It’s not difficult to get involved with the debate about the credit crunch and the current national and global recession. Gordon Brown the Prime Minister is the ex Chancellor of the Exchequer and he is well remembered for his continuous chanting of the word ‘prudent’ whenever he was delivering his budget speech. In fact some sad person would actually count how many times he said it while delivering his budget each year. He also regularly informed us he would steer Britain on a prudent course and would not allow ‘Boom and Bust’ on his watch. Well guess what we got a BIG BUST now!

Now the credit crunch and the recession has demolished our traditional British reserve when it comes to discussing money. We are all getting involved now!

New research from online credit monitoring service CreditExpert shows that more than half of us – 53 per cent – are far more likely to discuss our personal finances with others than we were just a year ago.

The reasons for our new found openness vary, with 28 per cent of people saying they feel better knowing others are in the same boat, while 27 per cent are looking for advice and a quarter want to get their worries out in the open. A further 39 per cent simply join in when others start talking money and a quarter of us think it’s the current hot topic of conversation.

CreditExpert director Darryl Bowman says, “Talking openly is the first step to resolving any financial worries you might have, so the fact that most of us are now prepared to chew the financial fat is a good step forward.

Get your financial facts right

“But you need to be sure of your facts. A good place to start is your credit report – the personal history of your credit accounts, such as loans, cards and your mortgage. An online service such as CreditExpert gives you easy access to your credit report and provides lots of good advice about how you can improve your credit rating – and you can see your Experian credit report for free when you take a trial.”

The biggest financial topic is the cost of living – 62 per cent of us chat about it, while 37 per cent are talking about cutting back our spending, 29 per cent about savings and investments and 19 per cent are discussing debts, according to the survey of more than 2,000 British adults. The number of searches made on Google for term ‘money saving expert’ was now the 6th highest finance term searched for after the individual banks.

We prefer to talk finance to our partners (52 per cent) and best friends (48 per cent) but the equivalent of nearly 2.5 million adults (five per cent) have spoken to a debt councillor and around five million adults (10 per cent) have discussed money matters with a professional advisor. A third of us have had money talks with other family members and a quarter with our parents.

Look who’s talking

People talking to their parents are likely to be young – 75 per cent of 18 24 year olds are talking money and nearly half of them (47 per cent) are talking to their parents about finance. Young people are also most likely to talk to a debt councillor (seven per cent).

In contrast, only 46 per cent of people aged 55 to 64 are more likely to discuss finance than a year ago but 14 per cent of them have spoken to a professional advisor.

Women are slightly more likely to discuss finances (56 per cent) than men (49 per cent) and people from Northern Ireland are the most open to chatting about cash (68 per cent), followed by Londoners (61 per cent). Those in the East and East Midlands are the most reticent (43 per cent).

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