What They Don't Teach You About Money review: the FT's money editor writes the book schools never set

By Claer Barrett (2023) · Review last updated: 3 August 2026

Author

Claer Barrett

First published

2023

Length

336 pages · 5–6 hours

Difficulty

Beginner-friendly

UK relevance

Very highWritten by the FT's consumer editor for UK readers — UK banking, credit, ISAs and pensions throughout, and recent enough that most figures still hold.

Audiobook

Excellent on audioBarrett is a podcaster (Money Clinic) and it shows — warm, direct, and built in habit-sized chapters that suit listening.

There’s a reason this became a Sunday Times bestseller: Claer Barrett has spent years as the Financial Times’ consumer editor and the voice of its Money Clinic podcast answering one question in a hundred forms — “why did nobody teach me this?” — and the book is her systematic answer. Published in 2023, it’s the most current mainstream UK money book on our shelf, which matters more in this genre than almost any other: while our beloved 2018 titles need their figures double-checked, Barrett’s world of app banking, cost-of-living pressure and pension auto-enrolment is recognisably the one you’re managing money in right now.

What the book actually says

The structure is seven habits, each a chapter, each designed to be adopted rather than admired — closer to a course than a manifesto.

Know your numbers. Before any strategy: what actually comes in, what actually goes out, and the gap. Barrett is unusually good on the emotional blockage here — the deliberate not-looking that she treats as the single most expensive habit in Britain — and on using your banking app’s own tools rather than building spreadsheets you’ll abandon.

The spending habits. Auditing subscriptions and the “money leaks” of app-era life; the psychology of frictionless payment (contactless and one-click exist to stop you feeling spending — so reintroduce the feeling deliberately); and mindful spending built on her signature question, borrowed gratefully by half of UK money-Twitter: “is this adding to my Rich Life or just my outgoings?” — the pounds-to-hours-of-work conversion done with a lighter touch than Your Money or Your Life.

The credit habit. UK-specific and genuinely useful: how credit scores work here (not the American mythology), why your file matters for mortgages and even phone contracts, using 0% deals as tools rather than traps, and the warning signs that borrowing has tipped from convenience to problem — with, to her great credit, proper signposting to free debt help (StepChange and friends) rather than bootstrap sermons. This chapter is why the book carries our shelf’s second Debt tag.

The growing habits. Emergency fund first; then pensions — the chapter most readers need most, covering auto-enrolment, the employer match (“the closest thing to free money you’ll ever be offered”), and why opting out in a squeeze is the expensive kind of saving; then investing basics through index funds and ISAs, deliberately introductory and pointing at exactly the evidence-based approach our investing shelf covers in depth.

Throughout, the register is what sets it apart: the authority of the FT with none of its pinstripe. Barrett writes about money shame, about growing up without money knowledge, about her own past mistakes — closer to Whateley’s warmth than to any guru’s certainty.

Who it’s for

The reader who found the classics dated. If our reviews’ repeated “check the 2018 figures” caveats put you off, this is the current one. Podcast-first learners — on audio it’s arguably the single most accessible book on our shelf. Anyone whose money life runs through apps, because it’s the only book here that treats app banking, subscriptions culture and buy-now-pay-later as the default landscape rather than novelties. And the money-avoidant: the seven-habit structure means you can adopt one thing a fortnight rather than renovate your life.

Who should skip it

Readers past the foundations — the habits will be ones you hold already; nothing here optimises. Investing-focused readers — the chapter is a deliberate on-ramp, not a strategy; that’s what Hale is for. Anyone who wants the full reference manual — Barrett goes deep on habits and light on life events; mortgages, renting, insurance and the admin of adulthood remain Whateley’s territory, and the two books complement rather than replace each other.

Criticisms and counterpoints

Breadth traded for momentum. Seven habits keep the book moving, but big territories get a page where Whateley gives a chapter — insurance and protection barely feature (the gap Matthew fills), housing is light, and self-employment lighter. It’s a habits book, not an encyclopedia; know which you’re buying.

Familiar bones. Readers of this shelf will recognise the skeleton — track your money, automate, employer match, index funds, emergency fund. Barrett’s contribution is currency, voice and UK products rather than new doctrine. For the target reader that’s exactly right; for money-book veterans it’s a polished refresher.

“Current” is a depreciating asset. The book’s biggest advantage — 2023 figures and products — is the one that will erode. Thresholds and allowances are already drifting from the printed page (our guides carry the live versions), and in five years it will need the same caveats we attach to the 2018 cohort. Buy it soon, in other words.

The Rich Life framing is borrowed air from Ramit Sethi (Barrett credits the sentiment), and readers who dislike aspirational framing may find the phrase does a lot of work. It’s a mild seasoning here compared to the original.

Verdict

Buy it — 8/10. The best current UK starter book: authoritative, warm, genuinely habit-forming, and the first mainstream title in years that describes the money world its readers actually live in. It doesn’t dethrone Whateley as the reference or Matthew as the plan — it joins them as the momentum-builder, and for a reader starting from zero in 2026, it’s now arguably the first book to hand over.

Read this next

• Money: A User’s Guide — the life-events reference her habits framework leaves out.
• Atomic Habits — the general theory of the habit-forming she applies to money.
• How to read your payslip — the “know your numbers” habit, started at the source.

Book details refer to the Penguin edition (2023, 336pp).

Just so you know: this guide is information and journalism, not financial advice, and we don't recommend specific financial products. Your circumstances are your own — if you need personal advice, speak to a suitably qualified adviser. Information was correct at the "last updated" date above but things change; always check the linked primary sources.

← All money book reviews