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The Fierce Girl's Guide to Finance

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Don’t get mad, get busy*

*Actually, get mad too. It’s fun.

Fierce Girls, I wrote a different post for you last week. But before I had time to post it, the election happened.

It didn’t go the way I’d hoped. I got together with a few friends to watch it unfold on ABC, and it was like the worst party ever. (Great food, wine and company notwithstanding).

But maybe you voted for the LNP Government, and hey that’s cool, because this is a democracy. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s far better than the alternatives.

In the same week though, Alabama passed some of the most punitive and backwards abortion laws in the world. If you’ve somehow missed it, this is some next-level Handmaid’s Tale shit.

Anyway, this is not an election analysis.

It’s about power.

Cynicism is our greatest enemy. And the antidote is activism.

I’m paraphrasing Billy Bragg, one of the greatest influences on my life.

I know you’re not ready to rise up in the streets and stuff, and I’m not saying you have to. Activism takes many forms.

So does power, and it’s not all in the corridors of Parliament House.

One way to wield power is through your wallet.

From nailing your bank account to reining in frivolous spending, money is one of the most effective ways to give the finger to the patriarchy.

Every dollar you earn and own is another way to increase your choices.

Every time you put money towards buying a home, investing for the future or creating a savings fund, you are putting more space between you and chaos.

Because if there’s one thing the powerful men of the world worked out a long time ago, it’s that money equals power.

That’s why I ask, nay implore you, to think about how you spend it.

I know this sounds like a feminist conspiracy theory, but anyway… The more we’re convinced to allocate our resources to beauty, fashion and anti-ageing, the more power we concede.

I’m not saying never have a facial. I’m not saying don’t buy a Fenty Beauty palette (because holy shit, it’s great).

I’m just saying that if you are spending hundreds of dollars on fillers and botox before you’ve set up an emergency fund, you are not stepping into your full power.

Or that if you have bought a new dress for every wedding you’ve attended, while your partner has rolled out his five-year-old suit again and again, you’re possibly not making the most of your money.

And if you would like to see Paris before you die, but you accidentally keep spending money on twenty-dollar cocktails and cabs home, it might be time to take a different approach.

A long time ago, my friend Gigi and I cooked up this great list of money-saving tips (which went low-key viral btw). Read it here.

And I want to give a shoutout to Gigi, because she is the Fierce Girl we all need.

Girlfriend packed herself up and moved to New York City eight years ago. She rents an adorable little apartment in the East Village with her cat Iris, living her best life as a single gal. Kind of like Sex and the City minus the designer clothes and poor choices in men.

And she has also been saving like a trooper, and is very close to buying her own apartment in Manhattan. #goalsAF

Gigi and I still have mad holidays together and go out drinking and make questionable decisions late at night. But we also respect the fact that we can’t have all the things, all the time. And so we make our own lunches, buy things on sale and catch public transport.

Anyway, this is a really long way of saying please take charge of your money. Do it for yourself and for the sisterhood. As Queen Bey says, “Best revenge is your paper”.

Perhaps make a Mindful Spending Manifesto and see if you can stick to it. That way you have more chance of reaching your short- and long-term life goals – regardless of whichever pale, stale and male PM is in power.

 

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3 things to remember for smashing the patriarchy

I was sitting under a tree at my holiday house recently, next to my older and wiser cousin Jenny. I asked her, kind of out of the blue, “Do you ever wonder if you’re doing enough to smash the patriarchy?”.

“No”, she said. “Never crosses my mind”.

However, she is a bad-arse woman who gets shit done all the time. She is a certified Fierce Girl-level budgeter. She empowers her 14-yo daughter every day. So Jenny is actually helping with the smashing-the-patriarchy job all the time, whether or not she thinks about it.

And we can all do that. We don’t need an International Women’s Day to be empowered, awesome, independent or feminist. We slay all day, erry day.

However, since we are allocated one day a year to step this up, I feel compelled to celebrate it. So, today, I give you some fiercely held beliefs that underpin the Fierce Girl Finance universe.

  1. You are way better at money than you think. Yep, you’re a financial guru in the making. Ever watched a make-up contouring tutorial on YouTube? Ever done the mental math on how many tops in your wardrobe go with the skirt you’re wearing in the change room? Ever done some sneaky calorie calculations to work out whether you should drink this glass of wine?

    I thought so. Fact is, we are always learning, researching, calculating and rationalising in our everyday lives. And these are all the skills required to get in control of our money. Don’t let anyone (especially yourself) tell you that you’re ‘just not good with money’. Women are fucking great at it, when we give ourselves permission to be.

  2. Nobody cares about your money as much as you. Not your husband, boyfriend or father. Not your bank manager, fund manager or financial adviser. The best person to look out for your interests is YOU.

    Educate yourself, go with your gut, ask difficult questions and generally be a pushy bitch when it comes to managing your money. The only person you can always rely on to have your interests at heart is yourself, so you may as well give yourself the education and knowledge to kick arse at finance.

  3. You have more hurdles to overcome, so you’d better ‘work bitch’.  As with so many life events, Britney said it best. You’ better work, bitch, because as a woman, you start behind the 8-ball.

    We get paid less, for complex reasons (including structural workforce issues and not asking enough). We have lots of time out of the workforce to care for kids and elderly parents. And we end up in lower-paid sectors that someone (maaaybe men) have decided are worth less.

    Regardless of all the complex reasons, there is just one solution: work and save hard. We have to (as usual) do even more to get ahead. We need to add more to super early on, before we have kids. We have to take charge of our cashflow and budgets to make sure we save for the future. And we have to make sure we have money set aside for disasters (aka a Fuck-off fund).

So,  for IWD2018 this year, I say what I say 364 other days of the year: money is power. If you  take charge of it, you take charge of your life.

Please ladies: go forth and be fierce. 

 

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Is the patriarchy making us poor?

Did you know that 2 in 5 Australian women don’t feel in control of their financial situation?

That’s according to an MLC survey of women, which also found that of the 43 per cent who do not feel in control, 61 per cent said low savings is the main factor.

While concerning, it’s not really surprising. But I’m not here to give you a lecture and say ‘girlfriends, think positively!’.

[NB: Feminist rant alert!]

You see, it’s not as simple as changing our attitude or outlook. We are not just struggling with our money; we are struggling with the patriarchy.

We are conditioned from a young age to think of money as something that buys us stuff. The kind of stuff that helps us win in the world of constructed femininity – first dolls, then clothes, then make-up, then diets, then surgery and then all of that shit that we convince ourselves we need. (Or society tells us we need).

I am guilty of this  – I got suckered into the Priceline 50% off sale last week too.

But before I beat myself up about it, I think about the forces at work. I’m nearly 40, single and work in a male-dominated industry. My appearance is part of my currency, for good or bad. I need that make-up, I need to cover that grey hair, or so my internalised misogyny tells me.

(OK, so, my boss hasn’t told me I need 10 shades of glitter eyeshadow – that is some creative licence from me).

The weight of it all

I am not suggesting we stop shaving or go bare-faced (unless we want to, of course). But when we look at how the beauty-industrial-complex sucks our money and attention away from us, we should have pause for thought.

Have you ever added up how much you spend on this stuff every year? I haven’t. On purpose – far too scary.

But even a vague mental checklist of hairdresser, make-up, fake tan and hair products is alarming. Add in all the clothes and accessories I buy, and it gets scarier.

And that’s me being a tight-arse, not buying anything full-price, having a low-maintenance hairdo, and refusing to get my nails done (oh how I miss thee, Shellac).

If I think of the women in my life, we all have those kinds of expenses. And it seems to be getting harder, with Instagram beauty demanding all sorts of high-maintenance appearances, including botox, fillers and surgery.

Now I’m not saying these things alone account for any money troubles we have. But there are two things to note:

  1. Men don’t have these costs.
  2. We are highly distracted by them.

Being chained to the costs and worries of our personal appearance, our body fat levels or our emerging wrinkles – this chips away at our sense of confidence, not to mention our bank balances.

What’s the solution? 

Being ‘woke’, as the young folk say these days.

In other words, being conscious of the impact the patriarchy has on us and our confidence.

Being alive to the impact of our socialisation as young girls, where money was rarely on the agenda but being pretty was.

We don’t have to burn our bras (that would be both toxic and wasteful). But we can rebel in our own ways.

  • We can take on the knowledge that has traditionally been the domain of men – finances, investment, capital.
  • We can create boundaries for our spending, so that we do the sensible stuff – like saving and paying off debt – before we rock up to David Jones.
  • We can make a plan, set goals, educate ourselves and take on financial planning with the same enthusiasm as we take on a Kayla Itsines bikini body challenge.

Knowledge, attention, action. Pretty much the key ingredients to any great social change. And remember:

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How your girlsquad can support your money goals

There’s nothing more powerful than a girlsquad in full force. They’re your wingwomen when you need to meet that guy. They bring you wine and chocolate when he breaks your heart. They’re there when your kids are sick, when your husband’s an idiot, when your boss is an arsehole.

Unleashing the squad is a powerful force, so we need to use that power for good.

But in reality, we sometimes do each other a disservice. Not just convincing ourselves that shots at midnight are a really good idea. I mean with our money.

The fitting-room frenzy

I still remember a certain bestie of mine convincing me, circa 2001, to buy a red velour suit from Seduce. It was some ridiculous price for a girl earning $30K a year. I lay-byed it for a week before seeing the error of my ways. Lost the deposit though.

We all have a habit of giving each other permission – nay, encouragement – to buy things we don’t need, can’t afford, but look great in.

What if, instead, we asked our bestie whether she really needed it? Is she saving for something else? Is she in credit card debt? What else will it go with in her wardrobe?

It’s not like you have to be a total killjoy-negative-nancy. But asking a few questions or having a rational conversation could be all she needs to get past that temptation in the heat of the moment.

F*ck it, let’s buy the French!

We’re looking a bar menu, and perhaps we have already imbibed some alcoholic beverages, and our decision-making is a little impaired. There is a cheapish bottle of bubbles; a mid-price Aussie drop; and a really effing expensive bottle of French champagne. A Fierce Girl will go with the first – unless she knows it’s going to be some horrible house rubbish, so then she might go with the second.

But a not-so-fierce girl friend will think up some reason  – ‘it’s the first month of an awesome year!’ – and buy the third one. Now you’ll either have to go halves or feel obligated to buy something equally exy in the next round. Credit card chaos ensues.

This is one of those situations where we are shamed or guilted or tempted into spending more than we can afford. Nobody means for it to happen, but sometimes – at restaurants, bars and on holidays – we get caught up in somebody else’s spending cycle.

Sure, treat yourself sometimes, but be aware that not everyone has the same financial resources as you. Not everyone will tell you they can’t afford it.

There is a huge social pressure, in our flashy consumer culture, to keep up with our friends. So, try not to be the friend who starts that cycle.

How can your girlsquad support your money goals?

First of all, talk about money! Not in a whingey, ‘I wish I had more’ way. Not in a ‘hehe I am so bad with money but adorable otherwise’ way.

Talk about it in a positive, adult way, that helps clarify our goals and the ways we will reach them.

We talk about our relationship goals. Our career goals. Geez, we share intimate details of sex, birth and bodily functions.

So why not talk about what we are doing with our money? Where we are having problems, where we have found ways to get our shit together, and where we have found good advice (oh hey, Fierce Girl’s Guide to Finance!).

Women aren’t socialised to be interested in this sort of stuff the way men are. How often do you swap stock tips with your mates? The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that men (at a patriarchal level, not individual men) like it this way. Because if women are not very good at money, men can be. And then they can have money and power and control. And we have to stay home and raise their kids and clean their houses and stuff.

So don’t let the patriarchy win. I’ve said before that finance is a feminist issue, and I say it again here.

Another positive thing we can do is have fun, tight-arse activities. When Mindy was saving to go overseas and Alexis was smashing her credit card debt and I was on a strict pre-comp diet, we invented the Supper Club. It was a rotating dinner at each other’s place once every couple of weeks that kept us out of harm’s way. It was great (until Mindy selfishly moved overseas).

Sometimes my friends and I have picnics or walks. Sometimes we go to the beach. Think about ways you can enjoy your friendships that isn’t based on spending.  Old school, yo.

We all have a choice about how we influence each other. Be the friend who advocates for positive decisions that improve our lives.

Except at midnight, when it’s time for shots.

If you like this post and want more finance goodness straight to your inbox, subscribe to the blog! Just head to that little box on the top right. And you should probably share this post with your friends, to warn them about your next shopping trip behaviour. 

Photo credit: Hubs

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