Welcome to another week of the Women’s Personal Finance Wednesdays roundup. I started this series after months of debate because I wasn’t certain I wanted to up the ante and commit to publishing three posts a week. However, now that I’ve started sharing these posts, I’m so glad I started.
There are so many fabulous women writing about personal finance online, and yet there is still 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 my way of doing a small part to change that perception. There are 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.
Surprise! Guest Curator: Jessica of The Fioneers
You probably expect Angela to be curating this week. Instead, you get me (Jessica from The Fioneers).
After getting to know Angela online over the past two years, I had the opportunity to meet her in person at FinCon! Over coffee, she asked if I would ever be interested in curating a Women’s Personal Finance Wednesday Round-up.
Of course, my answer was a resounding “YES.”
Since I began blogging, I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find a thriving community of women writing and focusing on personal finance. Along with most people in the world, I had a misconception that personal finance blogs were mostly written by men and that most of them only discussed technical financial concepts.
To me, those are the easiest (and, let’s be honest, less interesting parts of personal finance). I’m much more interested in reading personal stories of people working to build a better life for themselves.
It’s not that men don’t share personal stories. Some do. I just had a hard time identifying with some of their experiences.
When I began to engage with the women in the personal finance community, I knew I had found my people. There are so many incredible women writing about personal finance online. Their stories of struggle, triumph, and encouragement have completely transformed my life.
Somehow, there is still a perception that women aren’t good with money, or they don’t care. It’s time to turn that assumption on its head. Ladies, let’s keep writing, living, continuing to take control of our finances, and helping others do the same.
I appreciate this opportunity to share some of my favorite recent posts by awesome women.
Women’s Personal Finance Wednesdays – Week 66
1. Financial Independence Let Me Walk Away from Harassment at WorkFinancial Mechanic, by Anonymous
This was a powerful post written by an anonymous guest writer. This writer, along with a number of her female colleagues, was being harassed at work by an unknown colleague.
Her pursuit of financial independence provided her with F-You Money. This means that she could walk away from a situation that wasn’t serving her without worrying about the financial ramifications.
This same pursuit of FI also gave her the confidence to fight for others.
I’d love to share a really impactful quote from the article: “When this harassment started I KNEW I could walk because of the financial position I was in. That’s power. But I also KNEW that I had every reason to fight for others. That’s leadership.”
Financial independence not only allows us to build a better life for ourselves. We also have a responsibility to help build a better world for others.
2. Two Secret Ingredients for Creating Habits that StickCash for Tacos
As we head into the new year, I’m sure we are all thinking about building new habits. Wouldn’t it be great if we could figure out how to stick with then?
In this post, Melody provides us with a framework to consider as we are building habits. She outlines two components that allow us to stick with habits: inspiration and commitment.
We need both, and one fuels the other. If you feel inspired but haven’t taken action, figure out the specific steps to take to commit yourself to the goal. When you feel your commitment beginning to wane, find some new inspiration.
I’m excited to use this framework as I move into 2020.
3. I Just Spent A Lot To Do A ThingThe 76K Project
Now, I’m not going to spoil the surprise and tell you the exciting thing she spent money on (you’ll have to read the post for that), but I will tell you why I loved this post.
There’s an analogy in this post that is very relevant to our finances. A man (on a survival show) was doing everything he could to survive in the wilderness and knew that winter was coming. He caught fish and was drying them to eat later. He would only allow himself to eat half of a fish every 48 hours.
Because he was saving so much of his fish for later, his body ended up going into starvation mode. Then, he needed to be evacuated.
Sometimes, we treat our finances in a similar way to these fish. What if we save so much that we miss out on living our best lives (or even a good life) along the path to our goals?
Instead of depriving ourselves, this post reminds us to balance saving with spending money on things that will add value to our lives. We might not have tomorrow.
I hope you enjoyed these posts as much as I did! I read a lot of personal finance blogs, so it was hard to narrow it down to my favorites (especially since I don’t get to do this week after week).
If you found value in these posts, I’d encourage you to check out the list of Women of the Financial Independence Community. There are so many fantastic women writing about personal finance, so I’m sure you will find someone you can identify with.
Angela here – I really enjoyed having a guest curator here for my Wednesday roundup. If you’re interested in taking on a week, please let me know! I think it could be fun to pass on the reigns to someone else perhaps once a quarter. And let me know what you thought about Jessica’s picks! I think she did a fabulous job.
If you want to learn more about her, you can follow her journey at:
Website: thefioneers.com
Twitter: @thefioneers
Instagram: @thefioneers
Pinterest: pinterest.com/thefioneers
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