Sam Secomb

Sam Secomb writes The Telegraph’s Moral Money column, using her background as a chartered financial planner and founder of Women’s Wealth to help readers navigate difficult decisions where money, duty and relationships collide. Her focus is on the moral side of finance, treating questions about gifts, inheritance, support and compensation as ethical problems as much as numerical ones. She answers individual letters in depth, combining practical guidance with a clear view on fairness, boundaries and long‑term financial consequences.

Moral Money: family obligations and inheritance

A large part of Secomb’s column centres on family obligations, inheritance and the strain that shared finances place on close relationships. She has written about siblings living abroad while one child shoulders the burden of caring for ageing parents and wonders whether it is right to ask for financial compensation for that work.

She addresses readers who expected an inheritance only to discover they have been cut out of a parent’s will, explaining what executors can and cannot do and how to reconcile legal realities with feelings of betrayal. Other pieces look at the tension between helping relatives out of debt and the resentment when those relatives do not repay what they owe, spelling out both the emotional cost and the need for clear agreements.

Across these cases she treats family money as a mix of duty, gratitude and self‑preservation, and she pushes readers to balance compassion with protecting their own financial security.

Moral Money: everyday spending, gifts and generosity

Secomb frequently writes about everyday spending decisions that carry moral weight, rather than just budget implications.

Her columns cover readers who feel taken advantage of by rude grandchildren who never say thank you, and who want to know if it is acceptable to stop buying them presents. She has answered questions from those picking up the bill for a parent whose charitable donations have become excessive, setting out how to draw a line while still respecting the parent’s values.

In another strand of her work, she examines domestic tensions around spending on children, such as a mother‑in‑law buying designer clothes for a newborn when the parents would prefer practical essentials.

She also tackles readers caught in disputes with companies over compensation and settlement offers, helping them weigh up lump‑sum payments against the principle of pursuing a case in court. Across these themes she treats generosity, gifting and consumer choices as expressions of priorities, encouraging readers to match their spending with what they truly value.

Moral Money: work, redundancy and financial identity

Work and income are another recurring strand of Secomb’s columns, particularly where career choices intersect with family life and self‑image. She has advised readers whose families want them to find another high‑paid job after redundancy, even though they are enjoying the break, exploring how much weight to give to relatives’ expectations versus personal wellbeing.

Other pieces grapple with whether to walk away from a lucrative career to share childcare more equally with a spouse, breaking down both the financial impact and the message such a decision sends about partnership and responsibility. She covers situations where a reader is stonewalled by a partner over a proposed cash gift for their children’s university expenses, unpacking the underlying power dynamics around who controls family wealth. In her Midults work she also engages with money as part of social identity, including confessions from readers who have lied for years about how well‑paid they are and now want to come clean, showing how status anxiety shapes financial behaviour.

In these articles she treats pay, redundancy and career moves as moral choices as much as economic ones, and presses readers to align their working lives with their values and obligations.

Women’s Wealth and coaching for women

Beyond her column, Secomb brings the perspective of a chartered financial planner and the founder of Women’s Wealth, a financial advice and coaching service focused on women.

Her external writing includes guidance on lending money to family members who do not repay, emphasising how such decisions affect long‑term security and confidence, particularly for women who may already feel financially vulnerable. This professional backdrop shapes her Moral Money pieces: she is comfortable explaining how fees, charges and advisory structures work, as in her column on whether to claim compensation from a well‑known wealth manager when its service has been satisfactory but regulatory redress is available.

Her advice combines technical understanding of products and regulation with a clear emphasis on empowerment, encouraging readers - especially women - to recognise the value of their labour, their time and their financial autonomy.