I guess flowers will do
On IWD.
I was in Romania last weekend and I saw so many women and girls carrying flowers. International Women’s Day is a big thing there — and in so many other places around the world, where women and girls are given flowers as a token of appreciation.
Unlike in the UK and US where it seems to be associated pretty much exclusively with corporate events and LinkedIn posts.
You can’t help but contrast it with all that’s going on in the ‘manosphere’, where it feels like hostility towards and objectification of women is on the rise. I started writing more about this… but didn’t have it in me to continue.
Aminatou Sow does a good analysis though.
To all the wonderful women who make up this community, and the wonderful women in every Money Brunch reader’s life, Happy International Women’s Day.
1. Bank and building society users hit by 33 days of outages in two years
Nine of the top banks and building societies operating in the UK accumulated a total of at least 803 hours, the equivalent of more than 33 days, of unplanned tech and systems outages between January 2023 and February 2025.
That’s excluding last week’s major outage where customers of TSB, Nationwide, First Direct and Lloyds Banking Group (and its Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland brands) – struggled to log into online bank accounts or suffered from payment delays.
Do you have a “diversified banking stack?” By which I mean, do you have your finances spread across different banking providers and systems? If your bank went down on payday, would you be in crisis, or able to manage until the outage was fixed?
Worth thinking about. And relatively easy to action when digital providers (like Monzo, Chase and Revolut) are fairly quick to get set up, compared with the traditional banks.
2. What it really takes to be a self-made millionaire by 33
Some people know about FIRE, others don’t.
If you’re not familiar: Financially Independent Retire Early (FIRE) is a (primarily North American) approach to money, where you work as hard - and for as much money as possible - as you can. And then invest as much of this as you can to build wealth (like investing in stocks and property). The goal is to get your net worth into the millions, so that you can afford to not work. It’s one of the mainstays of ‘hustle culture.’
This interview is with someone who experienced acute financial anxiety, and combatted this through following the FIRE method. She bought a house at 24 and by the time she was 30 had invested more than $250,000.
“Sometimes she would barely sleep and not leave the house for days. Finally, she hit a breaking point — and a financial milestone — and decided to cut way back on her work hours. Now , she talks about what she sacrificed to save so much, and what she’s doing to make up for it now.”
Some interesting quotes:
“In my early 20s, I realized I’d caught up to most of my peers financially, but I didn’t actually want money to go to the mall or to do what everyone else was doing. I wanted money to have choices and possibilities. So I kept going.”
She observed that peers with student debts and bill payments “seemed tethered to jobs that made them miserable. So I focused on building a safety net and creating multiple income streams because I didn’t want to be stuck doing something I hated for the rest of my life.”
“My relationships and my health definitely suffered. I was sick a lot, running on fumes all the time, constantly overworked and on edge. Unfortunately, I was also very comfortable in a burnout cycle. I would just keep going until I crashed for a little bit, and then I would do it again.”
3. Actor Michael Sheen has written off £1m of debts for 900 people, using £100,000 of his own money
Imagine you’ve fallen behind on a few bills for a couple of months in a row. Because you’ve lost your job. You need to pay next month’s bill, but you also need to pay off the outstanding bills - plus any interest accrued. Very quickly, you’ll find yourself in a debt spiral to the bottom, with little to no way to get out of the situation.
After months, when it becomes clear that you’re not going to pay it back, the original company will likely give up on chasing you. But someone else will have bought the debts at a discount and they will be chasing you down, in the hope that they can recoup some of their “investment.”
I caught a trailer for Welsh actor Michael Sheen’s new documentary about his secret project working to clear debts of people across South Wales. The loss of jobs from industry closures (in South Wales, traditional steelmaking ended five months ago).
He explains the system, “People's debts get put into a bundle, with a debt-buying company then able to buy those bundles at a lower price. Despite the money being owed by people remaining the same, the companies that own the debt can then sell them for less and less money.”
Sheen creates a company to use £100,000 to write off £1m of debt. And documents it “to reveal how some banks and finance companies profit from society's most vulnerable.”
I’m going to watch it in the next few weeks (and may reach out to some experts in this space with some questions). Watch this space 👀
Michael Sheen’s Secret Million Pound Giveaway airs on Monday on Channel 4.
Links!
Money
How UK money has changed for women in the last 50 years.
The price of first-class stamps is going from £1.65 to £1.70 from 7 April.
An articulate case for keeping cash ISAs.
Make My Money Matter — a campaign founded by screenwriter Richard Curtis to get people to divert their pension fund money away from bad investments (like oil and forestry) — has closed after five years.
“How will you measure the success of the person in this role?” And “What’s your timeline for next steps?” Some questions to ask in a job interview.
On conflating equity with equality. Why do so many couples split the rent equally? Very good from
Capitalism only thrives because of you.
Life
“Meno-care has a lot of parallels to the beauty industry — it’s an area without a lot of solid scientific information, geared towards women’s insecurities.”On celebrity menopause brands.
London's news media landscape is a desert. London Centric is an oasis. (Londoners - I cannot recommend subscribing to this enough - it’s Proper Journalism and
breaks so many stories).Young people are being ‘priced out of nightlife’ 😢 I firmly believe you should be going to a club at least once a quarter, messing up your carefully cultivated routines and sense of control, and just dancing. Dance more!
“I want to host more parties, but I’m worried nobody will come.” Same, girl.
Know someone who would enjoy this in their inbox on a Sunday morning?