Young Australians struggle to split bills. Picture: NewsWire \/ Ian Currie <\/p>\n
Frustrated young Australians are losing friends and skipping social gatherings over money.<\/p>\n
Research commissioned by neobank Up and YouGov found that 86 per cent of young Australians have had a fallout with a friend over money.<\/p>\n
Nearly four in five said money had negatively affected their relationships and three in five said talking about money had become harder than talking about sex or politics.<\/p>\n
Young Australians struggle to split the bill. Picture: NewsWire \/ Ian Currie <\/p>\n
Behavioural psychologist Malissa Lurve says money has become the most taboo subject for young people.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve never been taught to talk about money growing up, it\u2019s always been a taboo topic,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
As such, she said \u201cmillenials feel that money is loaded with judgment, as they think discussing money will make them look cheap or entitled\u201d.<\/p>\n
The research shows young Australians are losing $2000 a year on shared expenses such as rent, bills, group dinners, holidays and gifts because of vague IOUs, forgotten debts, and fuzzy financial etiquette.<\/p>\n
Dr Lurve said while friends would often help each other out if one is down, a group didn\u2019t want to see a friend as a burden.<\/p>\n
\u201cMoney is a silent factor behind relationship breakups,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat starts with an unpaid bill or avoiding putting in their share grows into that lack of contribution growing into mistrust or resentment.<\/p>\n
Australians are becoming resentful of their friends when it comes to money. Picture: NewsWire \/ David Crosling <\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a real power in friendships around fairness and unpaid bills are seen as unfair.\u201d<\/p>\n
To help with splitting bills, Up launched an in-app feature dubbed \u201cGroups\u201d that manages shared costs in one place and removes the awkwardness from going out with friends.<\/p>\n
\u201cSharing life with your mates is priceless. Splitting the bill? Not so much,\u201d Up senior customer insights specialist Vivin George said.<\/p>\n
\u201cGroups removes the emotional and logistic friction from shared expenses so friends can focus on the good times \u2013 not the admin.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr Lurve said money conversations with friends required careful handling to preserve relationships while addressing fairness concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201dIt is never about the money but how you feel in the moment, so if your friend thinks you\u2019re pointing the finger at them, it\u2019s going to create conflict,\u201d Dr Lurve said.<\/p>\n
She using \u201cI\u201d statements when discussing money can help express concerns without making the other person feel attacked.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best way to do this is to approach it calmly and use a lot of I statements and focus on shared goals around the event to reduce conflict,\u201d Dr Lurve said.<\/p>\n
Using the example of a group of friends who have gone away together when one friend usually doesn\u2019t pay the bill, Dr Lurve said it was important to frame it in a non accusatory way.<\/p>\n
Saying something like \u201cI\u2019d love us both to enjoy this without the stress, so maybe we can agree on a budget upfront, as I get anxious when costs blow out\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Young Australians struggle to split bills. Picture: NewsWire \/ Ian Currie Frustrated young Australians are losing friends and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[64,63,99,186,184,185,96528,8493],"class_list":{"0":"post-141620","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-finance","12":"tag-personal-finance","13":"tag-personalfinance","14":"tag-talking-about-money","15":"tag-young-australians"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}