The money conversation you keep putting off 💬

Welcome to Inner Equity - my weekly newsletter about building financial confidence on the path to the life you want 🏡

Each week, we break down one meaningful money concept and leave you with an exercise that you can use to put it into practice.

This week, we’re looking at the financial cost of avoiding a money conversation 👇️

Avoiding a money conversation can keep an expensive arrangement in place long after it’s stopped working for you. 

You keep covering a cost, waiting on a repayment, or accepting terms you’ve been meaning to revisit.

You may already know what you want to ask, but you’re worried about seeming difficult, damaging a relationship, or hearing an answer you don’t want.

So you leave it another week. In the meantime, you adjust your own finances around it.

That might mean saving less, carrying a card balance, or putting off something you’d planned to pay for. The other person may have no idea you’re making those adjustments (especially if you’ve kept saying it’s fine).

Peter Crone explores the pressure to avoid upsetting others in his conversation with Hanane about keeping the peace. 

It’s a useful idea to bring into our financial lives: what are we agreeing to because we’re afraid of the conversation we’d need to have otherwise?

Being generous or flexible can be a choice you’re happy with, but it’s worth checking whether you still want to make that choice, or whether you just don’t know how to change it.

Start by putting a number beside the conversation. If you’re covering a recurring cost of $300 a month, leaving the arrangement unchanged for another six months means committing another $1,800.

For money you’re owed, write down the outstanding balance and when you expected it back. Keep that separate from a recurring expense; you’re trying to see what’s tied up, not count the same debt again every month.

Then look at how it’s affecting your own finances. Have you reduced a savings transfer, delayed a payment, or borrowed to cover the gap?

You may decide you can afford the arrangement and want to continue it. You may also discover that you’ve been calling something “no big deal” while moving money around every month to make it work.

Before you talk, get clear about what you’re asking for. 

“I wish they’d be more considerate” doesn’t give the other person much to respond to. A repayment date, a different contribution, or an end date for an expense does. 

Choose the change you actually need, rather than bringing every frustration into the same conversation.

It also helps to separate what happened from what you think it means. 

“The repayment date has passed” gives you a place to start; “You don’t respect my time or money” asks the other person to defend themselves before you’ve discussed a solution.

Explain the amount, how it’s affecting you, and what you’d like to agree on. Then give them room to explain their side.

They may be stretched too, or have understood the original arrangement differently. You won’t know until you ask, and the answer may change what’s realistic.

Having the conversation doesn’t guarantee you’ll get the money back or reach the agreement you want. It gives you information you can use to decide what you’re willing and able to keep doing.

If you do agree on a change, write down the amount and date while you’re both clear on it.

Set aside 20 minutes to prepare for one financial conversation you’ve been postponing.

1. Name the arrangement you need to revisit. Keep it specific: an overdue repayment, a recurring cost, or terms you need to change.

2. Write down the amount involved and how often it comes up. Check your statements or the original agreement, then note the effect on your savings, borrowing, or other expenses.

3. Write down the reaction you’re worried about. Separate what the other person has actually said from what you’re predicting they’ll say.

4. Prepare an opening using the numbers and one request. Then ask for a time to talk when you can both give it your attention.

You’ll go into the conversation knowing what’s changed, how it affects you, and what you’re asking to discuss. The other person gets a chance to respond to that, rather than guess what’s been bothering you.