Earn 2.15% interest on your checking account. Whaaaa? 🤯 I know! With interest rates at historic lows, even those who are using online savings accounts are barely earning 1% on their cash. And this is a checking account, so you can withdraw your money any time without restrictions.

OnJuno, a new online bank whose mission is to make banking fair and transparent (you know I love that! 👏), is offering the Fiscal Femme community early access to a new online checking account that earns 2.15% interest and will charge you absolutely no fees. Users also receive 5% cash back on 5 brands of their choosing and the account is FDIC insured up to $250K.

In this email I share a lot about J and my personal dynamic around money. He tends to be the spender in the relationship (most couples have one!). And I tend to be the saver.

In my work with others, I find that’s pretty common. Eventually in a relationship, there’s a saver and a spender and we polarize one another over time. The saver gets more into saving as the spender gets more into spending. As you can imagine, this can cause some stress.

What Kamala Harris’ nomination as the first Black woman VP and Black Women’s Equal Pay Day have in common. I’ve moved things around this week because we just got some big news - Joe Biden chose Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate, making her the first Black woman nominated on a major party’s ticket. 🥳

Not only is Harris “more than fit for the job” (according to Barack Obama), leadership that represents the diversity of the people matters.

Today is a big day - this is the 100th Money Musing! 🥳 I can hardly believe it. I started sending out the Money Musing one hundred weeks ago... And over time your feedback has made them better and better. Thank you! 🙏

I’m really proud of what the Money Musing has become. I’m able to share my personal experiences around money, give you a money move to make progress each week (and you know I believe action is everything!) and highlight important money happenings.

My highest priority financial 💰 goal this year is saving up for my maternity leave. When you run your own small business - especially when your company’s income is tied to you working - you don’t get paid time off unless you invest in it.

It’s important to acknowledge my significant privilege. I have a partner to share in the financial (and childcare) burden of having a child. I’m white, able-bodied, straight and the list goes on and on. These all provide me with tremendous privilege and have a great impact on my finances that others don’t benefit from.

This summer, J and I decided to purchase something that cost hundreds of dollars but would save us money in the long-run - a lawnmower.

We live in Hoboken which is a far cry from the burbs but we have a small yard and it cost us $40 every other week from April through October to have someone come and mow it. I think the hassle of getting to our lawn with all the equipment accounted for most of the cost.

Many of us were hopeful that our spending was going to decrease due to stay-at-home orders. For some of you it has (maybe not as much as you’d expect) and others of you were surprised to see your spending increase.

In our house, spending definitely increased the first month of quarantine. We stockpiled shelf stabilized goods (often at a markup) and purchased some things to set us up to WFH.

But after that… it still didn’t decrease as much as we expected.

When I first started my money journey it was really helpful to see how much people were spending on certain things. Not because it was important to compare myself with others or that I should spend my money the same way. But more because it opened my eyes to what was possible and gave me a spending frame of reference.

I remember finding out that one of my friends spent a fraction of what I was spending on food and dining out. Her life didn’t seem that much different from mine. It made me realize I had a lot of room for improvement.

Something I’ve noticed over and over in my own life and with those in my community is that if we don’t pay ourselves first, there will never be any money left at the end of the month to save. Have you noticed this? 👋

One of the reasons this happens is Parkinson's Law - the idea that things expand to take up as much space as they are given. If we have an hour set aside for a meeting (even if we only have one item on the agenda!), the meeting will take up the entire hour. ⏳ Relatable? How many meetings have ever ended early?!

Budgeting gets a bad rap. I don’t know about you, but for me, the word budget brings up feelings of restriction and generally - blah. Like sticking with a budget will mean I’m going to have to give up things that make me happy and will limit my fun. No thanks! 🚫

Side note: My disdain for the word budget is the reason I’ve renamed it a happiness allocation. It’s a much more fitting term - a budget or happiness allocation is just a plan to allocate our money in the ways that are going to make us the happiest in the short and long term.

When all women are wealthy, we’ll solve most of the problems in the world.I believe this to my core.

One of the many reasons this is true is that women invest more back into their families and communities. Research supports this and I’ve seen it in our own amazing Fiscal Femme community.

As we build wealth (and believe me, that’s happening), we’ll be able to give more and more. But just like with saving, giving is a habit that can start sooner rather than later.

Pandemics and times of economic upheaval (like we’re experiencing today) exacerbate inequities that were already there.

Data shows that Black women are bearing the brunt of this recession.

Black women already face one of the largest gender pay gaps (only Native American women and Latina pay are lower), are more likely to be overlooked for raises and promotions, and have a much harder time getting a job in the first place. They are now experiencing the highest increase in unemployment numbers.

We can't talk about getting women wealthy without talking about racial justice. Personal finance and inequity are inextricably linked.

It would take 228 years for Black families to amass as much wealth as white families if our current policies stay in place.

The world of money and personal finance is entirely different for Black people, and even more so for Black women. When we look at history through present day, we find hundreds of years of lack of access, destruction of wealth, bias, discrimination, pay gaps, and wealth gaps. The list goes on and on.

I strongly believe there is no “right” or “wrong” when it comes to making decisions about our money. Our situations are all extremely unique, we value different things and different things make us happy.

To make decisions that are “right” for us, we want to be:

1. Conscious

2. Honest with ourselves

3. Intentional

I have some very exciting news to share... We are expecting baby 👶 boy #2 this fall 🎉!

At first, I thought it was pretty ironic that I am having another son given that I’ve dedicated my life’s work to equality for women. Of course that would happen! 😂

But the longer I do this work, the more I see - what the world needs most right now is more feminist men.

Sunday was Mother’s Day and even though I had a lovely day - breakfast in bed, a cute homemade bracelet from E, and even got to read in the bath, I was filled with rage. 🤬

Mothers get paid 30% less (just for being moms). If you’re a mother of color, the numbers are even worse. Black women earn $0.62 for every dollar a white man earns and 80% of Black mothers are the sole or primary breadwinners for their households.

As of yesterday, I’m a year older and supposedly a year wiser but quite often, I don’t act that way. Especially when it comes to my money. I know… what?! 🤯

That’s right. It doesn’t matter if you are the Fiscal Femme or a complete fiscal noob, no one is immune to acting irrationally with money. You can bet on it.

Over the last couple of months, investors have been on a rollercoaster ride. 🎢The market was at all time highs as we kicked off the year, dropped over 30% in a month and has since rebounded almost 28%.

Side note: If you have a retirement account, you’re an investor. If you own a share of a fund, stock or a bond, you are an investor. By investor, I’m talkin’ to you (said in a New York accent)! 🗽

In the last month, I asked many of you what you are most concerned about. #1 (by far) was the safety and health of your family and friends. ❤️ That makes complete sense and I am with you 100%!

For almost everyone, #2 was financial concerns - often related to a change in income (or a feared change) or wanting to build a better financial foundation to navigate this challenging time.

The Coronavirus pandemic has uniquely affected women, and even more so, women of color.

Women make up 76% of our heroic US healthcare workers. That means they are now on the front lines, often balancing concerns of their own health (and the health of their families) with financial stability.

Almost 60% of people who have lost their jobs due to Coronavirus are women.