Lately I feel like I’ve been stuck in a season of waiting. My husband and I have been dreaming of putting down roots in the Pacific Northwest since the first time we visited Oregon seven years ago. While we are just months away from making that goal a reality – we hope to buy a house sometime this summer – we are still in transition. In addition to waiting as we search for the right house, I spent the fall waiting to get an appointment with a doctor about a health concern I was dealing with, spent the winter waiting for medical tests, and am now spending the spring waiting to fully recover from surgery.
It’s not uncommon for couples to have an income gap between partners – in fact, it's the norm. According to data from Morning Consult and Insider, nearly three-quarters of Americans reported they had some income imbalance with their partner before they started dating. And while that imbalance can flip-flop as partners change jobs or receive a raise or bonus, at times it can be significant. This might happen when one partner retires, decides to go back to school, or opts to stay at home with the kids. This might also happen when one partner gets a big promotion or receives a large inheritance. How can you manage your finances so this imbalance in income doesn’t throw your relationship off balance? Consider these steps:
I’m a big fan of the Financial Feminist podcast. A few weeks ago the host, Tori Dunlap, shared a money hack that she had heard about from another financial educator on Science Finance: Before making an impulse purchase, ask yourself: “How many ‘taco dollars’ does it cost?” That particular financial educator really loved tacos, so he judged each purchase by asking, “How many tacos could I buy for the cost of that item?” Concert tickets: 20 tacos. Cupcake: 1 taco. Fancy hotel stay: 83 tacos. Then, he would ask himself: “Is it really worth that many tacos?”
My last post on things that can jumpstart your financial life in 5 minutes or less got me thinking about one of the most effective steps I ever took during our marriage: asking my husband an icebreaker question about our life together. That word icebreaker is key: these are questions designed to get conversation going, not shut it down. And that means the question has to be open-ended and asked with a spirit of genuine curiosity of learning what your partner thinks.
Long-time readers of this blog are familiar with the four money personalities I discuss: the giver, the saver, the spender, and the acquirer. Over time, though, I’ve learned that while people tend to understand the first three, they often stumble over the last one. On first blush, people generally thought the “acquirer” referred to someone who liked to accumulate or collect things. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth. The acquirer was someone focused on how money came into their life, not what was done with the money after it was received.
We’re just a few days away from my favorite holiday: Thanksgiving. Like so many of you, our holiday will look a lot different this year. Usually we spend Thanksgiving with my family in St. Louis. Family from far and near descend on my parents’ house to eat delicious food, play games together, explore the city, and catch up on everything that’s happened over the last year. It’s a bit chaotic, but it’s still absolutely wonderful.
One of the first financial things I learned in my childhood was that when you receive money it’s important to save at least some of it. I had a piggy bank, a savings account at our local bank, and I remember participating in a program where we stashed away quarters in a little booklet. There was a lot of emphasis on saving money, although I admit it wasn’t always clear what we were supposed to save for.
Talking about the holidays feels a bit odd this year. I haven’t seen my family or my husband’s family in more than ten months and it’s unlikely we’ll be seeing anyone over the holidays. While my husband and I have thought of many ways to make both Thanksgiving and Christmas extra special celebrating with just the two of us this year, we both know it’s not really the same when we can’t share it with those we love.
I grew up in the suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri. For the first twelve years of my life, my family lived in a beautiful, 3-bedroom home in a historic, upper middle class neighborhood. The neighborhood was filled with plenty of green space, a school with a playground, and even a fountain. It was no secret that outside of this idyllic neighborhood, though, this area of town wasn’t the best. Case in point: Even though there was an elementary school just a few blocks from my house, it was never a question that my brother and I would go to private school (as did just about every other kid in our neighborhood). The school district was known to be one of the worst in the area. So for preschool up through sixth grade we commuted to a local Catholic school about 20 minutes away.
I never set out to have a side hustle, it just happened to me. After I left my first job in January 2014, I knew there was a piece of that work I wanted to continue doing no matter where I landed next: public speaking. I was already slated to speak at a few events throughout 2014 and had a feeling there might be even more opportunities out there. It was a great way to create a little extra income and do something I loved.
Guilt, shame, and regret are powerful feelings. They can color how we see ourselves, perhaps permanently, and paralyze us into inaction. Here’s an example: A college freshman is tempted by a table in the quad: Sign up for a credit card, get a free t-shirt. What could go wrong? Except using that card without a plan and paying off just the minimum amount each month adds up to a huge balance. Once graduation day came, the “free” t-shirt is long gone, but they’ll be carrying that load of debt — and the shame of making that mistake — for a long time.
Let’s be real: Our culture doesn’t encourage talking about money. Whether that’s ethnic culture, family culture, or the culture of consumerism in America, there are a lot of people who believe finances are personal (read: private), and should be kept that way. While there may be some good reasons for this, I think it’s also a bit of a cop-out. It gives us permission to say this conventional wisdom is beyond our control, when in fact we are all part of creating, shaping, and maintaining cultural norms.
Six years ago yesterday my husband and I got married on an unseasonably warm fall day. We had a Sunday morning wedding complete with bloody marys, paper flowers, a brunch buffet, and even some mid-day dancing. I got to walk down a spiral staircase in my gorgeous silk dress to find the love of my life waiting for me under a trellis of flowers. I don’t think the day could have been any more perfect.
Are you one of the 59% of Americans who doesn’t follow a budget? Does even the word budget make you shudder? Even as someone who actually enjoys budgeting, I admit the process is usually portrayed as time-consuming, meticulous, and spreadsheet-oriented … which doesn’t exactly sound like a good time.
“Can’t someone just pick my investments for me?”
That’s one of the most common questions I receive about investing. I get it: investing can be confusing! Outside of learning all of the different types of investments (like stocks, bonds, and real assets), there are so many different ways to pair them together (such as a mutual fund or target date fund). It can be challenging to know what’s right for you.
In the midst of the pandemic, it’s easy to feel like life is stuck on “pause.” So many things my husband and I have been looking forward to have been postponed indefinitely or cancelled … is that true for you as well? In the midst of a recession, it’s easy to feel like financial lives are stuck on “pause” too. This may feel like the wrong time to take any next steps you were planning, like saving more for retirement, asking for a raise, finding a new job, or paying off debt. So much uncertainty can make it hard to take courageous steps forward.
Whenever I tell people I’m a financial educator, the most common response I receive is: “I’m so glad someone is doing that work; I’m no good with money.” The first few times I received that response I was so startled by it that I just paused and moved on with the conversation. Now I’ve started to ask people: “Why do you think that?” Often, they are just as startled by this response. Usually it’s something they have never questioned. Yet, this belief is usually holding them back from making the best of their life with money because they have already convinced themselves they can’t do it.
People often ask me: “When do you think you should start talking about money in a relationship?” My response is usually “early and often.” Once you get more serious about forming a partnership with another person, that could be after a few dates or even a few years of dating, I think it’s important that you have conversations about money. People often mistake these conversations as whipping out your budget and talking about the numbers in detail. While I hope that will happen as your financial transparency grows, I often recommend people start by talking about the softer side of money, and moving into talking about the numbers from there.
Did you know that white families have a median net worth that’s almost 10x higher than that of Black households? I’m embarrassed to admit that up until a few weeks ago, I didn’t. I’ve known for a long time about the wage gap, but I never knew about the racial wealth divide.
One of the first things that struck me about my partner was his generosity. It started on our second date when he brought three cupcakes to my apartment — one for me, one for him, and one for my roommate. I mean seriously, who considers getting in with the roommate that early on? Throughout our relationship, my husband has been very generous with his money, his time, and his attention. In our marriage, I have seen it through his willingness to support my ambitious dreams even if that means spending nights alone, picking up the slack around the house, investing some of our shared income, or being the instigator in our social relationships.
A few months ago, I met a friend for lunch at a busy, nearby restaurant … remember that simple pre-pandemic luxury? Over the course of our conversation, she mentioned to me that she and her partner had been having serious conversations about what they wanted their future to look like. Her partner was currently finishing a degree and was still unsure of what he wanted to do afterwards. During one of their future-oriented conversations, she mentioned that her salary is more than enough to cover their expenses and as long as he made enough to cover his hobbies, they would be just fine. While he agreed and was relieved by that prospect, he admitted that he still felt a deep-seated pressure to be a “provider.”
Am I doing my work to become an anti-racist?
Like many white Americans, George Floyd’s death was a wake-up call for me. Not that the work of racial justice wasn’t important to me before, but it was something I was able to compartmentalize due to my own privilege. If the last few months have taught me anything, it’s that we can’t afford to silently support this cause from the sidelines. To shift the tide of systemic racism and dismantle white privilege, we all need to be willing to step into the ring and actively engage not just in the aftermath of a brutal murder but every single day.
