Money Musings 💠Maximize your biggest benefit
If you earn a salary, it's probably your largest form of compensation (or benefit) offered through work.
Yet many of us don’t learn how to maximize that benefit. And to make matters worse, we aren’t sure who to turn to when we need help.
And that’s just budgeting. There’s also the other very important parts of our financial lives like investing, debt pay down, credit scores, and the list goes on and on.
Not only does this impact our own well-being, it also impacts the companies we work for.
A recent survey from PwC showed that:
Financially stressed employees are 2x as likely to be looking for a new job (one where their employer cares more about their financial well-being)
It's 7x more likely that financial stress severely impacts stressed employees attendance at work
And 55% of stressed employees spend 3+ hours per week at work dealing with their finances
I’ve been following this survey for years and this is nothing new.
So what can be done?
Employers can bring in speakers to give an informative, actionable, accessible and (gasp!) fun talk about financial wellness.
And I know just the gal for the job. Hello!
I recently gave a keynote at Live Nation’s Women’s Summit (you can see a fun recap here!) and did an investing workshop for theSkimm.
What better time than Women’s History Month, which is coming up in March!?
If that sounds like a win-win, forward this along to your company. The best contact can vary but you can start with the head of your team, someone who runs events or planning, someone in HR, or you know your company best.
MONEY MOVE OF THE WEEK
GOAL SETTING SERIES: STEP #4 - CELEBRATE GOAL MILESTONES.
Over the last few weeks we’ve done a lot of work around goals (here, here and here). Now comes the fun. We get to track the results and celebrate our progress.
It might feel silly to celebrate along the way. Isn’t accomplishing the goal enough?
I get that… BUT we have a sneaky way of moving the goalpost on ourselves so we don’t get the satisfaction of accomplishing a goal. Then we might end up feeling like we haven’t accomplished anything at all.
For example, you pay down $1,000 of debt - huge! But if you aren’t tracking, it might have felt like you were right around there all along.
Break down any financial goal you have into chunks. If you want to save $5,000, you might decide to break that down into $500 steps.
Every time you save another $500, celebrate in some way. That might mean, a happy dance, getting to color in your goal chart, grabbing a matcha, or texting your money buddy.
For larger milestones, like the halfway mark and when you complete your goal, you can build in some bigger celebrations!
Check in on your progress towards your goals at each of your money parties.
What did you think of this goal series? I’d love to hear what you got from it and how your goals are going. Hit reply and let me know.
YOU GOTTA SEE THIS
DEFINE: THE RACIAL WEALTH GAP.
Mehrsa Baradaran, the author of The Color of Money, explains that there’s a massive racial wealth gap across all income and education levels.
As of 2019, the average white family has a median net worth of $188,200 compared with $24,100 for Black families, $36,100 for Hispanic families, and $74,500 for groups of all other races/ethnicities (Source: Federal Reserve).
These numbers are from before the onset of the pandemic, which disproportionately impacted communities of color financially. Current figures may be worse than this study indicates.
Dasha Kennedy, The Broke Black Girl, highlights that the richest 400 Americans have more wealth than all the Black households in the United States combined. That’s the wealth gap.
The racial wealth gap has a long history that started with the enslavement of Black people and when Indigenous People were forced and displaced from their land.
I didn’t learn much about this - or other events and policies that have had long-lasting impacts on BIPOC wealth - in school. Here are a few things everyone should know about: