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.
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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.