Money Musings 💭 Community money wins! 👏
I have some exciting news...
On Friday I passed the CFP® exam. 🥳 Yes, I’m celebrating!
And while I'm awaiting the official designation, I was excited to share the news.
What does that mean? Here’s how the CFP® Board describes it:
CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ certification is the standard of excellence in financial planning. CFP® professionals meet rigorous education, training and ethical standards, and are committed to serving their clients' best interests today to prepare them for a more secure tomorrow.
Long story short - I took seven courses, studied A LOT, passed a rigorous exam and pledged to maintain high ethical standards in my work.
So why am I doing this?
I’ve been working as a money coach for over 12 years now and have felt very passionate about the fact that money and personal finance can be simple and straightforward. You don’t need any fancy degrees or letters next to your name to do this.
I still wholeheartedly believe this.
But when I was vetting the 36 incredible experts I interviewed for my latest book Financial Adulting, especially for more complex topics like investing, insurance and estate planning, I found comfort and credibility in the CFP® designation.
If someone I respected had that designation, I knew they had gone through a rigorous program, had to abide by an ethical standard and quite frankly, knew their stuff.
Then I thought… hmm. 🤔
If I’m using this designation to vet people, why don’t I have it?! Would this be helpful to those who turn to me for financial support and guidance? Could it help me serve you better?
That’s when I changed my tune and decided to take the leap.
So after almost a year, I’m excited to share that I am in the final stages of the process to become a CFP® professional.
I'll still be the same old me you’ve come to for fun, shame-free, applicable financial education, just with some expanded knowledge on the topics that are more nuanced and robust.
I’m excited to see where this leads and believe me, I will be celebrating this week!
PS: We're now featuring YOUR money wins. Check out the list below!
MONEY MOVE OF THE WEEK
TAX SEASON PREP: STEP #2 - DECIDE HOW TO FILE.
Once you have all your info handy (I talked about that here), it’s time to decide how to file. When it comes to actually filing your taxes, you have 3 options.
1. ON YOUR OWN. You can file your taxes for free. If you earn under $72K, you qualify to use tax prep software for free (freefilealliance.org). If you are above the income limit, you can still file your taxes on your own, for free, on the IRS website, using FreeFileFillableForms.com
Fun fact: If you earned under $12,550 as of 2021, you don’t have to file your taxes, but if you qualify for a refund, you will still want to.
2. USE A TAX PREP SERVICE. You can use a tax prep service to help you file your taxes. Depending on the option you choose, and how complicated your return is, the service can be free or paid. Some options are all digital prompts and others allow you to speak to someone and ask questions.
3. HIRE AN ACCOUNTANT. Hiring an accountant makes sense as your taxes get more complicated. They can be expensive but can also make up their fee many times over in smart tax moves (and avoiding costly mistakes). If you have your own business or side hustle, own a property, or get contacted by the IRS, it might be time to hire one.
YOU GOTTA SEE THIS
EQUAL PAY DAY FOR ALL WOMEN.
Yesterday was Equal Pay Day — the day that women have to work in the current year in order to earn the same amount that their white male counterparts did in the previous year.
Ugh. That’s an extra 2.5 months! Or as EqualPayDayToday.org put it, "if you look at a typical 9:00-5:00 work day, women start working for free at 2:40 p.m." 🕑
Women earn $0.84 for every $1.00 a white male earns, meaning that we worked until March 14, 2023 to earn what a white man earned in 2022.
The gap is even wider when including part-time workers at $0.77.
It’s very important to note that this stat is an average for all women. BIPOC-women and moms earn far less.
Black Women’s Equal Pay Day is on July 27th ($0.67 for full-time workers and $0.64 for all)
Mom's Equal Pay Day is on August 15th ($0.74 for full-time workers and $0.62 for all)
Latina’s Equal Pay Day is on October 5th ($0.57 for full-time workers and $0.54 for all)
Native American Women’s Equal Pay Day is on November 30th ($0.57 for full-time workers and $0.51 for all)
LGBTQIA+ Equal Pay Awareness Day is June 15. Without enough data to make calculations, this day raises awareness about the wage gap experienced by LGBTQIA+ folks
If you’re sick of earning less for doing the same job or you’re just sick of hearing about this, here's what needs to happen to close the gap:
Harvard Business Review: How to Close the Gender Gap
your weekly money wins
Each and every week the Fiscal Femme community is going to celebrate your money wins - big and small.
All you have to do is submit your win (no win is too small!), via this form, and you’ll get a shoutout (with whatever name you choose) in the next Money Musing!
Submitting a win not only celebrates your hard work, it will serve as motivation for others who have similar goals! A win-win.
So let’s get to celebrating! Here are all the amazing money moves you made this week 🥳👏🥳👏🥳👏
LuxeMama: Planning my postpartum recovery and budgeting for it NOW at 24 weeks with mindfulness spending too! Looks like I’ll be able to add an additional month of maternity leave doing so!!!
Brittany H: Went through and budgeted what some upcoming travel I'm planning would cost so I can create a sinking funds line for them!
Erin G: I've already fully funded my Roth IRA for 2023 and I've now saved enough money to fully fund the Hawaiian cruise vacation I'm taking in June 2024!
Meghan H: Saving up for a trip to Italy slowly but surely
Haley F: Not only was I able to file my taxes over a month early, I also set up a high yield savings account and transferred $400 into my emergency fund!
Kaitlin: I put $100 in my first ever investment account!
Leah: I put 15% of my paycheck in to savings!
dianimal: Finally looking into career moves that better support my money goals and growth!
Libby: I set up my net worth tracker at the beginning of 2023, using Ashley's template. I am updating every other month; I just updated for March and my net worth has increased by $13k!!
The Ryders: Two years ago we set a goal to save 50k for our down payment on a house and just hit our goal a few months early!
AmyB: I took a low interest savings account and transferred it to a 5% cd for 6 months. I have started my taxes. I had 22 gigs in 28 days.