What I'm Learning about Money at 43
Turns out the classroom too many people skip is the one that teaches financial literacy. This year, I've been building my own.
This week we’re talking about money.
Why?
Because I reaaaaaaally don’t want to. Like a lot of women, I’ve spent decades successfully avoiding the topic and plugging my ears anytime it came up.
And for good reason!
Money invites a host of unwanted emotions: envy, greed, overwhelm, shame. When you couple those yucky feelings with an education system that woefully fails to help young people become financially literate, it’s easy to understand how we’ve arrived at a moment of rampant spending and unprecedented debt (an average of $154,152 per household).
It’s an area of learning that we desperately need to face head-on.
I came to that realization last spring, after making a series of unfortunate (and avoidable) financial mistakes for which I was too damn old and wise, but which forced me into an uncomfortable conversation with myself about why I’ve been avoiding this work.
Since then, financial literacy has become a central pillar of my lifelong learning journey. And I’m inviting you to come along, too.
Understanding your money biography.
When Dr. Maya Angelou said, “You can’t really know where you are going until you know where you have been,” she may not have been talking about credit card balances, but she was certainly emphasizing the importance of biography.
Our relationship with money is formed early in life and greatly influenced by the examples we witnessed in our families. Think back:
What were the first messages you remember hearing about money?
What spending behaviors did you observe?
How were you taught to value money?
I, for one, didn’t grow up in a house where we talked about it much. I knew we had enough to live a nice life, but not so much that there’d ever be a vacation home in play, and I felt satisfied by this rudimentary understanding.
As an adult, I recognize what a privilege it was not to worry about money. But I also see how my lack of curiosity put me at a serious disadvantage in preparing for adulthood.
When I got my first credit card at 19, before studying abroad, I made great use of it. It didn’t occur to me that someone would be stuck holding the bill at the end of the month, nor was I familiar with compounding interest.
It took a few embarrassing bailouts before I got the picture.
My years of thoughtless spending elicit enough shame that I’d love nothing more than to put these memories in a boat and send them out to sea, a la a Viking funeral.
Alas, they’re part of the story. A story I now understand involves undiagnosed ADHD (hello, impulsivity) and a family tradition of not talking about money.
And understanding that story has been instrumental in learning to rewrite it.
What are you scared to find out?
One version of my money biography is that I really didn’t care to learn. Another is that I was scared to learn.
Peeking behind the curtains meant diving headfirst into a world I didn’t feel smart enough to understand: one of 401(k)s and Roth IRAs, high-yield savings, and brokerage accounts.
It also meant facing my past financial mistakes and the grim possibility (OK, probability) that I was living outside my means.
And WHO ON EARTH WOULD WANT TO GO THERE??
Many people, especially women, avoid learning about money for exactly this reason. But the risks of not educating ourselves are even greater.
As someone who entrusted my spouse with our finances early in the marriage, I learned how dangerous it is for one person to hold all the cards. After my husband’s brain injury, I had to do some serious forensic accounting to understand what was happening with our money. Not only was I locked out of important accounts, but I also couldn’t ask him any questions. I’ll never forget repeatedly explaining to the Bank of America representative that my husband couldn’t get on the phone because he was in a coma. And while I don’t wish to repeat that experience, I’m glad it forced me to take the reins.
What I’ve learned from each chapter of my financial education is that the scary stuff is rarely as scary as we imagine — and it helps to name it.
Writing down our fears — the things we’re afraid to know — may just give us the courage to begin asking the hard questions.
It’s never too early (or late) to learn.
If I’ve learned anything from this journey, it’s that financial literacy should begin early and be discussed often.
A few years ago, we set our kids up with Greenlight accounts, and they’ve loved watching their savings and investments grow over time. The app allows them to track their money, connects chores to allowance, and boasts interactive games that my daughter enjoys stealing my phone to play.
As a family, we’re working to be transparent about the cost of living. We want our kids to know what’s involved in going out to eat or replacing that 15th lost water bottle. They’re small things, but I hope they’ll contribute to a broader understanding of how money functions and how to be strategic with it.
It’s never too late for the grown-ups to learn, either. A lifelong spender and nearly professional shopper, I find myself these days geeking out over a good deal and any opportunity to earn airline miles. (Also, taxes! Who knew??)
I may not be the next Suze Orman, but a little curiosity and some self-compassion have helped me come a long way in facing my old nemesis and building my confidence about finances. I’ll shout it from the rooftops:
Empowering yourself around money is one of the most important endeavors in lifelong learning.
How to Be a Rich Old Lady by Amanda Holden: Where am I thirty years from now? Why, enjoying a glass of Sancerre at an outdoor cafe on the bank of the Seine, of course! But if we’re working backward from our rich old lady dreams, this book is an excellent place to start and will reinforce that anyone can become savvy about finances.
Financial Feminist Podcast
There’s nothing my 15-year-old son loves more than our drives home from school, in which I force upon him the nuts and bolts of investment via my favorite money podcast.
JK, he’s definitely being held against his will. But if even 10% of the conversation trickles into his developing prefrontal cortex, it will all be worth it. This podcast does a great job of illustrating how money is tied to behavior, trends, trauma, and so many other facets of living.
The fact that 43 is when a lot of us start figuring money out is the whole problem. None of us were taught this as kids, so we spend our 20s and 30s reverse-engineering it under pressure. The lessons you're naming now are exactly the ones worth handing a kid early, while the stakes are a $10 allowance and not a mortgage.
What a great post. I think children learn so much about $ just from watching us. I remember sitting at the kitchen table helping my mother pay the bills. She taught me how to write checks and not buy on credit. Now, I did make a lot of mistakes, especially in my early 20's (impulsivity and shopaholic), but I did learn that women have to be partners, not silent victims. I cannot tell you how many friends don't have their names on accounts or homes. Virginia now has a required class in HS to teach kids these things. Of course, they can all learn for a test (aka geometry), but real-world applications happen as they go on with their lives.