When I was approached by Bristol University Press after a seminar I gave, I was delighted to have the chance to synthesize my different strands of research in a book. This book draws on my experiences within the private sector but also on my interdisciplinary background, having studied international business, business administration and economics. My interest in the everyday perspective of financialization arose after having studied financialization and its impact on the household within the economics literature. The majority of these investigations have tended to focus on exploring how structural changes in the economy have led to changes in household behaviour. Wanting to introduce the perspective of the household, I sought to research everyday financial behaviour and its underlying reasoning, which eventually led my research to centre on the intersection between political economy and personal finance, exploring how people across different social and demographic groups respond to the rising pressure to manage financial risk. This research agenda has accompanied me for the last ten years, ranging from my PhD research to a range of papers published since then. The book has given me the opportunity to develop a coherent narrative which questions recent theorizations of everyday financial practices and brings to the forefront everyday financial practices as rational responses to an unequal system, highlighting the inefficiencies of the current system and its underlying power mechanisms.

The concept of finance rationality has underpinned many welfare policies in developed capitalist societies, promoting private asset ownership rather than publicly funded cash transfers to circumvent risks of income shortfalls when becoming unemployed or sick, or in retirement. Rational individuals are knowledgeable about financial concepts, conduct regular investments throughout their working life, and build a diverse asset portfolio to generate income during non-working periods. Behaviour deviating from these norms is categorized as irresponsible and corrective policy measures are introduced. While behavioural economics has put forward the notion that people use irrational heuristics when making financial decisions such as prioritizing current consumption over future consumption, financial literacy has attributed non-conforming behaviour to a lack of financial knowledge.