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No fees. No penalties. It has never refused an application, and you can't go overdrawn. Opening an account takes less than 10 minutes.
The Laughter Bank isn't a bank. It holds no money, takes no deposits, pays no interest you could ever spend, and provides no financial service of any kind. It's a way of keeping hold of the things that make you laugh, so you can find them on the days you need them. A Laugh Therapy product, from Edacity Ltd.
What you're opening
The Laughter Bank is a simple idea out of the research on laughter. Know what reliably makes you laugh, keep it somewhere you can find it, and make a withdrawal on the days that need one.
You already own the vault. It's the photo album on your phone. The saved clips, the running joke with your sister, the photo from the night that went wonderfully wrong. Those are deposits, and most people never think to collect them on purpose.
Nothing here asks you to be funny.
Choose your account
Any of these works. Pick whichever you'd actually open on a bad day, because that's the only test that matters.
An album on your phone called anything you like.
A chat with only you in it. Nothing to install.
Notes app, one line per joke. Free to withdraw.
The saved tab you already use, given a job.
For the ones you have to hear to get.
Paper, no battery. Deposit slips are in Your Rainy Day Account.
Free, no account needed
Seventeen pages, no forms to fill in, no email required. Share it with anyone who needs it.
Opens your account in less than 10 minutes. How to find the vault you already own, your first three deposits, why photos beat memes, and why you never need to know the joke. It also carries the kindest small print in banking.
Download the pack (PDF)Plain English, written for people who've never used Notion and would rather not learn a whole app. Signing up, copying your account, the four rooms, and how to undo anything. Eight pages, and it arrives with Your Rainy Day Account, the Joint Account, and every account opened through the Equity Fund.
See what it comes withGo further
One for you, one for somebody you'll never meet, and one that does both. Read what each is before you decide.
A ready-made bank you copy in one tap, with an opening balance already in it. Two guides come with it: 32 pages on how to use it and why it works, and a plain-English guide to Notion for anyone who's never used the app.
Some of the people who most need a rainy day account are the least able to open one. Your £9.90 pays into the Equity Fund, which opens accounts through the community groups, charities and health teams we work with.
You'll never know who got yours, and they'll never know it was you. That's the beauty of a pay it forward scheme: it's credit where it's due.
If you'd rather open one for somebody you know, that's a joint account.
How the Fund works
Laughing when you're happy is easy. This is for when you're not, and the people who most need an account like this rarely get round to opening one. This opens two at once: yours, and one to benefit somebody else.
An NHS prescription in England costs £9.90 an item. So does Your Current Account, and Your Rainy Day Account, and an account opened for a stranger through the Equity Fund. The Joint Account is two of them: £19.80.
That's deliberate. I'm part of Comedy on Prescription, where laughter is offered through social prescribing rather than bought off a shelf, and it seemed daft to charge more for the shelf version than the NHS charges for the real thing.
The difference is you pay it once. A repeat prescription costs £9.90 every time you collect it. These you pay for once and keep — and Your Current Account is built from your own sixty answers, so nobody else has a copy of yours.
Being straight about what that does and doesn't mean: this isn't medicine, it doesn't replace any, and nothing here is a treatment. It costs what a prescription costs. That's the whole claim.
Free to take · £9.90 for the statement
Nobody laughs at everything. Ask most people their favourite comedian and you'll get the answer they'd give at a dinner party, not the thing that actually made them laugh out loud last week.
Sixty questions, six short sections, no right answers and nobody watching. It measures taste and only taste: it never asks how you're feeling, and it isn't a health tool of any kind.
Your strongest taste in comedy out of forty-five genres, the two triggers that put it there, and the two that came in behind it. A real answer, yours to keep, and no email needed until you want it opened.
The full statement, written to you from your own sixty answers. This is the half with the names in it.
It arrives as a PDF you keep, print, or send to somebody who'll argue with it. Once, £9.90, no subscription, and worth going back to as your taste shifts.
Laughing when you're happy is easy. This is for when you're not.
The account is the thing you actually use. It's a ready-made bank you copy in one tap, and it arrives with an opening balance of deposits already in it, from me, so it's never empty on day one. Four rooms: where new deposits land, the withdrawals you've chosen on a good day for a bad one, your statement, and the places you can only visit in person.
It runs on the free version of Notion. You'll never pay them anything, and nobody can see what's in yours, including me.
Two guides come with it. The 32-page book is how to use the account and why it works, written to be read in bed, on your phone, on a bad day. The plain-English guide to Notion is for anyone who's never touched the app and would rather not learn one: signing up, copying your account, and how to undo anything.
Why laughter works. The research in plain English, with the studies named so you don't have to take my word for it. What a real laugh does to stress hormones, pain, sleep and the people around you, and what it doesn't do. No miracle claims. This is a tool that helps, never a treatment.
Know your funny. Nobody laughs at everything. The four kinds of humour and the two worth building on, your taste, your thresholds, your laughter people. Found by reading, not by filling anything in.
Thirty days of one-line prompts, each under a minute: a deposits week, a withdrawals week, a high-interest week, and a make-it-stick week. Plus the bad-week page, the in-person deposits page, and printable deposit slips for anyone banking on paper.
If apps aren't your thing at all, your photo album works as an account too, and the book says so. No forms, no homework. Bank holidays are allowed, obviously, and miss a week and nothing is lost. This bank doesn't send letters.
Some of the people who most need a rainy day account are the least able to open one.
The Equity Fund exists for them. Your £9.90 opens a full account, opening balance and both guides included, and pays it into the Fund. From there it's distributed by a community group, mental health charity or healthcare link worker, to someone they feel would benefit from it most.
You'll never know who got yours, and they'll never know it was you. That's the beauty of a pay it forward scheme: it's credit where it's due.
Nothing gets downloaded with this one. You're not buying a file. You're opening somebody else's account.
The people who most need an account like this are rarely the ones who open it. They'll tell you they're fine, or they'll mean to and never get round to it. A joint account opens two at once: yours, and one to benefit someone else.
Yours is the full account: the ready-made bank with an opening balance already in it, the 32 pages on how to use it, and the guide to Notion. Theirs is identical, and it arrives by email from me, so you never have to explain what it is or why you thought of them.
A short page asks, and there are three answers.
Your second £9.90 doesn't buy you a second download. It opens somebody else's account. That's the whole difference between this and opening one, and it's worth being straight about.
The template
Your account comes ready-made with four rooms. The withdrawals room already has an opening balance in it, on loan from me. Pay it back by paying it forward.
It runs on the free version of Notion and it's completely private. I can't see anything you put in it.
Where new deposits land. Photos, clips, memes, one-liners, memories, people.
Your best deposits, one tap away, chosen on a good day for a bad one.
What's in the bank, at a glance, without counting anything.
Some deposits you can only make in person. Where to find them.
This is a tool that helps. It isn't treatment, and it's no substitute for real support. If you're struggling, talk to someone. Speaking to a person beats typing at a screen, so start here:
Who's behind the counter
I'm a certified laughter therapist and gelotologist, which means somebody who studies laughter for a living. Odd job title, real research behind it.
The work here comes out of the same material I take into NHS trusts, hospices and mental health support charities.
We read the studies, grade the evidence, create the strategies,and only teach what stands up.
The Laughter Bank came from noticing the same thing in every room. People can tell you exactly what makes them laugh, and almost nobody has any of it to hand on the day they need it.
Less than 10 minutes, no forms, no homework. Share the pack with anyone who needs it.
Get the free Welcome Pack