Introducing Laura Whateley, author and award-winning journalist
Laura Whateley
Meet Laura, author and award-winning journalist. Former The Times’ consumer champion and ‘Millennial Money’ specialist. She has written for The Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Observer, Dow Jones and Moneywise magazine. She now writes books and journalism including Grazia’s Life Admin column. Laura regularly speaks on young people, women and money. She grew up in the West Country and studied PPE at the University of Warwick before moving to East London
Here she tells us about her first book, ‘Money, a User’s Guide’ and predicts future trends for personal finance following the pandemic.
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“I’m a freelance writer. For the first ten years of my career I was a reporter at The Times and the newspaper’s consumer champion, helping readers with their money and consumer affairs problems and I wrote a column called Millennial Money.
I now write books and journalism for magazines and newspapers about money, housing and travel, including Grazia’s Life Admin column. I also speak at events and on podcasts about young people, women and money, campaigning to make the subject more accessible.”
Laura’s first book: ‘Money, A User’s Guide’
What was the inspiration to write your first book, ‘Money, a User’s Guide’?
In 2018 I was approached by my now editor, Michelle Kane at 4th Estate, about whether I might be interested in writing a book about money. It was perfect timing – ten years on from the financial crisis and ten years from me starting my first job, just two weeks after Lehman Brothers had collapsed.
I could see the scars from the financial crisis on a whole generation. I was 33 at the time, a classic older millennial whose career and finances have been defined by starting work in the wake of a recession while house prices became increasingly out of reach.
I’d learned so much about personal finance as a journalist on the Money desk of The Times, where I started my career and where I had the privilege of interviewing so many financial experts. I really wanted to share what I’d picked up. I wrote the book to my younger self, who hadn’t a clue, based on what I wished I’d known in my 20s.
I think finance is an area that people are very scared by, but it is a fundamental and unavoidable part of our daily lives. A lack of confidence about how to manage money is the cause of so much grief and misery.
I wanted to lay out how you can start to feel better about it, and show that really for most people the world of money is not as complex and intimidating as many assume it is.
What do you see as future trends towards how consumers engage with personal finance?
The pandemic, lockdown and consequent economic uncertainty has just speeded up a move that I think young people in particular were already making, as a result of the financial crisis and housing crisis, towards realising money is not a topic we can ignore. I think many more people are engaging with personal finance and how they can improve their knowledge and situation as a result.
But it is also easier to come unstuck, not just because of economic pressures but because of how we spend and save now.
In what way do you think our spending habits have changed?
Lockdown has made us even more used to contactless spending, buy-now-pay-later has exploded this year. It’s psychologically so much easier to disengage with our finances if they are all remote from us, it feels like we’re not using “real” money.
I think more people are recognising the emotional element of money. Personal finance, budgeting, being able to save or get out of debt is not just about percentages and monitoring the stock market, it’s about our mental health, our family life, how we were brought up and how we feel now.
What would you say is the biggest lesson you’ve learnt from working in the industry?
I think it’s believing in myself as someone who has valuable money knowledge and insight to share. I’ve grown up with the image of a “money expert” as being a man in a suit. I still know women who ask their dads to manage their money because there’s an unshakeable perception that that’s what dads do.
The world is changing, fortunately, but there’s still a strong association between finance and masculinity and a sense that money knowledge is the preserve of certain types of people. Not true!
What are your most valuable productivity resources?
A notebook and pen. Maybe the bath?! Where I have time to just think. My pinging phone is the biggest productivity drain of all time, having a break from it for a while is the only way to get anything done.
I like the pomodoro technique too, setting a timer to force myself to concentrate and focus for a set period, then rewarding myself with a bit of scrolling in between. This year has been awful for productivity though, too many news alerts.
Laura Whateley
Have you faced any challenges as a woman in business? If so, how have you dealt with this?
Like many woman I’ve met who have worked in media or finance, I’ve experienced inappropriate comments in a professional setting, work events where you’re put in an awkward situation. I didn’t deal with it at all at the time, you don’t say anything because you’re not sure if you’re just overreacting. You don’t want to offend or not be seen as “nice” or grateful.
Industry the new HBO series – which I loved, watch it! – is extreme but it highlights some of these grey areas so well. It’s easier as you get older and more experienced to trust your gut and have confidence to know where your own boundaries begin and end.
What tips would you share with any budding writers?
Read all sorts of different kinds of writing – books, journalism, political opinions that are different from your own. Believe in yourself, but also, know that it’s hard to make money from writing. A lot of writers have other ways of earning, writing is only one part of their career, or they can subsist because they have other sources of income from family or a partner.
What keeps you motivated?
Curiosity, I always want to know more about what people are thinking and why they behave as they do – that’s why I think money is such an interesting area, we are all so differently motivated by money.
So, we have to ask, what is your own relationship with money and personal finance like?
Work in progress! I know what I’m supposed to do, but that doesn’t make holding back on an online shopping splurge any easier does it?
How do you define wealth?
The freedom to make choices about how you live without earning money being the number one driver, as it has to be for so many people. Also, getting taxis and shopping at Ganni whenever you want.
What is the best financial decision you have ever made ?
Staying with my boyfriend (now husband). Haha! Money wasn’t the motivation, I’d just like to clarify that…! but I think it’s so important to be honest about how our family finances are fundamental to financial security (or lack of).
I live in a flat that I bought with my husband in 2017. This is only because when we were young I lived in a property that he owned, enabling me to save.
There’s no way I could have found a deposit for a London flat without him, on just my journalist salary, or without regular, difficult conversations about money.
Our money decisions, good and bad, are so often dependent on luck and who are parents or partner is. We should be open about that so people don’t feel that they are “failing” somehow because they can’t afford to own a property on their salary alone. Few young people can.
What did you learn about finance and money when you were growing up?
I remember getting my first Abbey National little passbook and starting my first savings account. My parents taught me the importance of staying on top of your spending, not that I ever listened! But also that while going out to earn your own money and becoming financially independent is important, being rich and wanting for money for money’s sake, is not. Success shouldn’t be defined solely by what’s in your bank account.
Which area of finance do you wish you knew more about?
Trading. I’m intrigued by the culture of the City what really goes on in those glass towers.
Laura Whateley
What does a typical ‘day in the life’ look like for you?
This year has made my days pretty dull! As a freelancer writer I often worked from home pre-lockdown, but also from coffee shops and co-working spaces. I also travelled a lot as I write a lot of travel articles, sadly on hold at the moment. Now I work from the kitchen table or the spare room.
I split my time between writing journalism, content, and working on books, as well as doing events - all online webinars at the moment – sometimes speaking on the radio or on podcasts. I find it hard to do anything well in the middle of the afternoon, the morning is definitely when I need to write or edit anything important.
In lockdown I’ve been trying to go out for a walk before work, get a coffee on the way, listen to a podcast. I’ve also been doing a lot of lunchtime Zoom yoga. Highly recommend for sanity and for your laptop neck.
Who is your role model?
I don’t really have a specific person, though my 92 year old always positive Grandma is amazing. I really admire anyone who is quietly getting on with being creative, or campaigning for a better world without making it all about them.
I know self-promotion is unavoidable now and has its place, but I think we should all aspire to make something beautiful, interesting, challenging, because it is helpful to others in its own right, rather than because it makes us well-known. In short, anyone who is the opposite of the professional controversialists who waste their lives on Twitter.
What’s next for you?
I’m working on another book, watch this space! I have also just updated Money a user’s guide, which was originally published in 2018, for 2020 – it’s out on Christmas Eve, ready for the new year! It’s includes a new chapter on your rights at work.
I have just written a US version of ‘Money: a User’s Guide’, too, which was a challenge as personal finance is very different in the States, though lots of the fundamentals are the same. It came out during lockdown, so I’m dreaming of the excuse to go to LA in 2021 to see it on an American bookshop shelf.
Which book(s) have had the biggest impact on your life, and why?
So many for different reasons at different points of life. This year I have loved Julia Samuel’s This Too Shall Pass. Julia Samuel is a psychotherapist who works a lot with bereaved families. Her book looks at grief about change, and how change is the only certainty in life, good times come to an end, but so do bad times, too. A balm in this crazy pandemic.
Top 5 Instagram accounts to follow?
For money, @vestpod, by Emilie Bellet, the brilliant women’s network.
I also like @rainchq by Davinia Tomlinson for financial advice.
I love vegetarian cooking, Anna Jones is the queen of it, and her Instagram feed full of inspiration and delicious recipes @we_are_food
@Iamlaurajackson has a picture-perfect life and wardrobe, but is somehow also not annoying. I want everything she wears. Not great if you’re trying to budget.
If you like cute animals because come on what is Instagram really for @mignoettetakespictures. Thank me later.
Website and social network links:
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Recommended READING and LISTENING?
I’ve just finished Mohsin Zaidi’s A Dutiful Boy, which I can’t recommend enough. It’s a beautiful, touching and in parts very funny memoir about growing up gay as part of a devout muslim family.
It’s also about class, race, how we split ourselves into different parts, and how love conquers all. Go out and buy it!
I’ve been really enjoying the podcast The Shift (on life after 40) by Sam Baker. Technically I’m not the audience, as a 35 year old, but I find it comforting listening to older, wiser women share their experiences, the stuff they grew out of and stopped caring about, their professional successes and failures.
I also love In Writing with Hattie Crisell, a podcast where successful writers share where and how they work. Fascinating.