1 It’s Sunday morning and your husband is mansplaining the ways in which you are loading the dishwasher incorrectly. The phrase ‘rotary spray arm’ has already been used four times. What’s the average cost of a divorce in the UK?
A £8,561
B £11,561
C £14,561
2 You’re at work, three days before your 45th birthday. Your boss slides a massive stack of papers over, saying: ‘I need you to print out these emails, then scan them back into PDFs, then email them to me.’ You can’t help musing: ‘How many years until I can access my pension?
A 8 years
B 12 years
C 16 years
3 Bafflingly, only one of the three items listed below is subject to 20 per cent VAT. Which is it?
A Loo roll
B Caviar
C Plain biscuits
4 Your teenager, who recently left home to study at university, has, it seems, already worked through their entire student loan and is asking for a top-up. ‘I’ve already spent a small fortune raising you to 18,’ you explode upon reading the text. How much, on average, have you actually forked out?
A £173,256
B £203,256
C £223,256
5 After one too many wines at your 30-year school reunion, you leave your debit card in the taxi. If someone finds it and starts spending, how much are you liable for?
A £35
B £75
C £125
6 Which country pays the most, per capita, for its royal family?
A Denmark
B The UK
C Norway
7 What was the value of the largest-denomination banknote ever printed (in Zimbabwe in 2008)?
A 1 trillion dollars
B 100 trillion dollars
C 1 quadrillion dollars
8 Where does the £ sign come from?
A It is a hook symbol denoting the Baltic herring – accepted as currency in 15th-century Britain.
B It was originally an L, which stood for libra, the Latin word for pound.
C It was originally the letter F, to stand for the French word finer meaning ‘to end’ as well as ‘to pay’ – also the word from which ‘finance’ is derived.
9 We might all claim to be eschewing ultra-processed foods – but the stats say otherwise. How much does the average Brit spend on takeaways every year?
A £641
B £690
C £708
10 Ever thought about the history of the term ‘piggy bank’? What, never? Which of the following is true?
A In 18th-century England, coins were in short supply, and it was thought greedy to keep more than you needed – which gave us the word ‘piggy’.
B The earliest piggy banks were made from pigskin (more pliable and easily worked than cowskin).
C Piggy banks were originally made from a type of clay called ‘pygg’, which evolved into ‘piggy’.
11 Are you blinded by choice on Netflix, Amazon and Disney+? Yet do you regularly spend the whole evening scrolling? You are not alone. How much does the average UK household spend every year on streaming subscriptions?
A £412
B £589
C £696
12 Which of these obsolete coins was worth the most? (Gen Z: you might want to watch something on TikTok while your elders deal with this one.)
A A half crown
B A florin
C A shilling
13 Spend a moment fantasising that you are obscenely rich – in fact, you’re in the top one per cent of the wealthiest in the country. In which nation would you need most money to achieve this?
A Germany
B Italy
C Japan
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Answers: 1 C, 2 B, 3 A, 4 C, 5 A, 6 C, 7 B, 8 B, 9 A, 10 C, 11 C, 12 A, 13 A
