The Overshare with Gemma Atkinson - MONEY MATTERS: Stories of epic Cash Stress!

Episode Date: March 5, 2025

It bonds us all but is still the one thing most are too terrified to tackle, we discuss serious money stress and offer expert advice to make this year a turning point. From Bankruptcy, to Divorce, to Selling up for love and later regretting it; here we have people in financial dire straits ready to overshare their money horrors.In this episode our expert Claer Barrett advises Rachel seek help from the following organisations and charities:Citizens Advice: https://www.citizensadvice.org.ukStep Change: https://www.stepchange.orgBusiness Debtline: https://www.businessdebtline.orgCAP (Christians Against Poverty): https://capuk.org These are the carers help websites Claer also spoke to Rachel about:Entitled To: https://www.entitledto.co.ukTurn 2us: https://www.turn2us.org.uk

Welcome back to The Overshare. I really, really hope you're enjoying our second series. As always, thank you for all your lovely comments and reviews on our socials. You'll get loads of things on our social media page for this series. We've got all the guest experts on there, all the guests who we've had. So don't forget to check us out and leave us a review. We really appreciate it. This episode is yet another curve ball for us. We were really keen.

We wanted to make this second series really, really varied. And when we asked you for suggestions on topics that you'd like us to cover, money cropped up quite a few times. So, we're going in. Let's face it, it's the one thing that most of us avoid talking about. Some people find it crass, some people find it embarrassing,

most all of us find it intimidating, and it's often the biggest cause of stress in our lives. So, we asked you for your money horror stories. So welcome to our little pod, another new face, but not just any face, multi award-winning financial expert Claire Barrett. A lot of you will know Claire from featuring on The Rains ITV show, you're on there a lot aren't you? Welcome to The Overshare Claire. I'm so excited to Overshare my secrets with you and to hear other people's and hopefully help them

because you'll say right for women especially money is such a vexed topic it's something that we find really hard to talk about and a lot of the time people do suffer in silence and I want to change that. Let's get to it! I am getting the debt collectors letters through the door every day. I desperately need to get this bankruptcy underway. The affair is still going on. The lies are still happening. Every penny that I have goes into the home that I've got with him. There's like academic research into this saying that by the age of seven children's attitudes towards money, their sort of like emotional relationship with money is largely cemented.

Oh wow, yeah. I can give you a house or I can give you memories. Again on this episode we've changed some names on the Oversharers, that's to protect themselves, the friends, the family, just to make sure it's a safe space for everyone. Hi Rachel, you okay? Tell us a bit about your story and background. So I'm a single mum and I worked in a local pub in the village that I grew up in. The landlady there was going to leave and I decided to give it a go. I took over in August 22. Absolutely loved it. The first year was amazing. We did festivals in the garden.

We had bands in the pub. it became a real hub. Yeah, it was thriving. And then for personal reasons, from a personal point of view, my son is diagnosed ADHD, but he's also autistic. I'm supporting my mum and dad as well. I had to start stepping back further and further from being behind the bar. So therefore my costs went up for my staff. And I got to the point basically where last year, this time last year, I had to close my kitchen and then by June last year, end of June last year, I had to close because I was absolutely just swallowed with debt. Did you have any advice before closing?

Was it a case of, you know of you were advised to for the best? I spoke to an independent advisor. I spoke to the brewery independently as well. There's only so much help they can offer because at the end of the day, they're a business as well. I was just advised that I needed to close and basically I'm in a position where I need to go bankrupt. I have to save up to go bankrupt because it costs 700 pounds.

That's also no ask you, Claire, because I've, I mean, I don't know about bankruptcy, but I've heard people say, if you go bankrupt, that it wipes everything clean, does it? But then you struggle to get another job moving forward because of it, is that right? Or am I completely wrong? You're partly right. So yeah, I mean firstly, Rachel, I'm really sorry about this horrible

experience that it sounds like you're still going through and for talking about it because really it's so rare to admit that you're going bankrupt to hear somebody say that I've got this problem. These are often things that people keep hidden because debt and bankruptcy, I think, are one of the biggest taboos in money because obviously you've explained to us why your business went wrong, but it does feel like a very personal failure. If you become insolvent, you can't pay your debts. And as you were saying, Gem, it really shouldn't be. Now with bankruptcy this is like a formal way of saying I want to set everything aside I can't meet my bills a court will declare you insolvent as you say there is a court fee to be paid a lot of debt

charities have donors who specifically pay the bankruptcy fees to help people so debt charity if you haven't spoken to one personally to deal with your personal debts, I would strongly advise that you do that. There are lots of other lesser well-known solutions that an independent debt counselor can find for you. You know, things like debt relief orders, they're the ones that are really springing up at the moment. If you're somebody who doesn't have any assets, like you know, you don't own a home, maybe you do have a car but it's not a very valuable one, and

you can show that your income is just completely insufficient to meet your outgoings, then with the help of a debt charity advising you, maybe a lot of your debts could actually be written off. If you have got assets, then maybe another form of insolvency called an IVA, where you're gradually repaying your creditors could be better. But the crucial thing with all of these is getting independent help. Because if you try and look for a solution yourself online, as many people do, don't click on any sponsored ads. Go straight for a debt charity, whether it's Citizens Advice, Step Change, Business Debtline, if you're a business owner and you've got debt problems,

CAP, which is short for Christians Against Poverty, they're the biggest ones in the UK. And the earlier you go to them for advice, the more they can do to help you. That's the crucial message. I'm in the position now where I am getting the debt collectors' letters through the door every day. So I need to desperately need to get this bankruptcy underway. I don't have any assets. I would urge you to speak to business debt line because there's always an intermingling when businesses go wrong with business debt and personal debt. They are the best charity, I would say, to help somebody in your circumstances. They are the best charity, I would say, to help somebody in your circumstances. If somebody's just got personal debts, then step change very good.

If you've got lots of debts that are due to household bills, which is something that's becoming alarmingly common, energy debt from, you know, built up from the last few years, biggest source of debt referrals to many debt charities at the moment, citizens' advice are especially good with people who've got very big and complicated problems that can result from bills not being paid. But it's that stress, the mental strain of dealing with all of these letters, demands. The other thing that you mentioned is that you're acting as a carer at the moment. Now, is that you're acting as a carer at the moment. Now, there are millions of women, especially in the UK,

every day carrying out unpaid care for relatives and a lot of them could be getting benefits. Carer's allowance being the main one, but also if you are a carer, it could boost your other benefits if you're getting carer's allowance because they can see that you're having to spend time that you could otherwise productively spend working. With elderly relatives, you mentioned your mum, it's possible that they could be claiming other benefits because the benefit system is A, complex and B, largely digital now.

Gov.uk is fantastic, but if you're in your 80s and you don't have a smartphone or a laptop Exactly, how are you going to access that if you're on your own? Digital exclusion, it's called and it's a real problem. So things like pension credit, it's been in the news a lot recently for you know the poorest pensioners, they can get pension credit which is a gateway benefit so you don't just get the benefit, you get the winter fuel allowance, you're the only people who do get that now, all kinds of other things like free NHS, optical care, dental care, money off your council tax bill, it unlocks all of that. Attendance allowance is another one that's very, very underclaimed for people who need to get care within their homes. The forms for things like attendance allowance,

which are really for very elderly people with disabilities are more than 70 pages long. It can be as difficult as possible for you don't they? Disability and filling out a 70 page bill on your own with a pen in the cold. And then having to go and post it. These are problems, a great charity that helps with finding out what benefits you're entitled to is called Entitled To. There's another one called Turn to Us, Turn, then the number two.

We'll send these all to you, Rach, if you've not got a pen and paper, we'll send them all to you. Even if you're not in a position to kind of want to talk to somebody in depth, they've got what they call benefits checkers, eligibility checkers online, so you could put in some information

about your circumstances, maybe even what you know about your mum's circumstances and it could give you the confidence to then think okay so I am entitled to something, I will find out about it and the benefits checkers and questions and answer forms that they have on their websites are a little bit less intimidating than the official ones on the government website. You talk about benefits. I've applied, I applied in September for my son's disability living allowance. It takes 20 weeks.

It's outrageous. So six months for them to actually respond to you just for a response. I mean, don't get me wrong. They do back pay it to when you first apply, but you have to wait six months for an answer. I'm now at that stage where I've still not had an answer. It's been six months, so now I need to chase them up. But things like that would help. It's like a full-time job as well, being poor, frankly, applying for benefits, working out the system. Thank you so much for joining us, Rach. What we'll we'll do like we say we'll send you all Claire's advice and the names and charities and stuff so you have all them but good luck with everything and thank you so much.

All right thank you. This is The Overshare with me, Gemma Atkinson and today we're talking money matters with our expert Claire Barrett. Now there's loads of ways to get in touch with us here at The Overshare. You can get your story on in multiple ways. Have a listen to this now. We're going to call this lady Kim. That's not a real name, and it'll be obvious very soon as to why we've changed it. Hi Gemma. Just over 10 years ago, I met somebody on holiday

and we started seeing each other. After a couple of years things got quite serious and he asked me and my daughter to move in with him. I had a council house which I gave back, all my furniture and household goods I sold and gave to charity. I couldn't have been happier. I was over the moon. He was everything that I needed. He was kind, thoughtful, generous. I was really happy. He made me happy.

I wasn't earning huge amounts of money. And he was like, it's okay, don't worry. A couple of weeks after I moved in with him, I noticed a message and it was from another woman. It was an inappropriate text message. And when I challenged him about it, oh, it's okay, it's a woman from work, it's just banter, nothing to worry about.

My heart dropped because that was the last thing I thought he would do. Our relationship had completely changed from when I'd moved in, and I just didn't know why. I knew this woman had something to do with it, and every time I asked him about it, and I'd think, you know, I would never do that to you. You are the only woman for me, blah, blah, blah. And I believed him. We never argued before I moved in with him. And now we were arguing all the time. 10 months after I moved in, he told me that he had been having an affair with this woman,

but it was over and it was done with and he'd made a huge mistake. And he just wanted to carry on like nothing had happened. The affair is still going on. The lies are still happening. I gave up my home. I gave up everything. I'd have to start all over again and I just don't have the money for that.

Every penny that I have goes into the home that I've got with him. So, wow, Claire, first of all, with Kim's story, being blindsided by love is what's caused this ultimately. Is that something that you hear a lot of? Unfortunately, yes. Sadly, it's a lot more common than I think any of us realise. Now this is a terrible statistic. One in six women in the UK are either

currently or have been formally in a financially abusive relationship. You could have a friend now who's in a financially abusive relationship whereby they are being controlled. Coercive control is a phrase you might have heard before. Forms of economic abuse, that's another term of describing it. It could be that a partner doesn't want you to work because it suits them for you to be financially dependent on them to have to ask for their permission to buy things. You have to rely on them for everything. Yeah, yeah. You know, you're totally dependent then on that other person.

You don't have as much independence as you might otherwise have done. Listening to Kim's story, I grimaced. Council tenancies, they're so rare. You know, you're on a protected rent. You've got a lifetime tenancy. You're never going to get that back if you give it away. Taking a step back here, you know, even at lower levels, keeping financial secrets. It's said that like one in six of us have got secret savings that

we don't tell a partner about for whatever reason. I mean, that could be for a completely normal reason. You know, you might be in the very early stages of a relationship, like quite ready to sort of disclose information about your finances to your other half? I've been with my fiance now seven years. We've never had a joint account. I've never had a joint account with anybody. So I have my savings account, I have my current account. He puts half the bills into my account and then there's a direct debit in my name. Everything goes out. And that's what we've done and that's what's worked for us. A few people have said why don't you have a joint account for things like holidays and this. We've just never done it because he has his thing I have mine.

It's sometimes a joint account a bit messier when it comes to things like people splitting up affairs and stuff like that. Well I'm glad you mentioned this because I do find it fascinating how different couples run their finances. I would also say to people who are listening, consider the ratio method because that's what me and my partner use. I earn more than him, so I pay a bigger share of the bills because I think that's fair. I'm doing myself out of some money maybe, but within a relationship you're putting in different things,

you know, people are paying to their strengths and weaknesses. If you do merge your finances with somebody, then yes, you know, you are taking on responsibilities for maybe their previous financial actions, you know, if they take out debts that are in your joint names and yeah, you know, you're both jointly responsible for paying them back even if it wasn't you who was the one that ran it up and in cases of financial coercion women can be told you know we'll sign this you know because we need to take out a loan in your name or a credit card in your name and they feel powerless to do anything about it and then having all of these debts makes it even harder for them to to walk away from from relationships. I would also say to you, you're cohabiting, you jointly own this house,

if one of you were to die because you're not married, you might have an inheritance tax issue, depending on how much your home is worth and where it is, because married couples can pass, and those in civil partnerships can pass assets between each other, tax free if one of them dies, but if you're just cohabiting you can't and also wills even if you're married lots of people think

I'm married I own a home with my partner I don't need a will you do if you die intestate there were a court appointed systems and rules about how your money can be split you can make a will online really quickly, cost about 120 quid for your financial affairs, a simple basic will, well worth looking at. So what would happen Claire, in my case with Gorks, because we're not married and obviously he does really really well in his own right but I've worked in this industry since I was 17 so I've had a pension since I was 17 and I've got some properties behind me so if we were to split up would he have access to any of those? Surely he wouldn't. You're not married. So he has very limited rights. Before you get married, I would seriously

consider the pair of you thinking about drawing up a prenup. Really? Now, these are very kind of American things. We hear about them on American TV shows, what a pre-nup does, a pre-nuptial agreement, it's something that you agree before you get married, if you were to split up this is what would happen to the money. Now it does have to be fair, so he would have to get something, and it does have to be agreed in advance, far in advance of the wedding, not a shotgun thing before you walk up the aisle. And each party for it to ever stand up in court would have to have independent legal advice. So they'd have to have somebody saying

to them, this is a fair and just agreement. Emotions and money are a really, really toxic combination, but it can be hard to take this step back and say, you know what, we need to think about this before we get together. Or even if it's something so basic as thinking, I need to know more about this person's financial circumstances before I commit to moving in with them. Do you know what? In the US last year, this company launched a dating app and you could only join if you had a credit score above 750. Really? It was wildly popular because you know, they were secure.

Yeah. It's a very attractive quality. I never thought of finances when it came to getting to know someone for me. It's are they a nice person? Were they going to treat me right? When people are in love, when they first meet, they made decisions with a different part of their brain. love. When they first meet, they made decisions with a different part of their brain. It's not the rational part of the brain because of the endorphins and everything. Love is in the air. So of course I'll move in with you. Of course I'll lend you 100 quid. When

all that settles and everything kind of is baseline, you think, hang on a minute, perhaps I shouldn't have done this so quickly. When I first moved in, I'm trying to think the first boyfriend I moved in with, it was a long time ago now. My mum begged me, because again, I had my own house and I said, I want to sell it. And move, I was moving to a completely different city. She begged me, she said, don't sell it Gemma, do not sell this house. It's a beautiful house. It's yours. I said, no, it's gonna be fine, we're in love, we'll never put it, and she said, nope, don't do it.

What did you do in the end? I ended up, I didn't sell it. Good. I rented it. Good. Three years later, we split up, and I had to give my tenant notice, but she told me two months earlier,

she'd found out she was pregnant, and I just didn't have it in me to say, look, you're pregnant, here's three months notice. Yeah, that. Yeah. So I said, take your time, have the baby. And then when you're ready, I need it back. And I moved back in with my mum. I had to put all my stuff in storage, pay for all my things to be in storage.

I moved back in with my mum and stepped down. I was in my twenties and it was one of the best times of my life going back home. My tenant rung me up after about six months and she said, we've found a house, so we will get out, don't worry. And then I moved back in and I had my own house again. But had I not listened to my mum, I would have again swept up in love, sold a really lovely, lovely house, a brand new, new build house surrounded by my friends and family. I would have got rid of all of it for love, but it wasn't love. And I'm just so grateful, you know, when I was earning, I came with my producer, Matt laughs about this and it still happens now.

I was earning good money when I was very young because Hollyoaks, you'd get an episode fee and you get 100% repeat fee on a Sunday. So if you're like age, you know, 17, 16, 17, 18, earning this money, exactly. I'll buy this and I'll buy that. My mom like put a cap on it all. And she said, you put it in savings and every Thursday you transfer yourself 250 pounds for the week. That's what you're doing. At the time, oh, what? I don't think that's what you're doing, Gemma. And still to this

day, every Thursday, I get 250 pounds from an account I have into a current account. And that's from a petrol, from a big shop. It's a little bit more sometimes with the kids now. Yeah, but it's just a great budgeting method. It's a great budgeting method and it's worked for me because I'm very secure now. I have, you know, it's worked out brilliant. But you don't have to spend everything you know. No, no. And people say, Gorka especially, it says I'm tight. I'm Northern, I'm from

up North. And you say, no, I am responsible. Yeah, and it's my mum who's drilled that into me. Well, this is often the way. That's what I'm grateful for. It's the models that we grow up with. You've had a strong mum who is financially savvy, who has got through to you.

Yes. And crucially, you've listened. You've respected her decisions that she's made in her life and you've learned from them. Sometimes it can work the other way around. I've got friends whose parents were terrible with money and that is what's made them good with money because they haven't wanted their children to grow up in a situation with Baylor's knocking at the door or whatever it is, chaotic kind of financial management and the stress that comes with that. But also when we are young the information that we're sort of

silently absorbing from all around us about how money is managed sets our money mindset from a scarily young age. There's like academic research into this saying that by the age of seven young age there's like academic research into this saying that by the age of seven children's attitudes towards money they're sort of like emotional relationship with money is largely cemented. Oh wow! Yeah so all of the things that you're teaching your kids now just by them observing you or saying you know okay well I've got this much money to to have this week you know we're on a budget you know we can't have this no to this toy you know, okay, well, I've got this much money to have this week. You know, we're on a budget, you know, we can't have this. No to this toy, you know, you can have...

Yeah, if it's not your birthday or Christmas. Exactly. It ain't coming. All of these things that you're doing may cause tears in the short term, but actually you're passing on that almost genetic knowledge about money that you've got from your mum. You can't just... She maybe got from your gran.

Yeah. Yeah, it probably is. And I was in shock on a school group. I'm on a group with the school mums. And one of them, his son lost a tooth. The tooth fairy brought a fiver. I was like, the tooth fairy in our house is 50p. That's what our tooth fairy is. And that's what, you know, if, well, when Mia's teeth fall out, it'll be,

and I told Gorka that, only 50p? He says very tight I said she's not done now she just lost a tooth she's got a lot of teeth I said if you're paying a fiver per tooth that's an expensive thing considering more expensive when you're an adult so our next guest is Louise thank you for joining us on the Overshare Louise. Let's go back to the start. I believe it's a fellow who's caused a whole heap of heartache and stress for you. What's happened? So my late dad passed away when my daughter was five weeks old. And at the time I was with her dad. So I believed that that's give everything, we didn't need marriage because having a child is a bigger commitment. I think when my late dad

passed away, he had a house and I was quite comfortably off. I was with my partner at the time. We had businesses and properties. So we were classed as the asset rich and not cash rich at the time. So we invested whatever money we had, we invested it. My brother wanted to buy my dad's house, so I sort of gave it to him at a really cheap price. And then that money, I gave it to my daughter's dad to pay off his mortgage. Didn't sign anything. We split up. He had an affair. We went to court. I basically got nothing. I ended up whatever money I had, I spent on solicitor's fees and barrister fees. In this time, I got diagnosed with an incurable cancer. I said to my daughter at the time, I said, I can give you a house or I can give you memories. She opted for memories.

First of all, Louise, that's horrible that you've had to go through all that. It's not nice to hear at all, is it, when you've got everything at once and the stresses and the worries with child maintenance. I would have assumed,, I mean Claire, you'll know, I thought you have to pay child maintenance. It's not a case of you can slip under the net with it or you can just kind of, if you have a child with someone and you split up, especially if the reason you split up is because you've been cheating, you still have to pay for your child. Is that right?

You do, there's the theory and then as Louise knows, there's the practice. In terms of like where the law stands, yeah, if you've got a child under the age of 16 or if they're older than that and they're in full-time education or they're dependent on you for another reason, maybe a disability or an illness, then yes, you know, you do have parental responsibility but if it can't be agreed informally, then you've got to rely on the government's child maintenance service to help you. And I'm sure that you've tried that route

and exhausted it, and ultimately, if the person is vexatious and says that they won't pay, there's calculators, there's all kinds of ways that can be formally worked out what they're supposed to give to you but you only have to pick up a copy of a problem page in a national newspaper to know how many people are saying nevertheless you know I'm not getting the money that I think that I should be entitled to and the relationship with the

other parent in some cases may have then broken down irretrievably because in a lot of situations like this people might say well if you're not paying for your child then you can't see them. Unfortunately the marriage certificate or the civil partnership that is where the legal rights stem from and it's so often women who are the weaker economic party, it's so difficult to prove and to enforce these things. But let's face it, you know, nowadays the majority of people don't get married. They cohabit, they live together and I think very often they don't realise that they don't have as many rights as people who are married or in a civil partnership. We have this expression, you know, a common law partner. It's apocryphal. There's no law involved. Yeah, so people don't realise how

vulnerable they are. The part of your story that I have to say was the closest I came to burst into tears on this episode was when you were talking about, you know, obviously your devastating diagnosis, but same to your daughter, what would you all have? Oh, I know. Should we make some memories together, you know, or do you want a financial inheritance? I mean, oh, what a decision to have to make. But I mean, tell us some of the things that you have done together.

We were talking about this yesterday because I was at, I've been at the hospital actually every day this week. And yesterday we were talking about it and I said, you know, she says everything you do, you do for me. So we've done Mexico, all the Caribbean islands, we've done Costa Rica. She's living her life. I think your story is going to help so many people. And I love the fact that we're ending on your daughter choosing to make memories with you than just inherit a house. It's that old, the Bob Marley interview, isn't it? He's asked in an interview, is he a rich man and does he have a lot of possessions? And he says, possessions don't make you rich. My riches is life. It's so,

so true. So thank you so much Louise for coming on and over sharing and I hope everything goes as well as it can with the diagnosis and moving forward. There are more memories to be made for you and your daughter. I'm going with it and thank you. If you want to seek the answers, the best thing to do is to ask for help and I really, really hope that our guests today and you listening feel a little bit more equipped to recover or deal with any finances and money situations. And they don't teach this stuff in schools.

No, I was just gonna say Claire, a massive thank you to you and you should be going around schools giving out all the advice because, honestly, I've learned so much from you. It's just incredible and you know you will have helped so many people so thank you for coming on. Well my podcast is called Money Clinic. I was gonna say you've got a book as well. If you want to hear more about how I think about money. Money Clinic, and your book, show us and tell us about your book. So my first book, because there's a second one on the way, the first one is called What They

Don't Teach You About Money, because just that. We're not taught this stuff in schools yet we're all kind of expected to have amassed all of this financial knowledge and money is a really hard topic to learn about. You shouldn't be in schools, yet we're all kind of expected to have amassed all of this financial knowledge. And money is a really hard topic to learn about. You shouldn't be just doing something that somebody in the pub says is a good idea. Lots of people, as we've heard today, are suffering in silence because they don't know the answer to a question or there's things that they want to know about money and they feel they should know. They don't know who to ask for. This book has got a lot of the answers in.

Thank you to the Overshare team, they're all stood here, you can't see them, but they're all in the room. Keep an eye on our social media channels and make sure you follow us, there's loads of clips from these episodes, episodes from series one, behind the scenes stuff. Yeah, The Overshare is produced by Bauer Media and Matt Foister and Molly Carter. We will see you next time, thank you very much! The Overshirt is produced by Bauer Media and Matt Foister and Molly Carter. We will see you next time. Thank you very much.