24 hours later
Financial mistakes, fights about money - and property prices.
Over the festive period, I wanted to keep to my usual publishing schedule. After all, I love writing, and it felt like this quiet period would be a great time to dig into some more meaty ideas. Yet it’s felt anything but quiet1 this year for me, which is weird, but great!
Yesterday morning I went to the gym, then met a friend for lunch, and then was back home for the ‘things that need to get done’ on a Sunday. This left only very limited time to write, so I shifted it over to this morning ☀️
It’s a good point in time to reflect; there have been lots of Ins and Outs lists circulating online. If I wanted to get attention to this little corner of the Internet, I would have created one. But I haven’t had the time. Ha!
Next year is going to be tough; in fact, the next few years will be tough. Prices in the UK are insane, and keep rising. Household incomes will stagnate or fall next year. Billionaires and crooks are not content with what they have; they still want more. The more exhausted, weary and insular we become, the more we become paralysed by inertia.
So how can we as individuals remain nourished, connected and human during these times? I think there’s something about doing more at a micro level; what can you do in your world to make an impact? It could be incorporating some community engagement work into your life, disconnecting from platforms designed to increase your stress levels, pushing yourself less at work and prioritising your life more.
Whatever combination you land upon, I think the most important facet is reclaiming agency over our lives. In whichever tiny ways we can.
1. The biggest financial mistakes some people have made
And by ‘some people’, I mean FT writers.
The most interesting ones that I think we could learn from:
“I was an overcautious investor”. This person writes about markets for the FT(!). “Over the years I have squirrelled away any spare bits of money in cash.” Instead, this year, she started putting these amounts into a stocks and shares ISA. Success!
“When I first started work, I wanted a really flash TV.” So they took it out on credit. “Six months into the 24-month contract that I couldn’t break, I realised that if I had simply waited and saved the money instead, I’d have been able to buy the kit outright — plus, I’d not have any debt and my credit rating wouldn’t be wrecked. And by that time, the telly I bought was already out of date.”
“The picturesque cottage on the Pembrokeshire coast.” Turns out mixing business and pleasure — that is, having a holiday home they loved, but renting it out for the rest of the year — is really difficult to balance.
2. Four fights couples have about money and how to get out of them
You both avoid talking about money, but feel frustrated that there’s no “plan.
One person hoards money and worries about it, while the other spends it and doesn’t see what the big deal is. The former feels like they have to monitor the latter, and the latter feels stifled by the former.
You stress about each other’s spending and argue over your individual purchases, like $50 at Target or $40 on takeout.
There’s a big disparity between your incomes, and there’s an imbalanced power dynamic as a result.
Some of the advice:
Broach the subject, and say you’d like to talk about money — then make an appointment to do it
Actually commit to the “appointment!”
Figure out what your goals are and agree on shared targets — agreeing on the big things is key
Figure out how you want to combine your finances and what you’d like to keep separate
Understand how you’d both approach situations that might arise in the future — like changes in health/ability to work, caregiving responsibilities etc
3. House price changes across the UK — and home buyers are becoming more price sensitive
Two things happening in property this week. Data from Halifax bank looks at house price changes across the country.
What it’s found is that, if you’re looking to invest in property for capital growth purposes (ie you want the money you put into the property to grow), you don’t want to do it in London — the capital accounts for 70% of the top 10 ‘price falls’ list.
Instead, you probably want to look more north of the country — basically anywhere outside London and the South East (where prices are highest in the country).
The only exception is Slough — not sure what’s going on there, but it’s poppin’.
Secondly, there’s data showing that home buyers are becoming more price sensitive — no surprise there, really.
This is based on data from property website Zoopla which shows that the gap between asking and selling prices is widening — although only slightly. Buyers are now typically agreeing sales at 3.6% below the asking price; this was at 3.2% in the summer (where there was a burst of higher confidence).
In normal numbers, that means that a house with a £500,000 asking price could have sold at £484,000 in the summer, versus £482,000 now. It’s only £2,000… but it’s still £2,000!
Links, links, links
Co-op member? You've got until New Year's Eve (tomorrow!!) to use your rewards balance – or lose it. A few years ago, supermarket group Co-op introduced a membership scheme which meant that the more you spent, the more you earned in rewards. It stopped doing this earlier this year (boo!) and gave shoppers until the end of the year to use their rewards. Check if you have any money on there and make sure you spend it!
Monzo is launching an automated 1p savings challenge. On 1 January, you save 1p, 2 January it’s 2p… and so on, until the end of the year. This would mean you’d save £667.95. It’s been a trend on TikTok before, and MoneySavingExpert has promoted it as a concept too. Now, Monzo is offering it in app. Not sure what it will look like but something I’m going to do!
Brain rot is the word of the year, and reading is in decline. “Forty years ago “you could say to a [university literature] student, ‘This week it’s Dickens. Please read Great Expectations, David Copperfield and Bleak House. Now, instead of three novels in a week, many students will struggle to get through one novel in three weeks.” Interesting!
Related, how to read more in 2025.
A look at the London Christmas meat auctions. Not a euphemism.
A guide to some of London’s department stores through time. I love a department store. Would love to see them return at some point.
Know someone who would enjoy this in their inbox on a Sunday (or Monday) morning?
I measure quietness by how much time I can spend doing things like reading, napping or watching TV. And for whatever reason, this hasn’t happened much.