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Recent articles by MP Dunleavey: • It's time for taxes that feel good, 4/18/2004 • Nothing quick about getting rich with real estate, 3/28/2004 • Your 3 worst debt consolidation moves, 1/11/2004 More... |
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| Uncommon Sense | ||||||||||||||
| 7 women get naked, financially | ||||||||||||||
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Consider this the 'before' picture. One intrepid columnist and her flock of 'money chicks' expose their money fears and foibles at the start of a quest to shape up their finances. By MP Dunleavey Editor's note: Columnist MP Dunleavey and six other women have come together online to strip away the myths surrounding money, lay bare their assets and liberate themselves from debt. Follow their quest for financial fabulousness every second Monday in Dunleavey's column on MSN Money. Would you tell the world what you earn? How much debt you have? The exact amount in your investment accounts? Hell, no. You probably wouldn't reveal that much to your best friend.
Nonetheless, a few months ago my editor suggested that I gather a group of women who would be willing to talk about their money issues -- and have me write about them. That seemed like a great idea -- until he let me know (at the last minute, if you want to know the truth) that he wanted these women to not only use their real names, but real numbers. Including me. Part 2: Unloading big financial commitments Follow along as one of these women realizes shes in over her head financially. Read the next article in this series: "Climb out of your financial black hole." Shattering the cone of financial silence I had a cold, dry taste in my mouth when I contacted the women with this new development. I felt like I was asking them to strip naked in front of me and potentially millions of readers. Money today is the equivalent of bare flesh in the Victorian era. You can hint at it, whisper about it, speculate wildly about it -- but for God's sake, keep it hidden! But to my surprise, of those who had committed to the group, all but one agreed to extreme financial self-exposure. Related news and commentary on MSN Money
So what could I do but, shivering, step out of my comfortable columnist duds to be as naked as they are. ("Fear Factor" has nothing on this group. Snakes? Needles? Try broadcasting your income on the Internet.) Why we hide our financial selves For me, the reasons I was willing to bare all were:
"I was raised that talking about money was inappropriate and rude," says Brice, 36, of New York City and a contributing editor to various decorating magazines. Unfortunately, she adds, "The only thing I did learn about money growing up was that you didn't talk about it -- and that's part of why I'm in the financial situation I'm in today." The benefits of financial honesty Like all of the women in the group, Brice has some financial issues she'd like to get on top of -- a monthly freelance income that fluctuates between zero and $9,000 (as freelance incomes do), about $10,000 in school and consumer debt, and a strong desire to become a better money manager for both present and future goals. She hopes to save for a down payment on a home and learn how to invest. Most important, however, like the other women in the group, Brice believes that keeping financial truths under lock and key only perpetuates denial and prevents people from making true financial progress: "I was reading an article by Suze Orman, and she said that if you want to change your (money) habits, you have to put everything on the table. You have to admit the truth about where you're at." Beth, 37, who works for the federal Bureau of Land Management in Oregon, couldn't agree more. Her parents had a good income, she says, but they never managed their money well. As a result, money was always a stressful topic, fraught with confusion in her family. "Nobody ever talked about what was really going on," she recalls. Now, Beth, also the mother of a 16-month-old, is all about putting it out there. "Partly that's my personality. If you ask me what I think about something, I'll tell you." But mainly she doesn't see any benefit to hiding the financial facts. In fact, Beth fearlessly sent me a complete financial dossier -- everything from her household income ($53,000) to her federal retirement account ($43,000) to the balance in her checking account ($500), her husband's remaining grad school loan ($8,500) and their credit-card debt ($6,000). Growing up financially For some women, like Kinnera, 27, who works for a not-for-profit in New York, financial self-disclosure is tied to becoming a financial grown-up. In grad school a few years ago, "everyone was getting credit cards, and they told me it was a good idea." So she got seven. 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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