About Kitchen Table Finance

The table where it all started

The kitchen table isn't a metaphor. It's a real table — handmade by Lisa's husband from reclaimed scaffolding boards, oiled to a deep amber colour. His grandfather was a master carpenter who built the altar in his village church in Barnsley. When the table was built, that craftsmanship and that history came with it.

Practical knowledge that lives in the hands, passed down carefully, built to last — that's what Kitchen Table Finance is for. Not jargon. Not sales. Just honest, well-made conversation about money.

Lisa's background

Lisa's career started in social work, where household budgeting wasn't an abstract concept — it was the difference between families staying together and falling apart. She saw first-hand how financial literacy (or the lack of it) shaped outcomes that had nothing to do with how hard people worked.

Later, in premier banking, she saw the other side: how the financial system is designed to reward those who understand it, and quietly penalise those who don't. After leaving banking, she spent years in independent study — marketing, macroeconomics, the mechanics of financial products — building the framework that became Kitchen Table Finance.

Our editorial philosophy

Kitchen Table Finance is built on one idea: that most people aren't bad with money — they've just never been shown how the system actually works.

We don't tell you what to do. We show you how to think through a decision. The approach draws on Motivational Interviewing: story first, then decision, then tool. You arrive at your own conclusions — we just make sure you have everything you need to get there.

"Don't work harder, work smarter" isn't a motivational poster. It's the literal premise: the maths of salary sacrifice, of energy tariffs, of pension contributions. There is real money to be extracted from systems you're already paying into. We do the reverse-engineering so you don't have to.

What this site is not

Kitchen Table Finance is not a financial advice site. We are not a comparison platform. We are not a frugality blog telling you to stop buying coffee. And we are not a personal brand — Kitchen Table Finance is the publication; Lisa is the credibility behind it.