M: Do you spend a lot of money?

R: Well, I think that depends on what you mean by a lot, to be honest with you. I mean, for example, things like yoga and the gym have pretty fixed prices. So it's not really something you spend a lot of money on. Of course, the fact that I go there, when the average person does not means that I probably do spend a lot of money on it. So what I'm saying is, it's all relative, really.

M: How do you save money?

R: Well, right now, I don't save money, because I've just bought a house and I'm paying to have it renovated and making all the various repairs to it over the course of time. So that's proving to be a bit of a money pit right now. However, usually, when I save money, I have different accounts with different purposes. For example, I have an investment savings account or an ISA. And once the money is in that account, it just stays there and doesn't move. It's kind of like a psychological barrier for me. There's nothing to stop me from doing it apart from the thought of this money is there for saving.

M: Did you save money when you were younger?

R: Well, like a lot of kids, I had to piggy bank and various places to store money and save it up. And my parents tried to cultivate this idea of saving money for a rainy day. And getting money together and piling it up in order to buy more expensive things in the future that require you to save over time.

M: Do parents give pocket money in your country?

R: Well, they certainly used to give kids a few pounds. Pounds are the currency in my country. However, I'm not sure about nowadays. Everything is so expensive and kids are so excessively supervised, that probably it's not as popular as it used to be.

M: Do you use payment apps or mobile payments?

R: Yes, actually, once but it was by accident. Because I was holding my phone and my card in the same hand and I went to tap my card, but I tapped my phone instead. So it made the contactless payment with the phone. And it paid with money from an account that I didn't want to use. It wasn't a huge amount. So it wasn't really a big deal. But ever since then, I have never used payment apps for this exact reason. Because I'm just terrified of making a mistake.

M: Hey, money, dear listener! You should remember that money is. There is a lot of money, okay? Or I don't have much money. We don't say "monies", or "monies are". No, no, no. So money it. It is good. Money what? Means happiness, for example. Okay? So we use it. Money is good. Little money. Not much money. Also, a large amount of money. Not number. Okay? Careful. And what proposition, Rory, do we use? Spend money...shoes, spent money...clothes.

R: We spend money on shoes and spent money on clothes.

M: Right, dear listener, please, please make sure you use this. I don't spend much money on clothes, okay? Or just I don't spend much money on anything. But I do spend a lot of money on IELTS Success Premium, dear listener. Yeah, you give us your money, and we give you a high IELTS score in return. Okay? It's a win-win situation. Rory goes to the gym and apparently, he does yoga. Rory, do you do yoga?

R: What do you mean apparently? I definitely do yoga.

M; So yoga classes have a fixed price. So the price is fixed. Okay? The price doesn't get more expensive, for example.

R: Yes. Well, it doesn't seem to get more expensive. It's always been the same price that I've paid for it for the last several years. Whether that's true in other places, I'm not so sure. However, I hate these questions a lot. Do you spend a lot of money? Do you eat a lot of food? Because what is a lot? Like a lot for someone could be not so much for somebody else, which is why I answered it in the way I do. Because, you know, my life for some people might not look very expensive. And yet other people might think, oh, my God, he spends a lot of money on lots of different things.

M: So it's all relative, dear listener. Relative?

R: And if it's all relative, of course, that means that it's all defined in comparison to something else.

M: If a person doesn't have much money, what can we say? Can I say I'm short of money, or I'm short for money?

R: Short of money. I'm definitely short of money right now.

M: Sometimes I'm short of money, okay? So I don't spend much, or I'm never short of money, I'm fine. Okay, I have some extra cash, some extra money to spend.

R: However, I am definitely short of money because my house is a money pit, which is just another way of seeing a project that is very financially draining. So ever since I bought this place, I have been spending money on doing it up. For example, you may have noticed that my background has changed because I paid for blinds, which you would think is not expensive, but as it turns out, cost hundreds of pounds.

M: So if something is a money pit, you just, you know, you pour money into it. Okay? So it just like asks you, oh, I need more money, I need more money. And you just like, you feed it more money. Feed, yeah? Okay, metaphorically.

R: It's almost done, though. I have to hire a plumber to do a few things in the bathroom. And then, Dear God, please let it be finished. Just like, we're running out of things to fix, really. I hope we are, anyway.

M: So you can say that I've just bought a flat, or I have just bought a house or I've bought, I don't know...

R: A laptop, anything. Like anything that costs a lot of money to keep going is a money pit.

M: I've just bought a car and it's a money pit because I have to spend money on it. On it, okay? Yeah. Even if you haven't bought anything, dear listener, you can just say something, like to use this nice phrase, a money pit. Pit. You save money or you don't save money, you can also invest money into something, okay? So, oh, I usually invest money into... Into what? Into our premium episodes. Invest money in yourself, dear listener, and in your high IELTS score. The link is in the description.

R: And if you want to invest money in other ways, you could get an ISA. An ISA, which stands for Individual Savings Account. This is a kind of account which builds up, well, it should build up more interest over time, compared to a normal current account, which is what most people use to keep their money in.

M: Yeah, because you give your money to the bank, and then you have an interest. Like interest, some like what, some more money, because you put your money in there.

R: It's best not to think too much about it. Because when you understand what money is and how the concept works, then you just completely lose touch with reality.

M: So if you say that I've just bought a house. So you can also say that I have it renovated. So when you kind of like change the walls, you kind of like make it better. So the expression is I have it renovated or I'm having it renovated now. Renovated? Kind of, change things. And this expression means that you pay some other people to do it for you, okay? You don't do it yourself. So Rory doesn't do anything himself, he just pays money to certain people who do it for him.

R: I don't do anything for myself. I just, I just work in a different field. So I pay some very nice people. Thank you, Mark and Brian, my plaster and plumber, who fixed it all for me.

M: So Rory is having it renovated, okay? Or you can say I had my house renovated last year, so I had to pay a lot of money. Money for it?

R: I did have to pay a lot of money for it. I spent money on it, but I paid for it. And usually, you save for something as well. Well, actually, you can save money on something too. You save money for a purchase or... So this is in order to buy it. But you save money on something when there is some kind of discount. So this is the money that you have saved.

M: Why is it a psychological barrier for you? Barrier? Like a wall. A barrier between money and Rory.

R: Because it stops me from doing something. So if I understand that things are in this account for the purpose of saving, then I don't touch them, which was a problem recently because I was focused on saving money. And then I had to spend the money and because I have this psychological barrier, it was stopping me from realizing that this money could be used for that. So I was using money from other places instead. But of course, the money is saved for the purpose of the house. So I was just being silly.

M: I used to save a lot of money when I was younger. So I used to, but not anymore. For example, at school, I used to save some money or at university, I used to save some money. And where did you put this money in? So at school or at university, maybe like when you were a kid, you have a special thing to put your money in there. What do you call it?

R: It's a piggy bank.

M: Yeah, a piggy bank. Bank, like a piggy. It's usually in the shape of a pig, or some other animal. So, a piggy bank.

R: It is usually, however, give me 10 seconds because I have a different kind of piggy bank. I'm sharing this with people on trust that no one will make fun of me because this is a piggy bank that I made when I was a very small child in primary school. Okay? So remember, small child. But the idea of a piggy bank is to have a hollow space with a hole in the top where you save the money and kind of get access to it very easily.

M: Aw, it's so cute. Dear listener, if you want to see a piggy bank that young Rory made, please go to our YouTube. And you can just admire this lovely piggy bank. When you save it for a rainy day. Okay? You save money for a rainy day.

R: So when you save money for a rainy day, it's like you are saving for the future when you might not have enough money to pay for something and then it's there for you to pay, for instance.

M: And how do you say it? How do we use it in a sentence?

R: Well, when I was younger, my parents used to encourage me to save for a rainy day. And now, every month I try to put some money away for a rainy day.

M: Put some money away. Yeah, you see? So kind of like, do you save money? Well, you know, I usually save money for a rainy day. So I save some money for the future.

R: There's an even more advanced idiom/phrasal verb for this and it is to squirrel money away. But that means the same thing. It's like hiding this money away for the future. Squirrelling money away.

M: Yeah, could you give us a sentence?

R: It's difficult for me to squirrel money away now because I have this apartment to pay for.

M: You can also say I usually save up money. Save up, right? Or I never saved up anything. I prefer to save up money. If you pile it up. So pile it up, pile money up.

R: Well, that just means that you build it up over time in big groups. So... I think I used to save something like 500 pounds a month and that money would pile up over time, which is good because it's paying for the house now.

M: Yeah. And how can we use pile up in a sentence?

R: Well, some people believe if you invest in cryptocurrency, the money will pile up over time.

M: Parents give their children pocket money and children are excessively supervised. Excessively? Like too much. Supervised? Like controlled by parents. Okay?

R: It's too much supervision.

M: Right, so cash is good. But, Rory, is it true that today in the UK, they pretty much don't use cash? And if you want to pay by cash, so they say no, no, no, we don't accept cash. So you have to pay with your card or with your phone. Is it true?

R: Yes. So there are some places that are cashless. We allegedly live in a cashless society. So it's difficult to pay for things with cash these days. But, I mean, it's possible this might be a thing that happens more often in England, because, for example, there are some parts of the UK like Scotland in the highlands, which don't have great internet connection. So it would be very difficult to make contactless payments there. And that's what you call this kind of payment. You tap your card, and you make a contactless payment.

M: Yes, dear listener, so contactless. Yeah. And what do you do with your card?

R: You tap it on the card reader.

M: Yeah, and payment apps, applications, payment applications, but you just say, okay, like Google Pay, Apple Pay, and just like I pay with my phone. Yeah, I just tap my phone. Or I pay only with cash or by cash.

R: I would say pay by cash or pay by card, but you can pay for things with cash and with cards as well.

M: Yeah, so I prefer cash, you know? But if you are in the UK, cash is a problem. Because many places don't accept cash. It's just like shocking. Like but I have cash, come on, I have money. No, sorry. No. We can't take your cash.

R: Places in England. In Scotland it's different.

M: Yeah, because Scotland is freedom.

R: Absolutely.

M: Bye!

R: Bye!

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