Dear Liz,
This isn’t a business question. I hope that’s okay.
I recently got divorced after six years. I fell into the same pattern as my mother and grandmother before me and let my husband manage the finances. It seemed like a no-brainer to me. As a bit of a math wiz, he’s always been better with money. It kind of burns a hole in my pocket, which my (thank GOD) former husband always used to make fun of. I’ve been like this my whole life, and now that we’re no longer together, I find myself struggling to keep my bills paid even though I make real money for the first time in my life. It makes me feel really stupid. Why can’t I get it together? I need help.
Lydia M.
Hi Lydia,
I’m so sorry to hear about your situation. I think everyone has had someone they cared about and trusted who made them feel small or less than, so please don’t feel like you’re alone or somehow at fault for those feelings. You clearly aren’t stupid; you got out of a bad marriage and are now able to support yourself financially.
The fact is, financial literacy is a skill and not one that’s commonly taught, especially to women. I’ll never understand why such a vital skill is rarely taught in schools.
Financial literacy is especially lacking among women because of antiquated expectations and assumptions about women’s roles in society and in the family; so many women grew up with less of an expectation that they would need to stand on their own financially. That’s even more true for my generation. The idea of independent women working and living for themselves was still relatively new and controversial when I was in college in the late eighties, let alone in the sixties and seventies. Generations of women were raised solely with the expectation to marry well and raise a family, and I count myself immeasurably lucky that my own parents didn’t raise me anything like that. But that’s just the thing; it was luck. And if you grew up poor, that’s an even wider bridge to cross.
We’re supposed to learn the basics of financial literacy when we’re still young (and insulated should we make a mistake) by being trusted with money and taught not only how to spend and save it, but how to manage it as well. But not everyone is fortunate enough to have that experience, and that fact certainly doesn’t say anything about your intelligence or abilities. It just means you have a new skill to learn.
As the pandemic continues to wreak havoc on our employment prospects, knowing how to use money wisely is more important for women than it’s been in some time. But the fact that it’s a skill means there’s a solution; you can learn to handle your own finances. In your case (because you mentioned that you’re making good money), it’s time to start looking for a financial adviser who doesn’t make you feel stupid for not knowing these things yet. You need someone on your side who makes you feel comfortable and is eager to help you understand your finances. I’d start looking locally for women financial advisors who you can speak to frankly about your history with money, your complicated feelings around it, and anything else she might need to know. I recommend looking into the Women’s Institute for Financial Education, which has been providing women with financial planning assistance for decades.
In the meantime, here’s some big picture advice I’d like to offer:
- Know your credit score. If you’ve never had to manage your finances independently before, credit cards can be a blessing and a curse. By letting you defer payment, it’s supposed to give you more flexibility, but for far too many, it turns into a burden of creeping debt. Knowing your credit score tells you how far you need to go in terms of managing your ability to accrue and pay down debt. If the idea of debt scares you, and it does for a lot of people, you can use a credit card simply to build up your credit by making (and paying off) small purchases that won’t burden you. The trick is keeping track of those purchases; maintain a record to make sure that, when the bill is due, you have enough to wipe it clean. One way to do this is to use a credit card only for your monthly bills (like your internet, cell phone, and other utilities that you already pay each month) and then set up a monthly automatic payment to your credit card. That way, you’re building credit without building up debt.
- Open a savings account. The beautiful thing about savings accounts is that they make it a little harder to get to your money. You can’t spend money that isn’t in your checking account, right? Even just getting a sense of what money you’ve chosen to set aside and what money you’ve allocated for spending can go a long way. So get to work building a reserve so when unexpected costs come up, you can meet them head-on without cutting into the money you live off of. If you’re making good money like you say, squirreling away a few hundred every check should be feasible.
- Get current on your bills. Racking up late fees is a huge issue because they can snowball and turn manageable debts into monsters stalking you night and day. Make it your first priority to stop increasing your debt so you can start paying it down.
- Create a Budget. Look at what you have coming in and out each month. With so many services and products now on a subscription model, it’s easier than ever to wind up paying for things you don’t even use. It may surprise you what you’re still paying for. By getting all of that down in front of you, you’ll start to see what things you can cut, how you may want to allocate what you’re spending money on, as well as how much you can set aside each month for savings.
These tips are just some of the basics; your financial situation might be completely different. But whatever it is, getting it under control is key to having genuine freedom and independence in your life (along with some peace of mind). I believe in you, and in all women, to learn how to treat money like a tool and not a problem. You got this!
WRITTEN BY
Liz EltingLiz Elting, Founder and CEO of the Elizabeth Elting Foundation, is an entrepreneur, business leader, linguaphile, philanthropist, feminist, and mother. After living, studying, and working in five countries across the globe, Liz founded TransPerfect out of an NYU dorm room in 1992 and served as Co-CEO until 2018. TransPerfect is the world's largest language solutions company, with over $1.1 billion in revenue and offices in more than 100 cities worldwide. Liz received the 2019 Charles Waldo Haskins Award for business and public service from NYU’s Stern School of Business, the American Heart Association’s 2020 Health Equity Leadership Award, the Alliance of Women Entrepreneurs’ 2021 Vertex Award for changing the face and direction of women’s high-growth entrepreneurship, the American Heart Association’s 2022 Woman Changing the World Award, and Trinity College’s 2022 Kathleen O’Connor Boelhouwer ’85 Alumni Initiative Award. Liz has been recognized as a NOW Woman of Power & Influence, American Express' and Entrepreneur magazine's Woman of the Year, and one of Forbes’ Richest Self-Made Women every year since the list’s inception. Elting is the author of Dream Big and Win: Translating Passion into Purpose and Creating a Billion-Dollar Business.