Women’s Personal Finance: Wednesday Roundup October 6, 2021

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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, 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.

Women’s Personal Finance Weekly Roundup #17 (Actually, 154)

1. But What Do You Do? Managing a Household and Mental Load as an ADHD Woman Black Girl Lost Keys

“You’ve heard mental load talked about before – all of the invisible labor that is done to keep a home running. In heteronormative relationships, it is often incumbent upon the women in them to take on all of those tasks.

Did the disinfectant run out? You better be aware and replace it. Vet appointments? Those have to be on your calendar. Parties on the social calendar? You have to make sure everyone is dressed respectably and shows up in a good mood or else be considered a woman who is very much not in charge of your household.

Guess what? Each and every last one of those things requires executive function. Organization, timeliness, the ability to estimate time, the ability to have supplies in the right place at the right time, each of those are a particular executive function challenge. Executive function has no gender.”

2. Okay, But Are You Resting? We Want Guac

Compare American standards of vacation days, PTO, and sick time policies to the rest of the developed world, like Europe’s; apples to apples, you’ll see a startling lack of interest towards giving Americans the space to rest. For once, I’m not going to bring up a history of Puritan values or other historical anecdotes into explaining this away. The way I see it, this disregard for rest doesn’t come from any long-term proof of concept.

It’s from the toxic underbelly of hustle culture. It’s the unspoken dogma behind “Time for more adventure” and “Catch flights, not feelings”. You’re urged to “work to the point of sacrificing your health because that’s less important than earning wealth and visiting exotic places.“

3. Why you won’t hear ‘do your own research’ from us Money School

“The industry is full of people selling financial products and services – their own, or someone else’s – that produce ‘educational’ content that (surprise, surprise) leads to suggesting purchase of said products and services.

Which I’m totally OK with – if it’s declared.

It often isn’t.

My favourite example is school banking, which ASIC reported on last year, finding:

‘School banking program providers fail to effectively disclose that a strategic objective of these programs is customer acquisition.’

In other words, the banks get paid by the ongoing loyalty of the customers they acquire, through bank fees and interest payments.

If one of the largest companies in Australia can get away with it for 90+ years, imagine what everyone else is doing.

But if DYOR isn’t practical, what can you do instead?”

Thanks For Supporting These Women Writers!

As always, if you’re looking for a categorized list of self identified women writing and speaking about personal finance, here is the comprehensive guide to the Women of the Financial Independence Community.

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