Beth Snow never thought of herself as being bad with money — until the day she realised that she had racked up £18,000 in credit card debt.
“I had heard that getting a credit card was a good way to build your credit score. So I started spending small amounts and paying it off straight away. Then it snowballed,” she said.
Even though she is an accountant, Snow, 28, from Cheltenham, soon had five credit cards with different balances and interest rates. Things were getting complicated. “I never looked at the statements. I didn’t see it as a problem. With hindsight, I was completely delusional,” she said.
If, like her, you have ever refused to look at your bank statement or bills or you avoid talking about money, you might be a financial ostrich. In the wild, ostriches stick their heads into their nests in the ground. Financial ostriches avoid money issues, usually because it feels overwhelming, stressful or uncomfortable.
“They are not taking control or responsibility for their financial future. They might be trying to ignore that side of their life because of feelings of shame or inadequacy,” said Simonne Gnessen, a former financial adviser who now runs Wise Monkey Financial Coaching. “Often, when we don’t know what to do, we will do anything to not deal with it.”
But the effects of ignoring your finances can be devastating. In the worst cases, you could rack up thousands of pounds of debt, obliterate your credit score and even destroy relationships.
Are you an ostrich?
The cost of living crisis is still rumbling on. Consumer prices have risen almost 40 per cent since 2015, driven by the skyrocketing cost of essentials such as housing, water and fuel (up 48 per cent) and food and drink (up 40 per cent).
This has left many anxious about their finances. Almost a third of those questioned by YouGov in May said they thought that their financial situation would get worse over the next 12 months.
Normal financial worries start to become a problem when someone refuses to deal with their money problems.
“Often being an ostrich comes from a place of fear. People are afraid of what they will discover if they look at their finances,” said Graham Wells, a chartered financial planner and money coach from East Lothian. “How we think about money often comes back to childhood. It can be influenced by school, work, family and traumatic events such as a divorce or redundancy.”
Some ostriches may feel overwhelmed about tracking down old pension pots because it seems complicated or, at the other end of the spectrum, refuse to save into a pension because they can’t imagine getting old.
Other ostriches avoid spending an inheritance, feeling guilty for not having earned the money, while their counterparts spend recklessly as an adult because money was tight when they were young. One of Wells’s clients was chastised as a child for mentioning money in public, so then believed it was something that should not be spoken about.
Gnessen has helped a self-employed client with large debts because they did not send out invoices for their work. “Some people feel that asking for money is being greedy. Others might have imposter syndrome or feel inadequate, so don’t want to send the invoice,” she said.
Whatever the reason, being financially avoidant often starts with small actions which then build until you financial health can no longer be ignored.
How to get your head out of the sand
The key to changing any financial behaviour is to become aware of your habits. Wells tasked one client with making a list of all their monthly outgoings. “After breaking it down into different categories, they realised they were spending £1,700 a month on takeaways. They had no idea,” said Wells. “It sounds obvious but it often isn’t. A lot of people never look at their bank statements, so it can be quite a revelation.”
Listing your income and outgoings is a sensible place to begin but even this can feel overwhelming. “Start small and build a tiny habit,” said Gnessen. “If you use a banking app, just open it once a day, even if you don’t look at it deeply. This will help you become more familiar with it.”
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Those who are not confident with a spreadsheet can use apps that connect to their bank account to analyse their spending or automatically transfer money to saving accounts. Combing bank statements can help to identify subscriptions, bills or memberships that you don’t use.
Debt is more common than many think. Some 84 per cent of adults (about 45.7 million people) held at least one credit card or loan product in 2024 or had done so in the previous 12 months, according to the Financial Lives Survey of almost 18,000 people by the Financial Conduct Authority, the City watchdog. Some 5 per cent (2.2 million) were in persistent credit card debt, meaning they paid more in interest, fees and charges than they had actually borrowed. Some 21 per cent of respondents had gone overdrawn in their current account in the past 12 months, and 8 per cent were either constantly overdrawn, or usually overdrawn by the time they were paid each month.
But don’t attempt to clear all your debts at once. This is an unrealistic target for many, Gnessen said. Instead, add an extra £10 to the amount you are repaying (making sure it is more than the required minimum), and build from there.
Set aside time for money matters. Life admin has to fit around work and family commitments, so can easily slip down the priority list. “One client gives themselves specific time and space to think about money. They set aside five minutes every day and that works for them. They have been doing it for years,” said Wells.
Some people find spending rules helpful for budgeting, said Gnessen, but they don’t work for everyone. For example, the 50/30/20 strategy is a popular technique where 50 per cent of your income goes on necessities such as the mortgage or rent and groceries, 30 per cent on “wants” including meals out, new clothes and hobbies, and 20 per cent into savings.
Overwhelmed by pensions? As a first step, simply see how much you have saved and where it is. After that, you can start thinking about combining old pots or contributing more. To address your savings, check where your accounts are and the interest rates you’re earning, then see if there are better deals elsewhere.
Gnessen said: “It is always good to take action. It’s never too late or too small and things are invariably never as bad as we anticipate.”
• Use our budget planner to calculate your finances
Exercises to try
If money were a person, what would it be like? This is something Wells asks clients. Imagine its personality, what it would wear, how it speaks and how it makes you feel. “A lot of people describe a tall, dark, judgmental character. A Grim Reaper type figure,” he said.
Now imagine what you would like this Money person to be like. Many clients describe someone they trust and feel comfortable around, often a female rather than male. He said: “If they have a money decision to make, I encourage them to imagine doing it in the presence of this character, rather than the other.”
Another exercise is known as The Wheel of Life, where you divide a circle into eight segments representing different areas including family, health, work and money. Rate each on a scale of how satisfied you are with them, from 1 (best) to 10 (worst). This can help identify which need more attention and which are not priorities to you.
“It helps to put money into perspective and understand what is important to you,” said Wells. “You might score 8 for money and 3 for career, then consider how those two areas affect each other.”
Practice reframing your beliefs and focus on goals. “Say ‘I am confident with money’ and think about what actions you could do to support that,” he said.
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Look out for other ostriches
Just as one person in a couple often claims to be better at DIY or loading the dishwasher, it is often the case that someone is better at finances. “But if partners are not speaking about money or discussing their joint goals for the future, that is another type of avoidance,” said Wells.
Discomfort at talking about money was common among older generations. A YouGov survey in May 2025 found that 41 per cent of baby boomer respondents (aged 61 to 79) said they were uncomfortable talking about their finances, compared with 18 per cent of Gen Zs (aged 18 to 28).
One problem couples can face is that conversations about money can quickly become heated, especially if they have different experiences and beliefs about finances.
“Money is far from logical, it is very emotional and is tied to our sense of identity,” said Gnessen. “Rather than someone telling you how money works, we learn about it from observation. It’s hearing your parents arguing about it or being the only child at school who didn’t have the right shoes.”
Wells advises taking the conversation away from the numbers. Instead focus on joint goals and what money could allow you to do together. “It helps to reframe the conversation and make it about how money can help you to enjoy your time,” he said.
If you are the money confident half of a couple, it is important to understand that not everyone feels the same as you.
Eyes on the prize
Snow finally admitted to herself that she was a financial ostrich when she started saving to buy her first home. “When I wrote it down — what I owed and the interest that was being added each month — it was quite shocking. It suddenly seemed like a mammoth task,” she said.
Her first step was to speak to her family. “I told my dad and found out he’d been in a similar situation in the past,” said Snow, who runs the Instagram page Beth’s Budget Diary. “That helped me to feel like I wasn’t alone. If he could do it, then so could I.”
She created a basic budget from a list of her monthly income and outgoings to work out what she could afford to pay off each month. She started by focusing on the credit card with the smallest balance. Within 18 months, Snow had cleared all her debt.
“You need to acknowledge why it happened. I hadn’t been tracking my spending, so I started to keep a note of it to make myself accountable,” said Snow. “No one is perfect, and we all make mistakes, but it’s important to tackle it head on.”
Six signs that you might be a financial ostrich
• Not looking at your bank statement / banking app
• Buying things on a credit card with no plan for paying off the balance
• Avoiding conversations about money
• Delaying important financial decisions
• Refusing to open bills
• Not making financial plans for the future
