It is considered very un-British to discuss finances. Yet when I do manage to get people to open up, they often describe themselves as good with money. Controlled. Disciplined. Sensible. Not reckless like the Americans, or naive. Certainly not gamblers.
However, when you directly compare how we behave with our money with people in other countries, this confidence starts to look rather misplaced.
Take investing. It feels like the obvious place to start when you consider that in America roughly six out of ten adults own shares, either directly or through investment accounts such as 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts. To our shame, that figure here is less than one in four. These numbers exclude pensions, which get more uptake in the UK than the US but, even allowing for that, active participation in investing within our fair isles is depressingly low.
Does it matter if we are all squirrelling away our savings like responsible citizens? Well, in truth, long-term wealth in modern economies is built through ownership of productive assets, not cash sitting idly in a savings account, barely competing for a decent interest rate. Yet we remain a nation of savers rather than wealth-building investors, despite decades of evidence showing that investing is a far more effective way to grow your wealth.
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I often hear that this is prudence with a healthy side of safety. In reality it is merely discomfort and a lack of understanding.
Last week I was staggered to read that UK savers lost £17.6 billion in 2025 simply by holding too much money in cash rather than investing it, according to the wealth manager Fidelity. Large sums were left languishing in low-interest accounts while inflation quietly ate away their value. Sadly this is nothing new, which is partly why the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has chosen to limit the amount of money under-65s can hoard in cash Isas from April next year.
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When I speak to people about why they do not invest, I am often met with a striking level of resistance, particularly among older generations. Investing is framed not as a sensible long-term strategy but as something reckless and faintly immoral. A gamble. A quick way to lose everything. Something irresponsible people do.
What strikes me most is the certainty with which these views are held. Not curiosity, but conviction. Markets are dangerous, shares are rigged. You could lose it all overnight. Better, I am told, to keep money somewhere safe, even if that safety quietly guarantees that you will fall behind.
Cash feels reassuring because nothing appears to happen. Your balance does not fluctuate. There are no uncomfortable moments. But nothing happening is precisely the problem.
Inflation does not announce itself. It works slowly and invisibly, shaving buying power away year after year while people congratulate themselves on being cautious. By the time the loss becomes obvious, it is often too late to undo.
I am struck by how differently this is approached elsewhere. In Australia compulsory pension contributions (superannuation) have normalised investing. People grow up expecting their retirement savings to be invested, to fluctuate and to grow over time. In the United States, imperfect as its system may be, equity ownership is widely accepted as part of financial life.
Here pensions are something that happen quietly in the background. Auto-enrolment into workplace pension schemes, introduced in 2012, has been hugely successful in getting employees saving but far less effective at getting them engaged. Contributions go out, statements arrive occasionally, few people read them. Fewer still question what their money is actually doing.
When I ask how someone’s pension is performing, the answer is rarely a number. It is usually a hopeful “I think it’s probably fine”.
Fine is not a strategy. And trust me when I say that I have come across plenty of pension funds that are anything but fine.
International comparisons consistently show that we are relatively good at day-to-day money management — paying bills, avoiding overdrafts, sticking to budgets — but weaker when it comes to understanding investing, inflation and risk. We manage money well in the short term but struggle to think clearly about how it should work over decades.
I also see a persistent assumption that the system is looking out for us, that if something were truly poor value, someone would step in. In reality the financial system reinforces inertia. If you do nothing, it is perfectly content to let you do nothing indefinitely.
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Perhaps the most damaging myth I encounter is that being good with money is about income or intelligence. It is not. I regularly see high earners making poor decisions because they assume that their salary proves their competence. Meanwhile, people on modest incomes who engage, question and review regularly end up far better off.
Our problem is not access. We have that in abundance. The real issue is a stubborn gap in financial education. We think we already know enough so we stop asking the simplest questions: where is my money? What is it doing? What does it cost? Is it actually working for me?
We do not need more money confidence, we need less complacency and a willingness to accept that what we think we know may not be enough.
Antonia Medlicott is the founder of the personal finance site Investing Insiders