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| Uncommon Sense | 7 women get naked, financially
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(Page 2) of 2
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Her friends also told her that she didn't need to think about retirement until she was in her 30s. "Now I know that's bull," she says.
But with $13,000 in school and credit-card debt, and a salary of $42,000, Kinnera finds it hard to stay afloat in New York. "This city makes you feel poor," she says.
Still, she's looking for a better-paying job and is determined to pay off her debt and start contributing to her teeny ($1,700) IRA.
The politics of money
But several of the women believe that if the whole world would relax and open up about their money situations, it would, first of all, banish this silly self-consciousness we all have. ("People always think they are the only ones with . . . issues in their lives," says Yalitza, 32. "I'd like to prove them wrong!")
Second, it might change how we live.
"The things we own are a symbol of how much money we have," says Anna, 40, an environmental lobbyist in Washington, D.C. "So people go out of their way to buy things that make it appear as though they earn more money than they have." If everyone's money cards were on the table, Anna believes, it would cut back on the competitive materialism in our culture.
Anna, who's expecting her first baby in October and is the primary breadwinner in her family, has managed to stay out of debt and buy a home in pricey D.C. -- all on a relatively modest household income of $65,000. She was raised by frugal and very goal-oriented parents who didn't believe in keeping any money secrets.
Still, she admits, finances are a source of tension between her and her husband. Although she doesn't carry any consumer debt (not so much as a car loan), he does. "But that's his business," she says. In addition to planning ahead as a new parent, she hopes to cultivate more financial harmony and openness at home.
Helping other people
Yalitza, a full-time student in Oakland, Calif., had no problem talking about her money issues because she hopes her frankness will help someone else. She says that disclosing financial information could be a catalyst for people to be more proactive about money. If everyone's salary were public record, "we could start to change the huge gap we have in wealth," she believes.
On the personal front, Yalitza's main issue is paying down the $7,700 she has in credit-card debt by the end of the year -- which will be tough, since while she's in school, she and her husband are living on his freelance income of about $50,000.
Money and judgment
The biggest obstacle to being more frank about money for most people is the judgment factor, says Carole, 37, director of a not-for-profit organization in New York City. "People associate money with success or failure," she says. "We use money to make all kinds of judgments about people."
Carole earns $120,000 and has always been very practical about money. She has some debt -- $2,000 in credit cards and about $15,000 from law school -- but because of her salary, some of her friends don't want to hear it when she says she has trouble saving. "It's not fair to judge someone," she says. "We all have our financial situations to deal with."
For while Carole may be the group's top earner, she's still figuring out how to tackle certain financial issues. She wants to save for a down payment on an apartment in New York (which could take $60,000 or more), but she needs to do the math to see if she could then afford to live there.
Nowhere to hide
As someone who writes regularly about personal finance, I've been more than impressed -- I've been staggered by how honest people are being. I don't want to admit that I (not my real name) still have $9,000 in credit card debt, and that I don't even know how much my husband's debt is. (We've agreed, for now, not to even go there.) Or how embarrassing it is that on my income of $72,000 plus -- it fluctuates if I take on more articles -- that I have any debt at all! And that I owe $200 in parking tickets. Oh, and $11,000 to the IRS.
Did I just say that?
If I thought that putting together this group would be a purely intellectual exercise I was wrong. It takes a lot of courage to be honest about money -- because we all secretly believe that the more we hide, the better off we'll be.
In reality, I think that making serious financial strides in your life takes this kind of brutal honesty. We just happen to be doing it in a place where you can all watch.
Read the next article in this series, "Climb out of your financial black hole."
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