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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 #84 (Actually, 223)
1. Homeowning and the Slippery Slope of Home Improvement Costs Social Work to Wealth
“Over the past year, I have been seeing more and more people talk about their preference to rent rather than own.
I grew up thinking, like many, that owning a home was one of the ultimate life goals and renting is “throwing away your money.”
I have grown to disagree with both of those sentiments.
Last year we spent a little over $10k on a fence (yes, I know this is a ridiculous amount of money) and it got me thinking about all the money we have spent on our home since we moved in (June 2020) that we wouldn’t have spent if we were renting.”
2. Is this the real life? Or just fantasy? R.M. Chandler on Medium
“The NYT recently published an article that made blood boil for expats in Portugal. “Americans Head to Europe for the Good Life on the Cheap”, chirped the headline.
There’s so much missing from the narrative: where are the Americans moving for affordable healthcare, escaping gun culture, or fleeing a country increasingly divided by politics and religion? There’s little to no mention of expats working to learn the language, enrolling their children in local schools, or volunteering in their communities. Perhaps most important, there’s barely any reference to how Portugal, Spain, and Greece have encouraged these transitions, and how the governments have benefited while local people suffer.”
3. Financial destructive behavior after assault | Healing from unacknowledged trauma Dr. Sev Talks Money
CW – clear from the title but wanted to share an extra content warning – this YouTube talks about trauma and sexual assault connected to financial behavior.
“Financial trauma is a tough topic but one that Kirby wants to raise awareness of and about, because the reasons why one makes financial decisions come not just from the logical part of the brain, but sometimes from the injury itself. In counseling and coaching those who have PTSD or who have experienced trauma, we must educate ourselves and others about different ways that this can effect one’s spending and savings habits; how the survivor views money and why.”
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.