I’m back from Cents Positive but still riding the high of how amazing that weekend was. I had high hopes for the event, and they surpassed even that. I hadn’t been to any sort of personal finance/financial independence conference before, but the bar has now been set high. If you’re a women who is interested at all in financial independence and you’re curious about the event, I would highly recommend it. Only the first day is blogger specific, so it is an event that is open to all self identified women, which is also pretty special.
With that experience recently under my belt, I’m that much more excited for this weekly roundup of blog posts written by women. This focus on lifting up female voices of all kinds is so important, and I’m going to do my best to be a positive part of that. But of course, it is you as readers who are doing the most here, by reading and sharing many voices, to change the narrative to show that yes, women do care very much about money, and a whole lot of us are pretty dang knowledgeable about it too. With that, I’m going to pass the rest of this off to the three women featured in today’s roundup.
Women’s Personal Finance Wednesdays – Week 7
1. Breaking: Debt Repayment Journey Gets Delayed By Midlife Crisis! The 76k Project
There is so much focus on debt payoff online and celebrating once people get there in crazy short amounts of time, but there really is a lot more nuance to it, especially when you’re paying off a significant chunk of debt. Not only do we not usually hear about the middle slog, just the motivated beginning and the ecstatic end payoff, but we don’t usually get to read about all the trade offs and hard internal commentary that happens along the way.
Not only do I feel strongly about making sure the journey to financial independence is a good journey, I so agree that the same needs to be considered with debt payoff. We just have this one life, and there are no guarantees along the way.
2. Are you Poor or just Broke? Bethany, His and Her FI
What a fabulous, deep look at the differences between being poor versus “just” broke. These are very different things and the challenges people face depending on their personal situations are really varied. As Bethany says, “These are major structural issues facing some of those living in poverty and have nothing to do with buying a Pumpkin Spice Latte because you have a few extra dollars one day.”
It’s easy to have an “everyone can do it” mindset, but it is so important to look at the larger context of where people are coming from, because we absolutely do not all come from the same starting place. And yes, I mean, along with personal responsibility, privilege is really a thing when it comes to our finances, as it is with all aspects of our lives.
3.Would You Have Dated Your Partner If They Made $500,000/year?Frugal Asian Finance
Mrs. FAF’s Twitter poll results to go along with this post were really interesting to me because they were so wildly different than what the large national surveys have said. I do wonder how we change this narrative, because as women we are becoming the breadwinner of the household in many, many relationships. Times are changing, but perspectives are not changing nearly as quickly as I would hope.
My husband has never had an issue with me earning more than he does, which has been the case since we moved back home to Washington, but nationally surveys have shown that the majority of men do not want a female partner who out earns them, and women who do out-earn their partners often lie and diminish what they do make (and their partners inflate their salaries on the flip side). We should be so much better than this! Why you’d want your spouse to make less money is beyond me.
I hope you enjoy the posts this week as much as I did. I read a ton of content and it was hard to narrow down my favorites. I’m looking forward to sharing some new ones with you again next week!
As always, if you’re looking for a categorized list of self identified women writing and speaking about personal finance, here is my comprehensive guide to the Women of the Finance Independence Community.
