Do age and experience affect how people manage their money? Three generations of one family, Anna, her 21-year-old daughter, Ella, and 79-year-old mum, Lyn, get together to talk financial confidence, concerns for the future and money mishaps.
What makes you feel financially secure?
Lyn: My husband and I invested, saved and spent carefully over the years, which made us feel comfortable and secure in retirement. Unfortunately, my husband died last year. As he largely managed our finances, I had to learn quickly how to best look after my money. I feel fairly financially secure, but I’m aware that I might need money for care in the future, so I’m still careful with my spending. I don’t live extravagantly and I shop around for the best rates for utilities, internet, etc, but I do enjoy having the confidence to be able to treat my family occasionally.
Anna: Feeling financially secure for me also means being careful with money and my priority is earning enough to cover all the bills; if I can save something on top of that, which can go towards a holiday, my pension or paying off the mortgage, that’s a bonus.
Although my husband is working too, we’ve both experienced redundancy, which is incredibly scary when you have a mortgage and dependents, so it’s important to me that we can rely on my single income whenever necessary.
Ella: Combining my education with various part-time jobs makes me feel reasonably financially secure, but I’m aware that I rely on Mum and Dad for financial support.
I’ve worked since the age of 14 as a babysitter, teaching assistant and lifeguard and I spent the last two summers working as a children’s camp counsellor in America. I now help recruit for American summer camps in the UK to supplement my income while studying at university.
Although I receive student loans to help with my accommodation costs, it doesn’t cover the full amount and, even with my part-time work, my parents still give me some money each term to help me get by, which I’m grateful for.
What makes you feel financially insecure?
Lyn: The thought of the future makes me feel a little financially insecure. I don’t want to be a burden on anyone and I’m worried about the high cost of care, whether that’s in my own home or a nursing home. And I’d also like there to be something left for my family to inherit.
Anna: Mum, you’d never feel like a burden for us, I’d rather you spent your money on you now, than be focused on keeping some by for us to inherit.
As a freelancer, I live with a certain amount of financial insecurity, as sometimes clients take months to pay or contracts aren’t renewed when a company cuts back. So I rarely turn work down because I’d rather have too much than too little. This means I often work weekends, but it’s worth it for the additional income. I’ve enjoyed the financial security of working for someone else during periods of my career, but I find I earn more freelancing.
Luckily, we fixed our mortgage just before interest rates started rising, but the fixed term ends in about 18 months and I’m nervous about what our repayments could rise to.
Ella: I’m going to start paying more attention to interest rates, too. I’m due to graduate in the summer with several thousand pounds of student debt. It’s a scary prospect and if interest rates rise, that won’t help. I feel under pressure to get on the career ladder quickly, but the job market is extremely competitive at the moment, which makes things more stressful.
What does money confidence mean to you?
Lyn: Having regular income from my pension gives me the confidence to enjoy meals out, social activities and holidays, which gives me peace of mind and makes me feel financially independent. When I read about the long waiting times for NHS treatment, I’m also pleased that I can still afford private health insurance.
Anna: Money confidence to me means knowing that if I couldn’t work for a few months due to ill health, I could still support my family. It’s knowing I’ve saved efficiently and can treat myself to a holiday, and if the washing machine breaks, I can afford to replace it. Most of my money is invested in a pension and I have savings in a cash ISA and a savings account.
I do think about investing in shares, but I worry that I don’t know enough about the stock market and in the current geopolitical climate, I feel it’s too much of a gamble. Barclays research found that the two biggest perceived barriers that stop people investing are a lack of knowledge (44%) and a fear of losing money (41%) and I’d feel more confident if I understood this more.
Ella: Money confidence means being able to support myself and make the most of the money I do have. I’m lucky that my parents will welcome me back home once I graduate, so my plan is to get a job that will enable me to support myself and save enough money to move out of home and live independently within the next few years.
What are your top three financial priorities: for the short term, medium term and long term?
Lyn: Right now, my financial priority is to be secure enough to remain in my house and enjoy my garden and live a comfortable life.
For the medium term, I’m considering moving from my house to a retirement flat where I could meet more people and feel safe. These flats are expensive, however, and have high annual service charges; I wouldn’t invest in one without knowing that I could afford to live there for the foreseeable future.
For the long term, I want to know that, should the need arise, I have enough money to pay for carers or to live in a nice care home. I don’t want to become a financial burden on my family.
Anna: For the short term, I’m focusing on trying to improve my pension savings. Having been self-employed for the best part of 20 years, saving into a pension wasn’t the priority it perhaps should have been.
For the medium term, I’d like to be in a position to help my children get on the housing ladder and become the “bank of mum and dad” as house prices are so high. Barclays Property Insights found that people are also relying on family support when moving to their second home; I’m not sure I’d be able to stretch to that.
For the long term, I’d like to rent out our house and use it to afford a gap year travelling. I never did this when I was younger. I’d like to be able to take some time to see the world.
Ella: For the short term, I want to stop having to rely on my parents for financial support. I know they say they will continue to help me while they can and I’m grateful for that but, like Grandma, I don’t want to feel like a burden on them.
For the medium term, I want to have a secure job with prospects that will allow me to save enough to get on the property ladder, buy a car and enjoy life.
For the long term, I want to be able to support myself and any future family and be able to support my parents if they ever need financial assistance and pay them back for how they have helped me in the past.
What is your biggest money mishap?
Lyn: We downsized from our family home to a smaller house, but when my husband became ill, he couldn’t get up the stairs so we had to invest in mobility equipment. It would have been better to have moved into a flat that better aligned to our retirement needs.
Anna: Not paying regularly into a pension throughout my career, so I’m playing catch-up now. Maybe I would spend more on frivolous things if I felt I had a healthy pension pot, but I don’t forgo the things I really enjoy, like our annual family holiday.
Ella: I was recently scammed on the internet. I bought some jeans from what I thought was a genuine website, but it turned out to be a fake; it took my money and I never got the goods. I now take more time checking that websites are genuine, but it was an incredibly realistic site and, at the time, it never crossed my mind to double-check it.
What financial behaviours do you think define your generation?
Lyn: Things were much easier for us starting out than they are now. Jobs were relatively easy to get and were often seen as jobs for life. We could get on the property ladder in our 20s because houses were priced within our means. I’m not sure how my grandchildren will ever own homes of their own without family support.
Anna: Having my university education paid for by the government meant I could graduate without huge debts, so I think we all felt more secure than today’s graduates. And, although house prices were rising when I wanted to buy, it was possible to find a property that was about three times your salary; now this is almost impossible.
Ella: I think I’ve got it much tougher than Mum and Grandma; pretty much everyone I know is stressing about finding work after graduation and we’re all aware that we have thousands of pounds of debt that the generations before us never had. We all feel financially insecure and have no idea how we will ever afford a property. We don’t feel we can rely on the “bank of mum and dad” – even though it’s a concept that’s often in the news, it doesn’t feel realistic to us.
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‘There’s so much value in different generations supporting each other’: Kirsty Adams, consumer finance expert, Barclays
Families play a huge role in shaping our money confidence. Everyone makes their own mistakes, and everyone has had different experiences, so discussing finances openly can help remove any sense of shame or secrecy. When families share their approaches - what’s worked, what hasn’t, and what they wish they’d known sooner - it creates a more supportive environment for everyone.
Growing a child’s confidence using numbers is a great way to lay the foundations of money confidence - but this means being confident using numbers yourself, something many parents and carers struggle with. Our research with National Numeracy found some 2.1 million children have at least one parent with low number confidence.
There’s so much value in different generations supporting each other. Older generations have decades of experience - they’ve seen interest rates rise and fall, dealt with recessions, bought homes, saved and budgeted for their goals. This perspective can really help the topic of money feel less overwhelming – there are very few situations families haven’t experienced before.
Support absolutely goes both ways though. Younger generations can help older family members too, especially those who are less tech-savvy, with things such as online banking, or avoiding scams.
Talking about finances can be particularly helpful when it comes to saving and investing. When people understand how saving works and what options exist, it suddenly feels much more accessible and achievable, and long-term goals can come into focus. Discussions around how to get started, what has worked and failed, and previous experiences, all help to break down barriers.
Feel money confident with Barclays – learn more
