About the Book
No Money, No Clue — by M. Claire
Maya Hussain is sixteen when her family moves from a two-bedroom council flat to a smaller one on the other side of the estate in Bradford. Her mum’s hours on a zero-hour contract got slashed. The sofa doesn’t fit through the new door. Maya sleeps in a sleeping bag on the kitchen floor.
She picks up a part-time job at a supermarket. £6.40 an hour, zero-hour contract. Her first payslip doesn’t match what she calculated — because nobody told her the government takes its cut before she even sees it.
Over one school year, Maya teaches herself what no one else is teaching her.
She builds a budget after her nan shows her the labelled tins where every pound has a job. She opens a savings account and immediately has to raid it when her mum’s shifts get cancelled again. She nearly signs up for a buy-now-pay-later deal before reading the fine print. She sits with her mum and looks at a credit report for the first time — and they have the conversation about money that neither of them has ever had.
Along the way, she watches her best friend’s family argue about credit card bills behind closed doors. She watches a classmate post his betting wins on Instagram and go quiet about his losses. She scrolls past finfluencers promising financial freedom for £249 and learns to ask the question that matters: who profits?
The book doesn’t lecture. It doesn’t have sidebars or worksheets. It’s a novel — sharp, funny, and grounded in the actual financial landscape British teenagers navigate: zero-hour contracts, Universal Credit, betting apps normalised by football culture, and a social media feed that sells the feeling of being behind.
Maya doesn’t end the year wealthy or financially “fixed.” She ends it financially awake — asking questions before signing things, knowing what she doesn’t yet know, and helping her eleven-year-old brother open his first savings account with a tenner from his birthday money.
She still doesn’t have much. But she knows where it’s going. And that changes everything.
Who is this for?
- Teens (13-18) who earn, spend, or scroll past money content every day and want a story that actually gets it
- Anyone who’s ever looked at a payslip, a bill, or a bank balance and thought that can’t be right
- Teachers looking for a PSHE resource that students will actually read — see our teacher page
- Parents who want their kids to learn the stuff school doesn’t cover
Start reading Chapter 1 – meet Maya