The rise of the sharing economy

As living costs rise, more of us are making huge savings by sharing goods and services with strangers. Merryn Somerset Webb reports.

Last weekend, we all needed to go in different directions. Making it easy meant using two cars. We only have one car. One too few. In the round of wondering how to manage the pick up and delivery of children to places two hours' drive apart, we discussed buying another car (not that day, but at some point).

Then I rang the car-hire agency down the road and asked what it would cost to rent a car for 24 hours. The answer? I could have a much newer and smarter version of my own diesel Passat for £33 and if I could find it cheaper on Expedia or some such they'd match that price.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.