The Great British Personal Finance Education

My next yearlong experiment

Jan 24, 2024

A picture from one of the first hikes I did in Scotland, after moving to the UK two years ago. Haven’t looked back—January 2022

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Hi friend,

Growing up, my dad always talked to us about money. He talked about it while he drank his first cup of tea and read the newspaper in the morning. He talked about it over dinner, and while we watched the evening news. I don’t know if my siblings ever had this experience, but it wasn’t uncommon for me to come home from school and find articles cut out from the paper placed on my bed. Articles about the importance of savings and compound interest, as well as anything that might help (or hurt) my generation.

My dad didn’t talk about money because we had a lot of it. He talked about money because he had a keen interest in it. More than once, he’s told me that if he could “do it all again,” he would’ve gone to post-secondary and studied economics. This shows in the topics he pays attention to and speaks passionately about.

Money is a taboo topic for many, but it wasn’t for us. In fact, I feel fortunate I can say that I grew up in a household where some of the most taboo topics—like money, politics, sex, drug abuse/addiction, etc.—weren’t taboo. My dad talked about all of it—and often. We are different people, and don’t share all the same views or beliefs on these topics. But witnessing and listening and being given the space to talk about these things, and from such a young age, normalized them as topics of conversation and influenced me in countless ways.

It certainly influenced my personal relationship with money (which hasn’t always been good/healthy, but kept me aware of the importance of paying attention to it). And, this is probably why personal finance is not only a topic I enjoy learning and talking about, but eventually became the main area of focus in my career.

My first memory of using a computer was at school in the second grade (age 7). After that, I remember my mom bringing her (huge) computer home from work and typing commands into MS-DOS on weekends (ages 8-10). When I was 11, we got our first desktop computer with dial-up internet. I’ve been writing and publishing my words ever since. It started with a newsletter about what was happening on our street. (Yes, I interviewed neighbours for this at age 11. And yes, I printed and delivered it to their mailboxes.) Then I published drawings (done in MS Paint 😂) and poems on sites like GeoCities and DeviantArt. And I had lots of little blogs on LiveJournal.

In 2010, I started what would become my big blog: Blonde on a Budget. There were probably fewer than 50 personal finance blogs in Canada, at the time. BoaB eventually became one of the most popular (and even won a handful of awards). The Canadian in me wants to shrink and hide, typing a claim like that… but if you look at the old Google Analytics stats, it was true.

At its peak, BoaB was visited by 50,000+ unique visitors every month and had upwards of 600,000 pageviews. That means people came and they read a lot. In fact, one other stat I remember industry people being fascinated by: my bounce rate. A bounce rate is calculated as the percentage of people who leave a website after only visiting 1 page. The higher the percentage, the more people who are quickly leaving your site. A “good” bounce rate is anything lower than 40%1, and the average for blogs is 65-90%. BoaB had a bounce rate of less than 1% for many years. People who visited BoaB didn’t just read 1 post. They stuck around. Many of them went back to the beginning and read everything. My newsletter also had an open rate of 70-80%, when the industry standard was 15-25%.

There was no strategy to this. I didn’t even have Google Analytics on my site, until I was a few years into writing and my boss at the time encouraged me to know my numbers (and I didn’t even know what to do with them after that lol). I experienced that “success” in other ways: new opportunities. Through writing about money on my blog, I got opportunities to write about it elsewhere.

The first fintech company I worked for was originally a personal finance site for women based in NYC. It was 2011 and I worked remotely as an editorial assistant and junior editor for 2 years. The last company I worked for was a personal finance comparison website based in Toronto. I was the managing editor there for 3 years. I co-hosted a personal finance podcast for 3 years. And I ran a content curation website with a friend for 3 years too, which became a hub for the personal finance community, and the place financial journalists and fintech companies came to find new ideas and writers.

I also did a lot of freelance writing on the side of it all. Over the years, I’ve written for a long list of news outlets, banks, and fintech companies across Canada and the US, and gained a general understanding of how money works in those two countries. I stepped back from it all for a few years, as you know. I also moved to a new country and started setting up my life in the UK. I have a new home base, a new partner, some new friends, new places to explore… and so many new things to learn about how money works here.

A new experiment (/education)

You already know that my main financial goal for 2024 is to increase my income. But my one overarching career goal is to position myself as a personal finance writer and editor in the UK. I could just write for North American companies, or only work on my own stuff, but I don’t want to do that. I want to continue to build my life here—professional network and all. I don’t expect this to happen overnight, because I am still so new here and don’t have many connections to the UK personal finance world yet. But I’m also not afraid of the work it will take to build those connections. Or, the work it will take to learn how things work here, so I can write and speak about it confidently. I actually think there’s a way to combine the two: connect with the people who are writing about it now. Outside of talking one-on-one, my favourite way to do that is to read their books.

It’s been a long time since I’ve done a proper yearlong experiment, with actual rules and a purpose. And, I have an idea for a fun one I want to do this year: give myself an education on how money works in the UK. Along with finding and consuming more content in general (news, podcasts, etc.), I’m going to read 12 personal finance books and write about what I take from each one.

I’m not planning to read books about other people’s shopping bans (a couple of those have been published here) or the ways they’ve paid off debt or retired early. I want to read books that explain how things actually work here: bank accounts, investments, pensions, housing, taxes, and so on. I also want to read books with fresh ideas or points of view. I’m curious not only how money works, but also how it is talked about here. What is the tone of the writing? What topics are writers digging into? What’s not being said/perhaps still feels taboo here? I’ve made some observations already, and have heard opinions from a few UK friends. But I want to read and learn for myself. And, I can’t help but be curious how the books here will compare to what’s being written about in North America—my first home. So I’m going to read some new/recently-published books from there too.

Books at the top of my consideration list

Written by Canadian authors:

KEEPING FINANCE PERSONAL by Ellyce Fulmore

…by American authors:

FINANCE FOR THE PEOPLE by Paco de Leon
FINANCIAL FEMINIST by Tori Dunlap
I SURVIVED CAPITALISM AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT by Madeline Pendleton
YOU DON’T NEED A BUDGET by
Dana Miranda

…by UK-based authors:

FINANCIAL JOY by Ken and Mary Okoroafor
MONEY by Laura Whateley
MONEY TALKS by Ellie Austin-Williams
THE PRICE OF MONEY by Rob Dix
WHAT THEY DON’T TEACH YOU ABOUT MONEY by Claer Barrett

That’s 10 titles, so far. And the list could change, as the year goes on. I’m also curious about a few others by authors in other countries:

GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUNDS (or IMPACT FUNDS) by the co-founders of Female Invest (DENMARK + a small office in the UK)
GIRLS THAT INVEST by Simran Kaur (AUSTRALIA)
GOOD WITH MONEY by Emma Edwards (AUSTRALIA)

It took writing this list for me to see: apparently I’m most drawn to books written by women!? Rob’s is the only book written (solely) by a man on this list, and it’s actually about economics more than personal finance. This isn’t bad, but isn’t necessarily how I want the list to look by the end of the year. Ideally, it would be more inclusive so I can get a broader understanding of what’s being published in the UK. Something for me to be aware of, as time goes on.

One thing I am already aware of is that there are potential biases I could bring into an experiment like this—as a Canadian, as someone from North America who has had a lifelong connection to the US and the influence of its media, as someone who is new to the UK and wants to build a network here (and who doesn’t want to make any enemies but will also commit to writing the truth). And then there’s all of my own experiences as a personal finance writer, author, and the editor of countless articles and even a few books. There’s a lot for me to be mindful of, as I read and share what I’m learning. And, it’s precisely because of all the work I’ve done over the years that I am uniquely positioned to not only quickly learn how things work here, but also translate topics across countries.

All of this is to say: once/month, you will find something resembling a book review here. A very unique review, hopefully… but we’ll see where this financial/cultural education takes me!

xx Cait

What’s your favourite personal finance book? What impact did it have on you? Are there any PF books on your TBR list this year? (Or any you want me to know about, and potentially read/review?)