Money Musings 💭 Approaching money mistakes with compassion 🤗
Learning to have compassion for myself was a really important shift in my own money journey.
Before that, I held a lot of shame for the mistakes I made and for what I didn’t know.
It sucked!
As I discovered all we have working against us when it comes to money and personal finance, it helped me find compassion.
The list is long for all people but if you are a woman, BIPOC, have a disability, are part of the LGBTQ+ community or are a mother (and more), the list just compounds (intersectionality).
So I’m going to give you a list.
This list is by no means comprehensive. BUT as you read through, take note of which apply to you. You can even write them down.
Remind yourself of this list anytime money feels like a struggle or you make a mistake.
Here we go....
Most of us never learned about personal finance growing up or even in our adult life
YET we have to deal with money almost every single day
Money is too taboo to talk about - even with close friends and family
We may be the financial first in our family - first to go to college, first to have a W-2 salary, first to have access to a 401(K), etc.
We may have been learned growing up that money is shameful or [insert descriptor here]
It's hard to know where to turn or who to trust for help (people make big commissions to sell us things!)
The jargon and unnecessary complexity of personal finance topics
The shaming educators and "experts"
Money is emotionally charged - it's not easy to be objective (a lot like food)
Companies know way too much about us and use our emotions to sell us things (with multi-billion dollar marketing budgets)
Those marketing budgets lead us to constantly believe that we don’t have enough, and will not be enough until we buy
Technology like buying with a click or ordering from our phone makes it easy to not know where our money is going
Systemic racial and gender gaps affect every area of our personal finances
This is compounded for BIPOC women, people with disabilities, the LGBTQ+ community and mothers
Inflation has had a huge impact - no one’s money is going as far
This list is long and maddening but it also helps me come back to compassion again and again. I hope it does the same for you.
Which items on the list do you relate to most? Hit reply ↩️ and let me know.
MONEY MOVE OF THE WEEK
PARTY WITH YOUR MONEY SERIES - PART 3: SET YOUR AGENDA.
You’re almost ready for the main event (your money party) - you’re scheduled and have plans to make it fun. Now we’ll set the agenda.
What will you actually cover during your money party? I keep the agenda in my calendar but anywhere you can easily reference works. You just want to go in with a plan so there’s nothing to figure out when you start your money party. 🗓️
Some ideas:
Run your numbers 🔢 - how did they look compared with what you planned?
If you don’t have a budget or plan, a money party is a great time to put one together
Check in on your saving and investing goals
Are there any random financial to-dos on your list like canceling a subscription or negotiating a fee?
You can also add items to the agenda as they come up. This is great for couples who want to cover more stressful money topics in a more intentional and compartmentalized way.
YOU GOTTA SEE THIS
A CREDIT CARD POINTS GUIDE - ALL POINTS ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL.
If credit card rewards make your head spin, I’m right there with you. Here’s an overview of the three most common reward programs and how they work.
1. CASH BACK. These are pretty straight forward to calculate. If you receive 2% cash back and spend $1,500 on your card each month, you’ll get $30 in rewards.
Some cards offer more complex perks where different categories get varying amounts of cash back. For example, you get 4% on restaurants and 3% on gas and groceries. Sometimes these are called “bonus categories.”
2. POINTS. Credit card point systems get a bit trickier. 💳 Why? Different credit card issuers can give points different values, PLUS the value (even with the same credit card co) can vary based on what you’re spending the points on.
Unlike cash back, credit card points can also be DEVALUED. For example, Delta recently increased how many points it costs to fly internationally.
Luckily there’s a simple way to check the value per purchase and in general.
The Points Value Equation: Divide the dollar amount by the amount of points it takes to redeem the reward and voila!
If you purchase a $500 flight with 25,000 points, the points are worth $0.02 each ($500 / 25,000).
If you are looking into which cards make the most sense for you, you can look at the average redemption value or the best redemption value if you plan to use your points that way.
3. MILES. These work similarly to points but are used for airlines. Usually for specific airline partners. For example, Chase partners with United. You can use the same equation to get the value per mile.
There you have it! Do you want to learn more about credit card perks, hit reply and let me know. ↩️
your weekly money wins
Here are all the amazing money moves you made this week 👏👏👏
Mel: My 401k investments hit over $11,000! I just opened a Roth IRA and I want to max it out before tax time next year!
Maria C: Finally set up a system for tracking my spending, something I've been meaning to do for ages!
Delaney: Saved around 12K for our wedding in 10 months
Kara M: Maxed out my Roth for the year and increased my 401(k) percentage!
Na Dia: Set up a revocable trust, will and health directive with a lawyer
Andrea J: Signed up for my new TSP and got hubby enrolled in his 401(k)! 😍🥳
Vanessa S: Deposited my 6-year old's savings account into a 23 month CD getting 4.3% interest
Nicole F: Paid down $2K in student loans to get my principal under $30K - I started with $75K!!
Onyx: Started to play catch up on the first year of my son's savings account!