Birmingham residents avoid discussing personal finances, study finds​

National World - LocalTV

In Birmingham, topics like personal debt, salaries, and savings are often avoided in conversations. To address this, smart money app Plum partnered with comedian Mark Simmons to create "Improv Your Finances," a joke book aiming to make financial discussions more approachable. We explore how humour can break down barriers and encourage Brummies to engage openly about their finances. ​

Transcript

00:00Talking about money can be uncomfortable and in Birmingham nearly half of

00:04residents avoid discussing their finances. Fear of judgment, lack of

00:08knowledge and worry about arguments keep people from facing up to financial

00:13realities. But this reluctance can come at a cost. Research shows billions sit in

00:18non-interest accounts, meaning people are missing out on potential savings.

00:22Plum's new initiative aims to change that, using humour to make these

00:26conversations easier. By teaming up with Mark Simmons they've created a joke book

00:31designed to break the silence around money matters. But can comedy really help

00:36people open up about personal finances? So quite often people see money as a

00:43taboo topic and they're reluctant to have conversations about their finances.

00:49When we did this research at Plum, looking into people's attitudes towards

00:54discussing money, the three main reasons why people avoid discussing it are they

00:59want to avoid arguments, they may feel uneducated or there's a fear of being

01:03judged as well. And I think it's potentially part of the British culture

01:08as well that people just don't like talking about money generally and given

01:11it's seen as this taboo topic I think it makes it harder for people to have that

01:15discussion and learn from how others are managing their money as well.

01:21Money isn't just about numbers, it's emotional. Anxiety, embarrassment, even

01:26shame can stop people from engaging with their finances. That's where humour comes

01:30in. Studies show that jokes can make a tough subjects more approachable, helping

01:35people feel less judged and more open to discussions. That's the idea behind

01:40Improv Your Finances, Plum's way of using comedy as an icebreaker to get people

01:45talking. The more we normalise money conversations, the easier it becomes to

01:50tackle personal debt, savings and financial planning, so could love to be

01:55the key to breaking taboos. So Plum did some research that found that 45% of

02:02people in Birmingham would find tricky topics such as money easier to discuss

02:07if humour was used to help discuss them, so that's around half of people. I think

02:12given the challenges that people face talking about money, humour can be a

02:17really good way to get that discussion moving and then having had that

02:21discussion showing actually I can talk about my money, you can then begin to

02:25take steps towards managing it better and that's why we developed this Improv

02:30Your Finances campaign with the comedian Mark Simmons who won Joke of the Year at

02:35the Edinburgh Fringe to put these jokes together, 40 jokes in total about money

02:41and help people realise that actually money isn't scary or as awkward as

02:45people might think it will be. So by using this finance joke book where

02:49we can show the funny in money, it'll help ignite this

02:53conversation between people and get them thinking about their finances as well.

Birmingham residents avoid discussing personal finances, study finds

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Birmingham residents avoid discussing personal finances, study finds