest financial mistake was that I didn't join a pension scheme at work until I was 30 because I wasn't aware of the benefits. It was only when I started working for the FT group that somebody set me aside and said, do you want to get paid more money for turning up at work every day? And when you put it like that, then it's a no brainer. But when somebody says, will you put 6% of your salary into the staff pension scheme? And you think, well, hang on a minute, 6% of my salary, you know, that's quite a lot. Well, I'll feel it, right? That's the amount I feel. Yeah, I'm not sure if I could live without it. But then when you realise that actually,

in reality, it's not going to feel like 6% of your salary, because you're not going to pay tax on that money, and that it's going to unlock maybe the equivalent on top of your salary that your employer is putting in so you've got those three things what you put in what your employer puts in and the tax relief and it can grow tax-free for decades then you start to think actually this is the greatest deal on earth but the fact that it's called a pension makes you think of pensioners of old people you're back in the here and now you you think, actually, I want that money now. So what I'm trying to do in all areas with this book is just to take it back to basics and have that sort of aha moment with why would something like this make sense?

And even if at the moment you think, well, I've had to opt out of my pension because I can't afford to pay in. If that's the only lever you can pull, then so be it. But understand how it works. Understand how this could be a really great route into investing for you. And when your finances are at the stage when you can start pension savings again, then brilliant. And pick it back up. And if you are already saving something into a pension, then the next question is, you know, could you be making more of that? Is there more free money on the table from your employer? And I would say that is one of the lessons in the book that I've had the most correspondence about from people because the penny has finally dropped and it's become relevant to them.

It's something that they can understand. And increasingly with tech and apps, saving for the future is something that we can see on our phones and feel closer to. The whole of the personal finance and investing world is getting much more personal, which I think is a great thing. But it still relies on us doing that little bit of education so that we can make the best decisions for ourselves and know what's potentially out there. Well, you mentioned social media. There's a wealth of knowledge out there that you can access for free via social media accounts with some really good, not financial advisors, but journalists.

Pointers. Yeah. Your Instagram account is a great source for that. What are some of the other social media accounts out there that you feel are doing a particularly great job about kind of educating people, not necessarily way up here on the high level, but on the more basic level? One of my favorite accounts, which is actually a US account, is a guy called Patrick DeCesare, who is at Basic Financial Literacy. He's a US financial educator. He used to be a fireman. He's now gone into financial education full time because the guy just has the gift for it. He makes short videos,

which have always got a nice twist based on real life examples, giving common sense knowledge. And like me, he's a fan of FIRE, financial independence, retire early, and also investing using index funds, which is a cheap, low-cost way to invest. Nothing is risk-free, but as he and other commentators point out, it's a great quick-start way to get investing if you're dithering over what to do. Other investment-focused people who I really rate in the UK, Andrea and Jamie, who are at Stocks and Savings. Now, they're two former accountants. They quit their jobs a while ago to go full-time on social media. They're very young.

They're in their mid to late 20s. And not only do they produce lots of great educational content about investing, about tax, about growing your wealth and your savings over time, unusually for social media, they're also transparent about how much money they make from their Instagram and their YouTube accounts, how much of it is from referral codes, because people look at the link in their bio and sign up to services or hashtag ad, hashtag product placement, things that they may have mentioned.

And I think that the reason why I respect them for doing that so much is that there are a lot of influencers on social media where this is declared in the hashtag, but it's not really spelled out just how much money they are making from telling others about the financial tips and secrets that we should all be learning. And the fact that they are so open about it teaches me more about influences who aren't. But for every kind of flavour of money saving, there will be people who can give you tips and inspiration. I mean, food price inflation is probably one of the biggest financial battles that British consumers are facing at the moment. We've got the highest food prices for more than 45 years. I love the batch lady. Oh, I love her. Suzanne Mulholland. She's a Scottish stay-at-home mum. Her friends at the school gate were saying, tell us about this method you've got for

buying food in bulk, cooking it, freezing it, having meals on demand. This sounds really good. And that's where her account sprung from, because she was doing talks to groups of mums from school about how she budgets and batch cooks and saves money. And it just grew into this YouTube channel and Instagram account, which is just endlessly fascinating. And I just think that that is a really, really important thing to focus on how much we're spending on food, because if you don't watch it at the supermarket, that could wipe out any kind of spare money that you might have left over for savings and investing at the end of the month.

Well, this is one thing I think for people kind of coming, I mean, first of all, you know, the title of your book, the fact that it's very accessible. It's what you haven't learned. The tagline, seven habits that unlock financial independence. You know, there are lots of financial books that say, oh, the, you know, the six things you need to do or the 11 things or the three things or whatever. What's interesting in your book is that you actually set out these seven habits in the first few pages instead of making us wait. Because so often, you know, those books, they're like, oh, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, and you have to keep waiting and then you wait and then you're like, and especially if, you know, you're time pressed, people who have families, the idea you're going to be able to sit down and read this book through all at once is bananas. Exactly. I approached this book as, what would I have liked to have read when I was 21? And frankly, all of that, like waiting for the secrets, that just would have pissed me off.

So that was never going to happen. Having a boring book that didn't contain real life examples of how I had screwed up my own finances, you know, nobody's perfect, not even Martin Lewis. So I just think you have to show people like, yes, I am a so-called expert. I do work at the Financial Times. But, you know, even I make mistakes with money because if you get to the stage where you think like, oh, well, I can't come back from this now. I'm bad with money. It's irredeemable.

You're just not going to try. And that's wrong. You know, we all need to give ourselves a chance here and say, actually, this is something that's really, really hard to do. And there's so many aspects to it. It's not just managing the money you've got. It's thinking about the money you've got it's thinking about the money you've got coming in and how you could negotiate for more got a whole chapter which is

about things like pay rises which is another area where traditionally women have lost out on and also thinking about how we manage money with our partners because how the money flows within the household is something that if we ever get onto it at a live event, the questions just do not stop coming. That is something that people really, really, really want to know. Like, how do you manage your money with your other half, whether you're together or, you know, or separated because finances of divorce are pretty tricky. And this is something that I've had to personally negotiate. You know, throughout my life, I've been married to them for, well, I've been together with my partner for about 16 years.

He was divorced when we met. He's got three children. So I'm a step-mom to them. I'm now a step-grandmom, because the first one has just had twins, which helps you to understand why I'm like constantly banging the drum about the inadequacy of childcare. But, you know, how we handle money within, what do people call it, blended families, not my term. But these are all dynamics of the modern world, which would be hard enough if we did have a basic knowledge of personal finance and what's needed, but are even harder when you

lay on the secrecy, the conflicts, the feeling like you can't talk to your other half about this because you're going to have a huge row. Exactly. And I think often when it comes to money, I'm now divorced, but my ex-husband, he had a child from his first marriage. So it was both, he was divorced, I was a step-parent. And then even when we divorced, there's a further kind of element of that. And it's funny how often blended families, or if you don't live with the other parent of your child, that we talk about those as an anomaly to the family, when in fact, more and more, that's what we see here. I think one thing that's satisfying about your book and that for me personally, I'm quite passionate about women

learning more and feeling more empowered about their money is that emotional side that you really tackle that head on. I know for me, there was a time when I was young, I didn't have much money, but I was on top on top of my money. Things went bad, and I felt so guilty and hopeless do is even if it's bad news, just sit down and account for it. And that's the only way you're going to make things better. It's hard to do that. And that there's this emotional component, whether it has to do with family or whether it has to do with our own feelings about our money or our own feelings of inadequacy, that often we don't talk about that because in a way you have to talk about that before you can start feeling good about making a budget and looking at your income or maximizing it or investing or even making the choices about I'm going to spend on x and not y or even just having a conversation with your partner saying is it really fair that all of the child care comes out of my salary and not yours.

And, you know, could we find a better way of dividing up the money in a joint account? I mean, like we have the ratio system in my house. I earn more than my husband. So when it comes to splitting costs, my ratio is higher than his. It sounds kind of like quite straightforward, but the amount of people I mentioned this to,

and they say, oh my God, I never thought of that. I'm going to ask for this. But yeah, you're exactly right. And emotions and how tightly bound and woven they are into our relationship with money, how money makes us feel, what we do with our money. I think a lot of people just don't quite appreciate how powerful that connection is. And so that was the real kind of starting point. Anything to do with habit change, you've got to understand how your habits are formed. And with things to do with money, emotion plays a much bigger role than I think any of us realize. So chapter one is a great read because it just says, OK, let's talk about where we get these emotions about money from. We go back into the past and we explore our earliest money memories. And I've got lots of examples from famous people because I ask everyone who comes on the podcast, what's your earliest money memory? staggering insight into someone's eventual relationship with money. There's a body of

academic research that shows that our money habits are actually pretty much set by the age of seven, like not 17, by seven years old, which is something that as a step-parent and now a step-grandparent, I'm constantly thinking about, you know, how could I get some great financial lessons into these young minds while they're still sponge-like and taking everything up? But the way that I've found for people to talk about the good and bad emotions and kind of like weigh up where they are on this scale is to invent some financial personalities. Now, I'm not the first person

to do this, but I do love a magazine quiz. So it does have that kind of like fun, fun feeling to it. And, and the ones that I've come up with, you know, there's, there's always a twist. Yes. You know, we've got the spendy Wendy, which is the classic, like, you know, blow, blow loads of money on shopping, but I'm looking not just at the habit and how it manifests itself but also counter habits like things that spendy wendys could could could do to try and understand what it is emotionally deep down that is making them spend the money and ultimately feel unsatisfied from spending the money and in many cases guilty like you say I haven't got any money left I've

bought all of this stuff I've been tempted by all of these deals that have popped into my inbox you know and that is that is the one that most people who read the book say I'm I'm more like that than any of the others the ostrich we've kind of covered and I have lots of tips for people who are ostriches who want to pull their head out of the sand but are too scared to and I And I say that as a former ostrich myself. One of the things which I thought I feared would be a bit flippant and maybe misrepresented, but I said it anyway, is having nice stationery to deal with your personal finances. Because I found that that really helped me. If I had to sit down every week and look at where I was with money and, you know, I had a plan to, you know anything that you want to do to motivate yourself I mean buddying up with a fellow ostrich frankly especially if you're managing your money on your own so that you've got somebody who you can have support from but also confess things to

without fear of judgment where you have gone wrong yeah I could imagine you know one thing I've got a few friends that we've been supporting each other about our kind of money and investing and, you know, where you have a little date. And for so many, I think women who are mothers or carers or whatever, that even having that time out where you can go and you're meeting a friend, or maybe you just go to the cafe and you're going to do a little bit of your budget but it's a it's a moment that's also you inject something pleasurable is such a great idea because often we think of sitting down to deal with

anything money and it's always it's just depressing yeah exactly or you know or you reward yourself afterwards um when you've done it i love you know i love a to-do list that this is my to-do list for today I have weekly ones I have like purely financial ones I have annual ones and when you get to like like cross something off it's just amazing yeah although it's on some days when it's like really bad, I might put like, you know, go for run, have shower. So I can cross two things off and be like, I'm ahead. Claire, I put lunch on my list. So after I have lunch, I can just do the little, yeah, I did that thing. It's important to acknowledge these things because money is time. You know,

everyone says it takes time to earn money, but also we very rarely take the time to focus on sorting out our money, whether that's learning about it, talking to others about it, doing research about things. One of the big minefields in the UK is how we claim for the different childcare schemes. There's about nine different ones, and they all interact with each other in different ways. And some of them are linked to benefits, some of them are linked to how much you earn. If you go over a certain amount or if your partner goes over a certain amount, that knocks you out. And others are just hardly claimed at all because they're either so impossibly complicated to work out or poorly publicised and nobody knows about them. So I don't do huge amounts about the different childcare schemes in the book just because they're changing all the time. The

Chancellor's about to do a huge revamp in the UK. But it's great that it's been in the news so much in the past few months because there's this huge load of admin that all too often just falls onto the shoulders of women to work out all of this stuff and claim for it at a time when you've got this small being in your arms that you're responsible for keeping alive, which is kind of like a big focus. You don't want the distraction of having all of these other things going on at the same time that you've got to get your head around financially. And then, of childcare, nursery costs, and have to somehow budget your way around this and work out how you are going to go back to work.

I mean, is it any wonder that the gender pay gap in the UK is as horrific as it is? I mean, you know, duh, come on, Chancellor, wake up. We did a big campaign highlighting the childcare payment system. And it was interesting how many people, you have people who are on universal credit, who there's a special program for them. You have people who are earning, what, less than 100K, and there's something for them. And people say, oh, I didn't even know I could get this. And they look back and say, oh, I just think about how much money I could have saved or whatever. But I think, again, that's another great point about whether it's budgeting,

which you talk about, or spending or any of these other things, it can be really easy to look at what's happened in the past and feel a bit hopeless that you haven't done more yet. But in fact, it's like, it's okay to start now. It's okay to start today. It's okay. It's never too late to start kind of taking control of your finances, which sounds a little bit like a slogan, but I think it's such a powerful and exciting idea. No, I mean, people say about trees, don't they? When's the best time to plant a tree? 50 years ago or today. And I think the power of women getting together and sharing information, whether that's about pairing for the shock of maternity leave. I mean, I was at a Vestpod event a while ago, this investment group, and this huge conversation started up on the sidelines about which employers were the most generous with

maternity and parental leave. You know, why don't firms have to publish this information and make it public? If I had a really great parental leave policy, I'd be shouting it from the hilltops at the moment as a recruitment policy to try and get the most talented people to come and work for me. So I always say, whether you're male, female, you know, regardless of gender, you might stay at a company for five, six, seven years, even if you're in the job interview thinking, well, you know, I'm in my late 20s, I'm not planning on starting a family anytime soon. Always ask them about the pension scheme, as we mentioned earlier, but also about the parental leave policy. And increasingly nowadays, what the father can get, as well as what the mother can get, could make a big difference. So you might have a situation where shared parental leave is going to be much more of a possibility for you because your partner's

firm has a more generous policy than your own firm does. I mean, it's early days for a lot of these workplace benefits, but the more people are aware of it, and the more firms realise that actually it could be a game changer when it comes to getting people to sign on the dotted line when we've got such a hot labour market like we have at the moment, the better. So let's shift gears slightly. And we've talked about, you know, the workplace and, you know, putting into a pension and that kind of thing. What about if you're on a very low income on universal credit or other benefits, reliant on childcare support, not currently working and so on? Can you put a money plan

in place and be proactive even then, even if you're really kind of counting pennies and, you know, not working? You can to an extent, but it is incredibly tough. It is incredibly tough. And I think that the way that the benefits system in this country just hasn't caught up with the reality of the cost of childcare, but also the cost of renting, which is an enormous problem, is something that is really going to be front and centre of the general election campaign that we're going to see in the year to 18 months ahead. We already know that childcare is going to be a big component in that, but both the current government and the opposition have made it very clear that that's a problem that they want to start thinking about solutions to, whether the current solutions that the current government have proposed will be the answer to that or the jury's out. We've got to wait a while to see whether that can happen. But unless these things happen,

then yeah, we are going to have this impossible situation for people, single parents especially, who are the most financially screwed people, may I say, in this country at the present time. Even if you are getting help from your ex-partner, they still have to maintain a household of their own. They've got to find somewhere to live if they're not living with you, which is where the high cost of housing really comes back into this argument. And the whole problem of the current approach, which is work more hours, get more pay, we've shifted the margins up so you can keep more of the money without losing as much of your benefits if you do take on extra hours.

It's just totally uneconomic for a lot of single parents, especially, to do that because the childcare costs are going of the biggest game changers that has come along as a result of the pandemic is flexible working working from home the line manager at work used to have like the ultimate power for women especially who wanted to work part-time or work flexibly and if you had a line manager who kind of got it then they would look more favorably on these requests than the dinosaurs and that's good because now that we've had to you know we've been forced to to adopt a more flexible model there is more chance that people will realize that actually yes it can work and that women especially can can use it to their advantage so there are deals to be done. I would say to anyone listening who's currently working part-time but feels that they haven't really moved on in their career,

they've maybe had the same job, the same job title since before the pandemic, they haven't had a raise other than maybe some sort of like minor bumps up in line with inflation. Now is the time for you to think like, you know, where can I take my career next? Where could I move to if I move jobs and change companies that might give me a better deal? Because it's by moving around, whether you're going from one job to a higher position or simply by doing the same job at another company that's where the biggest pay rises for men and for women can come in over the course of your working life but because women are more likely to work part-time and more likely to stay in the same job and stay in the same part-time role because they've got that arrangement that works for them for a long time

this can really really count against them now it might be that you can't make that move now, for whatever reason, but you know, you can be making plans, you can be looking, you can be talking among the network, you know, what are good companies to work for in your local area, because obviously, a lot of this comes down to where you're based. But then, on the big recruitment sites, now, you can just check a box saying, you know, I want to apply for roles that are 100% remote. I know lots of mortgage brokers who are, mortgage brokers I speak to a lot during the course of my job, because I write a lot about property at the moment. They're recruiting in, you know, northern cities, people work online, come down to the office once a month. And they're finding it much easier to find a mortgage breaker in Sheffield who will come and work for a London firm remotely than to find people in London. Now, that just wouldn't have happened a few years ago, certainly not on a grand scale. So now that the

world is changing, what could you do? Could you retrain? Could you go back to university? Could you devise a plan that's going to give you a career that is more flexible? Because, of course, there are an awful lot of jobs that just don't have this flexibility. You have to be physically present. So even if the financial situation right now is dire, just don't lose sight of thinking about the future. And even the current economic environment, the cost of living crisis, runaway inflation, it's not going to be like this forever. You know, we are going to work through this. I don't think we'll get there quite as quickly as the Bank of England seems to think two and a half percent inflation by the end of this year. But certainly we should see some of those big pressures on our income start to ease as the year goes forward. So don't be afraid to make some financial plans. Thinking about, you mentioned parents before, what we can do as parents. Of course, when we have children, we need to manage our spending because of all the things they need and we need for them. And then that gets more expensive as they grow. Also, how we teach our children to

understand money, take control. And one step you touch on in the book is this process of reflection, which I found it was nice to have this idea of looking at your spending, sitting, watching, thinking about it. And to me, that seemed like an important point or important part of learning to talk to your kids about money, that there is this, you give them a little bit of spending money and they have to choose how to spend that. But also thinking about as a family, is Netflix that important to us or is X more important to us or do we want to save so we can all go on a holiday or do we want to, is this more important or that? Can you just talk a little bit about, as we kind of get to the end

of our time together, about that role of money in being a parent, both how you think about your money and you're spending it on your children, but how to really teach them so they're empowered. Obviously, at the moment, there's lots of, no, you can't have it. We can't afford it. All children want stuff. I mean, the internet just makes them want even more stuff. The friends at school, the peer group, whether it's things or whether it's money for online gaming, which is one of the things that my stepson's basically really wanted when when they were teenagers and I'd say yes you know you can have so much but there's a there's a limit there has to be a limit I mean I saw a middle-class dad and his son walking past pizza express when I was

in Brighton a few weekends ago and the boy was saying like you know because they they pump the smell outside don't they the boy was saying like I want to, because they pump the smell outside, don't they? The boy was saying like, I want to go in and have pizza express, daddy. And the daddy was like, you know, no, you know, we're not doing that today. We're doing something else. And he had like a full on tantrum, fists bumping on the floor. And I just thought, OK, this is a horrible thing to have happen to you in public. But you are teaching your child a really valuable lesson by saying, no, you know, we can't do certain things. We can't afford certain things because, trust me, there are people my age now who I know who grew up in wealthy families,

were never told no and just have absolutely no break on their spending. No sense of the value of money still because they know that they're probably going to inherit lots of it it really is a double-edged sword but I think what you're talking about discussing money more openly with a family obviously it depends on the age of your child but getting them more involved in the decisions getting them to understand you know that when we go to work that's how we're earning money because I think that's one of the things that's really been lost from teenage childhood. You know, I had a job when I was 15. I earned 20 pounds every Saturday working in a music shop. And that was my money. But it wasn't just the experience of holding my own money that I'd earned in my hand. It was like

knowing how far it could go, and that when it ran out, it ran out. So I made some fairly unwise choices in the first few weeks, but then I was like, right, okay, I need to have some leftover. I learned the lesson myself. You got to do that to learn, right? You have to make mistakes and then learn from them. And yeah, but we need to be able to let our children make mistakes. And I think that certainly with my stepchildren, I was so worried about them making a mistake. I was perhaps too controlling, certainly with one of them. But our instinct as parents is that we want to look after our children.

We don't want them to worry. But then when there's cost of living crisis, you know, bulletins about bills all over the TV, it's very easy to find yourself shouting at somebody and saying you left all of the lights on upstairs. But, you know, let's try and make it into more of a learning opportunity. You know, get the smart meter out. How much have we used today? How much of that compared to this time last week or a month ago when it was colder. It's all about building awareness and getting your child to feel that whatever happens to them with their money, that they can come and talk to you about it. And those feelings of shame, of having made a mistake. The most important thing, as I say in the book, about making money mistakes is learning from them. If you learn from it, then you'll be less

likely to make the same mistake twice. But even if you do make the same mistake twice, don't beat yourself up about it. Learn from it and move on and think about what caused you to make a mistake in the first place. Is it something emotional? Is it a habit that you have got into with money? How did that habit transpire? What positive steps can you take to reduce the likelihood of that habit, to break that habit, stop the chain of events that leads to the problem, whatever it is, overspending, not looking at your bank balance, being unrealistic about what you can afford. We haven't talked about gifting, but this is something that I often find when I speak to women about their budgets is that it's gifting that blows the budget. They want to buy something, whether it's a birthday present for their child or Christmas presents. That's when the budget kind of gets thrown out of the window because it's like, oh, if I don't get in this

amazing thing, they're going to think that I don't love them. They really want the latest toy, the latest trainers, the latest must have, everyone else at school will have it, if I can't get my child, and they're, they're going to hate me. And that is really, really tough. It's, it's really, really hard. I mean, I, I've suggested to people speak to other relatives well ahead of Christmas and birthdays and just say, how can we combine forces so that, you know, we don't give each other gifts, but we concentrate on the children and they all get one thing that they really want and we pool our money together. But all of these things require thinking in advance, conversations, putting something out there with the risk of being shot down in flames by the other person who says,

no, I mean, like even things like children's birthday parties. You know, my niece had her fourth birthday party recently. And they explicitly said, you know, you don't need to bring a present, you know, your presence is what's special. But there are all kinds of ways that consumerism has just like crept into our lives. And constant message of we must spend money in order for something to be special. That is something that I would dearly love to put in Elon Musk's rocket and blow up in space. Yes. Well, one of the most popular pieces we have on Netmoms is a strategy for dealing with presents at going to children's birthday parties. So it's definitely worth looking at. So we're about at the end of our time, but there was one thing I really wanted to say. I mean, I love so much of the book,

but you said something quite delightful and shocking that goes against a lot of what other financial and budgeting experts advise, that spending money on takeaway coffee or avocado toast is not a money crime. Oh, my gosh, Claire. No, it's not. And the person who really hit, the way that this really hit home to me was actually a friend of mine called Maggie. I know she listens to your podcast as well. So hi, Maggie. She has two young boys, I mean, obviously getting older by the day. But at this time, I think one of them was a toddler and one of them was younger. And she's the main breadwinner.

So money's tight, got childcare issues, you know, one parent earning less, juggling everything together. Is she going to cut out her three times a week coffee habit? And the answer is no, because it means so much more than just a cup of coffee. She was able to get into work 20 minutes early, go to the the cafe sit down with a cup of coffee plan her day work out what she's going to do with her valuable time because anyone who's on a hard stop deadline going to pick up kids from from nursery like every minute counts literally during the working day so making sure that everything is going to fall into place, that you're meeting your own kind of personal development goals, that you're looking after

yourself, as well as finding time to be a super mum. The price of a three pound cup of coffee for having that 20 minutes away from the children, away from your partner, away from your colleagues, away from everyone where you can just think, right, this is how I'm going to focus on me. You're buying so much more. So I say, you know, whatever it is, even if it's avocado toast is the reward because you've ticked through your financial to-do list on a Sunday morning and that's what you're going to do to go out and celebrate. So long as you're buying something that has value, that has meaning, that is appreciated, you know, that you're thinking this is a good way of spending my money because I'm really enjoying this particular thing, or I'm getting a benefit, an additional benefit out of it, you know, then go ahead. But

if it's just something that's like, oh, I'm spending the money without even realising it, and I don't even necessarily really enjoy the coffee then of course you know cut it out find a find a cheaper alternative but just the sensation of like leaving the building meeting up with a friend it could be you know spending 10 pounds a week on having a glass of wine with a pal you know you've got the the mental health benefits of meeting up, talking to think about as well as the cost of the actual thing. Exactly. The mental health benefits of wine. That's to be continued. That's another show. That's a whole other show.

So, Claire, thank you so much. The book, What They Don't Teach You About Money, is available now. So folks can go out and get it. Claire, thank you so much for finding time. You can also hear Claire on her Money Clinic podcast. See her on Instagram. See her on Lorraine. See her on, you said, ITV as well? Yeah.

So Wednesday mornings, I'm on Lorraine on ITV. And then Thursday and Friday mornings, I'm on LBC radio with Nick Ferrari. He's not everyone's cup of tea, but I do enjoy having a banter with him about the big finance stories of the day. And my Instagram handle is at Claire B, if you want to follow me or suggest anything that you think that we should be making our podcast on. Yes, that's at C-L-A-E-R-B. Thank you, Claire, so much. Gotten a lot out of this and we hope to talk to you again soon. Well, thanks for having me, Jennifer. It's been a pleasure to come on.