Uncovered: Life Beyond
Join the conversations of Rebecca and Naomi, two ex-Amish Mennonite women who jumped the proverbial fence in their younger years and later experienced college as first-gen, non-traditional students. They discuss pursuing formal education while raising a family, navigating the hidden curriculum of academia, and other dimensions of reimagining a life beyond high-demand religion. Send your questions to uncoveredlifebeyond@gmail.com.
Uncovered: Life Beyond
51. Break Free from Money Myths and Take Charge of Your Future
Rebecca and Naomi tackle the often-taboo subject of financial freedom for women breaking away from restrictive traditions and relationships where money is used as a form of control. They explore the intentional ways financial dependence is created and maintained, especially in religious contexts.
• Many women go from parents' homes to married life with no financial experience or autonomy
• Financial manipulation often disguises itself as protection or spiritual guidance
• Staying in the dark about finances doesn't exempt you from legal responsibility
• The importance of having your own bank account, even with minimal funds
• Learning to advocate for yourself when patronized about financial matters
• Religious communities frequently use spiritual language to maintain financial control
• Breaking financial dependency cycles is difficult but leads to greater security
• Resources like financial podcasts, budget tools, and campus resources can help build literacy
• Starting small and learning basic terminology empowers better decision-making
• Taking control of your finances compounds not just money but internal confidence
Send us your questions or share what financial advice you'd give your younger self through the link at the top of our show notes. Our next episode will explore "the secret salary of a stay-at-home parent" and how that factors into women's financial independence.
Links to Resources
@Marriageishappening on the struggle to be heard
Family Budget Tracker Bundle Google Sheets, Expense & Bill Tracker, Debt Payoff Sinking Funds, Paycheck Budget (Etsy)
Financial Feminist Podcast (she has thoughts about Dave Ramsey)
Kathryn Anne Edwards (@Keds_economist)
How to Freeze and Unfreeze Your Credit with All 3 Bureaus
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This is Rebecca and this is Naomi. We're 40-something moms and first cousins who know what it's like to veer off the path assigned to us.
Speaker 2:We've juggled motherhood, marriage, college and career, as we questioned our faith traditions while exploring new identities and ways of seeing the world.
Speaker 1:Without any maps for either of us to follow. We've had to figure things out as we go and appreciate that detours and dead ends are essential to the path Along the way, we've uncovered a few insights we want to share with fellow travelers.
Speaker 2:We want to talk about the questions we didn't know who to ask and the options we didn't know we had.
Speaker 1:So, whether you're feeling stuck or already shaking things up, we are here to cheer you on and assure you that the best is yet to come. Welcome to Uncovered Life Beyond. Hello everyone, Welcome back to Uncovered Life Beyond. This is Naomi.
Speaker 2:And this is Rebecca. So we are back, and today we're going to talk about financial freedom for cycle breakers, for women. But before we get into all of that, I think it's time we do a little bit update what's happening in your life, naomi.
Speaker 1:Oh well, snow cold, so much cold, so much cold. Today, tomorrow, this week it's supposed to be up above freezing, and so everybody has been just kind of hanging on till then. So I've had a few Zoom classes, just so that my students and I didn't have to get out at eight o'clock in the morning on these super cold mornings, and that has been kind of a mixed bag. I mean I'm glad we can do it, but then also, you know, it's its own complication, I guess.
Speaker 1:In a more personal sense, some things that I've been thinking about are you know, how to really make more spaciousness in my life for the things that are really important for me, for the things that will allow me to be healthy, both physically, emotionally, like in a lot of different levels. And I know this is kind of sounds abstract and I don't mean to be vague, but in the interest of transparency I'll just say that one of those areas is in the relationship I'm in. It's a relationship I've been in for over five years and has meant a lot to me, and yet there are some things that we're needing to figure out if it can meet the needs for both of us. And the reason I say this is because I know so often these kinds of situations are not talked about. There's kind of a taboo about talking about them, at least until they're all nice and wrapped up and we know what the end of the story is.
Speaker 2:And I don't know what the end of the story is. When things aren't messy, when things aren't messy. When things aren't messy, we talk about it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, right, right. And I guess I would like to see a world where we can be a little more open about those things. And I understand why people aren't, because it's complicated and involves other people's lives and all that. But I do think that, given the statistical likelihood of how many people are asking themselves really deep questions, big questions about the relationships they're in, who are in the state of going? Is this working? Is it not? Is you know what? What do we do? It's so common, it is so common and yet we rarely talk about it. And I think that being open about it can and not in a, not in a nasty way, not in a I'm not talking about a kind of destructive way, but just being honest about the reality of it can free us from that sense that maybe it can free us from the burden of needing to look like we have it all together all the time. Not that anybody would assume I have it all together, let's be clear.
Speaker 2:Quite the contrary, Quite the contrary. You always have it together. That's cute, you know. I think so often and I'm gathering this from my own experience, but even a lot of women I've talked to, I thinkive that we probably don't know and we tend to be slow to not just ask but insist that our voices are heard, Because I think so often we timidly ask for our voices to be heard and then when they're not heard, we take it as confirmation that they probably shouldn't be heard. So I think sometimes at some level, you almost have to insist that you're heard, and that so goes against so much of what so many of us have been taught.
Speaker 1:Both for us as women, in terms of what we should do, and also in terms of men and what they can expect.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think it goes both ways yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think so often I see and women do this too, but I think to a larger degree men confidently show up and assume that whatever they're thinking is going to be taken seriously, or whatever they're saying is going to be taken seriously, and I think women often tend to show up more timid and or feeling like they have to have a whole case and have everything all thought through. It is. It's like planning a court case, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And sometimes, if you don't have the court case, you'll not be heard yeah, so it's not worth.
Speaker 1:it's not worth bringing it up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:But then that'll come back to bite you in the butt because then you'll be told oh, but you didn't voice what you wanted, so how was? I can't read your mind. So, yeah, there was that. There was a really good reel on Instagram that described this dynamic and I think you know, like the comment section made it clear, this is like such such a common dynamic in. We'll have to make put that, let's do that. We'll have to make sure, yeah, in the show notes, because that was a good reel and I think it's so true.
Speaker 2:And, to be fair, I don't think this is necessarily ill-intentioned from the male partner, so much as it's just part of how we are culturally, religiously, trained. It's a lot of the assumptions that come with it, and so challenging those assumptions is going to get messy. It just does. It gets really messy and it's scary. It's scary from every angle.
Speaker 1:It is, and I will just say that also, as women, we're conditioned to deny our age, to wish for youth and do everything we can to stay as youthful as possible. And I tell you, age is the best kept secret when it comes to women's empowerment. And I tell you, when I think about myself, comparing myself now to who I was 10 years ago and some of that, I don't know, might be hormonal shifts there are a lot of different factors that I'm sure go into that. But I guess what I'm just saying is like, well, I've seen the expression and I feel like it's finally true for me in a really emotional way, like in a way that I not just, not just intellectually, but like I actually feel this way that a partner isn't competing with other partners Like their. Their competition is not other partners. A partner for me has to compete with how much I enjoy just being by myself, and I think so often or at least I know I'll speak for myself, but I bet I'm not alone in this We've been brought up with this idea of that.
Speaker 1:You know, talk about being excuse me, being ready for a relationship or not.
Speaker 1:Or you know, if you don't, if you don't take care of yourself first, you won't be ready for that, or if you don't love yourself first, and it always struck me as kind of this, like these are the qualifications you have to have. This is what you have to do to earn a relationship, a romantic relationship, and what I'm finding more and more like no, no, no, no, no. Having the rest of your life in good shape, having financial stability, having financial security, having friendships, having your own life that you genuinely enjoy, is one of the most empowering things that a woman can have, because it then frees us from staying in situations that are not good for us. And when we are comparing one bad situation with another bad situation, right, We'll stay in there with the devil, we know. But when we know that the alternative to a bad relationship or a relationship that's not working out, or where it's just simply two people going in different directions, when we have those other good things in our lives, it's so much easier to let go of the stuff that's not serving us.
Speaker 2:And I think the other thing that I've realized is so, between moving from Pennsylvania to Ohio and then getting married, there was about three years that I lived on my own, which was very unusual for Mennonite girls, like that was not a thing. In fact it was taboo, especially at the time. Right right, it was absolutely taboo. But in that I learned to be okay with being alone. In fact, I enjoyed being alone. It wasn't scary to be alone, and I'm not sure that everyone understands that. Like, learning to be comfortable alone is huge. And I think you mentioned the thing of you know it's not competing against another partner, it's competing with my own company. That's real and I'm not sure. Sometimes I wonder if that's not why the push is to go from your parents' house to your husband's house for women. So you don't have that, you don't get a taste of, yeah, you don't have the space of having your own independence, your own space, your own, your own person.
Speaker 1:Like just be just learning to enjoy your own person and not be afraid of it, right, right, and you know, I think for so long I heard those words and it sounded like the aloneness was like eating your vegetables, like you just got to learn to enjoy those vegetables and you know what. No thanks Like but, and so I just want to be really clear, and again, this is where I go. Maybe it's, maybe it's perimenopause, you know, maybe it's my decreasing estrogen, that is. That is part of this. But I just want to say there is. It doesn't have to be like eating your vegetables, it doesn't have to be like taking those big, you know horse pills when we are talking about genuinely enjoying our own lives as a single person. To my former self, I would say it's possible and it's worth cultivating because of the way it empowers you. Yeah Right, so well, that got deep fast. Look at us. So how about you, rebecca? What's going on in your world these days? You've had snow too right.
Speaker 2:So much snow, so cold. 30 feels downright balmy. Yes, when it's 30, I wonder if I should wear a coat as a necessary no joke. Yeah, in some ways it's nice. The snow makes Ohio feel less gray because there's more reflection. When the sun does shine a little bit At some. On some occasions, though, it's almost offensive, because it is really bright some mornings at seven o'clock, it's like settle down there. I still want a little bit of, you know, darkness, but no, we've, we've, we've really had a lot of snow, a lot of cold weather. I just keep thinking we're, though we're almost at the end of February, and then we're going to be into March and we're on the home stretch. So, yay, spring, yeah.
Speaker 2:So, like I mentioned earlier, today we're going to be talking about finances, and I mean, you know, this is what we know about finances. None of us have an accounting degree. My husband does, so I'm going to tap into that, but this is just more about and we're going to be including some resources, but this is really about observations. We've had conversations we've had, and recently I've had multiple conversations with females who went from their parents' home straight to their husband's house their home, married home, their home, married home and 20 years later realized they have no idea about investments, they have no idea about accounts, they have no idea about passwords, they have no idea what's going on and oftentimes they're kind of reprimanded when they ask and for several reasons and probably because I wasn't on my own played into part of the reasons. Things were different for Matt and I because I would have had my own established account, I was saving money, I was paying bills, you were living independently.
Speaker 2:I was living independently, I was making my own car payments, but I also worked at a company where I did payroll and I knew how 401ks worked, I knew how insurances worked, I knew how that was and I had my own. I had my own retirement funds. So I always knew the terminology, sort of, and I knew how to ask questions. So I'm sure that to some degree it helps when you have an idea of what type of questions to ask, when you have the terminology Sure.
Speaker 2:Sure, but I always had my own account, my own checking account, and to me that was really important, not because I had anything to hide, so much as I wanted to be able to buy a Christmas gift for my husband without asking him for $200. And I wanted, I just needed that independence. And at some point, after one of those conversations with these women who didn't have access to any of this, I was telling my husband a little bit about these conversations with these women and at one point I said thank you so much for not doing that to me. And then, like three minutes later, I was angry that I was thanking him for it, because is this how low the bar is?
Speaker 1:That treating you like an equal partner is some kind of special favor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so, yes, I mean I am grateful, but I also think it should be normal. This is what should be expected in relationships, and I also want to acknowledge having financial conversations are difficult, they're stressful. My guess is, many times the husband might not know as much as he thinks the world expects him to know, and I think women are taught. They just don't know, and so they don't know what kind of questions to ask, when the reality is, maybe the guy doesn't know as much either, and so it's okay to learn together, it's okay to figure things out together, but let's do it together instead of assuming that one party is incompetent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that one party knows everything and the other one knows nothing?
Speaker 2:you know like, yeah, yeah yeah, I mean, you know, to be fair in my situation, my husband's an accountant. He, he, he can spend numbers all around me and I'm happy for that. I don't, like, I don't necessarily enjoy numbers. At the same time, I do ask questions and I am somewhat involved.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I certainly have access to passwords and accounts. Right.
Speaker 1:Well, if we're living and I think most of us are in states where, or most states, have communal property laws, so that you know, essentially, if the marriage dissolves, things are split down the middle, right? So from that perspective, those spouses who have no clue what's going on their names are still on those accounts. If something happens, they're going down with the ship and their lack of knowledge doesn't exempt them from legal responsibility. So it's not just about knowing for one's own benefit, but also, like, if I'm gonna be held to account for something, I need to know what's going on.
Speaker 2:Your point is really important. I was just in a conversation with somebody and she said all of a sudden, I'm afraid that he opened up accounts in my name using my social security number that I was not aware of. And I'm just now starting to wonder.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 2:Guys, guys, guys, that is financial abuse.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fraud yeah.
Speaker 2:That's a big problem, I don't care if you're married, that is financial abuse. Yeah. Fraud yeah, that's a big problem, I don't care if you're married, that is financial abuse. That is not okay. And let's teach our daughters, let's teach our sons differently, and that's what this is all about.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I think many of us who are first generation non-traditional college students right so who maybe haven't been expected to be financially empowered or you know, know about these things, struggle with this, but I think there's lots of others too.
Speaker 1:I think it's, you know, as we emerge from centuries of patriarchy well, I hope we fully emerge. It's an ongoing struggle, but as we struggle for equality, I think then this is something that is not just limited to those of us from this background. Another layer that can add to this lack of knowledge or lack of exposure is also if we come from a family where entrepreneurship or being self-employed was the norm or the family business. So if we are the first generation who is getting a job, with a 401k and with insurance and dealing with all those things, then I know for myself I had a lot to learn about all those things, just because they weren't part of the world I grew up in, and so my family couldn't have coached me on that if they wanted to, because that wasn't part of their experience either. So just kind of the family culture, aside from the patriarchal structure, can also be an issue.
Speaker 2:And I think, along with that, for those of us who were part of a family business, particularly for females, I think many of us didn't receive a paycheck. We kind of work for free. So we did not even have money to manage, and if we did, it was just a. You know, I got 20 bucks a month.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, that was miserly back in the day.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think, I think there are many situations where our work wasn't valued, we weren't given money to manage, and so it's really something we have no experience with.
Speaker 1:Right and then yes, and one of those places where it leaves us unequipped is when we're negotiating a salary at a job, when we're thinking about what is reasonable, what's a reasonable ask, or how do you even go about approaching an employer about salary adjustments, that kind of thing, like all that. There's a whole skill set around that and the good news is that there's no secret sauce like anyone can learn this right. It's just about some of us get that as we're growing up and don't even think about the fact that it's a thing, and then the rest of us maybe don't know it's a thing because we didn't grow up with it.
Speaker 2:Right, and I do think learning to advocate for yourself is so important. I had a situation where, weirdly enough, I had a situation where, weirdly enough, my boss kept figuring out ways to actually dock my pay. But it was framed in a way that I was getting a raise and I remember at one point saying I know you are good with money, but I think I understand money as well. Maybe I said I understand math, but I do understand math. And what you've done is told me you're giving me a raise because you appreciate me, but you've literally given me less money to take home. Yeah, I said I don't understand how that's good money logic for anyone but you and I'm not okay with it, and I say that to say trust yourself. I would never survive as an accountant ever, like I would be in a puddle in the corner crying. That type of detail just does not work well in the life of Rebecca. But I can do basic math and so can you Right and you know.
Speaker 1:And now that you say that I've had the same kind of situation, I, to my regret now I did not speak up about it. It was a situation we were going into a work project that was going to take a lot of overtime and so I got promoted to a salaried position so now I wouldn't be getting overtime pay. And I remember making just a comment in passing about it, you know, and just kind of getting the message that I was just really being ungrateful and I'm sorry, and I was still in the headspace of wanting to show I was a team player and all these things. And I know I was getting a pay cut in terms of the hourly. You know what I was getting per hour.
Speaker 1:And I guess I just want to say to people who are in that situation let yourself, even if you're not 100% sure how to go about it, a of all, there is lots of scripts out there that you can use to give you a framework, you know, give you a sense of how to go about doing it. But even if you aren't confident, do it anyway, because you'll figure out how to do it better next time and, most of all, they don't respect you if you don't call them on that BS. They do not respect you.
Speaker 2:They might shame you, they might use all kinds of manipulation to give you a hard time for negotiating for yourself, but they still don't respect you if you don't speak up, right, and they're going to run under the assumption that you're going to be intimidated, yeah, yes, and they're going to tell you how great they are with math or with money, assuming that you, in turn, believe you're not quite as great and so the way you're doing math isn't making sense. Your math is just fine.
Speaker 1:Well, and you don't have to be great at math to do addition and subtraction multiplication Right, we can do this. We can do this. I think if you get through elementary school, you know you got that.
Speaker 2:Trust what you know, trust what you see and learn to advocate for yourself Absolutely. And I think this is going to be really hard for those of us who have worked for peanuts, whether it was in a family situation, whether it was as a stay-at-home mom, whatever it was. When you're used to working and not getting money for it, it becomes really hard to advocate for yourself, but it's a skill we need to learn and it's a skill we need to teach our daughters.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. Some of the resources that are out there are, you know, freely available on YouTube channels Mint and YNAB. You Need a Budget are two resources that are pretty popular. I haven't used either of them, I don't think, but I hear them advertised all the time. Something that I found recently that I like is it was like less than $4 on Etsy. It was a spreadsheet bundle that had an integrated household budget so integrated with sinking funds and investments and debt and all these things, along with a monthly budget and you put in the numbers from your bank account and then it kept these running tallies.
Speaker 1:Hats off to whoever put that spreadsheet together. I will link it in the show notes because I think that's. If you don't want to go with something that has like a monthly fee, this is a good alternative. But also if you're involved with a, if you're attending college, your college or university might have financial advising of some sort, or there's a business school with financial planning, they might offer some kind of service activity for students. So that's something to think about. Also, I've already received free tax help at the library, like at the public library, where they'll have retired accountants who will be there and volunteer their time to help work through simple tax forms.
Speaker 1:So another one is the Financial Feminist Podcast, and one of the reasons I love her is she has thoughts about Dave Ramsey, and I think Dave Ramsey has a lot of good things to say for a certain income bracket, but I think if you're not in that income bracket, his advice really is not very helpful, and so she does some really good analysis of that, and she's also tuned into, like, the political realities of the time. And then someone I came across more recently is this, catherine Ann Edwards, and on IG her handle is Keds Economist, and she has some really well put together, very thoughtful reels about the economy as a whole and how it affects us as women. She had one of the best analyses of multi-level marketing and why that plays the role that it does in our society, and so it's like one of the best breakdowns of it that I've ever heard, and she's got lots of other good things to say too. So we'll link all these resources in the show notes.
Speaker 2:So our next point is dependency on family and religious institutions and I think, for a lot of us, when we come from groups that actually encourage this financial dependency on spouses, parents, church leaders, whatever it is, what it does is creates dependency on anyone and everything but yourself and, I think, reinforces this notion that maybe we don't have the skills or the abilities. Some of us even had parents who would take all their money until they turned 20 or 21. Some of us came from environments where we were able to pilfer money away. Your parents might take it from you, and I think that really can develop this mentality of scarcity and this mentality of will I be even able to hang on to it?
Speaker 2:True story when I was 16, I walked into a bank that my parents did not bank with and set up my own account. I had $10 to put into it, but I set up my own account and ensured that my parents would not be able to get into it. I mean, I stood there and I asked them how can I do this so my parents cannot touch it? Wow, in hindsight I'm like freaking out a little bit that I did that, but the concern was real.
Speaker 1:I just think that's so poignant. But also it speaks to your desire for autonomy and how it was being denied to you. And I think that's important, because in a lot of these contexts that we're talking about here, this kind of dependency is shrouded in all kinds of hyper-spiritual language and it's all in the. You know, if it's not self-sacrifice, then it's about loyalty or about well, mutual aid is the word that comes to mind, and that's not it. But this sense of like shared, you know, kind of shared joint venture, that kind of thing. But the spiritual thing is so big, right, and the sense like if you go out and do anything independent, you are acting in rebellion, and you know. This is so, you know, and yet I think that's something we're gonna we're gonna tackle here in the coming conversations about this, because that is such a tool of control and abuse and we've got to call it what it is.
Speaker 2:It is. And the other thing I would suggest is I had the luxury of being number four in a row of eight kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I could observe what was happening in my family. I saw what was happening, but I think the rest of us all have that luxury. We can observe what's happening in our communities. We can observe what's happening in our churches. We can observe how other wives are doing or not doing, and we can all take steps to protect ourselves and others within that. And it might be taking $10 to a bank that has no connections to anyone you know, that you know of, but that $10 can change things and, if nothing else, it gives you the autonomy you're looking for, it lets you know you can do this yes, exactly.
Speaker 1:And I just want to say that is more revolutionary than we might think. I know for myself, when my ex and I were kind of in the early stages of splitting up and things were not. Things were amicable, you know, we were, we were, you know, working together on this, but I went to set up my own bank account and I could not believe how hard it was to communicate that no, this is a separate, whole, separate thing, not just like a sub account. And you know, and just a couple of weeks before my now ex had gone in and set up an account for himself and his business, no big deal at all. Nobody blinked when I went in. It was like they weren't quite sure what I was talking about. I had to clarify no, no, no, this is a whole other account. So I'm just saying and this is 2018.
Speaker 2:So yeah, about 15 years ago I went to set up my own account at another bank and at one point the lady I was working with shook her head and she said I think you're the first woman who's come in independently to set up an account. And this was like 15 years ago. She could not believe my husband wasn't with me. She was impressed, but she kept shaking her head and making comments about it.
Speaker 1:And I think the takeaway here that's so important to underscore is that at least as of right now in the US, no one can force you to give up your paycheck, even if it's a religious expectation and I think so often it is framed in this religious language of generosity or giving or tithing or family loyalty because the legal right's not there and they can't legally take that money from you, and so it gets manipulated, spirituality gets manipulated as a way to take that, and so just know that's illegal. This might sound overly dramatic, but just bear with me. When you look at the definitions for child trafficking, that definition hits closer to home than I think a lot of people would like to think.
Speaker 2:Well, in any situation where you have people attempting to control and take away autonomy and independence, it has its own form of abuse, and I think sometimes we are so accustomed to that being the normal that we don't always recognize it. At the same time, I think as you work your way through the process, we might often be the first ones to recognize it then.
Speaker 1:Once you know what it looks like.
Speaker 2:All of a sudden, you're like, oh, I've seen this before.
Speaker 1:Right, Because I think this brings us to our, quite naturally to our third point, which is that many of us in this situation are at risk of financial manipulation and control, you know, whether it's within that community of origin or then after. We leave it until we figure out those patterns, until we are able to recognize them. And I think we just got to get really clear with ourselves that financial abuse is still financial abuse, regardless of what kind of good name you put on it.
Speaker 2:And again, there are a plethora of podcasts, of Instagram accounts who are speaking about this. We can easily educate ourselves enough to at least have a basic understanding of what is happening and figure out ways to start protecting ourselves.
Speaker 1:Yes, and when you say that, okay, I have mixed feelings about Dave Ramsey. No, I have a lot of beef Feelings. I have a lot of feelings, but once in a while he says some things that are really true and they're not original with him, it's just I associate them with him. But one is you know he talks about, like, when you go to a place of business or wherever it is, and they start talking down to you and, and and I would say not just place of business a family member, um, they start talking down to you, um, as if like, oh well, your questions about this and this and this, you just don't understand. And they're like recognize, it's not that hard.
Speaker 1:And yes, there's lots. I think there are lots of systems, financial systems that are set up to be difficult and confusing for many of us to navigate. But anyone of average intelligence like it can be explained to someone of average intelligence. And if someone is suggesting you're not smart enough to understand, that's a red flag right there, because if they can't explain it to you in simple words, like a five-year-old could understand, there's a problem Exactly Because they're benefiting off of you not understanding.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:They don't want you to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like we have one of the best financial advisors out there, and I was just on a phone call with him the other day and I said so. Now, I know that there's stocks and I know what stocks are. I know there's bonds, I understand what bonds are, but what's the other thing? What's that other thing called Mutual funds?
Speaker 1:Yes, sucks bonds and mutual funds Right right, but he didn't laugh at me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, he didn't laugh at me. He said you're right, it's mutual funds and this is how they're different. He didn't laugh at me, no, no, and for me that's huge because there have been many times in my life where I didn't know and I could say that same thing and be met with you, silly little goose, ridicule, yeah, yeah, pay attention when that happens, like really pay attention, and I'm going to even say be offended when that happens, be offended, walk away, because I am at the point where I don't like to agree with Dave Ramsey.
Speaker 2:But yes, if that's happening, walk away. There's other people out there, you don't need to subject yourself to that.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well, let's be clear, dave Ramsey did not come up with that. He just happened to be the person that stuck in my mind.
Speaker 2:Are you saying that if Dave Ramsey says something that actually makes sense, he probably wasn't original with him?
Speaker 1:I wouldn't, I'd never think of something like that.
Speaker 2:Back to the point. I do think we need to understand that there are options available to us and that pilfering money away, even if it's $10 at a time, makes a difference. In Tia Leving's book A Well-Trained Wife, she writes about collecting gift cards that she had received as payments for blogging that she had done, and she used that to escape because she had literally no access to the family's income. And the one thing I do know is we women and probably we humans men are smart too, but we know how to figure out ways to meet needs. I mean, that has been our job. That has been our job since little up figuring out ways to meet needs that we might not necessarily have even good access to. We can figure this out and figure it out without guilt.
Speaker 1:Exactly, exactly, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 1:Well, I think Tia Leving's book is such a good description of the danger of marrying without financial protection or how that can look when you just like slide into a situation where you're set up to be blocked from access to that kind of thing, and I think it's no accident that the net result of this is leaving a woman without options.
Speaker 1:And I think even in some of the FLDS, the Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints, narratives I've read of people who have escaped, and so those are some of the very reclusive groups in Utah that practice polygamy and a whole bunch of other things, and they were very conscious about getting these young women married and with lots of children and pregnant lots of times, so that they couldn't escape, and they were financially dependent. And, man, you talk about the mountains that they had to overcome to gain any kind of financial stability when they did escape the few who have. But I guess what I'm saying is that plan to cut people, often women, out of knowing what's going on is not an accident, and they might drape it in all kinds of hyper-spiritual language, but it's intentional.
Speaker 2:So remember the banking account that I started when I was 16, with $10 for two years and I would receive an allowance of $20 a month. That's what I $10 here when I was disowned at 18, I had $100 in there and that was all. That was literally all I had. That was it. That was it. I don't think I can underscore how important having that type of resource is, and if someone tells you you can't have it, I would be concerned that the motivation is to ensure that you don't have a way out.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And you know, something that might feel like a world away from what we're talking about here is the issue of a prenup agreement, and that's just an agreement before a couple gets married about what would happen if the marriage dissolved. And I'm bringing this up here under the umbrella of this point about the danger of marrying without financial protection and how often this can happen. And I just want to say that I think the prevailing idea out there in a lot of communities, like religious communities, is that a prenup is a plan to get divorced. In fact, I think Dave Ramsey says that too, and I was watching Love is Blind this week the most recent episode and the most recent season and there was a woman on the show who was suggesting that she and her fiance get a prenup before they get married, and there was some, you know, his family was kind of like wait, what's going on here? But when you drill down into the situation, it actually made a lot of sense and she was very clear no, no, no, she's not. She wants this marriage to last. That's not the issue. But then she described what the terms were that she was wanting and they were incredibly reasonable terms, and so I think when we that the devil is in the details and, I think, being aware that a prenup doesn't have to favor the person who has the most power already, a prenup can be fair. A prenup is like for worst case scenario Just because we have a fire extinguisher in our house doesn't mean we're planning to set it on fire.
Speaker 1:Having a prenup and knowing and I think part of the reason probably that this is not more of an issue in a lot of our you know backgrounds is that we were coming into marriage without anything. You know. I mean like I know there was nothing to, as they say, there was nothing to nap when I got married. But, you know, when we think about the next generation, when you think about preparing your kids, especially if you've got daughters who are having careers before they're married, I think this is something that we can be thinking about.
Speaker 1:So another way that we can be financially vulnerable is just the fact of having limited safety nets and family estrangement when we do leave a restrictive or high demand community, and it might mean giving up an inheritance, it might mean giving up family support, and even when that's just moral support that matters, or a boomerang home to fall back on, as they call it, like a place to land if the bottom falls out, and I think that precarity is so real, so terrifying. I feel like in the last few weeks I've read multiple posts on social media about young people who are maybe in poor health or in a really vulnerable position and their families are putting all kinds of religious pressure on them, like trying to force them to church or force them to do this or that, and I'm sure the families mean well, but it is abusive and it's oppressive and it's why many young people in these situations choose precarity over hanging around for that kind of situation.
Speaker 2:Caring for other people with strings attached is just some of the worst type of care. It is the worst type of care and like can we please stop doing that? We have an obligation to each other because of our humanness, because we are human. That's enough to meet needs with strings attached, whether it is attend my church or whether it is give me some of your money or whatever it is I just think is so manipulative, scammy, cruel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's cruel. Yeah, you're right, it is, it is, it's cruel, it's cruel, it's cruel. It's exploiting an advantage, exploiting a position of power yeah, to force someone else to comply with your wishes, yeah, and I think it's like we, if we're used to needing to present a whole legal case to advance, we might feel like, oh well, I'm not sure how to respond to this, so I guess I have to go along with it. No, no, when someone is trying to control you, you do not need a good reason. You do not need a good reason to push back.
Speaker 2:Not understanding something is a good enough reason to say no, exactly, exactly something is a good enough reason to say no, exactly, exactly. And if you don't understand it, it doesn't mean that you're stupid. It doesn't mean that you're dumb or uneducated, it just simply means you don't understand it. And if it can't be explained in a way that makes sense, no is a good enough answer 100%.
Speaker 1:I also want to say that for folks who are maybe going to college or and so this might be someone who's young, it could be someone who's older, but any.
Speaker 1:If you're in a situation like that, don't feel shy about asking for help.
Speaker 1:The default assumption about most college students is that they have a family at home who are sending them care packages and they've got dad's credit card or something right.
Speaker 1:That's often the default assumption. That is not the reality for most students today, and I think there are I'm not saying all faculty and staff on campuses, but I think the vast majority genuinely care about the students there and if they know someone needs help, they want to do what they can. Oftentimes, schools will have like a, or some schools will have like a food pantry for students, but this is not going to be something that's going to be promoted on the website or in the brochures when they're recruiting students, right, so you have to go, look for it, you have to ask for it, but this is why you know spending time hanging out at in lounges or around you know staff offices or faculty offices like getting to know people on campus and developing those relationships can be so helpful in connecting you to those resources and just know they might look different on different campuses, but they are worth exploring, they are worth asking for.
Speaker 2:You know, I had a professor once who one day said, hey, we're going to go on a little field trip today, and he was slightly odd and I was kind of like eh, but he took us to the food pantry on campus. And he just said I want you guys to know that it's here. And since we're here, anyway, everyone just pick something out and let's go back, but know that it's here.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love it and I hope you make good use of it. I love that All of a sudden he wasn't quite so weird to me. I mean he was still slightly weird, but that's huge. That was huge to me and I was so glad I didn't know there was. Well, I think I had heard about one, but I wouldn't have known where to find it and I so admired that he did that.
Speaker 1:And one of the things I love about what your professor did is prompting everyone to take something, because I think it's so easy. If we are used to being the ones giving, it's hard, it can be hard to accept that we are in the position of receiving, but if we can accept, hey, we can both give and receive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's, that's really what community is about or, in that situation, if he had an inkling that there was a kid that was hungry, yeah, that kid didn't stand out. It was like no, everyone, take something. Like it was, it wasn't take something if you want something. It was like no, everyone, take something, love that. It wasn't take something if you want something. It was like I want each of you guys to take something. And my guess was that he had a suspicion that there was a need, yeah, and he didn't want that kid to feel singled out.
Speaker 1:That's brilliant. That's so awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I thought too it was really smart out.
Speaker 1:That's brilliant, that's so awesome. Yeah, I thought too, it was really smart.
Speaker 1:So the sixth and final item on our list here is that many of us in the situation are trying to break cycles of financial disempowerment.
Speaker 1:I just want to say with this that when you are at the front end of making a shift like this, it can feel so overwhelming, it can feel so difficult, but it's worth. Let me rephrase that In my experience I'll only speak for myself. In my experience it has been worth making that independence possible, making it happen, and ultimately I found myself in a better financial position. So when I was facing divorce, the financial impact of that was one of my biggest concerns and it was rough and it was really rough. But now I'm in a more secure financial position than I ever was when I was married.
Speaker 1:So I just say that and let me also say this is while I'm in a job where when we do get a cost of living raise, it doesn't even keep up with inflation. So essentially I've been getting a pay cut every year and even so, my financial security is better, and so I just want to offer that as hope. The struggle is real and I don't want to diminish that in any way. But also the struggle sucks. The struggle sucks and it is real and I don't want to diminish that in any way, but also struggle.
Speaker 2:the struggle sucks, the struggle sucks and it is really feeling, that feeling of not knowing how you're going to make car payment, how you're going to pay rent. It's, it's scary, it's real.
Speaker 1:It's real. But if you have an opportunity, if you see that you have an opportunity to create a new path, to go in a different direction, trust yourself. Trust yourself. I've, as I've, learned to do things around the house, I've learned to say if a man can do it, I can do it Exactly.
Speaker 1:So, when we think about a couple of action points here as we close things out, one of the things that I think about is a suggestion that I heard someone it may have been Heather Cox Richardson who no, no, no, it was Janet Yellen who was saying recommending going in and freezing our credit scores with all three credit bureaus, and I'm going to put a link in the show notes, because if you're going, what are you talking about? Read the article in the link and it'll explain it to you. But just given all the security breaches that have been happening in recent months and then in recent weeks, this is one way to ensure that someone is not going and setting up bank accounts or credit card accounts in your name, and so we'll link that in the show notes. Do you have any other pieces of practical advice you want to?
Speaker 2:add Think about what advice you would give to your younger self and go, do that in small steps now. Starting now does make a difference, because the timing is never going to be perfect, because the timing is never going to be perfect, but taking control and showing up for yourself in small ways, I think really well, the financial term is, it compounds.
Speaker 1:It does.
Speaker 2:It does, sometimes not just in the sense of money, but I think what it does for you internally. The sense of confidence that could get you Is just as important.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. Our next episode in the series is going to be looking at the secret salary of a stay-at-home parent and how that factors in the work the labor of a stay-at-home parent, and how that factors in the work the labor of a stay-at-home parent. How does that factor into conversations about financial independence for women? So that's a whole other can of worms, but we're going to open it anyway. Look at us All right. Well, it's been great hanging out with you, our listeners, and wish you the best as you go take charge of your financial future.
Speaker 2:And if you have any questions or any topics you hope that we cover, send us a message. We would love to hear it. But also I would be really curious to know what advice you'd have for your younger self.
Speaker 1:There is a link in the show notes, at the top of our show notes, where you can send us a message right from your phone. So we can't wait to hear from you. Take care.
Speaker 2:Thank you for spending time with us today. The resources and materials we've mentioned are linked in the show notes and on Facebook at Uncovered Life Beyond.
Speaker 1:What are your thoughts about college and recovery from high demand religion? We know you have your own questions and experiences, and we want to talk about the topics that matter to you. Share them with us at uncoveredlifebeyondatgmailcom. That's uncoveredlifebeyondatgmailcom.
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Speaker 1:Until next time stay brave, stay bold, stay awkward. Thank you.
