How to Handle Making More—or Less—Money Than Your Friends
4 min
Over the past year, I’ve watched as one friend lost a job, another scored a life-changing bonus, two took huge pay cuts and yet another sold a home at a large profit. As for me, my financial life sort of stayed the same. But what did all this mean for my friendships? An individual change in someone’s financial situation can have ripple effects throughout our greater social groups and wider peer networks, researchers and therapists say. One person’s financial loss and another’s sudden windfall can affect the ways in which we stay connected with our friends, and fights about money can lead to personal money problems or even friend breakups.
“The perception is ‘Oh, we’re on the same path,’ and as you get older, that’s not the case,” says Blake Blankenbecler , a financial therapist and friendship educator. “There is space to talk about it with your friends. But can it be cringy to talk about? Yes. Is it important to talk about? Yes.”
Humans typically gravitate toward people who are similar to us in some way, and we cling to that sense of similarity as the friendship grows and changes, says Rebecca Adams , professor of social work at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. Individual privileges like family money, inherited wealth and more don’t always mean that perception is accurate, of course; but at the onset of a friendship, this sameness breeds closeness.
A growing divide
When we meet in college (as I met the folks now making up one of my oldest and dearest friend groups) or deskside at a job (how I bonded with two of my newer besties) we perceive ourselves to be on equal financial footing with the people we hold close. We chased down bargain-store deals and planned ad hoc dinner parties of rent-week leftovers. During an internship in New York, my best friend and I crammed together in the world’s tiniest sublet, subsisting off Trader Joe’s coupons and our dreams for the future. But more than a decade removed from those days, our financial lives have branched in all sorts of different directions. As we grow—or not—in our respective careers, these gaps in income and wealth will only widen, says Rhaina Cohen , a podcast producer and author of the coming book on friendship, “The Other Significant Others.” But we’re also loathe to change our behaviour or discuss how these individual ups and downs will affect the glue holding the friend group together.
“In my early mid-20s, people were pretty open about what they could and couldn’t afford, and things being expensive, but I think as people have risen up the career ladder, there is less conversation about that,” Cohen says. “The awkwardness of acknowledging that people are in really different places keeps people from having those conversations. But as we get older, these divides are more likely to crop up.”
Opening up the conversation
More often than not, the friend who’s suffered a financial setback feels the burden of communicating their new needs to the group—but doing so can be much, much harder to put in practice. Ashley Appelman , a 36-year-old living in Washington, D.C., took a significant pay cut after making a big career transition a few years back. At the time, her social calendar stayed packed with numerous friends’ weddings and bachelorette parties. Rather than bow out of these commitments or suggest cheaper alternatives, she decided that putting flights on her credit card and forgoing her savings goals was worth avoiding awkward conversations and pitiful glances.
“You don’t want to disappoint people,” she says. “I have given into so many things where I didn’t really have the budget, and I just did it.”
In her four decades of financial advising, Eileen Freiburger , managing director of the Garrett Planning Network, says she has often seen people’s behaviour change after a big money move in either direction. The friend in a lower-paying job finds themselves spending far outside their means, or the pal with more in the bank feels guilty after picking the expensive restaurant for dinner.
“Who you surround yourself with and your own value system will actively impact the next stages of how you handle your money,” Freiburger says. “Are you picking up those tabs because suddenly you can? Are you trying to spend with the Joneses?”
From her perspective, she has seen immense value in holding on to people who can ground you in your original values system, the rules you lived by before these “life happens” moments rocked your financial life. Sometimes, these people are the old friends from before; other times, they’re new friends you make after.
Finding the path forward
Financial advisers and friendship educators agree: Whichever side of the financial divide you now find yourself, the way forward for many true friendships is having more open, honest conversations about money and how it affects our relationships. These don’t have to be scary or stilted discussions, Cohen says, and they don’t have to happen in overtly formal, intimidating settings.
She recommends using a real-life example to open up a bigger conversation. For instance, if you’re buying tickets to an event, ask your friend how much money they plan to spend and why. That, in turn, can kick off a much deeper conversation about your relative finances. Cohen recommends a thoughtful line that struck me as especially empathetic and easy: “What would be helpful from me to make sure we’re on the same page about what we do together and how we spend money?’”
“There is so much that goes unsaid in friendship,” she says. “What I would want people to do is talk, to have open conversations with their friends about big transitions and big differences.”
Personally, I’ve been the friend in both positions: the richer friend and the definitely-not-rich one. I recently passed on a luxe vacation with one set of dear friends. I agonised over the decision, fantasising about suddenly finding a great flight deal or stumbling upon a can’t-miss hotel deal. After enough hours staring at travel booking sites, though, I knew my budget just couldn’t stomach it. And even though my friends understood—and of course they did! They’re good friends for a reason!—I had to hype myself up to send the “Hey guys, I’ve been thinking about our trip…” text.
Admitting I had to back out felt like a tiny failure, like I wasn’t as committed to the friendship as I had been in years past. But when another pal recently took a large pay cut as she pursued a more demanding—and lower-paying—career, I found myself on the other side of the table. After a handful of conversations about her reduced salary and inflexible schedule, I remembered my own struggle to send that text. I took the initiative to bring up the new discrepancy, suggesting we move our usual dinner-and-drinks hangouts to a lower-key TV night in. Six months later, I have to say: Both of our budgets are happier for it.
Copyright 2020, Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. LEARN MORE
The 1860s Darlinghurst mansion Stoneleigh could become Sydney’s most expensive home ever sold under the hammer when it goes to auction. Clint Ballard is giving buyers a $28 million guide for the heritage-listed mansion on Darley Street, opposite Iona, the former home of Hollywood royalty Baz Luhrmann. Stoneleigh is being offered for sale for the …
Set on one of the city’s last absolute riverfront sites, The Riversdale by Mosaic combines irreplaceable waterfront ownership with one of Brisbane’s most significant residential opportunities.
The voices reshaping how Australians think about money — and why credibility matters more than reach.
6 min
The best financial advice many Australians are receiving right now is not coming from licensed advisers charging by the hour. It is coming through a phone screen, in the ten minutes between work and dinner, from creators who have built credibility the hard way: by being right, being transparent, and being specific in a space where vagueness has always been the easy default.
This is not a ranking by follower count. Follower count is a measure of distribution, not of quality. What follows is a ranking by substance — credentials, accuracy, community depth, and the quality of what an audience actually learns from following these accounts. The distinction matters, because the Australians acting on this content are making real financial decisions with real money.
1- Queenie Tan – Corporate Authorised Representative; Co-Founder & Director, Invest With Queenie & Billroo
There are finance influencers who talk about building wealth, and there are those who document it in real time with receipts. Queenie Tan belongs firmly in the second category. Starting from a $400-per-week income, Tan built her net worth past $1 million while publishing the actual numbers — income, savings rate, investment decisions — for an audience of more than 400,000 across platforms.
She is a Corporate Authorised Representative, co-founder of the personal finance app Billroo, and the author of a book that has become a practical reference for young Australians navigating ETFs, superannuation and property. What separates her from the crowded field of money educators is precision: she does not talk in principles when she can talk in percentages.
2- Alan Kohler – Editor-in-Chief, Eureka Report; Editor-in-Chief, InvestSMART Group; ABC News finance presenter, host of Inside Business.
If Queenie Tan represents the new wave of personal finance creators, Alan Kohler represents something the new wave will spend decades trying to build: institutional credibility that has survived multiple economic cycles. As Editor-in-Chief of the Eureka Report and InvestSMART Group, and a decades-long presence on ABC News, Kohler has spent more than thirty years making financial analysis accessible without dumbing it down.
His coverage of RBA decisions, market movements and economic policy is cited by podcasters, journalists and fund managers alike. He is not chasing virality. He does not need to.
3- Aleks Nikolic – Corporate lawyer; host, Big Swinging Stocks podcast
Most finance creators address the mechanics of money. Aleks Nikolic addresses the psychology — and that distinction explains why her following is as loyal as it is. Operating as Broke Girl Wealth across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, Nikolic covers ETFs, crypto and investment strategy, but her real differentiator is a willingness to discuss the emotional architecture of financial decision-making.
Shame around debt. Fear around market volatility. The limiting beliefs that stop people acting on what they already know. In a space where confidence is routinely performed, her candour is a genuine competitive advantage.
4- Bryce Leske & Alec Renehan – Equity Mates Media
Equity Mates did not build a following. They built a media company. What began as a podcast by two friends learning to invest has grown into Australia’s most established investing media brand, covering ASX stocks, ETFs, global markets and fund manager interviews across podcast, social and YouTube.
The longevity is the credential. Equity Mates has operated through multiple market cycles, a global pandemic, and a generational shift in how Australians engage with investing — and its audience has grown through all of it. When the hosts speak, their listeners know they have been paying attention for years.
5- The Lazy CEO – CEO & Founder, Showpo; Shark Tank Australia investor
The metric that matters most on social media is not followers — it is engagement, because engagement signals trust. Jane Lu, known as The Lazy CEO, maintains an engagement rate of approximately 1.15 per cent on Instagram, which is exceptional for a finance account of his size. Her 242,000-plus followers are not passive consumers: they ask questions, share experiences and apply what they read.
Her content focuses on business finance and wealth building, and the active comment sections are the clearest possible evidence that her audience does not merely scroll past.
6- Tash Invests – Founder, Tash Lends; Forbes Australia 30 Under 30
Tash Invests built her following on a premise that sounds simple but is rarer in practice than it should be: she publishes the actual numbers. Not approximations or ranges or anonymised case studies — her salary, her savings rate, her portfolio value, her net worth, updated and on the record.
Having bought her first property at twenty-two and grown her documented net worth past $1 million, she has become the primary reference point for young Australians trying to understand what building wealth on a moderate income genuinely looks like. The specificity is the product.
7- David Scutt – APAC Market Analyst at StoneX Group
The authority of most finance social media content rests on research and reading. David Scutt‘s authority rests on having done the job. A former Treasury Dealer at Arab Bank and the Commonwealth Bank, former ASX Business Supervisor, and former Global Markets Editor at Business Insider Australia and anchor at ausbiz TV, Scutt now brings that direct market experience to his role as APAC Market Analyst at StoneX Group, rather than relying on secondary commentary.
When he discusses foreign exchange movements or ASX dynamics, it is not because he has read about them. It is because he has traded them.
8- Meddy Demars – Investing & crypto content creator
The gap Meddy Demars fills is specific and underserviced: connecting global macroeconomic events to the practical reality of Australian investors. When the US Federal Reserve adjusts interest rates, when inflation data moves, when commodity prices shift — most Australian finance content either ignores the local implications or translates them poorly.
Demars, operating across TikTok and Instagram from Sydney, does the translation well: explaining what global conditions mean for Australian stocks, savings rates and investment portfolios in terms that are accessible without being condescending.
9- Simran Kaur – Founder, Friends That Invest
Friends That Invest is arguably the most successful community-building exercise in Australian personal finance, and Simran Kaur is the reason why. The New Zealand-based creator — whose audience is predominantly Australian — built a podcast, a book and a social media presence around a single insight: that the personal finance world was not speaking to young women, and that the consequences of that gap were significant.
The measurable cultural shift that followed — women engaging with investing concepts in communities that had not previously existed — is the kind of impact that most financial literacy programmes aim for and rarely achieve.
10- Effie Zahos – Money Editor at 9News
Effie Zahos is one of Australia’s most recognised financial commentators, appearing regularly across 9News, A Current Affair, Today and Today Extra as 9News Money Editor. Her role puts everyday money questions, from mortgage rates to cost-of-living pressures, in front of a national broadcast audience.
Before television, she spent years as editor of Money magazine, building the editorial foundation for her current commentary. She is also Director and Money Commentator at InvestSMART, an ambassador for Canstar, and a published author, with her financial advice available in print as well as on screen.
That combination, decades of editorial experience, an active broadcast presence, and a body of published work, is what makes her commentary carry weight beyond any single platform or post.
From farm-to-table Thai to fairy-lit mango trees and Coral Sea vistas, Port Douglas has award-winning dining and plenty of tropical charm on the side.
Australia’s housing market rebounded sharply in 2025, with lower-value suburbs and resource regions driving growth as rate cuts, tight supply and renewed competition reshaped the year.
