This week’s guest is Laura Turner, founder of the Thrifty Londoner blog and Instagram, who joins the podcast to unpack the UK’s gender investment gap: a gap Laura put at roughly £1.6 trillion at the time of recording, built from women holding an average of £49,000 in total assets against men’s £114,000, and why so many women still hold back from investing in the first place.
Laura has been writing Thrifty Londoner since 2018, starting out with London-specific money-saving tips before growing it into a full personal finance blog and Instagram page. She talks us through her working-class upbringing on Guernsey, the culture shock of moving to London on a £23,000 salary, and the toxic manager who ended up giving her the push to go full-time on her business rather than staying in the nine-to-five.
From there we get into the real subject of this episode: the gender investment gap. Laura shared some research with me ahead of recording that stopped me in my tracks, the scale of the gap between what men and women hold in investments, and we dig into why it exists, from the gender pay gap that feeds it, to the stereotypical image of what an investor looks like, to the marketing that quietly reinforces it.
It’s a genuinely important conversation, not just for women listening but for anyone who wants to understand why the investing world looks the way it does and what’s actually changing it.
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Key takeaways
- At the time of recording, Laura cited a UK gender investment gap of roughly £1.6 trillion, with women holding an average of £49,000 in total assets against men’s £114,000.
- The gender pay gap feeds directly into the investment gap and the pensions gap: less income in, less available to invest over time.
- Laura says the “stereotypical investor” most people picture is a man in a suit, and that image, reinforced by financial marketing, quietly discourages women from seeing investing as something for them.
- A knowledge gap is part of the problem too, but Laura points to platforms built specifically to close it, alongside a wider wave of female-led personal finance content.
- Laura’s advice is to stop waiting to feel “ready” and start with small, manageable steps rather than treating investing as something only experts get to do.
Timestamps
- [1:15] Laura Turner Introduces Thrifty Londoner
- [12:11] The Real Cost Of Living Comfortably In London
- [14:24] Leaving A Toxic Job To Build Thrifty Londoner Full-Time
- [17:18] The £1.6 Trillion UK Gender Investment Gap Explained
- [19:17] Why The Gender Pay Gap Feeds The Investment Gap
- [20:16] The Stereotypical Investor And Financial Marketing Bias
- [22:27] Closing The Knowledge Gap In Women’s Investing
- [24:25] What Businesses Can Do To Close The Gap
- [37:06] Financial Independence Within Relationships
- [43:52] Laura’s Free Budgeting Tools And The Money Matrix
What is the UK gender investment gap
Laura put the figure at roughly £1.6 trillion at the time of recording, built from a striking difference in what men and women actually hold in investments: women averaging £49,000 in total assets against men’s £114,000. She was quick to flag the caveat honestly, telling me she wasn’t certain whether that figure included pensions or excluded them, but either way, she said, “there’s a gap either way you look at it.” That’s a fair way to frame it: the precise number matters less than the consistent, wide gap that shows up in study after study.
What struck me putting this episode together was how large that gap is compared to how little it gets talked about next to the gender pay gap, which has had far more airtime. Laura’s view is that the two are inseparable: you can’t meaningfully close an investment gap without also addressing the pay gap that feeds it, and vice versa, closing the pay gap without encouraging more women to actually invest what they earn would still leave a large part of the problem untouched. If you want a sense of what closing even part of that gap could be worth over time, our <a href=”https://upthegains.co.uk/compound-interest-calculator”>compound interest calculator</a> is a useful way to see how consistent contributions compound over years rather than months.
Why women invest less than men
Laura’s starting point was simple: “the gender pay gap feeds the gender investment gap.” If women are earning less on average, there’s less disposable income left to invest once bills, rent and everyday costs are covered. That, in turn, feeds a third gap: pensions, since workplace pension contributions are usually a percentage of salary. Laura was careful not to present this as a single-cause problem. She described it as rooted in “systemic gender inequality” that shows up across pay, promotion and how money conversations happen at home and at work, rather than one policy or habit that, fixed, would close the gap on its own.
We touched on the fact that the UK gender pay gap itself has narrowed a lot in recent years, down to around 7.7% at the time of recording from figures in the high twenties not long before that, which Laura and I agreed was genuinely encouraging progress rather than a reason to think the job is done. Smaller pay gaps should, over time, translate into smaller investment gaps too, but only if the extra income women do earn actually gets invested rather than simply absorbed by rising living costs, which is exactly the kind of everyday budgeting pressure Laura has built her whole platform around helping people manage.
Confidence vs competence: the real barrier
One of the more useful reframes in the conversation was around confidence rather than ability. Laura’s own experience learning to manage money in an expensive city, working out train fares, taxi costs and food budgets on a £23,000 starting salary in London, was less about knowledge and more about building the confidence to actually engage with her finances closely. That distinction matters for investing too: plenty of women who could competently research and choose an investment simply don’t feel like investing is “for them” yet, which is a confidence problem dressed up as a knowledge one.
We talked about how that plays out in the data too: surveys consistently show more women reporting a lack of knowledge around investing than men, even in cases where the actual gap in financial literacy is small. Laura’s read is that the feeling of not knowing enough is often the real blocker, more than any genuine deficit in understanding, and that it’s reinforced every time investing content is pitched as complicated or exclusive rather than something ordinary and learnable. Starting with a clear, structured plan can help close that gap in confidence before it becomes a gap in outcomes, and our <a href=”https://upthegains.co.uk/investing-checklist”>investing checklist</a> is designed as exactly that kind of first step.
How the stereotypical investor image holds women back
Laura raised a genuinely eye-opening point about financial marketing: research she’d come across found that articles aimed at women are often illustrated with coins or pennies, while articles aimed at men use pound notes or bars of gold. “If you think of the stereotypical investor,” she said, “you’re picturing a man in a suit… I always was anyway.” I joked it’s a “white bald man called Andrew in his 50s”, and Laura laughed and agreed, but the underlying point was serious: the imagery around investing has quietly told women for decades that it isn’t a space built for them.
That kind of visual shorthand matters more than it sounds. If every piece of investing content a woman encounters frames the subject as small change and coupons while the same subject aimed at men is framed as wealth and gold bars, it reinforces exactly the confidence gap discussed above, without a single word being said. Laura named Female Invest as one platform actively working to change that picture, alongside a wider wave of women-led investing content reshaping who “looks like” an investor, and she was optimistic that younger women coming up now will have visibly more role models to look to than she did starting out.
Closing the gap: what's already changing
Laura was clear that awareness has genuinely improved. She pointed to platforms and podcasts built specifically around female financial empowerment, and to more women sharing their own investing journeys on social media, as real, visible progress compared to a few years ago. On the workplace side, she argued that businesses have a role to play too: paying people fairly regardless of gender, and being deliberate about who gets put forward for promotion.
I put it to Laura that more people investing, and more people making money generally, is better for everyone, not just women, and she agreed wholeheartedly. None of this closes a £1.6 trillion gap overnight, but her point was that the direction of travel, more visible role models, more open conversation, more platforms designed for women specifically, is the mechanism that eventually does close it. Getting your own household numbers organised is a good parallel first step, and our <a href=”https://upthegains.co.uk/budgeting-calculator”>budgeting calculator</a> is a straightforward way to see exactly what’s available to invest each month.
Practical first steps to start investing
If there’s one thing Laura kept returning to, it’s that investing doesn’t require feeling like an expert before you start. Her own trajectory, from working out a workable budget in an expensive city to building a business and a platform helping others do the same, was built on small, consistent steps rather than one big leap. For anyone reading this who recognises themselves in the “I don’t feel confident enough yet” camp, our <a href=”https://upthegains.co.uk/investing-for-beginners-uk”>guide to investing for beginners in the UK</a> is built to strip that hesitation back to plain, practical basics: what an account actually is, how to pick one, and what to do with it once it’s open. Comparing platforms properly also helps, since the right account can make starting far less intimidating, and our roundup of the best investing apps in the UK is a good next stop once you’re ready to open one.
This transcript is auto-generated and lightly edited for readability, it may contain errors.
[0:00] Sammie Ellard-King: Hello and welcome to the Money Gains podcast. This is your host, Sammie Ellard-King, and today my guest is Laura Turner from the Thrifty Londoner. Now, Thrifty Londoner is a wicked Instagram channel. She’s got a great blog as well with some fantastic personal finance products on there. Now we chat today all about her journey to becoming an entrepreneur, toxic workplaces that she faced us on that entrepreneurial journey, having choice by building a business, the gender pay gap, the gender investment gap, the gender pensions gap. We get right into it today. This is a brilliant podcast for everyone to listen to. I’m very excited to get her onto the show. But if you’re listening on YouTube, please do whack that subscribe button. And if you’re listening on Spotify or Apple, give it a follow, share it with a friend. It really does help the show. But for now, let’s get started on the Money Gains podcast. So Laura, welcome to the Money Gains podcast. How are you doing? You well?
[1:15] Laura Turner: Yeah, I’m really good, thank you. Thanks so much for inviting me on. Yeah, you’re welcome. I’ve been following you for ages. I really love your blog and your website. And being a Londoner myself, I um, you know, it’s quite nostalgic for me looking at and reading some of these things. So yeah, I really enjoy it. But if you wouldn’t mind giving the audience a little introduction. Yeah, sure. So um yeah, I’m Laura and I have the Thrifty Londoner blog and Instagram page. And I started that in 2018. So it’s been like over five years now, which is pretty crazy. I have no idea where that time has gone. Um, but it all started um yeah, a couple of years after I moved to London myself. And in that time, it’s kind of evolved. I used to do a lot of um specifics, I guess, around how to save money in London. Um, you know, things like charity shopping, kind of little tips and tricks for budgeting and things like that. But it’s just evolved over the five years, and I now share quite a lot of information on personal finance. Um, and I always say that that kind of thing isn’t just applicable to Londoners. Um, it’s kind of things that anyone can can use, tips that anyone can use. Um, and ultimately I’m aiming to reduce the taboo around money and some of the like mystery and misconceptions around certain topics. Um, and yeah, basically just, you know, have wanted to provide the resource that I wish I had had in my sort of early twenties and the time when I first moved to London.
[2:47] Sammie Ellard-King: So when did you first move to London? I first moved to London in 2016, I think. Yeah. Nice. And and where are you from originally? Guernsey, Channel Island. Oh, yeah. So went from island life to city life. So a bit of a challenge. Oh, lovely. Yeah. That’s like that’s like polar opposite. Yeah, totally. Like I I did move to England to go to uni, so I had, you know, that little adjustment period beforehand. Um but yeah. Oh, cool. That’s really interesting. I mean, so this is probably a great question to start with for you. I mean, being from the Channel Islands, um, what’s money like spoken? Is it spoken about over there? Is it part of the households?
[3:34] Laura Turner: It’s quite interesting. I won’t go too in depth into Channel Island, Guernsey politics on money and whatnot. But um, I’m kind of a Guernsey local, so like my family are from Guernsey, um, like they’re from working class, like my parents are from working class backgrounds, things like that. Um, but there is kind of this sort of idea that the Channel Islands are particularly rich, you know, the term tax haven is often thrown around. Um, it’s a big uh like Guernsey is a huge area for like the finance industry um in general. Um, so there’s a lot of wealth in Guernsey as well, but it’s mainly from people who have moved across to Guernsey. Um so there’s definitely, you know, there’s like the locals and um non-locals, people from the mainland, as like some older some of the older generation would say. Um so yeah, like it’s um it’s a funny one really. I definitely don’t come from one of those like ultra-wealthy backgrounds myself. Um, but I think my, you know, we definitely, me and my brother definitely grew up in a household that was, I guess, like middle class. Um there was a big focus on saving and things like that. Um and so yeah, for me, I guess I’ve always had like a fairly sensible attitude when it comes to money. Um, it was like, you know, £2.50 pocket money, and then you can get like an extra pound to washing the car, you know, all these kinds of things. So it’s like yeah, emphasis on earning money to buy what you want. Um, so yeah, there’s that’s something I’ve definitely carried through um into like my teens um and into my working life, I think. Um I’ve always kind of had that interest in making money essentially. Um so yeah, I’ve had I had like a Saturday job when I was 14, um waitressed in the evenings when I was in sixth form, um worked as a student, I can say that. So yeah, yeah, always have been. Um so yeah, I think um that kind of sums up my experience with money as as a young person.
[5:53] Sammie Ellard-King: It’s so interesting. I uh something you said there was like, oh my, and it actually flooded back a memory. Uh basically, my parents they knew that I was kind of very similar to you, I had a paper round at 14, and I tried to get one at 12, and the woman just wouldn’t went as too as you tip 14, and I went in there on my 14th birthday. But before that, they used to have like a a list up on the wall, and it was like chores from like doing the washing was like 20p. Yeah. And then right up to like washing the car, which was like a fiver, and it was like waxing the car on top of that and polishing it was like an extra two pound. And you had to tick the boxes, and then they had to get like assessed, and then there was like an assessment, and if you had if you got you then got a tick like next to it, you then got that as part of your pocket money in the next week. Uh, it’s such a cool way.
[6:41] Laura Turner: Yeah, definitely. I think it kind of well, I don’t know. I guess you’re the same, set us up as kind of hustlers in our adulthood, if you like. Um, but yeah, I don’t can you even get jobs at 14 anymore? I don’t know if you can. Are we showing our age here? We we are probably, yeah. I um I think you can do like apprenticeship level stuff still. Oh, okay, yeah. But I think it’s very much found upon. Do you know what? I don’t know. That’s something if a listener is listening to this and knows the answer to this, please let me and Laura know. Because um I don’t think you can. Um I certainly, my sisters didn’t. I know that, and they’re much younger than me. Um yeah, super interesting that we used to do that. Because 14, I was in the kitchens, in pubs, I was doing paper rounds, I was doing lots of different things. So I wonder if it’s still the same or if it’s changed.
[7:35] Laura Turner: Yeah, I don’t know. I feel like um like the schooling system has slightly changed as well. Like, I’m pretty sure unless you go into an apprenticeship, you do have to take GCSEs. I think you could leave school before. I don’t know. But yeah, I don’t know if that has anything to do with the the whole employment side of things. Oh, yeah, I remember that. You used to go to college, didn’t you, at 15 if you wanted to do the apprenticeship and you could do a trade? Yeah, I really wow that’s crazy. Wow, we’re getting nostalgic here. I’m loving this. Talking about work, like you’ve come into you come over to London, you’ve gone to university, then you’ve moved to the big city. That’s a big move, no matter what you no matter how you dress it up. How did you find that move and and moving to a big city and then getting into the corporate world?
[8:22] Laura Turner: Yeah, it was it was a bit of a weird one. Like I hadn’t really spent well from living in Guernsey to going to uni, that in itself was a huge learning curve because I’d only been to England a handful of times before that. So um, yeah, there was like some really silly things. Like I I don’t know, like just things you take for granted over here, like certain shops, like certain things I didn’t quite understand about. You know, I kind of thought that like someone was like, Oh, we’re going to spa. And I was like, there’s a spa on campus, and they were like, No, the supermarket. Um, so just like silly stuff like that. So yeah, that was like definitely a learning curve in itself. Um, and I went to Lancaster uni, so it was quite a small town, campus-based uni. So that was kind of a nice stepping stone. Um, and then I lived in Manchester for a while. So even though that’s a small city, it kind of gives the city vibe a little bit.
[9:23] Sammie Ellard-King: Um for London. Exactly, yeah. So it was kind of a gradual move. Um, but then I guess nothing prepared me for just how expensive London was. Um, because obviously you move there, you find your rental accommodation, um, you kind of make a bit of an estimation on like how much your living costs are going to be based on your salary and things like that. And you think, oh yeah, I can make that work, you know, like, and then you kind of get there and you’re like, okay, it costs me 80 pounds, 80, 85 pounds a month to commute on the train. It costs me this much extra when I want to get a taxi. Like, and there’s like a premium on everything. Like, there’s no like six pound taxi to get home anymore. It’s like much more. Um, so yeah, I think that’s kind of why I eventually started Thrifty Londoner because when I moved to London, my salary was um 23k. And I found that quite challenging um to budget. Um, and yeah, I was kind of finding myself every month, like luckily I did have some savings as well. Um, but I was like, this isn’t sustainable long term, and I needed to kind of figure out a way to manage my money much more closely and really pay attention to it so that I didn’t go into um any debt. Um so yeah, I think there was there was a lot to learn about planning meals and you know, there’s a lot more thought that had to go into my money, whereas previously the cost of living just wasn’t that high. So it, you know, I could kind of get by without giving too much thought to budgeting. Um so yeah, that was a big change um in moving to the city for sure.
[11:13] Sammie Ellard-King: So really you’re kind of thrifty Londoner started because you were living and experiencing and needing to do these things, and therefore you had topics which you were knowing about, you were living it. So you would and you obviously had friends and uh exactly the same as me. Like I was in very similar ways to you when I first moved back and uh went to London, moved into London, and you do, man. You have to hustle to get by, you have to you know big borough still coupons, whatever it is, flatshare. I lived in a room, box tiny little room. It was tiny, you could get a wardrobe and a single bed in there, and just and then you had to like hop off the end of the bed to get out of it. Like that’s that’s reality. But then you know, downstairs it was a massive house, and you got a big kitchen and living room, and that’s where everyone was. Yeah, um, so it didn’t it didn’t matter so much, but you know, that’s what that’s uh and then but as you grow older, you’re like, um I don’t really want to live with six people and like exactly.
[12:11] Laura Turner: And I think that’s the struggle with living in London, is that it’s so like you know, that’s fine when you’re like 22, you’re like building your career, you’re having fun. Um, but wages just don’t increase so much though that you can afford your own place by the time you’re 30 and stuff like that necessarily. Like, um so I think that is a really challenging part of London life. Like, you know, sure, you can flat share or house share, but how long do you do that for? And um, yeah, I don’t know the answer to that, but I think it’s it’s very difficult for people who want a family and things like that in London for sure. Well, you have to increase your income. It really is that simple. Um to be able to afford and live comfortably. Well, we say comfortably, time out, did a study recently, and it was 50 uh sorry, yeah, £51,300 was the right amount to live comfortably with one European holiday a year, a gym membership, and basic luxuries. Um, so that is the stark reality of London life right now. And that’s that’s insane because the average salary in London is £37,000 a year. So um there’s a £13,000, £14,000 difference there.
[13:22] Laura Turner: It’s crazy, isn’t it? I actually did a similar poll on my Instagram recently, like asking Londoners what they thought was a comfortable salary to live on in London. And the most common answer was was 60k, but some of the answers went up to like 200k. I guess it it depends on your kind of definition of um comfortable um and your own circumstances, but it just shows it’s like well, 60k is almost double um what the average salary is. So yeah, it’s wild. It is wild, and people gotta do what they gotta do. I mean, so talking about kind of your your I loved your post. You did a post recently and it was called it was about toxic jobs so and your kind of way that you moved into entrepreneurship because of that. Um what was this always bubbling? I don’t know. I know you mentioned that Thrifty London started there, but could you talk to us a little bit how you became Thrifty Londoner full-time and and how’s it going?
[14:24] Laura Turner: Yeah, I’d love to. Um, yeah, so I I had a really toxic manager um in a job that I was was doing in London. Um and it it was it was just one of those things. Um like I won’t go into the the toxicity too much, but basically um it the job was kind of well, the manager specifically was kind of chipping away at my sense of self-worth, my confidence, you know, if you’ve ever been there before, like you know, you know how difficult that can be. Um and so yeah, he came onto the scene and then I think he had only been working there for about two or three weeks, and I just thought, no, like this isn’t worth it for me, you know, like um and because I had Thrifty Londoner already going in the background, um, and at that point it was making near enough my salary from um my nine to five. Um I kind of I I don’t know, it gave me the nudge that I needed, I think, to to pursue it full-time. I think like I always wanted to do this. Um, you know, I I did want to leave the rat race and leave the nine to five eventually. Um, but I think I was still hanging on to the idea that I needed a nine to five. I, you know, I was still holding on to the career that I’d kind of made for the last eight years before that, you know, I kind of was worried about essentially leaving a career that I’d worked hard to build up over that time. Um so there was like there was a lot of weighing up things in the end. And I think um, yeah, I I guess it was almost a blessing in a way because it definitely gave me that little push. Um, because I think I probably would have left it a lot longer. Um and nowadays, obviously, um I have a much better work-life balance. Um, my well-being is much improved after having left that job. Um, and yeah, I have the majority of the working week focused on my business. And yeah, I love I love business. I love being an entrepreneur. Um, I have another business that I’m currently working on and that’s gonna launch next summer, hopefully. Um and yeah, I love the creativity that comes with it as well. I think um it’s definitely preferable to me than working a 9 to 5. Um so yeah, I I I think I was very fortunate in that I already had a business that was kind of established. Um, I know not everyone can have that when they’re experiencing a toxic situation at work. Um, but yeah, that was my experience.
[17:18] Sammie Ellard-King: I love that because the thing is you what I really wanted to sort of unpack there with you, which is a kind of got from your post, but it’s very difficult to get that whole story out in a in a social media post because it’d be there for forever, wouldn’t you? So it’s like the um the what I got from that is that you built the business on the side, and then it was making enough money, you were umming and iring, and then you were like, I’m not gonna take this shit anymore. Exactly. And like I don’t I have a choice. You built yourself a choice, and that’s what we’ve been covering a lot on this podcast recently. And I really like um understanding how these worked for some people for me. The same, you know. I I fell out of love with what I was doing, I was very good at it. I didn’t really know why I why I fell into it, but I did. Um, and so I left the hospitality business in a safe job and a director of a company with shares in a business and went out on my own. Why? Because um I realised that it wasn’t what I truly wanted to do and who I wanted to be. And then the push came from actually COVID. So different people have different pushes. Um yeah, I didn’t necessarily have a toxic working place, I just fell out of love with it. So it’s very interesting to hear how people have kind of come on this journey. One of the big things I’m sorry, I’m just gonna say one of the big things that you would talk about um is empowering people, but specifically women and to invest. And I want to get into this with you because it’s um it’s a big conversation. And uh you very kindly sent me some stuff through to read, and it was so interesting. Um which I thought was insane was women are averaging 49,000 pounds in total assets compared to men’s of £114,000, which is actually leading to a £1.65 trillion gender investment gap, which is absolutely nuts. What do you think is the primary cause of that?
[19:17] Laura Turner: It is, isn’t it? I’d be quite interested to know if the investment gap is um including pensions or not. I don’t know, I don’t know if it is, but either either way, there’s there’s a gap either way you look at it. Um but I think one of the main things is that the gender pay gap feeds the gender investment gap, um, and also the gender pension gap as well. Um, so that’s a huge thing. And you know, the the reason that there’s a gender pay gap in the first place is because there’s this kind of systemic gender inequality. Um and it kind of it’s just in our society, like I don’t want to say everywhere you look, but if if you think of like the stereotypical investor, um you know, you’re picturing a man in a suit, or I always was anyway.
[20:16] Sammie Ellard-King: Yeah, a white bald man called Andrew in his 50s, basically. Exactly. Exactly. Why is he called Andrew? I don’t know, but that is definitely his name. Um so yeah, that’s huge. And I think it, you know, there’s there’s different marketing towards um men and women in this kind of financial space as well. There’s like there’s some quite interesting, there’s an interesting study that was done which shows that when like a piece of um, you know, an article or something like that, even like an article online, for example, um any accompanying pictures, like most of the time the picture will be like coins or pennies when it’s like a article focused on women, but for an article focused on men, it’s like um pound notes or like yeah, bars of gold and stuff like that. Um so I think even that’s quite telling and it’s quite interesting. Um, but I think that’s kind of improving with like there’s there’s platforms like Female Invest. I don’t know if you’ve heard of them, but yes, um they’re like yeah, they’re making some huge changes. Um I think they’re kind of changing the way that we perceive investors, you know, like even like the name of the company obviously is like um but like they’re very like active on social media and online, and I think they um are a real powerful force in the industry now. Um, and I think they’ve been around for I’m not sure, like a few years, I think, but I think that’s kind of the start of that change taking over, and it means that. younger people, younger women are seeing you know, they’re they’re hopefully gonna grow up seeing more role models like that um and seeing things like that on social media. Um and so yeah I think really breaking down that that gender inequality um over time is what’s gonna help that but obviously that’s a really huge job to do. It’s improving. So yeah.
[22:27] Sammie Ellard-King: Yeah yeah definitely like from what I’m seeing there’s more conversation around it there’s more awareness and actually the knowledge gap was the problem and that seems to be bridged by these fantastic platforms the you know pennies to the pound podcast this girl who’s invest who’s master as well there’s all of these um amazing female empowerment but teaching them about personal finance and investing which for me is a problem right across both male male and female yeah definitely having seen the data certainly more you know females feel like they’re they have a lack of knowledge in this area but why do you feel like that’s because you you mentioned gender inequality and absolutely that’s been a you know a big issue for the last 150 years going back you know since this conversation was kind of started and kickstarted what I suppose the question really is there’s like societal norms there’s like traditional gender roles do you feel like there’s an underlying cultural attitude or bias that needs to be addressed to kind of bid bridge that gap yeah definitely like I think you know there’s some huge stats on you know women you know or or like high level roles um director level roles in companies are mostly held by men um there’s so many reasons why that might be but you know I think often um like what my my personal opinion is that a lot of these kind of money related biases you know these these things that we’re dealing with um in the financial space are quite often to do with pay um and like I mentioned before like the investment gap and the pension gap is is kind of due to not having as much money as males a lot of the time.
[24:25] Laura Turner: And so I think you know businesses need to change their attitudes toward things. So you know if if you’re if you are a manager in an office or you are a director or a hiring manager or whatever, you know it’s it’s you need to make change in how you pay people and make sure that you are paying people fairly um that you’re putting people up you’re putting women up for promotion if they’re on maternity leave you know there’s there’s lots of things within the workplace I think that need to change um in order to kind of shift um the perception of women in the workplace but also like to bridge that that kind of gap as well um because at the end of the day we live in a patriarchal society so it it’s kind of you know if you have if you have the ability to make change um you know I think it’s it’s being very aware of that and being aware when you are in a position to make a change.
[26:10] Sammie Ellard-King: I completely agree with you. The we had Elizabeth Willetts on from Investing In Women a couple of episodes ago I think it’s episode 38 if you want to go back and listen to that episode I would definitely encourage to you to um as well or if you have the chance because she’s a fantastic uh person and doing some brilliant work. And one of the big things is obviously around career breaks and that is a stumbling block for businesses but you can kind of see it from the business’s point of view too you know if a a lady does go away on maternity for in the the business’s eyes you know that’s a key cog lost for that time frame. If you’re just looking at it from the business’s perspective without looking at the gender problem in that situation that’s a difficult problem for the business to solve.
[26:55] Sammie Ellard-King: Yeah. And then equally as well when that person then they’ve then got to replace that role and then when that person comes back they then have to then fit that person back in legally it’s not an easy situation for a business absolutely whether it’s run by a male or a female. So it’s a difficult problem that that that um career breaks put in and obviously that then gives it’s very difficult for women when they go away and have a child and then come back into the working place they often have responsibilities and uh childcare and they need to be flexible and that’s hard for a for a woman to have to to to deal with and do you feel like there’s more that can be done there to help women back into the workplace because for me it’s very much carte blanche like you’re due back on this day. Like there’s not really a support system or a network there.
[27:49] Laura Turner: Yeah I I totally agree and I I think one thing that would be amazing is if shared parental leave was more widely available um and you know normalized um because at the moment you know a a workplace might have a policy that um you can have three months maternity leave um or two weeks paternity leave depending on your gender um which is quite old fashioned I believe um like obviously there’s there’s certain things like if if you have actually birthed a child there’ll be certain recovery that you need to go through and things like that. Of course there’s a difference there but let’s face it we’re not popping them out like so you can kind of understand it from that point of view but if there was an attitude towards shared parental leave it just means that um you know women aren’t being hit as much there’s a shared responsibility there for the child um and and it means that you know it might be easier to get back to work. You know you might be able to you know maybe you take three months off and then your partner takes three sorry three months off and then your partner takes three months off and then you kind of share that kind of first six months which are very crucial in um in like a new baby’s life and everything. So um that’s one thing and it also helps with something like the pension gap as well because you you know if you’re kind of sharing that leave there’s you know you’re less likely to lose out on income. And yeah but in terms of returning to the workplace um yeah I I fully think that every company should have some sort of system um whether it’s like a gradual return to work or um some sort of plan um that kind of you know eases you back into the workplace. Um because I think it it’s unfair to to just be like right this is where things are at like off you go. Yeah like a lot of things change there’s like um there’s been a huge change in that employee’s life and so yeah I think the employer should should accommodate them as well as possible.
[30:18] Sammie Ellard-King: I mean I’ve never had a child myself so I can’t really imagine like exactly um how it’s how you’re feeling afterwards but obviously I think for anyone it’s it’s hard to like leave your baby for the first time and whatever like you know I’ve had obviously friends who who have gone through this recently um and yeah I think um it’s important to have that kind of plan in place to make it as easy as possible I completely agree um job sharing all things like this kind of embracing the changes that we have to embrace like as a society things are becoming more flexible people want that work from home that flexibility to only do two three days a week could you then job share to with another person for another two days a week which then allows you to then you know care for your young children uh but equally as well still be involved still contribute to um the corporate job that you have or or the job that you you know that you you want to go and get uh but you can’t because you know it’s it’s they want me there five days a week in central London and I can’t do that and so there’s these types of things and you mentioned obviously the gender pensions gap like for me there’s a big that’s also absolutely enormous the numbers um I didn’t write down stupidly before this but um the numbers are insane very similar to the investing gap and I think obviously that you know having children will naturally play a part in that but it’s what happens after the the two three years where the mother may not feel confident being doing that five days a week which really really starts to contribute to it.
[32:01] Laura Turner: What do you feel like has kind of been done in this area is there anything you’ve seen that’s kind of working andor anything cool that people can kind of listen and take note of um I guess again I think the only time I’ve seen like something particularly interesting is where employees have offered um like specific benefits packages um so maybe including some sort of enhanced childcare support as part of the package um and so that kind of is taken from your like pre-tax earnings and then you know it allows for the huge cost of childcare um to to be mitigated a little bit um so yeah that’s that’s like the only thing that I have kind of seen in work from from that kind of point of view and I think it in theory would allow more money to be sent towards a pension. But yeah I think that’s that’s probably the only thing that I’ve seen um you know in that sort of time frame um because yeah I think it’s it’s often childcare that eats up a lot of um the income like I you know there’s uh I’ve got a friend who has two children under the age of five and um you know to put them both in nursery she was like well that costs more than what I earned so I’m gonna have to stay at home instead because it doesn’t make sense. And so yeah I think childcare is um is a huge one because if that’s better you can go back to work you can you can continue your career um and I think the UK has the highest childcare costs like or one of the highest childcare costs in the world um which yeah it’s pretty insane.
[35:10] Sammie Ellard-King: Yeah and it doesn’t help and I mean that’s you know what you’ve got a decision to make then do you make less so you’re not then losing out on childcare or do you work and then put all of your money into childcare just because uh you know just just so you can work I’m not sure something certainly needs to be done there and I do agree with you like a lot of workplaces are now bringing that in that support system for um people with young kids so they can get them back in because these are talented people let’s not be routed these are talented people that are like having to stay at home and they probably don’t want to um or they want to try and get back into the working environment just because it’s healthy to be around people but I do think as well like COVID changed a lot of things where a lot of companies became quite progressive and understood that people don’t have to be in the workplace all the time. And so working from home and having young children you know a lot of companies that as long as the job gets done not necessarily mining and as long as you turn up for a few of the meetings like they’re on Zoom and it’s kind of okay. And I think that those are the types of businesses which will naturally gravitate that these types of individuals will have to gravitate towards because it’s just the way it is and hopefully that’s getting better. I wanted to ask a little bit about the other side of this coin because you know there’ll be some people listening to this which will have just that traditional view on how things should be done and like there for me there is no right and there is no wrong and I firmly believe that it’s what the next door decide to do and the next order to them decide to do is totally up to them. But people will have a different view on this and they’ll say well no actually you know the the man is the breadwinner and the lady raises the family and that’s that perfect 1950s you know very postcard family that we all saw on television growing up and we still do. What would you say to to to that side of things?
[37:06] Laura Turner: Like I well I’m the same as you I think each of their own like everyone has their own values and the you know everyone’s entitled to live their lives how they choose to um I think that it’s quite an unrealistic goal if I’m honest because um there’s not many places you can live in the UK or you know there’s not going to be many couples who can only have one income. So there’s especially in London. Yeah definitely in London unless you’re earning like multiple multiple multiple six figures um yeah I think that’s very challenging um and so that’s the first point I would make on that. The other thing is that there is that traditional you know nuclear family dynamic and um man’s man goes out to work, women stays at home kind of idea. But I think um what has hopefully changed in recent years is kind of recognising the value of women’s work in inverted commas um of raising the children and looking raising the children and looking after the home. And I think and I hope that’s kind of um being recognised now. I think in the past it’s like you know you know if you’re the bread winner, you’re the man of the house, you make all the household decisions, you make you kind of control the money and that’s that. Whereas you know if you do have a woman at home who’s raising the family and looking after the home they’re doing a very important job because without that person the man wouldn’t be able to go out to work. So um I I think and I hope in modern day we have a much more equal view on um things like that. And the only thing I would say is that I think that everyone should have their own kind of they they should have their own they should have a a view on finance in general. So you know I think it’s quite dangerous for someone to be in that dynamic um and not have 100% reliant. Yeah exactly like you should never be 100% reliant on someone else. Completely agree and so whether that’s you know you have the money split 50-50 um I think you kind of always need some sort of fund. Because obviously like sometimes the worst does happen and you need to you might need to get out of a certain situation.
[39:48] Sammie Ellard-King: Well it’s like I had these kids for you and we’re a family so this is that it should be our I see it as a joint thing. It’s like this is that the family’s money and therefore within part of that the lady should be titled to uh have money for herself to do things for herself because you know then it’s then you’re very much I’ve seen it happen a million times. Families will fall apart because of this because there’s just the man does his job the lady stays at home and eventually if she feels so trapped and she acts out and or she leaves and or they argue over money and and then you know the divorce happens and the kids are the unfortunate casualties of that situation. So yeah no I completely agree. It’s it’s it’s it’s it’s a difficult one and people just have their multitude of different views on it. But I just think awareness and um understanding options and you know making sure that businesses and people are having these types of conversations so you can then make your own informed decisions rather than having it thrust upon you because that’s the right thing or the normal thing to do or that’s what everyone else does doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to to yeah absolutely yeah and that goes both ways as well I don’t think you know if you if you want to raise a family and you do want to take that career break, you know, that’s fine too like you you know you also don’t have to subscribe to this idea that um women need to have it all as well. Yeah yeah I um one of the big reasons for me of doing this business was because um you know me and my partner if we do eventually have kids we’d love to I think if we do then we would um then like me being at home and being around was one of the big things for me because and you know my dad did a good job with us when he was young but he worked a lot so you know I saw him in the morning for like 45 minutes and then he went back into London and that was it. And so like that that’s what you I got with my dad was a young boy. Um I don’t want that for my kids because I understand the value of having you know a dad around and so um for me I was like well how can I bring that back in and actually that was being you know building a business so I could not only you know have good stuff for me personally you know standard but um but also my family too and having time with them was massive.
[42:14] Laura Turner: And it comes back to what you were saying at the start doesn’t it of giving yourself a choice and giving yourself options and I think that’s yeah that’s the beauty of running your own business definitely yeah 100%. So you’ve got loads of cool tools on the Thrifty Londoner there’s um there’s courses and um budgeting templates and things like that for people to to access um would you mind giving us a little intro into those because uh they’re super handy and I yeah I’d encourage people to go and check them out. Yeah sure so let me see if I can remember all of them there’s a few free um things you can sign up for um so there’s like um a free net worth calculator there’s a free side hustle expenses and income tracker um I’ve got like a free five day email course which is like a money makeover course just like a quick snappy kind of reconditioning of your finances. And then yeah there’s the the money matrix which is um a paid product which is like a crazy budgeting spreadsheet that um yeah allows you to track like your money from like an annual perspective um and then it’s split out into monthly tabs as well so um you can kind of track everything from like your debt your everyday spending um your financial goals your savings um and then it all kind of turns it out into little graphs and things like that. So um yeah it’s uh yeah an interesting little tool. And how much is that that is I believe it’s £29.99.
[43:52] Sammie Ellard-King: We’ll put a link to if anyone wants to check that out for sure. But I really enjoyed this chat. It’s been um you know putting the research together was so eye-opening for me. Lots of stats in there that I didn’t know existed and super eye-opening but good to see as well based on the research that there is some great work being done and that the gender pay gap is getting you know I think it’s 7.7% now and it was over in the the high 20s only a few years ago. So we’re seeing difference companies are waking up people are waking up and um you know it’s it’s paying dividends for because at the end of the day more people investing and more people making money is better for the blokes too. So like it’s better for us all. So yeah we’ve just got to be wary of that and um and keep doing the great good work that that seems to be going into at the moment.
[44:50] Sammie Ellard-King: Yeah absolutely well thank you so much for coming on and yeah so would you mind just giving those links as well where the the juicy links where people can go and find you as well yeah sure um so yeah my website is thriftylondoner.com and you can find me on Instagram at thrifty londoner lovely thanks coming on Laura thanks so much for having me to be a little bit more than a little bit more
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