Picture this: you’re at girls’ night. Nobody planned to talk about anything heavy. And then one friend shifts the conversation, because she thinks you all need to hear something. What she shares that night, about a woman who lived an entire life, owned a house, ran a business, and ended up with no credit in her own name after her husband died, that story changes how you think about your finances. Forever.
That’s what happened to me. And it’s exactly why I think talking about money with friends is one of the most underrated things we can do for each other.
This week on Friendship IRL, I’m doing something I’ve been building up to for about six months: sharing real stories about how money conversations actually show up in friendships, and making the case for why financial literacy should be a goal we share with the people around us.
Why We Don’t Talk About Money (And Why That’s a Problem)
There’s this unspoken rule that money is off the table. Too awkward. Too personal. Too likely to create comparison or jealousy or judgment. And so we keep quiet, and we all stay a little more in the dark than we need to be.
But here’s what I’ve seen over and over again: when friends talk about money, one person’s lesson becomes everyone’s possibility. The woman who never had credit in her own name, that story didn’t stay with just the friend who shared it. It traveled. I’ve passed it on to more people than I can count, because it mattered. Because it was the kind of thing you don’t figure out on your own until it’s too late.
We share so much with our friends. We talk about relationships, work, health, parenting, everything. But money stays weirdly siloed, and I think we’re all worse off for it.
The Five Layers of Talking Money With Friends
Back in Episode 61, “The Layers of Talking Money With Friends” with Sarah Roller, I introduced a framework for this. Since it’s been a while, let me walk you through it again, because it sets up everything else.
Layer 1: Just being open to it
You’re not disclosing anything. You’re just letting people know money is on your mind. “I’ve been thinking a lot about my finances this year.” That’s it. You’re signaling that you’re open to the conversation if someone else is too.
Layer 2: Resources and the why
What are you using and why is it working? The budgeting app, the credit card you chose and the reason behind it, the CPA you love, the podcast you’ve been listening to. The why is where it gets good, because it starts filling in the gaps for your friends about how you’re actually living your life.
Layer 3: Goals
What are you working toward? You don’t need a number. “I’m trying to pay off my credit card before the end of the year” tells your friends so much about the choices you’re making right now, including why you said no to that girls’ trip.
Layer 4: Mechanics
The how. Interest rates, savings setups, how you split costs, how you handle taxes or wills. Still no dollar amounts, but a lot of real information that your friends can actually learn from.
Layer 5: Numbers
Salaries, savings, mortgage amounts. This is the deepest layer, and it’s not for every friendship or every topic. But it exists, and some conversations do go there.
The thing I want you to take away from this framework: you are not climbing this ladder in order, and you don’t have to be at the same layer across every topic. You might talk about your retirement savings goals at a layer three, but your salary at a layer one. You might go deeper with a work friend than your closest friend. That’s normal. There is no right way to do this.
If you want to hear the full conversation that started all of this, go listen to the full episode where I dig into each layer and why even a layer one conversation is worth having.
What These Conversations Actually Look Like
I promised you stories, so here are some real ones from the last several months. Names and identifying details protected, as always.
The advanced degree conversation
A friend of mine is going back to school. For months, I didn’t know if she was taking loans, paying in chunks, trying to compress the timeline or stretch it. Then we talked. She shared exactly how she’s paying for it, on what schedule, and what that cost looks like. Suddenly, so many of her current choices made sense to me. We also talked about whether she should buy a new car, what matters in that decision, maintenance costs, how long she’d keep it. It was mostly a layer two conversation: a lot of why and values, not a lot of hard numbers. But it gave me more understanding of her life than I’d had in years.
The business conversation
This one went deeper. A friend and I talked about her monthly business expenses, her subscriptions, her contractors, how profitable things are, what she has in savings, the interest she’s getting on different accounts, what she’s taking as an owner draw. We talked about whether side work made sense for her right now. She shared percentages. I shared mine. This was a real layer four and five conversation, and it was one of the most useful conversations I’ve had about money. Not because we solved anything, but because we were thinking out loud together, and that’s where ideas actually come from.
The house conversation
A friend wants to buy a house. We spent about an hour talking about what neighborhood, what she needs in the space, and WHY. She wants a home gym because getting up and working out at home is non-negotiable for her. That’s a value. I don’t care about that. I’ll drive to a gym. That difference matters. We never talked about a budget, a mortgage payment, or a down payment. Not one number. And it was still an hour of talking about money, in a way that gave me so much more understanding of what she’s building toward.
The credit card points story
This one might be my favorite, because it’s so accessible. My husband Michael and I learned about credit card points from friends. We didn’t seek it out. They just started talking about how they were booking flights, and the more we heard, the more we thought, why aren’t WE doing this? We asked them to teach us. They did. Now there’s a whole group of us who regularly talk about how to maximize points for travel. It became a shared language.
And here’s why I love this example specifically: talking about points is a way to practice talking about numbers without the charge that comes with money. If I tell you I have 500,000 points and you have 20,000, you’re probably just happy for me. If I tell you I have $500,000 in savings and you have $2,000, that hits differently. Credit card points, benefits packages, 401k matches: these are all ways to start practicing the numbers conversation in a lower-stakes way. Listen to the full episode for more on why I think this entry point matters, especially if the idea of talking money with friends still feels like a lot.
What You Actually Get From These Conversations
When I talk about money with friends, here’s what I walk away with.
A better picture of their inner world. Money makes people feel abundant or it makes them feel scared and unstable. When a friend talks about money, I get a sense of how they’re actually doing. Not just what they’re showing. Whether they feel like they could handle a surprise expense, leave a relationship, or pick up and move if they needed to. That’s not small information.
The ability to give grace. If I know a friend is a few months away from paying off a significant debt, and someone in our group suggests an expensive birthday dinner, I understand why she says no. I can check in. I can cheer her on. That kind of understanding doesn’t happen if nobody ever says anything.
Broader horizons. This is the one I keep coming back to. When you hear what your friends are doing with their money, it expands what you think is possible. It could be something big: realizing a salary you thought was a pipe dream is actually achievable because your friend just got there. Or it could be something small: knowing that your friend has the same credit card as you, and that card has fraud protection you’ve never used, and you just got scammed on TikTok for $200, and she saves you that money in a five-minute conversation. Both of those things have happened in my friendships. The small ones are just as real as the big ones.
The Hard Parts (Because There Are Some)
I’m not going to pretend this is all easy. It’s not.
Jealousy and comparison. When you hear a friend’s salary or savings, it can sting. Especially when the number you thought was impossible is suddenly very possible, because your friend just did it. That’s a specific kind of jealousy, and it’s worth sitting with. I talk about this in Episode 168, “Jealous of a Friend? Here’s What That Feeling Is Actually Telling You”, but the short version is: that feeling is information about what you want, not a verdict on where you are.
Feeling judged. If you’re making a big financial decision and your friends don’t get it, that’s a real thing. It takes conviction to put hundreds of thousands of dollars toward something when the people around you are raising eyebrows. Try to separate their reaction from your decision. Their doubt is information about their values, not yours.
Keeping confidences. If you get good at this, you will know things. Things your other friends don’t know. Things your partner doesn’t know. There is real responsibility in that. If you want to think more about how to hold those kinds of shares, I did an entire episode on it: Episode 181, “The Secrets We Keep (For Our Friends)”.
Why This Is a Friendship Thing, Not Just a Finance Thing
I think about this work through the lens of connection. And what I keep seeing is that society has sold us one very narrow version of how friendship is supposed to look: tight circle, best friend, keep it surface level, don’t make it weird.
Money conversations break that mold. They’re one of the places where friendship can actually change the trajectory of your life, if you let it. Not because your friends are financial advisors. But because they’re living their lives right next to you, making choices, figuring things out, and some of what they’ve learned is exactly what you need to hear.
The more we share, the more possible things become. And that’s the whole point.
If this episode made you want to try even a layer one conversation with a friend this week, go listen to the full episode at friendshipirl.com/episode196. I go deeper into the stories, the framework, and why I think this conversation is one of the most underrated things we can do for each other.
