Last night, I had a scrumptious meal cooked by a good friend. Along with another friend, we sipped wine, busted out the Abbey Ale, and enjoyed the pleasure of each other’s company. And to make it a picture-perfect evening, we worked on our taxes.
Yes, it’s tax season here in the States and my friends and I turned what’s usually an annoyance into a fun night of food, drinks and good company.
For my friend, it was her first time filing taxes and we thought this would be a good way to promote financial independence. Hooray for sisterhood! We were able to coach her through the process and get her feeling more confident about being able to keep her finances in order. In fact, I think this dinner, drinks, taxes combo is a great one that I’ll be doing often! Any good cooks out there who need tax help? Or any awesome accountants in need of a yummy meal? I urge you all to start this tradition.
At some point in the evening, I started wondering what it is about women and finances… It shouldn’t be the case that we are easily intimidated by our personal finances, and yet I find that – at least in my groups of friends – many women are. My friend, for example, was completely freaking out about her taxes. She had no idea what she was supposed to do, what she needed, or how long it would take and the panic was getting to her.
With the rest of my friends, there are some who take complete control over their finances, making sure to keep their debt down, buying property, investing, etc. The rest are completely lost, in loads of debt, not even thinking about investing or buying anything, etc.
Do you all find that the women you know fall into the “don’t know anything about money” stereotype? Or do they have their finances in order? I’m curious to see how much of this is an actual problem and how much has finally changed.
Money terrifies me. I am definitely in the debt/no investments, and now that I’ve turned 40 I’ve added the anxiety of no pension/retirement savings. I don’t think I’ve ever associated this with gender, however, to me it feels like a class association. I live as an adult how my family did growing up: beyond my means, paycheque to paycheque, and unable to imagine fiscal security. This isn’t the case for my whole family, I have one sister who is extremely financially successful, but she’s the odd one out. My other sisters struggle with money as I do.
I laughed out loud reading this! My mom’s advice would be: listen to the Suze Orman books-on-tape/podcasts/etc. Maybe if I had done that I wouldn’t have been freaking out so much.
My best friend is a financial whiz. She invests, plans, does her taxes, does other people’s taxes, knows the ins and outs of various savings plans, loans, and grants, and does it all well. She is the financier of her household. My other good friend is in economics and does taxes.
I grew up with the exact opposite stereotype in my mind… My father was the one who earned most of the money, and left everything relating to managing the house and children to my mother – and this included all the finances. I guess he thought he was too important to deal with such petty things as bills and taxes! So in my mind, the idea of a woman managing finances goes along perfectly well with the damaging stereotype that women are the ‘responsible’ ones, existing to keep all the mundane household things in line so that men can do Big Important Work and then come home and do nothing but watch ball games. I guess because of this upbringing, I tend to think of a man who can do everyday things (as in, anything other than getting & keeping a job) on his own more progressive and heartwarming than a woman who can.
That said, I’m terrified of financial things myself… I would love to have a dinner party to help me get through all the problems I’m having!
My mom, who was married for 22 years and never learned how to manage her personal finances until after her divorce, gave me a book (written by a dude) called Smart Women Finish Rich. While some of it was still a bit over my head (and while it seemed to be directed at divorced women in my mother’s position), the book was incredibly informative. I still don’t know much about investing, but when I move this spring and have lower rent, I’m opening a retirement account and putting $2000 a year into it.
It also helped me recognize what I didn’t need to spend money on, and what kinds of bank accounts I did or didn’t want. It also talked a LOT about credit card debt, which bothered me a bit, because I don’t HAVE credit card debt, and I don’t like when anyone implies that just about every woman with a credit card has it.
But one thing I DID really like about the book was that the author was adamant that personal finance be taught to everyone in school. He talked about how we’re in a culture where women are expected to let their parents (aka daddy) take care of their finances when they’re young, and then let their hubbies take over when they’re married. Not only that, but men are expected to know how to manage finances, and so they often manage them for their families even if they have no idea what they’re doing. (tl:dr–pretty much no one knows, but a lot of guys fake it).
Oh, I think it still depends from person to person. Some women are financial whizzes, others don’t feel 100% confident writing a check. I think at this point in time there is so much control and so many options about finances, I’m not surprised that just as many men I know know as much or as little as the women in my life. The biggest shock for me was discovering that most savings accounts (the standard way to save your cash) only paid 3, 4, maybe 5% a year. That’s a nickel out of every dollar. You would save more than that simply by just not spending!
Sadly, I myself am in the group of women who don’t do a good job of handling finances. I get almost all of it, but I don’t actually implement.
I know this isn’t a finance blog, but if folks want to keep sharing resources, info, etc. (as phira did – thanks!), please do so!
My mother took care of the finances because she did a way better job than my dad. I’m currently 25 and in credit card debt and constantly broke. My girlfriend is excellent with money. According to this small cross section, it depends on the individual woman.
This is a topic that causes me grave embarrassment. I have allowed my husband complete control over our finances over the years, and I really don’t know what is going on even though I bring in 65% of the household income!
The fact is that finances bore me. I feel silly and guilty for that attitude, and I think it probably reflects a certain amount of privilege, the privilege of never having gone without. At the same time, I am aware that we don’t have much cushion (lots of student debt, a hefty mortgage, not much in our 401(k)s) and I probably should be more concerned about our old age, not to mention educating any children we might have. But I can’t help feeling that, no matter what, we will always have some way to take care of our basic needs, and it is hard for me to work up much anxiety or interest in our finances even though I know I should. I have also made a lot of decisions (such as incurring hefty student debt) without really caring too much about the long-term consequences.
Yeah, I’m irresponsible.
I’ve gone, over the past few years, from being fairly ignorant about money to being fairly financially savvy, with the help of a few books and a couple websites.
One thing I did come to notice was the difference between knowledge in theory and knowledge in practice—most specifically, despite being told and fully understanding that, say, credit cards are not free money, I managed to run up a couple thousand dollars in credit card debt over a year or so of college. So, I think there can easily be a gap in how the knowledge functions once you have it, and really unless you know your own preferences, desires, and idiosyncracies, you’re might well be in some danger of that knowledge taking a backseat.
Also the necessity of keeping an eye on circumstances, and watching out for lifestyle inflation, because there’s a lot of times when having access to purchasing power is on its own enough to propel you from “don’t buy” to “buy,” because it seems important enough. Sometimes this is purely frivolous; other times it isn’t.
I personally find finance fun and interesting, in small doses, and consider myself fairly savvy about it. My (opposite-sex) parents are about equal in terms of expertese on the matter. Of course, that’s just my little corner of the world, and I’m sure there are a multitude of women who are still taught less than their brothers or their prospective suitors, and plenty who are treated as inept, told they’re naturally inept, or shunted out of financial input in their families. I have been sufficiently lucky to not have been.
I’m pretty good with money. The only thing I wish I were better at is savings and investing, but I’m one of those assholes who pretty much pays her credit card balance every month, and really knows how to work those X day Same As Cash deals.
I still have an accountant do my taxes, though. I used to do them myself but our lives have gotten a little too complex lately and I’d rather rely on an expert.
I’ll second the recommendation for Smart Women Finish Rich. (The dude is David Bach.) It’s awesome. Also Suze Orman.
One other thing I would recommend, though, is once you’ve got the basics of how finance works, look around and seek out financial advice books, blogs, newspaper articles, from writers with differing values. People differ on what they consider worth spending money on, the risks they feel are worthwhile, even the value of money itself in one’s life, and while a good finance advisor will take this into account in hir published advice, it IS a bias and nobody will be able to get rid of it fully, especially when they are writing from a position where some of those values are quite successful for them. Look around, and do some deep thinking about what your OWN values are, and who they match, and what advice supports them the best.
Examples: Many finance/business sorts will place a high priority on the goal of becoming wealthy, generally somewhat later in life. Others, however, will have the goal of achieving personal fulfillment, and this may not focus on making more money but on creating a fulfilling lifestyle that is sustainable on less money. I’ve even seen one book (Die Broke) reject the wealth-building model altogether in favor of making your money last precisely as long as you do—spending it all during your life to maximise your enjoyment thereof.
In my experience, it is the lifestyle-and-personal-values-based financial advice that seems to work best, because having purchasing power does not always translate to a fulfilled life. Finding and respecting the things that you value will often make a smaller salary go further in terms of keeping you happy than a large one will when you don’t know what to spend it on to make it not pointless.
Resources:
Smart Women Finish Rich, by David Bach.
Women and Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny, by Suze Orman.
The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, and Broke, by Suze Orman.
The Beardstown Ladies’ Common Sense Investment Guide.
Get Rich Slowly
Feminist Finance
I love doing taxes. It’s like playing Tetris, except at the end, you get money. (Or, at this point given what my husband’s business incurs in taxes, you have to pay less money than you would have otherwise.)
But it’s software that has made my embrace of taxes possible. When it was all on paper and you look up this table and then that table and then you get out your calculator… what a goddamn headache that was, and I was doing that on taxes where there was essentially nothing unusual and I could file the EZ. (For non-Americans, the 1040-EZ is the simplified tax form for people with no spouse, no kids, no business expenses and no real estate.)
I am comfortable & competent handling finances.
I absolutely suck with handling money. I’ve read articles, books, been to seminars, but I just can’t get it together!
One thing I’ve noticed about all of the money management/personal finance books I have read is that most of them are very, VERY classist. They’re written from a viewpoint of “I have money, but I’m just not very responsible with it”, instead of my problem “I have no money, but I have bills to pay.”
I feel all right with finances, but I always feel like those shows/books don’t apply to me. “Switch your money from a ROTH IRA to a blah blah blah…” How does that WORK if you’re already food insecure, living from paycheck to paycheck, with two small children and debt from student loans and medical bills?
I already do everything I know how to do… my husband and I share a car, in a town where driving is mandatory. We cook at home (a lot of beans and rice) and take the leftovers for lunch. All of our kids’ clothes (and most of their toys) are hand-me-downs.
And I STILL don’t have enough money at the end of the month. My credit card debt doesn’t accumulate because I’m unaware of the risks. It accumulates because otherwise, MY KIDS DON’T EAT.
This talk of SAVING money is a joke … or cutting out that “fancy latte”… we drink Wal-Mart -brand coffee.
We also don’t qualify for food stamps, daycare subsidies, or any other aid.
Where’s the financial advice for people like ME?
I find most of my female friends are of the capable sort. A few of them choose to let their male s.o. handle the finances, but they all can do them if they want. Growing up it alternated between my Mom and Dad. For a few years Dad would do it, then Mom would do it for a few more. When we ran an herb farm, consulting business, and daycare, they sat down every year to do taxes together.
Dad taught me to do my taxes. Mom taught me to balance my checkbook.
I’m with Bushfire. My mother handled the day-to-day finances (though I remember many tax days as a kid avoiding the dining room, as they both pulled their hair out going over the forms). My wife is definitely the financial head in our family (mostly because she’s far more detail oriented and I’d run us into debt, I’m sure).
Same goes for most of our friends, too. So our little social circle seems to reverse the stereotype, though I’ve always considered our situation to be the stereotype (focused, driven, detail oriented woman, and unfocused, vague man). Matter of perspective for me, I guess.
Well put, Angel H. They always talk about putting away $50 every week “no matter what” because “everybody can do it.” But everybody can’t. And not everybody has expenses that can actually be cut out. Say: single parent, minimum wage, two preteens, no assets. What’s she gonna cut out to make the budget work?
I’m a young woman whose been doing her own taxes since college. I have done taxes for four states and in two countries, so it’s been difficult at times (other countries have WAY more straightfoward tax forms), but I found when I stopped thinking I’d be intimidated, there was nothing totally undoable, it was about reading instructions and paying attention to the details. Before I started doing taxes, I was deathly afraid of making a mistake and getting busted by the IRS, but actually, I’ve found if you make an honest mistake (either direction), the IRS will let you know, and it’s not a big deal. I paid tax on income that was tax free, filled out an updated return, and got the money back. On another year, I accidentally underpaid by $135, and I had to pay a penalty of…86 cents (they charge a cent a day).
I have all my money in savings and a CD and a small mutual fund, but I’d like to invest more. Right now I’m “overly conservative” but I inherited some money right at the height of the financial crash, and it seemed foolish to invest in such a volatile stock market. I am also very risk averse, which seems to be the stereotype of female investors.
My mother did my taxes in college — she worked for the IRS for a bit when I was a kid, and now does the bookkeeping for a university physics department. She occasionally gives me advice as well — mostly to not leave extra money in my checking account, but to put it somewhere where it would do something. She spent some time single and working before she married Dad, and also seems to have a more realistic idea about managing money when you don’t have much, thanks to raising three kids after the divorce.
Since I am lucky to have a steady stipend as a grad student, and no debt, most of my money worries are to handle my limited savings and figure out what to do about them. (About all I know is to not leave large amounts of money in my checking account where I can get them easily, but they don’t do things like earn interest or dividends.)
Where’s the financial advice for people like ME?
There is almost no financial advice available for the people who are in really dire straits, because kind of by definition if you’re in dire straits you need more than advice. Like the difference between taking health advice like “exercise more” versus having to get surgery. What I find irritating about that advice is that it assumes it’s speaking universally when it’s not, as if the only people that matter are the ones who can afford a cup of premium coffee every day in the first place.
The only financial advice that would be appropriate for people who can’t make ends meet would be advice that wouldn’t be universally applicable anyway. “Move in with family.” Unless you have none, or they’re toxic. “Share costs with roommates.” Great, unless you’re an introvert with trouble making friends, and/or you have kids. “Move to an area with lower housing costs.” And good luck getting the seed capital to handle the move, plus a decent job when you get there. “Find free training resources and study to get a better job.” In your copious spare time, which as a single mom working two jobs you plainly have so much of.
The only advice for people who can barely make ends meet that I could imagine would be broadly applicable would be “Swallow your pride and make use of charitable resources”, because I think most people who were once middle class and are now poor are often both too proud and too ignorant of the options to take advantage of things like food banks, soup kitchens, etc. But if a person’s already done that and is still not making ends meet, then what? I don’t know, and I think if anyone did, they could make a lot of money writing about the solution.
I’ve been up and down, financially, a lot in my life. I’ve been solidly middle class, I’ve been poor enough to pawn my car, I’ve been rich enough to send my kids to educational camps costing $3000 a summer. And what I’ve learned is that what works in one financial environment is dysfunctional in a different one. What you learn when you’re poor — get by on what you have rather than buying anything new, there’s no point to saving because you’re so tight anyway so you may as well spend on the occasional frivolity on the rare occasions when you’ve got the money, don’t commit to anything long-term, buy what’s cheap even if it won’t last — doesn’t work when you’re middle class or rich, and what you learn when you’re middle class or rich will *crush* you very quickly when you’re poor. This is one of the reasons it’s so hard to move out of your class — if you do successfully make the money to move up, the things you learned from your poor parents and family won’t help you keep the money you make and get ahead. I’m very much in favor of teaching kids financial management, but I think a suite of financial management skills that includes how to handle having very little money as well as how to handle having a lot of money would be more helpful than what we’ve got today, which tends to assume your problem is to how best make use of the money you have rather than how to survive having very little of it.
By all accounts I should have my finances totally in order. From a young age I was taught proper/prudent money management…but I also picked up wanting to live beyond my means in my late teens/early twenties. At 25 now, I do have some debt, but in general I’m on the right track.
Luckily, while not necessarily educated by their families like I was, my friends all seem to really know what they’re doing financially. In fact, the times I’ve had to counsel friends on money matters, they are all males.
As a side note, I’m working this tax season with a VITA program (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance). These programs are amazing. Basically it’s free e-filing for low income individuals. Volunteers go through an IRS approved training and certification process. It’s not in every state but it’s worth checking out if you are low income, in an area with the service, and in need of tax assistance. My work with the tax center I’m at has shown me how many single moms take advantage of this program and save hundreds of dollars that a paid preparer would have taken.
http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=219156,00.html
I might not be the most typical of men, but financial stuff really overwhelms me. I can do it, to an extent, but when it comes down to Tax Time I end up bursting into tears—every year, every time.
I think it’s for the best that I don’t have a lot of money, because if I had lots of things to take account for, I doubt I could handle it.
In general, my women friends and I are highly intelligent, educated, and independent. We all have debt–school debt, credit card debt–and no investments. However, we are all working on these issues, and all really care about living a reasonably comfortable life, meaning, not hand-to-mouth. At the moment, as students, we’re all of the hand-to-mouth variety, and we’re all in our 30s, so, we’re not that young. But being students, we also have careers to look forward to–hopefully!–that will help us turn our lives around. I might add that pretty much all of us are better off financially, and care more about finances, than our male partners.
I agree with you, Alara. There are a lot of “coping skills” that I’ve learned that are never discussed in financial advice books. Towards the end of a pay period, if you need groceries, get a whole bunch, since it’s going to bounce anyway – better to have one large bounce than several small. If it’s a choice between paying daycare and paying the car payment, pay the daycare – but only if the car payment is less than 2 weeks late. They’ll only start bugging you then.
Of course, none of THESE strategies rate their own financial advice show. Which was kind of my point – it’s always assumed that people are living in a state of affluence that is not the norm, especially in this economy.
Also, advice is easy to give if someone already HAS enough money. If we started, as a society, seriously paying attention to the issues of the vast numbers of the working poor, we’d have to completely rethink our values. We can’t have that.
I happen to be a member of the “overeducated poor.” My husband and I both have more degrees than you can shake a stick at, but we can’t find jobs that would compensate us enough to make the money we spent on the degrees worthwhile. It used to be that taking out loans to go to college was GOOD advice, even for graduate degrees – it would increase your earning power. This is no longer automatically true, but I still see it handed out as an “easy” solution.
I have been historically terrible with money. I’ve paid US Bank, Wells Fargo, and TCF probably around $10k in overdraft fees since my first checking account 10 years ago. Rough estimate, but I’d say it’s pretty accurate. Those suckers add up quick.
In the past 2 years though, with the help of working at a bank and understanding how checking accounts work as a result (I’ve never had this type of education anywhere else– it’s SO IMPORTANT!), I’ve been really on top of my finances and bills. it helps me immensely to have at least two checking accoutns- one designated as “bills only,” where I transfer half of everything due that pay period (I’m on a bi-weekly pay schedule) and the other that’s for incidental spending. I haven’t had an overdraft fee in over a year. It’s an immense relief.
For some reason, I’m really good with money. I like saving, and spending actually makes me anxious unless it’s a real necessity. I’ve always done my own taxes (and I’m a weirdo who always does them on paper and files them by regular ‘ol mail). I’ve never had debt (I do have a credit card, but only use it for things like online purchases that I immediately pay off). I paid for my university degree by working and taking classes at the same time–it took 7 years, but I have no student loans to pay off.
I had heaps of privilege to get me here. My mom taught me how to do taxes, and while my parents do have debt, they also have savings plans and retirement plans and are somewhat savvy about those things. I have been very lucky.
I would also recommend All Your Worth by Elizabeth Warren.
She really goes into how the economy has changed over the past thirty years and how that invalidates a lot of classic finanical advice which is heavy on the “be more responsible and everything will be fine” trip.
AnneThropologist, Alara, thank you. My husband and I are right there with you. I manage the finances in our household and I’m good at it–but when you only have “so much”, being financially savvy doesn’t really matter.
We both started school a few years ago and had to drop out because we couldn’t afford it. Then the recession hit, and we saw the signs that he might lose his job, and I’d start losing clients. Meanwhile, student loans were going to be coming due. So we had a do or die situation: move to a cheaper area and go back to school, accruing more debt but potentially surviving the next few years, or stay in the expensive area with no jobs, and drown.
Of course, we moved. We now live in a nicer city with a lower cost of living, but have lots of credit card debt from the move, not to mention living off them while we tried to save enough money to pay rent when we arrived in the new city. We’re also getting further into student loan debt, but at least we don’t have to pay for his while he’s in school. And, he’ll be teaching Title I when he’s done, so a good chunk of his debt should be eliminated.
By the time he’s done we’re just hoping the economy has stabilized enough that we have a clear idea of what cities are “ok” to live in, and we can move to where the jobs are. We’ll still have to live just above poverty level to pay down debt, but with luck we’ll at least be ABLE to pay it down, instead of being faced with destitution or bankruptcy.
Or at least, that’s the plan. I look at our finances and try to see where we’ve “gone wrong”, but I can’t come up with a clear answer. We’re smart, we’re competent, we’re hard working, but you can only squeeze so much water out of a dry sponge. And when I look around me, I see our life reflected in the lives of so many others….so I can only assume this has nothing to do with “us”, and everything to do with the external game we’ve been forced to play.
I’m still a baby in terms of finances – just moving out on my own for the first time and starting grad school with just a wee bit of income and a wee bit of debt. I’m anxious about it, but trying to learn. I’m obsessive and finicky enough that budgeting has been more fun than boring for now. My friends are in a similar position, with varying levels of money-savvy – it seems to have a lot to do with their parents attitudes and practices toward finances. My mother fortunately is clever with finances, if a little anxious.
But I’m guessing that a lot of these resources being shared are US-context (at least I haven’t heard anything to specify otherwise), so while some advice is clearly universal, I thought I’d throw out Gail Vaz-Oxlade’s site for some Canadian-relevant resources: http://www.gailvazoxlade.com/. (I do like her for what I know about her, but I want to acknowledge that her new TV show, Princess, is absolutely problematic and sexist in its premise.)
And a new Dreamwidth community on this subject is Act Your Wage: http://actyourwage.dreamwidth.org/, which I have found very helpful and friendly and which has a slightly more international reach. (If you are looking for a DW invite code, start here: http://dw-codesharing.dreamwidth.org/)
AnneThropologist, Alara, et al: I’m in the same boat. Educated but in a field that isn’t known for earning potential (environmental ed), currently working seasonal jobs at less than $15/hr with no benefits. I did my taxes a few weeks ago and my total income last year as about $15,000. I have student loan debt, credit card debt (though I just paid one off completely!), and debt to my mom for helping me with expenses I couldn’t handle on my own.
I did open a Roth IRA with some money I got for Christmas a few years ago, but other than that I have no significant savings to speak of and certainly no property or investments!
I bristled a little to see the dichotomy put forth by the OP: either women suck with money or we invest and buy property. What about those of us who don’t feel lost or intimidated, but really don’t have much money to manage in the first place?
Yep, I’m another person who grew up in a household where the mother handled all the finances. In fact, my sister and I just assumed that it was one of those things that all women did–money has never held any terror for either of us.
“There is almost no financial advice available for the people who are in really dire straits, because kind of by definition if you’re in dire straits you need more than advice.”
Yeah, it’s kind of a catch-22 situation. When you’re completely fucked, you’re completely fucked. There’s not really much universal advice you can give to people who are completely fucked, especially since being completely fucked is deeply unpleasant, and most people who are completely fucked do a lot of thinking nigh-constantly about how to get to a place where they’re less fucked than they are right now.
Even stuff that should be standard, like “Stop tithing 7% of your earnings to a check-cashing service,” doesn’t make a lot of sense given how regular banks behave towards poor account-holders.
From the sounds of it, it’s a lot easier to do taxes in australia than america. I do both mine and my partners tax returns if they’re simple, but it’s going to be a bit more complicated this year because we have an investment property so I’ll get an accountant to do it this year.
I look after the finances and bills in our household. I think it’s easier if just one person looks after it if you’re pooling your money together.
I have to say that while I made some poor decisions prior to 25 (expensive car loan)… I have overall done well in the money handling department. My parents didn’t teach me, my mom blows through money like it falls from the sky or something, but I picked it up along the way. I’ve been poor too, crushed by the weight of a car loan, mortgage, and electric bill that were eating up over 85% of my take home pay. When that’s your situation, lemme tell you, eating becomes a daily exercise in WTF? (I can stretch a box of pasta for like 6 meals for one person) Thankfully I got a better job, a 401k, a savings account and I’m debt free. Now I’m married and I speak from a position of overwhelming privilege; my husband has an excellent job that affords me to go to school full time, not work, and still not accrue student debt. I know how lucky I am, because I’ve been so damn poor that I went to bed every night for a few months at seven, because otherwise the hunger pangs would keep me up.
I can only second the commenter who mentioned the VITA program, they can seriously help you! When I wasn’t making much money they were awesome, helped me with the forms and it’s free. Also, you may qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit, so I’d look into that too. And use the charitable resources available to you. I know it sucks to ask for handouts, but sometimes they can be a lifeline. Food banks will often give out boxes of food (that you can use to fill in the gaps of your regular buying) that are typically pretty high quality. Peanut butter, pasta, things of that sort. I worked for several years for a non-profit that coordinated those types of programs. Also, you may want to look into getting assistance in the form of rental payments, sometimes local agencies will have help available that is need-based. Finally, call your local 211 or United Way if you need referrals, they are an excellent source of info. Help is often available (though, not always). Good luck.
Overall advice? There are money boards and columns online (MSN Money comes to mind) that are still a source of info for people looking for help. Suze Orman is awesome too…
The women I know fall into one of two camps: they are either working/lower-middle class and have their finances in order (provided they are still working….), or they are poor and have their ass out in the breeze (usually due to job loss, divorce, or disability—either the medical expenses that come with disability, or the job loss that comes with disability, take your pick). I don’t know anyone who is just “bad with money”, meaning: they have a decent income, but live outside their means spending on frivolities.
Most of the women I know belong to labor unions, so we have union-provided pensions, and we invest pre-tax income via 401k’s or deferred comp. I put 10% in to my 401k, and would put more in if I didn’t have to (a) get a roof put on my house this year, and (b) pay off a newer vehicle that I had to get to replace the broken-down 15-yr old truck I had been driving (not driving is not an option where I live and with what I do). I do my own taxes, but that’s a real no-brainer: 1040A, head-of-household. I don’t have any complicated tax issues.
I own a house (I’m a little over halfway done paying for it!). In the rust belt, that makes a hell of a lot more sense than renting. There was no housing bubble here in my lifetime. I found it to be an excellent way to keep my housing expense down during times of unemployment (even in a shitty economy, rent still goes up every year around here; mortgage payments remain the same).
I’m curious about the stress over taxes that your describe, frau sally benz. Are most of your friends married, self-employed, or have other complicated tax issues (“married” isn’t a complicated tax issue, but it can provide an income too high to use the 1040A)? I ask because all the single women I know are either filling out the 1040EZ or the 1040A.
I do my own taxes and help my friends with theirs sometimes. I also had to do the taxes for a small business where I worked. I read getrichslowly everyday, which I find useful. I come from nothing, and figured that I had to know about money and how to not ever live like that again. But I also had the privilege of attending a women’s college with an amazing Women & Financial Independence office/series
I am pretty awesome at finances, and, to be fair, part of that is sheer luck. For instance, I have a degree, a 401k, and ROTH IRA, 10k in savings, and no car payments or credit card debt. Yay. On the other hand, I realize that part of that is luck- I got through college in 3.5 years, I have a car that runs most of the time that I got used from my father, I have the capacity to read dozens of finance books (and I did, when my work mailed me a letter about a 401k and I realized that I had no idea what that meant). I have also had to make some sacrifices- I have lived at home, in a fairly unpleasant home life situation for 3 years (and counting) after college to save money.
Having read a lot of personal finance books, I can agree that most of them are aimed at people with something to start with- skills, money, credit, something. There are another catagory of books about frugality, some of which are more of the latte factor type, and some which are perhaps a little more extreme (The Tightwad Gazette offers a lot of things I can’t imagine doing- casseroles made almost entirely of salt, kids’ birthday party favors that are made from milk cartons, and mailing your bills in with as many neighbors as you can to save the cost of stamps- though there is also some solid, if a bit dated, advice). They are aimed more at people in poverty. However, my guess is that most personal finance authors write what they know and aim their books at people who buy books.
To be fair, as well, I know among my peers many people claim to be poor when they are merely not great with money. I am not claiming there is no poverty, which obviously is not the case, but many people could benefit from some “stop drinking at Starbucks and then complaining you have no money” advice. I worry about some friends who are clearly making poor money choices, but they are all adults…
My roommates are real good at it. One grew up poor and has been managing her money as separate from her mom’s since she was a kid (nothing wrong with her mom, it’s just her mom didn’t have anything to give her, so she had to make her own); one is just really frugal, it seems like it’s part of her personality, possibly drilled into her by her parents; and one is just insanely responsible about everything in her life, so why should it stop at money?
Me, I’m a mess. I haven’t gotten In Trouble yet, being still in school and still attached to my parents’ apron strings, but I easily could. They’ve been trying to knock sense into me for a couple years now, and I want it to work, but…so far, I still kind of suck.
However, I think this idea of the tax party is genius and I will seek to implement it at my first opportunity.
I don’t have any debt and really dislike the idea of it – for instance, I will only use my credit card if I know I have the money to pay it off immediately – but that’s as far as my financial savvy goes. I think for me it’s connected to disability more than gender – financial issues hit the in-over-my-head no idea what to do or where to find the information issues I get with any form of bureaucracy or in fact a lot with life in general that I ascribe to autism. Luckily I’m currently a grad student living off a scholarship so I don’t have to file anything when it comes to taxes (I think – things get complicated because I have bank accounts in two countries and citizenship in a third, it’s possible I *should* be filing something in one of these places by now, see what I mentioned about “no idea what to do or where to find out what to do”) but I sense very unpleasant times in my future. :( My parents are quite good at it and my mum’s helped me with some things to do with the account at home, so I’ll probably need to keep relying on their help.
In my family, mom tended to be the far more sensible one regarding finances than dad. As a result, I tend to take after mom in terms of spending….though I tend to take it to extremes to the point even mom and her older sisters end up being concerned about my parsimoniousness in personal spending in areas such as food and the distinct lack of spending on “fun” things like monthly trips to movies caused them to consider me to be “cheap” rather than frugal.
They’ve often forgotten that watching my family go into near bankruptcy in high school and having to make every cent count while living off scholarships and proceeds from part-time/summer work had a significant impact on me as I couldn’t count on my parents or extended family to bail me out if I had any financial issues…especially ones arising from irresponsible spending habits I often saw from my more socio-economically privileged upper/upper-middle class college classmates and colleagues. It is one reason why I couldn’t relate to said classmates and colleagues whenever they went several thousands of dollars in debt because they “had to” have their latest electronic gadget du jour or some other item which was really discretionary…especially when they end up tossing out perfectly good items merely because they are no longer “bleeding edge”. The worst of this was when I saw mostly male co-workers replacing cars, furniture, electronics, and computers every 3-6 months.
Forty bucks now or eighty bucks when I least expect it? So much of it sounds like those rape-avoidance tips. Poverty-avoidance.
“Save money by making coffee at home instead of drinking four-dollar lattes.” “Ride your bike to work.” “Stop eating in restaurants.” These ideas are geared towards people who are profligate with disposable income, not people who don’t have any money. They might allow someone with disposable income to save for something important–or, in case of a small catastrophe, to salve some wounds–but they aren’t a solution.
I have to say this is a Country specific discussion. I (like most NZ taxpayers) don’t even need to file a tax return. If I like I can check online to see whether I am owed money and file if I am. I think the other financial issues are also a lot more complicated in America as well.
I agree with those people who think it’s important to challenge . I’m not too bad off, given my income has been between 10,000-20,000 (and that’s NZ – so somewhere between half and three quarters of what it’d be in US dollars). I agree that for some people learning more about how banking works iis important. But I think making that what ‘personal finance’ means is buying into some really damaging ideas.
I really like that La Luba has brought up collective as well as individual solutions t. A good way to get more money? Unions.
And they completely bypass the issue of why hard-working people can’t afford housing, food, and health care the way they used to. Inflation-adjusted incomes haven’t gone up in thirty years even though everyone’s working longer hours.
Yes. Most of the women I know are fairly ignorant re: finances, and don’t seem too inclined to learn.
I’m a bookkeeper, and the vast majority of my clients are men or male-run organizations.
So, no.
Count me in the Money Terrifies Me crowd. Perhaps it’s because I grew up poor or that I can’t balance my checkbook no matter how hard I try – everyone says it’s easy, and yet what it says in my checkbook and what it says in my statement are completely different. To say I live from check to check is, uh, ludicrous. This past week I made a huge error (or what is the person who deposited my check 3 weeks after I wrote it? Or the bank who let me use my debit card EVEN THOUGH I HAD NO MONEY IN MT ACCOUNT?)(seriously, htf can they do that??)
…and now that I will eventually inherit some money, I am absolutely terrified of losing it all through stupidity. I don’t know why I am so clueless about money, my mother isn’t – she had to learn, though, after she had an inheritance late in life.
Hmmmm….How does this reconcile with the fact that most bookkeepers I see at companies are women? When I was auditing companies for the Big Four, the women bookkeepers used to tell me that they preferred MALE auditors, because in their experience, Male Auditors are more lenient, not as fussily detail oriented as our Female counterparts.
Speaking of which, in Uni, in my accounting and Finance classes, women made up more than half of the students.
So judging from these, there should be a lot more women out there than men that know how to control their finances.
I help my wife with our taxes – she does all the work, and I type the information into the web site to file them. This works our great, since she is a Certified Financial Analyst with a Business degree, and is the director of a major University’s financial records division. I have never thought women could not handle finances. (And, she earns more than I do, but I do help her spend it.)
I married late in life and had been handling my own finances for a decade before joint finances, and luckily my husband shares my affinity for personal finances. So tax-time this year saw us both in the study with a bottle of red wine, doing our taxes together while our daughter slept in the next room. Very relaxed!
I think how one handles money depends on one’s attitude toward debt: I dread debt, and so work hard to stay within our means and save where we can. I love it when we have saved enough to go on a book-buying spree, and I rest easier knowing that we saved this money first so it’s not going onto our debt load. But my mother, who never looked at family finances when she was married, values the shopper’s high more than a balanced budget, and her finances are a complete mess. I think it depends a lot on the personality of the person in question.
I’m the financial one in my family. I pay the bills and do the taxes and budget. My mom does the same and always has. Until reading this article, I didn’t even realize there was a gender stereotype about finances. The joke in our family growing up was that my father has “money drawer” that my mom puts cash in from time to time. He says he thinks it comes from the money fairy.