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Welcome to the Women’s Personal Finance Wednesday Roundup! We started this series back in 2018 on TreadLightlyRetireEarly.com to showcase the fabulous women in the online personal finance community who are talking about money online. Even now, there is a perception that women aren’t good with money, don’t care about money, or don’t understand it on a granular level beyond perhaps knowing how to coupon and score a good shopping deal.
These roundups are our way of doing a small part to change that perception. There is no shortage of women online doing their part to make it clear that they DO understand money, and these posts are meant to amplify that fact.
Why does it matter? Because representation matters. Because reading and hearing stories from those who (may or may not) look like us show us that yes, we too can figure out this money thing, that we too have important stories to tell. And that we too know quite a lot about money and are experts worth listening to.
Since Women’s Personal Finance has grown up to get its own website, it’s time to transition these roundups over here to the dedicated website. Same great content, new home!
Our Women’s Personal Finance Facebook group on Facebook also has a sharing thread on Fridays, and that’s the place to read all the blog posts written by members over the previous week. If you’re looking for more articles written by women and nonbinary folks, that’s a great place to continue reading (plus we have plenty of great discussions on finances the rest of the week as well!).
If you don’t have the time or inclination to go searching down myriad posts, though, we will be continuing this series every week to showcase some of the best of the new content we read. If you ever read a post you think we absolutely need to consider for this roundup, please let us know! We are always open to reading new blogs and want to celebrate those newer voices as well as the more seasoned ones.
And with that, here is the best (in our opinion) content by women and nonbinary folks this past week. Let us know what you think in the comments! We love discussion.
Table of Contents
Women’s Personal Finance Weekly Roundup #87 (Actually, 226)
1. Inflation is Not Created Equally Money and More
“What I’m about to unpack is: this 2% overall long-term inflation goal is not spread equally among all products and services. There’s a huge difference between the inflation rate for education, childcare, and medical services compared to electronics, clothing, transportation, and produce.
We’re living in a world where cost of a TV has decreased🢆 100% in the past 20 years and today you could probably get one for free on FB marketplace. Yet cost of an education has increased🡽 175% and you’d probably still be paying it off in your 30s and it’s not by accident! It’s systematic and intentional. Differences in spending patterns across households and differences in price increases across goods and services lead to unequal levels of inflation for different households.”
2. Why Are (White) Men So Unambitious? Culture Study
“So what’s going on here? Reeves calls it passivity, or drift in ambition, and I think that’s right. But I also wonder: what if men — and more specifically, white men who aren’t first- or second-generation immigrants — have always been this passive when it comes to their future?
What if they’ve never really had to cultivate “ambition,” at least not in the way we think of it now, because a modicum of success was, by some measure, their birthright? What if the “decline” of men’s ambition is just less unquestioned access to power and privilege?”
3. Someday When I Retire Kat Kibben
“Someday when I retire” was the most common response to my questions about why we weren’t going to do an activity or plan a vacation. I watched friends go on Spring Break. They had passports and big plans. But not us. My Mom was saving up for retirement.
Retirement was a finish line everyone in my family was working towards before they could do exactly what they wanted with their time. When new ideas or fun plans came up, they said things like: “I’ll do it when I retire.” Or, after a long week, it was: “I can’t wait to retire.” It was like making a wish and a plan at the same time. In my mind, this was some kind of equation where you were earning your freedom. Work this long, be retired for this long, get old, leave this Earth at peace with a well-lived life.”
Thanks For Supporting These Creators!
As always, if you’re looking for a categorized list of self-identified women and nonbinary folks writing and speaking about personal finance, here is the comprehensive guide to the Women of the Financial Independence Community.