Money runs quietly underneath an enormous amount of distress. It is there in anxiety and sleeplessness, in shame, and — more often than people expect — in why someone feels unable to leave a relationship that is harming them. I come at this from an unusual angle: before I trained as a psychologist I was an actuary, and like the people behind the course I am about to recommend, I stepped back from conventional work in my early forties. Money is something I understand well, and I have seen how much lighter people feel once it stops being a source of fear they do not understand.
So this is a resource I find myself recommending again and again, and many clients have told me they found it invaluable.
The Rebel Finance School
The
Rebel Finance School
is an entirely free, ten-week course in how money actually works. It is run once a year, live on Zoom and YouTube, with the recordings left up afterwards so you can work through it at your own pace. There are no products, no upsells, and no agenda — it is genuinely free, and I have no connection to it and gain nothing from recommending it.
It is created by Katie and Alan Donegan, a couple who reached financial independence and retired young — Katie, like me, is a former actuary, and they were awarded British Empire Medals in 2025 for their work in financial education. The course assumes no prior knowledge and starts from the very beginning: tracking what you spend, understanding your net worth, the beliefs and feelings we carry about money, getting out of debt, talking about money with a partner, and the basics of saving and investing for the future. Tens of thousands of people take it each year.
Why I recommend it, especially when leaving is hard
I recommend it most of all to people whose money has been wrapped up in someone else's. If you have come out of a relationship where your partner handled all the finances, it can be frightening to realise how little you were ever shown — not because you could not understand it, but because you were never given the chance. Learning how money works, from the ground up, is one of the most steadying and empowering things you can do for yourself in that situation.
It matters even more where money has been used as a means of control. Financial or economic abuse — a partner restricting access to money, running up debt in your name, or keeping you dependent — is a recognised form of domestic abuse, and it is one of the most common reasons people feel they cannot leave. Understanding your own finances is not the whole answer, but it is a real form of freedom: it widens the options that abuse is designed to narrow. If any of this is your situation, please also reach out to specialist support:
— the UK charity dedicated to economic abuse, with practical guidance and a financial-support line.
— free and confidential, run by Refuge, on 0808 2000 247, 24 hours a day.
Something to do together
Because it is free, gentle, and starts from scratch, it is also a lovely thing to do with someone. Financial confidence is rarely taught at school, and working through the course alongside a teenager or grown-up child can be a real gift — to them, and to the relationship. You learn together, you talk about money in a way most families never quite manage to, and you send the next generation into the world far better equipped than most of us were.
A few honest caveats
The course is financial education, not regulated financial advice — it teaches you how money works so you can make your own informed choices, but it cannot tell you what to do with your particular pension, mortgage, or investments. For advice tailored to your circumstances, see a regulated financial adviser. And if debt is the immediate pressure, there is excellent free help available now — from
StepChange,
National Debtline, and
Citizens Advice.
None of this is a substitute for therapy, and money worries that are keeping you awake or making you hopeless deserve real support. If you are in distress, please contact your GP, NHS 111, or — if you or someone else is in danger — 999. You can also call the
Samaritans
on 116 123, free, any time.