The final straw was an email from my best friend Grace*. It contained a spreadsheet breaking down the costs of our recent holiday to New York.
At her suggestion, we’d put everything on her credit card as she’s American, so wouldn’t incur bank charges.
We hadn’t agreed a budget in advance but I knew it wouldn’t be cheap, especially as I’d already set aside my very last pennies to pay roughly £1,600 for hotels and flights.
But this vast spreadsheet was something else entirely: a painstakingly itemised list of every single expense incurred. In addition to meals out, I was to pay her back for parking, a handful of inexpensive Ubers, even one solitary drink in a bar… to the tune of £600.
The trip – a ten-day excursion from New York through Washington, Philadelphia and Pennsylvania over Thanksgiving – had been her idea. She is an inveterate planner, so the itinerary was largely hers, too.
In hindsight, I probably should’ve pushed back on some of it: a terrible night out with a money-obsessed friend of hers, or a string of bottomless brunches in restaurants that cost hundreds of dollars.
I assumed – perhaps naively – that she would take our very different financial circumstances into account. Grace earned a six-figure salary in finance; I was a freelance writer on an income barely above £20,000. She knew this.
So I thought she might either scale things back to something we could both comfortably afford, or absorb more of the cost to help me out.
Lucy Holden lived in Grace’s £4,000-a-month rental covered by the bank she worked for
I didn’t expect a free ride and, yes, perhaps there should have been a conversation beforehand, but I certainly didn’t expect such a miserly log of every single cent we’d spent.
The so-called salary gap is a common cause of friction when people hit their 30s. Those in corporate careers accelerate quickly, while those in the arts find their jobs become more precarious.
At the time, I was working in an industry with fewer stable, salaried roles and more pressure to go freelance. I wasn’t embarrassed by what I earned, or necessarily jealous of those who earned more, but I felt conscious of a disparity in the company of those with heftier payslips. When Grace and I had met the year before in 2017, that gap already existed, though it didn’t seem to matter.
Until then, my friendship circle consisted entirely of fellow creative types, such as other journalists and actors. No one had a corporate job, and we were all happily scraping by, living in grotty house shares.
Grace, by comparison, had been with the same investment bank since graduating university in the States and was already earning six figures. We were in the same social netball league and clicked immediately.
She knew no one in London, and when I mentioned I needed somewhere to live, she quickly suggested I move into her flat – a £4,000-a-month rental covered by the bank she worked for.
Our flat by Tower Bridge – and our instant closeness – felt like a dream. Our differences felt complementary: she was structured while I was spontaneous; she more reserved where I was outgoing.
The imbalance in our pay cheques meant our lifestyles were vastly different, but the perks of my job helped to disguise that, as I could bring Grace as my ‘plus one’ to swanky events, upmarket restaurants and bars. She was a great wing-woman, easy company and up for anything, so I loved taking her out.
Lucy went on a string of bottomless brunches in restaurants that cost hundreds of dollars
But over time, small fissures started to appear in our happy friendship. Our ideas of what constituted reasonable spending were as different as we were.
Grace did food shops on Amazon, which had ridiculous delivery fees, and she’d think nothing of purchasing expensive spirits for cocktail nights which I barely drank at, then expect us to split the bill 50/50.
It began to grate on me, but I didn’t feel I could argue about it when I didn’t pay rent – maybe this was her way of reclaiming that favour, I thought.
Trouble really began to rumble during the summer just before our road trip. We were turning 30 and Grace’s aim was to visit 30 countries before she hit that milestone; she was three countries off. It was an impressive ambition, but not entirely my style – given the cost and pace.
I simply couldn’t afford to jet-set my way through Europe, so I’d started saying ‘no’ to more of the jaunts she suggested, from weekends in Malta to other pricey last-minute city breaks.
Perhaps that was partly why I agreed to New York. It was a holiday she was especially keen for us to do together, as she was due to return to the US for good before long and she was disappointed I’d vetoed so many other of her wild ideas.
And the trip was wonderful, while it lasted. It was only when we got home, and her spreadsheet landed in my inbox that things soured.
My shock rapidly turned to anger at how tight she was being. Her feeling – it became apparent – was that I was being tight, too. After a few heated texts and some emails, communication broke down.
Grace expected repayment in a lump sum, which I couldn’t manage without a regular salary. And I wasn’t about to sign up to some sort of repayment plan, as if she were a loanshark instead of my best friend.
My pride was bruised, but Grace wouldn’t relent. At one point, she even said another of our friends had suggested I was ‘using her’, which I thought was particularly unfair.
Our friendship had never felt transactional to me; if anything, I thought we’d both been generous in different ways. For example, I’d spent hours acting as therapist to coach her through some dating issues.
Still, this was where we fundamentally disagreed – on what fairness looked like, and what money meant within a friendship. I didn’t object to contributing, but I struggled with being guilt-tripped into spending beyond my means, then hectored for not settling the bill quickly enough afterwards.
I paid back most of what I owed, though not all. She eventually wrote off the remaining £200, but the ordeal left a mark.
She returned to living in New York just as Covid hit, and our relationship became long-distance, which, ironically, I think helped save the friendship.
The issue of money still does rear its head, but I’ve learnt to ignore her fairly crass remarks.
Recently she vented to me about her anxiety that relocating to California would push her outgoings up by 5 per cent, to the detriment of her ‘quality of life’.
Taking in the cost-of-living crisis I’m wrestling with, I wanted to laugh. I very much doubt a small increase to the price of her expensive daily coffee will cause serious harm to her wellbeing.
Ultimately, the experience clarified my approach to money.
Regardless of what I earn, I value generosity and am not, I hope, pedantic. I won’t ever ask for half a £15 taxi fare, or demand someone pay me back for a pint.
Of course, nobody wants their largesse to be taken for granted, but to me friendship isn’t about counting pennies. It’s about knowing that, in the end, the give-and-take evens out in ways that matter more than money.
Grace will always be the poorer for not realising that.
Names have been changed.
