Lauren interviews the smart, savvy, and wonderful Hannah Witton — an author, blogger, and fellow YouTuber — who talks about everything from sex and dating, to living with a Stoma bag. And, she’s here to answer our most pressing honest money questions.
Hey guys it’s lauren here from the financial diet and today i’m here with hannah witton hello hannah is a youtuber and an author and just overall super charming and we are so happy to have her on the channel today to talk with us thank you thank you very much if you haven’t already checked out hannah’s channel we’ll link you to that in the description below and
She talks about awesome things like sex and dating and you should definitely go and check that out she also has a book called doing it which is available pretty much everywhere um it actually comes out in the u.s. at the beginning of july so it has like a different cover and stuff you can pre-order now and so today we’re gonna talk about money and i’m gonna ask
Hannah a few fun questions just to get her take on things and just do a really fun interview so first off i wanted to ask you you know what are your general thoughts about money is it something that scares you is it something that you feel like you have control over like what are your just general thoughts i feel like i’ve always felt in control of my money like
Even as a kid i really enjoyed saving and then like knowing that there was a thing that i wanted to spend that money on as an adult like it really doesn’t scare me because i think i just like love managing my own personal finances so i can get like really into it when i find like people in my life who i can talk about these things if i just like yeah yeah it’s
Actually really empowering when you find friends that you can talk about money with when you do find that tribe of people i think it’s really ana special so in really exciting news i heard that you recently purchased a flat in london for yourself yes i did you is there anything in that process that really kind of shocked you or that you felt like embarrassed that
You had spent so much money on something that you didn’t expect like what was that like it has been a process i think one of the hardest and like most shocking things was the actually trying to apply for a mortgage and being freelance especially because i just started a limited company so that’s the equivalent of an llc i think i only had one year worth of records
Of that company at the time of applying for the mortgage and most lenders want at least two or three so i was really limited more interesting in who would lend me money so that was really difficult it wasn’t like i had like a lot of choice yeah in the matter so as we mentioned you talk a lot about sex on your channel so i’m curious to know what is the most you’ve
Ever spent on sex or in the name of sex like that’s i know it’s super personal but i’m really curious because i know that you are pretty open about that yeah to be honest i can’t think of any things that i’ve like actively spent money on like i want this but one of the perks of being a sex educator on youtube a lot of companies send you stuff so i own a few really
Expensive sex toys i’ve got gifted once i went to a launch for one of their toys and i looked it up online and it’s like 200 300 pounds i was like so i owned a lot of expensive sex stuff but i’m very lucky that i haven’t like up that money myself like perks of being an influences sorry not sorry yes stuff that does exactly the same thing but you’re not necessarily
Buying into that brand and i think as long as you’re buying like body-safe materials yeah then like you can get cheaper versions but don’t know super cheap because then it then is like not probably not gonna be bodies that your potential future purchases that i want to make like one wants them in the the new flat i need to buy a lot of furniture from scratch and
So i think like sex furniture is probably on that list too not looked into how much stuff cool yeah i was gonna say what is that kind of stuff go for like is it or how much are we talking like hundreds of dollars like i think again it depends on like what you’re getting cuz like you can get super luxury high-end stuff and then like some some cheap rope so in your
Opinion what is a financial element of sex that you don’t think people are prepared for the cost of a child they cost a lot of money and people complain that like condoms cost there’s money that and then honey and then like if you live in the u.s. and you don’t have free health care then you have to pay for your contraception in the uk all of our birth control is
Free thank you nhs or like the cost of getting an sti treated potentially so you know it’s just financially sensible to use the condoms so one thing i’m really interested in is um what people would give in terms of advice to their younger selves so if you could go back to yourself a couple years ago and talk about spending on mental health and well-being what would
You do differently if you could go back and like shake hannah of like five years ago and be like this is something that you should invest in this is something you should take more seriously something that you should see for like anything in terms of mental health the first thing that came to my head when you were like advice you’d give to younger self i wasn’t
Thinking like five years ago of mental health i usually get one pound a week pocket money and there was this shop they had all sorts of weird trinkets in them and they had these like weird ceramic animals and i had to collect them all so for a whole month every week out go in and like pay my one pound to get this thing and like i regret that no i don’t cuz it
Gave me so much happiness spending i’ve ever heard of and like no hannah no a little like animal it was really weird they’re like our child isn’t picking toys to play with it’s like i just wanted this like ceramic frog and then i hit the fox and then i want to add it right so in terms of mental health act that made you really happy yeah perhaps a second avoiding
That yeah other you know future upsets we pur but in terms of like more recently i’m trying to think i used to do capoeira for years which is like brazilian martial art and so i would obviously like pay for classes and pay for the uniform when i was doing that i was at my peak fitness i think maybe i would go back to like nineteen year old hannah and be like don’t
Quit stop doing that yeah i think fitness especially a lot of people will have said that you know they pay for gym memberships that they never use but then once they started investing in like one-on-one classes or you know workshops and stuff like that with personal trainers they’re like wow it’s like this whole world has opened up to me because i’ve invested a
Little bit of money to actually know how to train my body seems like a lot more upfront than a passive gym membership but actually ends up saving you a lot money because of what you gather at best room yeah so you talk really openly about the recent surgery that you had because of your alterative colitis yeah you have a stoma bag and was there anything that really
Shocked you about the finances of getting sick like that and what it cost in terms of just like raw dollars so actually saved me money getting ill it just sounds ridiculous but i was in hospital for four weeks and yeah i had surgery and so now i live with a stoma bag but because of the nhs like it cost me nothing or you could say it already cost me because i pay
Taxes and that’s what it goes to but out-of-pocket nothing and i have a bank card current account that has like a tracking thing on your phone so you can see how much you’re spending each month january 0 pounds that’s been – because i was so ill i will say actually it didn’t save my parents money because i was in hospital like not near where my parents lived and
So they basically got an air b&b and spent a month in this space so they could see me every day so i’m sorry mom and dad thank you and hence why having children will cost you money forever during the recovery process was there anything that you felt like you started spending more on when you were in recovery – like as i could treat yourself or like god i’ve
Gone through something so horrific now i’m going to like my finances will crash because i’m doing things that i think i deserve yeah i’ve definitely had that mentality a couple of the purchases have been like out of necessity because my weight has changed and so i’ve had to get new bras new bikinis like some new clothes because my old stuff doesn’t fit me but on
The treat yourself thing this trip here for me like coming out to la was my first big trip since all of it and i basically spent my air miles on upgrading my flight i had a lot of ml that i just never spend and i was like this this is the time so i’ve upgraded on my way out i flew out premium and on my way back i’m flying up a class and i’m like i can’t wait i
Deserve this but i like don’t feel as bad about it because it’s air miles and also because i was so it but i don’t know how it feel about it if it was actual money like i don’t think i would i see so it’s kind of like you’re treating yourself by indulging in things but not necessarily like shelling out hundreds of dollars like letting yourself do things that feel
Just like extra special yeah so as someone on the internet i think that you can probably identify with this issue of social media kind of having this effect over the way that we spend money and how it can kind of influence us to spend to have a life that we necessarily don’t have but want yeah and do you think that there’s anything that you find yourself spending
On in particular because you are a person on the internet and you know that you have like a you’re a public figure in some way sometimes clothes like i don’t always get like sucked into that but i actually have to like avoid a lot of like fashion content because of how susceptible i am to it but also like it’s not just the on-camera stuff it’s like i always feel
Like i need an entirely new wardrobe for events especially if it’s like a con so it like lasts a few days and i treat it as a fashion show i’m like i have to have a new outfit every day that no one has seen before so i don’t tend to shop a lot until it it’s like right before an event and i’m like i buy too much so i try and pick stuff that i’m like gonna wear wear
Again outside of that i try and be very vigilant about like i don’t care if there’s photos of me and event in this before like i’m just gonna wear again yeah so i try but the pressure and especially because like everyone else in your industry or it’s it really seemed to you don’t know if they do but they seem to have like a brand new outfit for every event in every
Video to order i think it’s getting just to build up that skill of like being able to mix and match outfits and me yeah look new with the accessories and shoes because you know doing the same kind of thing bring out conferences and panels we do that a lot for work and feeling like you have to always be on because every like you’re so visible at these things and
So you’re you’re more nervous and more conscious of what you’re wearing but i think that definitely mixing and matching is like the way to go and to keep things like usable again and again yeah i know one of the things that i’ve found in terms of like your uniform for making videos and the clothes that you wear is there a lot of male youtubers that i know will
Have a uniform they’ll just have like one t-shirt that they were in all their videos and for some reason i feel like men can get away with that whereas i feel like i have to wear something different in every video and i’m like is this what’s going on in my head it’s making me think nissa but do you find that – oh yeah absolutely i mean i see people walking around
Conferences again and again and i’m like damn like that’s such a cool thing that you’re just like wearing your uniform that it’s just you and you own it and that’s your look and you believe in to that and it’s like you’re saving tons of money good for you but i think it is definitely more acceptable for men i’ve found because i feel like i’m not anything different
All the time yeah so thank you so much for chatting with us it was awesome to get to talk to you and don’t forget to check out hannah’s channel and then also chelsea did an interview over on your channel we will link to in the description below so as always thank you guys so much for watching and don’t forget to hit the subscribe button and to come every tuesday
And thursday for new and awesome videos bye-bye you
Transcribed from video
The Finances Of Love, Sex, And Surgery With Hannah Witton | The Financial Diet By The Financial Diet
