"I don't earn enough to keep up with my friends' plans. How do I tell them I can't afford their idea of fun?"
How do I talk to my friends about money without it feeling like an episode of Jeremy Kyle?
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“Bel, I need your help. It seems like all my friends earn more money than me, and I can’t keep up with their bottomless brunch or weekend away plans. How do I bring up the topic of money without feeling embarrassed or down buzz?”
Dear visa debit,
Is there nothing worse for your social psyche than a friend wanting to go large when you’re on a one-house-sav-and-then-home-please budget?
Once, when I’d had to drain all my savings on a massive healthcare bill, my friend said, “Well, I guess that is what savings are for!” and then left soon after to go and put an offer on a house. It can sometimes feel like you’re living in two separate worlds, and that your more financially set up friends have no idea what yours is like. And sometimes that’s the case.
Because, as the writer Danielle Pender once described to me in an interview, “Money is a shadowy thing.” We’re embarrassed to talk about it because it seems intrinsically linked with what we’re worth or what we’re able to ‘make of’ that worth when, actually, a lot of it can be out of our control (all the complicated factors of life).
But it’s weird this shame trickles down into friendship, right? Like, how many people do we know (or, let’s be honest, follow) who we wonder, wait — how can they afford their life? And friendship, conceptually, is where we’re meant to have our most honest conversations. But money seems to still be a barrier for some of them.
This thing happens after you finish school and graduate into your 20s. And it will continue to happen for the rest of your life. People’s paths slowly start to diverge and how much money they have/can make/will inherit/are from has a lot to do with it. We have a cultural obsession with being self-made, fused with calling out nepobabies who’ve had an easier ride than most, and live on a planet we’ve inherited that’s significantly more expensive than our parents. Ugh, it’s so much, it’s so so much. It’s like we’ve gone to a ‘hidden gem’ dive bar and said, “Serve me anything!” to the bartender, and they’ve come back with this.
All of which is to say, this is tricky but necessary and not impossible! Here are three possible options that might set you free!
Option 1: The elephant-in-the-room approach
Straight up, be like, “Sounds fun, but I can’t afford that. Possible to meet at a [park/someone’s house/art gallery event with a free open bar/someone’s office that gives free chips on Fridays] instead?”
If you want to soft-launch the concept you’re not as loaded as them, start dropping content in the group chat about how expensive things are. Not in a down-buzz way but in a ‘shared experience’ way. This is called a ‘social seeding,’ and will quickly show you who’s on the same financial page as you. And when you then come in with the above proposal about doing something free/cheaper, they kind of expect it to come.
Option 2: Full financial disclosure
This is my personal preference, but perhaps it could also be viewed as Stage Two of Option One. Which is literally having a very frank and open conversation about money. I did this with a (relatively new) friend the other day and it was so… liberating. We spoke about how much we made, the debts we were in, how much our lives cost and how our parents have supported us. It’s revealing, but I think we just both decided it wasn’t embarrassing?
Since then her world has made way more sense to me: I know what’s important for her (saving to buy a house), what worries her (crippling interest on her student loans) and what feels worth it (spending money on coffee to catch up with friends in the middle of the day when she works from home). I’m sure not everyone’s comfortable with this level of honesty, but I’ve found friends that do let me in on those details (which I do back) and have grown to be closer and more relaxing relationships to have. I can text them and be like, “Just had to pay for my healthcare insurance, about to go spew on the street,” and they will say, “Come over, let me make you a cheap girl dinner.”
Option 3: Lie
If it’s a New Moon and you’re feeling sensitive, lie and say, “Sorry I can’t make it!” then bury your head under the duvet and feel weird about what you’re missing out on for the rest of the day.
A fine approach, but one that will inevitably lead you back to Option One or Option Two sooner than you’d like, and you’ll find yourself being a yeswoman on a boat to a winery somewhere, spending the whole time interior monologuing how stressed you are, to be there and paying for it. I think that’s the lesson here. If we’re not honest, we always end up paying for it.
List of things to do with friends instead of spending (that much) money
It seems like such a new-age therapist thing to say, right? ‘See it as a fun challenge! Get creative!’ but I do think we’re force-fed fake glamour on social media so much that a lot of us have stopped thinking about how we spend our time without spending money.
Lie in bed watching TV shows
Co-exist and hangout without having to speak for long periods of time
Masquerade as rich and go shopping by trying things you like on but not buying any of them
Throwback to Covid times and go on a silly little walk
Get a coffee but spend hours at the cafe co-authoring various lists in your phone to refer back to, like ‘Colours I Suit’, ‘People I should message instead of my Ex’, ‘Places I should visit when I can afford to’ and ‘Things to say to my boss when they ask if I can stay late and not get paid overtime’ etc etc
Match with someone rich on a dating app that wants to take you and your friends on their boat
Set up a tiny Automatic Payment to an ethical investment platform so that soon, in forty years or so, you’ll be able to afford to take your friends out to the bottomless brunch you missed out on when you lied and said you couldn’t make it
I hope that makes sense and I hope that helps and I hope you know that class money friendship juggle is not something only you experience! Xx
🌹 HOT RECS 🌹
Sentimental Garbage
Particularly this episode featuring the gorge writer Monica Heisey is so fun. It ranks all the the storylines in Love Actually and deep dives into the romcom com genre itself in the most sharp and well-observed way. I’d also recommend Heisey’s latest show Smothered if you’re of the romcom persuasion:
Cooking for yourself
I’ve been reading Amy Key’s Arrangements In Blue and in it, she talks about how much she still loves cooking despite living alone and how, in itself, it’s an act of self-care. It’s taken me years of mostly living solo to see it that way, slow down, let the plates stack in the sink and enjoy doing something for myself and friends instead of throwing some girl dinner on a plate and doing away with it. Even if it’s just once a week, I’ve noticed a cute ~ mood shift ~
Objects
Honestly — is bric-a-brac in? No, I’m being deluded. And as someone who has a fraught relationship with owning ‘stuff’ in the first place, this seems like a wild rec. But I do really love the idea of having a small collection of objects that tell the stories of your life and that you enjoy using and looking at. My friend Abbie and I have been joking about resurrecting our teen dolphin obsession:
I love your questions so much, they make me think about the world in a practical way that often gets lost in all the window gazing. Thanks for being here! J’adore.
See you next week xx
Loved this so much, thank you
Really insightful, thank you! 💸
Also…. Team teen dolphin obsession. 🐬😂