March 10, 2025 • 56 mins
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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- Email: uncoveredlifebeyond@gmail.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is Rebecca and this is Naomi.
We're 40-something moms andfirst cousins who know what it's
like to veer off the pathassigned to us.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
We've juggled motherhood, marriage, college
and career, as we questioned ourfaith traditions while
exploring new identities andways of seeing the world.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Without any maps for either of us to follow.
We've had to figure things outas we go and appreciate that
detours and dead ends areessential to the path Along the
way, we've uncovered a fewinsights we want to share with
fellow travelers.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
We want to talk about the questions we didn't know
who to ask and the options wedidn't know we had.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
So, whether you're feeling stuck or already shaking
things up, we are here to cheeryou on and assure you that the
best is yet to come.
Welcome to Uncovered LifeBeyond.
Hello everyone, Welcome back toUncovered Life Beyond.
(01:08):
This is Naomi.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
And this is Rebecca.
So we are back, and today we'regoing to talk about financial
freedom for cycle breakers, forwomen.
But before we get into all ofthat, I think it's time we do a
little bit update what'shappening in your life, naomi.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Oh well, snow cold, so much cold, so much cold.
Today, tomorrow, this week it'ssupposed to be up above
freezing, and so everybody hasbeen just kind of hanging on
till then.
So I've had a few Zoom classes,just so that my students and I
(01:53):
didn't have to get out at eighto'clock in the morning on these
super cold mornings, and thathas 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.
In a more personal sense, somethings that I've been thinking
about are you know, how toreally make more spaciousness in
(02:16):
my life for the things that arereally important for me, for
the things that will allow me tobe healthy, both physically,
emotionally, like in a lot ofdifferent levels.
And I know this is kind ofsounds abstract and I don't mean
to be vague, but in theinterest of transparency I'll
just say that one of those areasis in the relationship I'm in.
(02:38):
It's a relationship I've beenin for over five years and has
meant a lot to me, and yet thereare some things that we're
needing to figure out if it canmeet the needs for both of us.
And the reason I say this isbecause I know so often these
kinds of situations are nottalked about.
(03:00):
There's kind of a taboo abouttalking about them, at least
until they're all nice andwrapped up and we know what the
end of the story is.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
And I don't know what the end of the story is.
When things aren't messy, whenthings aren't messy.
When things aren't messy, wetalk about it.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Right, right, right.
And I guess I would like to seea world where we can be a
little more open about thosethings.
And I understand why peoplearen't, because it's complicated
and involves other people'slives and all that.
But I do think that, given thestatistical likelihood of how
many people are askingthemselves really deep questions
(03:35):
, big questions about therelationships 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 commonand yet we rarely talk about it
.
And I think that being openabout it can and not in a, not
in a nasty way, not in a I'm nottalking about a kind of
(03:59):
destructive way, but just beinghonest about the reality of it
can free us from that sense thatmaybe it can free us from the
burden of needing to look likewe have it all together all the
time.
Not that anybody would assume Ihave it all together, let's be
clear.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Quite the contrary, Quite the contrary.
You always have it together.
That's cute, you know.
I think so often and I'mgathering this from my own
experience, but even a lot ofwomen I've talked to, I thinkive
(04:43):
that we probably don't know andwe tend to be slow to not just
ask but insist that our voicesare heard, Because I think so
often we timidly ask for ourvoices to be heard and then when
they're not heard, we take itas confirmation that they
probably shouldn't be heard.
So I think sometimes at somelevel, you almost have to insist
(05:06):
that you're heard, and that sogoes against so much of what so
many of us have been taught.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Both for us as women, in terms of what we should do,
and also in terms of men andwhat they can expect.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
I think it goes both ways yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
And I think so often I see and women do this too, but
I think to a larger degree menconfidently show up and assume
that whatever they're thinkingis going to be taken seriously,
or whatever they're saying isgoing to be taken seriously, and
(05:51):
I think women often tend toshow up more timid and or
feeling like they have to have awhole case and have everything
all thought through.
It is.
It's like planning a court case, yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
And sometimes, if you don't have the court case,
you'll not be heard yeah, soit's not worth.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
it's not worth bringing it up.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
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 onInstagram that described this
dynamic and I think you know,like the comment section made it
clear, this is like such such acommon dynamic in.
(06:42):
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'sso true.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
And, to be fair, I don't think this is necessarily
ill-intentioned from the malepartner, so much as it's just
part of how we are culturally,religiously, trained.
It's a lot of the assumptionsthat come with it, and so
challenging those assumptions isgoing to get messy.
It just does.
(07:14):
It gets really messy and it'sscary.
It's scary from every angle.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
It is, and I will just say that also, as women,
we're conditioned to deny ourage, to wish for youth and do
everything we can to stay asyouthful as possible.
And I tell you, age is the bestkept secret when it comes to
women's empowerment.
(07:42):
And I tell you, when I thinkabout myself, comparing myself
now to who I was 10 years agoand some of that, I don't know,
might be hormonal shifts thereare a lot of different factors
that I'm sure go into that.
But I guess what I'm justsaying is like, well, I've seen
the expression and I feel likeit's finally true for me in a
(08:06):
really emotional way, like in away that I not just, not just
intellectually, but like Iactually feel this way that a
partner isn't competing withother partners Like their.
Their competition is not otherpartners.
A partner for me has to competewith how much I enjoy just
being by myself, and I think sooften or at least I know I'll
(08:29):
speak for myself, but I bet I'mnot alone in this We've been
brought up with this idea ofthat.
You know, talk about beingexcuse me, being ready for a
relationship or not.
Or you know, if you don't, ifyou don't take care of yourself
first, you won't be ready forthat, or if you don't love
yourself first, and it alwaysstruck me as kind of this, like
these are the qualifications youhave to have.
(08:51):
This is what you have to do toearn a relationship, a romantic
relationship, and what I'mfinding more and more like no,
no, no, no, no.
Having the rest of your life ingood shape, having financial
stability, having financialsecurity, having friendships,
having your own life that yougenuinely enjoy, is one of the
(09:16):
most empowering things that awoman can have, because it then
frees us from staying insituations that are not good for
us.
And when we are comparing onebad situation with another bad
situation, right, We'll stay inthere with the devil, we know.
But when we know that thealternative to a bad
(09:38):
relationship or a relationshipthat's not working out, or where
it's just simply two peoplegoing in different directions,
when we have those other goodthings in our lives, it's so
much easier to let go of thestuff that's not serving us.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
And I think the other thing that I've realized is so,
between moving fromPennsylvania to Ohio and then
getting married, there was aboutthree years that I lived on my
own, which was very unusual forMennonite girls, like that was
not a thing.
In fact it was taboo,especially at the time.
Right right, it was absolutelytaboo.
(10:13):
But in that I learned to beokay 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 becomfortable alone is huge.
(10:34):
And I think you mentioned thething of you know it's not
competing against anotherpartner, it's competing with my
own company.
That's real and I'm not sure.
Sometimes I wonder if that'snot why the push is to go from
your parents' house to yourhusband's house for women.
So you don't have that, youdon't get a taste of, yeah, you
(10:57):
don't have the space of havingyour own independence, your own
space, your own, your own person.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
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 thosewords and it sounded like the
aloneness was like eating yourvegetables, like you just got to
learn to enjoy those vegetablesand you know what.
(11:27):
No thanks Like but, and so Ijust want to be really clear,
and again, this is where I go.
Maybe it's, maybe it'sperimenopause, 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 likeeating your vegetables, it
(11:47):
doesn't have to be like takingthose big, you know horse pills
when we are talking aboutgenuinely enjoying our own lives
as a single person.
To my former self, I would sayit's possible and it's worth
cultivating because of the wayit empowers you.
Yeah Right, so well, that gotdeep fast.
Look at us.
(12:08):
So how about you, rebecca?
What's going on in your worldthese days?
You've had snow too right.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
So much snow, so cold .
30 feels downright balmy.
Yes, when it's 30, I wonder ifI should wear a coat as a
necessary no joke.
Yeah, in some ways it's nice.
The snow makes Ohio feel lessgray because there's more
reflection.
When the sun does shine alittle bit At some.
(12:36):
On some occasions, though, it'salmost offensive, because it is
really bright some mornings atseven 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 alot 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'regoing to be into March and we're
(12:57):
on the home stretch.
So, yay, spring, yeah.
So, like I mentioned earlier,today we're going to be talking
about finances, and I mean, youknow, this is what we know about
finances.
None of us have an accountingdegree.
My husband does, so I'm goingto tap into that, but this is
(13:18):
just more about and we're goingto be including some resources,
but this is really aboutobservations.
We've had conversations we'vehad, and recently I've had
multiple conversations withfemales who went from their
parents' home straight to theirhusband's house their home,
(13:41):
married home, their home,married home and 20 years later
realized they have no idea aboutinvestments, they have no idea
about accounts, they have noidea about passwords, they have
no idea what's going on andoftentimes they're kind of
reprimanded when they ask andfor several reasons and probably
(14:04):
because I wasn't on my ownplayed into part of the reasons.
Things were different for Mattand I because I would have had
my own established account, Iwas saving money, I was paying
bills, you were livingindependently.
I was living independently, Iwas making my own car payments,
(14:24):
but I also worked at a companywhere I did payroll and I knew
how 401ks worked, I knew howinsurances worked, I knew how
that was and I had my own.
I had my own retirement funds.
So I always knew theterminology, sort of, and I knew
how to ask questions.
(14:45):
So I'm sure that to some degreeit helps when you have an idea
of what type of questions to ask, when you have the terminology
Sure.
Sure, but I always had my ownaccount, my own checking account
, and to me that was reallyimportant, not because I had
(15:06):
anything to hide, so much as Iwanted to be able to buy a
Christmas gift for my husbandwithout asking him for $200.
And I wanted, I just neededthat independence.
And at some point, after one ofthose conversations with these
women who didn't have access toany of this, I was telling my
(15:30):
husband a little bit about theseconversations with these women
and at one point I said thankyou so much for not doing that
to me.
And then, like three minuteslater, I was angry that I was
thanking him for it, because isthis how low the bar is?
Speaker 1 (15:47):
That treating you like an equal partner is some
kind of special favor.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yeah, and so, yes, I mean I am grateful, but I also
think it should be normal.
This is what should be expectedin relationships, and I also
want to acknowledge havingfinancial conversations are
difficult, they're stressful.
My guess is, many times thehusband might not know as much
(16:19):
as he thinks the world expectshim to know, and I think women
are taught.
They just don't know, and sothey don't know what kind of
questions to ask, when thereality is, maybe the guy
doesn't know as much either, andso it's okay to learn together,
it's okay to figure things outtogether, but let's do it
together instead of assumingthat one party is incompetent.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Yeah, so that one party knows everything and the
other one knows nothing?
Speaker 2 (16:48):
you know like, yeah, yeah yeah, I mean, you know, to
be fair in my situation, myhusband's an accountant.
He, he, he can spend numbersall around me and I'm happy for
that.
I don't, like, I don'tnecessarily enjoy numbers.
At the same time, I do askquestions and I am somewhat
involved.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
And.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
I certainly have access to passwords and accounts
.
Right.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
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, ifthe marriage dissolves, things
are split down the middle, right?
So from that perspective, thosespouses who have no clue what's
going on their names are stillon those accounts.
If something happens, they'regoing down with the ship and
(17:36):
their lack of knowledge doesn'texempt them from legal
responsibility.
So it's not just about knowingfor one's own benefit, but also,
like, if I'm gonna be held toaccount for something, I need to
know what's going on.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Your point is really important.
I was just in a conversationwith somebody and she said all
of a sudden, I'm afraid that heopened up accounts in my name
using my social security numberthat I was not aware of.
And I'm just now starting towonder.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Guys, guys, guys, that is financial abuse.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yeah, fraud yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
That's a big problem, I don't care if you're married,
that is financial abuse.
Yeah.
Fraud yeah, that's a bigproblem, 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 allabout.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Absolutely, and I think many of us who are first
generation non-traditionalcollege students right so who
maybe haven't been expected tobe financially empowered or you
know, know about these things,struggle with this, but I think
there's lots of others too.
I think it's, you know, as weemerge from centuries of
(18:53):
patriarchy well, I hope we fullyemerge.
It's an ongoing struggle, butas we struggle for equality, I
think then this is somethingthat is not just limited to
those of us from this background.
Another layer that can add tothis lack of knowledge or lack
of exposure is also if we comefrom a family where
(19:14):
entrepreneurship or beingself-employed was the norm or
the family business.
So if we are the firstgeneration who is getting a job,
with a 401k and with insuranceand dealing with all those
things, then I know for myself Ihad a lot to learn about all
(19:36):
those things, just because theyweren't part of the world I grew
up in, and so my familycouldn't have coached me on that
if they wanted to, because thatwasn't part of their experience
either.
So just kind of the familyculture, aside from the
patriarchal structure, can alsobe an issue.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
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 receivea paycheck.
We kind of work for free.
So we did not even have moneyto manage, and if we did, it was
just a.
You know, I got 20 bucks amonth.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
I mean, that was miserly back in the day.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
So I think, I think there are many situations where
our work wasn't valued, weweren't given money to manage,
and so it's really something wehave no experience with.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Right and then yes, and one of those places where it
leaves us unequipped is whenwe're negotiating a salary at a
job, when we're thinking aboutwhat is reasonable, what's a
reasonable ask, or how do youeven go about approaching an
(21:00):
employer about salaryadjustments, that kind of thing,
like all that.
There's a whole skill setaround that and the good news is
that there's no secret saucelike anyone can learn this right
.
It's just about some of us getthat as we're growing up and
don't even think about the factthat it's a thing, and then the
(21:23):
rest of us maybe don't know it'sa thing because we didn't grow
up with it.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
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 thatI was getting a raise and I
remember at one point saying Iknow you are good with money,
(22:01):
but I think I understand moneyas well.
Maybe I said I understand math,but I do understand math.
And what you've done is told meyou're giving me a raise
because you appreciate me, butyou've literally given me less
money to take home.
Yeah, I said I don't understandhow that's good money logic for
anyone but you and I'm not okaywith it, and I say that to say
(22:24):
trust yourself.
I would never survive as anaccountant ever, like I would be
in a puddle in the cornercrying.
That type of detail just doesnot work well in the life of
Rebecca.
But I can do basic math and socan you Right and you know.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
And now that you say that I've had the same kind of
situation, I, to my regret now Idid not speak up about it.
It was a situation we weregoing into a work project that
was going to take a lot ofovertime and so I got promoted
to a salaried position so now Iwouldn't be getting overtime pay
(23:06):
.
And I remember making just acomment in passing about it, you
know, and just kind of gettingthe message that I was just
really being ungrateful and I'msorry, and I was still in the
headspace of wanting to show Iwas a team player and all these
things.
And I know I was getting a paycut in terms of the hourly.
(23:31):
You know what I was getting perhour.
And I guess I just want to sayto people who are in that
situation let yourself, even ifyou're not 100% sure how to go
about it, a of all, there islots of scripts out there that
you can use to give you aframework, you know, give you a
sense of how to go about doingit.
But even if you aren'tconfident, do it anyway, because
(23:54):
you'll figure out how to do itbetter next time and, most of
all, they don't respect you ifyou don't call them on that BS.
They do not respect you.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
They might shame you, they might use all kinds of
manipulation to give you a hardtime for negotiating for
yourself, but they still don'trespect you if you don't speak
up, right, and they're going torun under the assumption that
you're going to be intimidated,yeah, yes, and they're going to
tell you how great they are withmath or with money, assuming
(24:29):
that you, in turn, believeyou're not quite as great and so
the way you're doing math isn'tmaking sense.
Your math is just fine.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Well, and you don't have to be great at math to do
addition and subtractionmultiplication Right, we can do
this.
We can do this.
I think if you get throughelementary school, you know you
got that.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Trust what you know, trust what you see and learn to
advocate for yourself Absolutely.
And I think this is going to bereally hard for those of us who
have worked for peanuts,whether it was in a family
situation, whether it was as astay-at-home mom, whatever it
(25:13):
was.
When you're used to working andnot getting money for it, it
becomes really hard to advocatefor yourself, but it's a skill
we need to learn and it's askill we need to teach our
daughters.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Absolutely so.
Some of the resources that areout there are, you know, freely
available on YouTube channelsMint and YNAB.
You Need a Budget are tworesources 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 recentlythat I like is it was like less
(25:51):
than $4 on Etsy.
It was a spreadsheet bundlethat had an integrated household
budget so integrated withsinking funds and investments
and debt and all these things,along with a monthly budget and
you put in the numbers from yourbank account and then it kept
these running tallies.
(26:12):
Hats off to whoever put thatspreadsheet together.
I will link it in the shownotes because I think that's.
If you don't want to go withsomething that has like a
monthly fee, this is a goodalternative.
But also if you're involvedwith a, if you're attending
college, your college oruniversity might have financial
(26:36):
advising of some sort, orthere's a business school with
financial planning, they mightoffer some kind of service
activity for students.
So that's something to thinkabout.
Also, I've already receivedfree tax help at the library,
like at the public library,where they'll have retired
(26:57):
accountants who will be thereand volunteer their time to help
work through simple tax forms.
So another one is the FinancialFeminist Podcast, and one of the
reasons I love her is she hasthoughts about Dave Ramsey, and
I think Dave Ramsey has a lot ofgood things to say for a
(27:18):
certain income bracket, but Ithink if you're not in that
income bracket, his advicereally is not very helpful, and
so she does some really goodanalysis of that, and she's also
tuned into, like, the politicalrealities of the time.
And then someone I came acrossmore recently is this, catherine
Ann Edwards, and on IG herhandle is Keds Economist, and
(27:42):
she has some really well puttogether, very thoughtful reels
about the economy as a whole andhow it affects us as women.
She had one of the bestanalyses of multi-level
marketing and why that plays therole that it does in our
society, and so it's like one ofthe best breakdowns of it that
(28:03):
I've ever heard, and she's gotlots of other good things to say
too.
So we'll link all theseresources in the show notes.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
So our next point is dependency on family and
religious institutions and Ithink, for a lot of us, when we
come from groups that actuallyencourage this financial
dependency on spouses, parents,church leaders, whatever it is,
what it does is createsdependency on anyone and
(28:31):
everything but yourself and, Ithink, reinforces this notion
that maybe we don't have theskills or the abilities.
Some of us even had parents whowould take all their money
until they turned 20 or 21.
Some of us came fromenvironments where we were able
to pilfer money away.
(28:52):
Your parents might take it fromyou, and I think that really
can develop this mentality ofscarcity and this mentality of
will I be even able to hang onto it?
True story when I was 16, Iwalked into a bank that my
(29:12):
parents did not bank with andset up my own account.
I had $10 to put into it, but Iset up my own account and
ensured that my parents wouldnot be able to get into it.
I mean, I stood there and Iasked them how can I do this so
my parents cannot touch it?
Wow, in hindsight I'm likefreaking out a little bit that I
(29:34):
did that, but the concern wasreal.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
I just think that's so poignant.
But also it speaks to yourdesire 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 talkingabout here, this kind of
dependency is shrouded in allkinds of hyper-spiritual
(30:00):
language and it's all in the.
You know, if it's notself-sacrifice, then it's about
loyalty or about well, mutualaid 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 sobig, right, and the sense like
if you go out and do anythingindependent, you are acting in
(30:23):
rebellion, and you know.
This is so, you know, and yet Ithink that's something we're
gonna we're gonna tackle here inthe coming conversations about
this, because that is such atool of control and abuse and
we've got to call it what it is.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
It is.
And the other thing I wouldsuggest is I had the luxury of
being number four in a row ofeight kids.
Yeah, I could observe what washappening in my family.
I saw what was happening, but Ithink the rest of us all have
that luxury.
We can observe what's happeningin our communities.
We can observe what's happeningin our churches.
(31:03):
We can observe how other wivesare doing or not doing, and we
can all take steps to protectourselves and others within that
.
And it might be taking $10 to abank that has no connections to
(31:24):
anyone you know, that you knowof, but that $10 can change
things and, if nothing else, itgives you the autonomy you're
looking for, it lets you knowyou can do this yes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
And I just want to say that is more revolutionary
than we might think.
I know for myself, when my exand I were kind of in the early
stages of splitting up andthings were not.
Things were amicable, you know,we were, we were, you know,
working together on this, but Iwent to set up my own bank
account and I could not believehow hard it was to communicate
(32:00):
that no, this is a separate,whole, separate thing, not just
like a sub account.
And you know, and just a coupleof weeks before my now ex had
gone in and set up an accountfor himself and his business, no
big deal at all.
Nobody blinked when I went in.
(32:23):
It was like they weren't quitesure 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 is2018.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
So yeah, about 15 years ago I went to set up my
own account at another bank andat one point the lady I was
working with shook her head andshe said I think you're the
first woman who's come inindependently to set up an
account.
And this was like 15 years ago.
She could not believe myhusband wasn't with me.
(32:54):
She was impressed, but she keptshaking her head and making
comments about it.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
And I think the takeaway here that's so
important to underscore is thatat least as of right now in the
US, no one can force you to giveup your paycheck, even if it's
a religious expectation and Ithink so often it is framed in
this religious language ofgenerosity or giving or tithing
(33:22):
or family loyalty because thelegal right's not there and they
can't legally take that moneyfrom you, and so it gets
manipulated, spirituality getsmanipulated as a way to take
that, and so just know that'sillegal.
This might sound overlydramatic, but just bear with me.
(33:42):
When you look at thedefinitions for child
trafficking, that definitionhits closer to home than I think
a lot of people would like tothink.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Well, in any situation where you have people
attempting to control and takeaway autonomy and independence,
it has its own form of abuse,and I think sometimes we are so
(34:12):
accustomed to that being thenormal that we don't always
recognize it.
At the same time, I think asyou work your way through the
process, we might often be thefirst ones to recognize it then.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Once you know what it looks like.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
All of a sudden, you're like, oh, I've seen this
before.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Right, Because I think this brings us to our,
quite naturally to our thirdpoint, which is that many of us
in this situation are at risk offinancial manipulation and
control, you know, whether it'swithin that community of origin
or then after.
We leave it until we figure outthose patterns, until we are
(34:59):
able to recognize them.
And I think we just got to getreally clear with ourselves that
financial abuse is stillfinancial abuse, regardless of
what kind of good name you puton it.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
And again, there are a plethora of podcasts, of
Instagram accounts who arespeaking about this.
We can easily educate ourselvesenough to at least have a basic
understanding of what ishappening and figure out ways to
(35:33):
start protecting ourselves.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Yes, and when you say that, okay, I have mixed
feelings about Dave Ramsey.
No, I have a lot of beefFeelings.
I have a lot of feelings, butonce in a while he says some
things that are really true andthey're not original with him,
it's just I associate them withhim.
But one is you know he talksabout, like, when you go to a
(35:56):
place of business or wherever itis, and they start talking down
to you and, and and I would saynot just place of business a
family member, um, they starttalking down to you, um, as if
like, oh well, your questionsabout this and this and this,
you just don't understand.
And they're like recognize,it's not that hard.
And yes, there's lots.
(36:17):
I think there are lots ofsystems, financial systems that
are set up to be difficult andconfusing for many of us to
navigate.
But anyone of averageintelligence like it can be
explained to someone of averageintelligence.
And if someone is suggestingyou're not smart enough to
(36:39):
understand, that's a red flagright there, because if they
can't explain it to you insimple words, like a
five-year-old could understand,there's a problem Exactly
Because they're benefiting offof you not understanding.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
They don't want you to.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Yeah, I feel like we have one of the best financial
advisors out there, and I wasjust on a phone call with him
the other day and I said so.
Now, I know that there's stocksand I know what stocks are.
I know there's bonds, Iunderstand what bonds are, but
what's the other thing?
What's that other thing calledMutual funds?
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Yes, sucks bonds and mutual funds Right right, but he
didn't laugh at me.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Yeah, yeah, he didn't laugh at me.
He said you're right, it'smutual 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 mylife where I didn't know and I
could say that same thing and bemet with you, silly little
(37:41):
goose, ridicule, yeah, yeah, payattention when that happens,
like really pay attention, andI'm going to even say be
offended when that happens, beoffended, walk away, because I
am at the point where I don'tlike to agree with Dave Ramsey.
But yes, if that's happening,walk away.
(38:02):
There's other people out there,you don't need to subject
yourself to that.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Absolutely Well, let's be clear, dave Ramsey did
not come up with that.
He just happened to be theperson that stuck in my mind.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Are you saying that if Dave Ramsey says something
that actually makes sense, heprobably wasn't original with
him?
Speaker 1 (38:23):
I wouldn't, I'd never think of something like that.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Back to the point.
I do think we need tounderstand that there are
options available to us and thatpilfering money away, even if
it's $10 at a time, makes adifference.
In Tia Leving's book AWell-Trained Wife, she writes
about collecting gift cards thatshe had received as payments
(38:50):
for blogging that she had done,and she used that to escape
because she had literally noaccess to the family's income.
And the one thing I do know iswe women and probably we humans
(39:11):
men are smart too, but we knowhow to figure out ways to meet
needs.
I mean, that has been our job.
That has been our job sincelittle up figuring out ways to
meet needs that we might notnecessarily have even good
access to.
We can figure this out andfigure it out without guilt.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Exactly, exactly, for sure, for sure.
Well, I think Tia Leving's bookis such a good description of
the danger of marrying withoutfinancial protection or how that
can look when you just likeslide into a situation where
you're set up to be blocked fromaccess to that kind of thing,
(39:58):
and I think it's no accidentthat the net result of this is
leaving a woman without options.
And I think even in some of theFLDS, the Fundamentalist
Latter-day Saints, narrativesI've read of people who have
escaped, and so those are someof the very reclusive groups in
(40:22):
Utah that practice polygamy anda whole bunch of other things,
and they were very consciousabout getting these young women
married and with lots ofchildren and pregnant lots of
times, so that they couldn'tescape, and they were
financially dependent.
And, man, you talk about themountains that they had to
(40:45):
overcome to gain any kind offinancial stability when they
did escape the few who have.
But I guess what I'm saying isthat plan to cut people, often
women, out of knowing what'sgoing on is not an accident, and
they might drape it in allkinds of hyper-spiritual
language, but it's intentional.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
So remember the banking account that I started
when I was 16, with $10 for twoyears and I would receive an
allowance of $20 a month.
That's what I $10 here when Iwas disowned at 18, I had $100
(41:35):
in there and that was all.
That was literally all I had.
That was it.
That was it.
I don't think I can underscorehow important having that type
of resource is, and if someonetells you you can't have it, I
would be concerned that themotivation is to ensure that you
(41:59):
don't have a way out.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Absolutely.
And you know, something thatmight feel like a world away
from what we're talking abouthere is the issue of a prenup
agreement, and that's just anagreement before a couple gets
married about what would happenif the marriage dissolved.
And I'm bringing this up hereunder the umbrella of this point
(42:22):
about the danger of marryingwithout financial protection and
how often this can happen.
And I just want to say that Ithink the prevailing idea out
there in a lot of communities,like religious communities, is
that a prenup is a plan to getdivorced.
In fact, I think Dave Ramseysays that too, and I was
(42:43):
watching Love is Blind this weekthe most recent episode and the
most recent season and therewas a woman on the show who was
suggesting that she and herfiance get a prenup before they
get married, and there was some,you know, his family was kind
of like wait, what's going onhere?
(43:04):
But when you drill down intothe situation, it actually made
a lot of sense and she was veryclear no, no, no, she's not.
She wants this marriage to last.
That's not the issue.
But then she described what theterms were that she was wanting
and they were incrediblyreasonable terms, and so I think
when we that the devil is inthe details and, I think, being
(43:27):
aware that a prenup doesn't haveto favor the person who has the
most power already, a prenupcan be fair.
A prenup is like for worst casescenario Just because we have a
fire extinguisher in our housedoesn't mean we're planning to
set it on fire.
Having a prenup and knowing andI think part of the reason
(43:49):
probably that this is not moreof an issue in a lot of our you
know backgrounds is that we werecoming into marriage without
anything.
You know.
I mean like I know there wasnothing to, as they say, there
was nothing to nap when I gotmarried.
But, you know, when we thinkabout the next generation, when
you think about preparing yourkids, especially if you've got
(44:09):
daughters who are having careersbefore they're married, I think
this is something that we canbe thinking about.
So another way that we can befinancially vulnerable is just
the fact of having limitedsafety nets and family
estrangement when we do leave arestrictive or high demand
community, and it might meangiving up an inheritance, it
(44:33):
might mean giving up familysupport, and even when that's
just moral support that matters,or a boomerang home to fall
back on, as they call it, like aplace to land if the bottom
falls out, and I think thatprecarity is so real, so
terrifying.
I feel like in the last fewweeks I've read multiple posts
(44:56):
on social media about youngpeople who are maybe in poor
health or in a really vulnerableposition and their families are
putting all kinds of religiouspressure on them, like trying to
force them to church or forcethem to do this or that, and I'm
sure the families mean well,but it is abusive and it's
(45:19):
oppressive and it's why manyyoung people in these situations
choose precarity over hangingaround for that kind of
situation.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Caring for other people with strings attached is
just some of the worst type ofcare.
It is the worst type of careand like can we please stop
doing that?
We have an obligation to eachother because of our humanness,
because we are human.
That's enough to meet needswith strings attached, whether
(46:00):
it is attend my church orwhether it is give me some of
your money or whatever it is Ijust think is so manipulative,
scammy, cruel.
Speaker 1 (46:06):
Yeah, it's cruel.
Yeah, you're right, it is, itis, it's cruel, it's cruel, it's
cruel.
It's exploiting an advantage,exploiting a position of power
yeah, to force someone else tocomply with your wishes, yeah,
and I think it's like we, ifwe're used to needing to present
a whole legal case to advance,we might feel like, oh well, I'm
(46:35):
not sure how to respond to this, so I guess I have to go along
with it.
No, no, when someone is tryingto control you, you do not need
a good reason.
You do not need a good reasonto push back.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
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'redumb or uneducated, it just
simply means you don'tunderstand it.
And if it can't be explained ina way that makes sense, no is a
(47:07):
good enough answer 100%.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
I also want to say that for folks who are maybe
going to college or and so thismight be someone who's young, it
could be someone who's older,but any.
If you're in a situation likethat, don't feel shy about
asking for help.
The default assumption aboutmost college students is that
(47:31):
they have a family at home whoare sending them care packages
and they've got dad's creditcard or something right.
That's often the defaultassumption.
That is not the reality formost students today, and I think
there are I'm not saying allfaculty and staff on campuses,
but I think the vast majoritygenuinely care about the
(47:54):
students there and if they knowsomeone needs help, they want to
do what they can.
Oftentimes, schools will havelike a, or some schools will
have like a food pantry forstudents, but this is not going
to be something that's going tobe promoted on the website or in
the brochures when they'rerecruiting students, right, so
(48:15):
you have to go, look for it, youhave to ask for it, but this is
why you know spending timehanging out at in lounges or
around you know staff offices orfaculty offices like getting to
know people on campus anddeveloping those relationships
can be so helpful in connectingyou to those resources and just
(48:40):
know they might look differenton different campuses, but they
are worth exploring, they areworth asking for.
Speaker 2 (48:46):
You know, I had a professor once who one day said,
hey, we're going to go on alittle field trip today, and he
was slightly odd and I was kindof like eh, but he took us to
the food pantry on campus.
And he just said I want youguys to know that it's here.
And since we're here, anyway,everyone just pick something out
(49:07):
and let's go back, but knowthat it's here.
Oh, I love it and I hope youmake good use of it.
I love that All of a sudden hewasn't quite so weird to me.
I mean he was still slightlyweird, but that's huge.
That was huge to me and I wasso glad I didn't know there was.
(49:28):
Well, I think I had heard aboutone, but I wouldn't have known
where to find it and I soadmired that he did that.
Speaker 1 (49:37):
And one of the things I love about what your
professor did is promptingeveryone to take something,
because I think it's so easy.
If we are used to being theones giving, it's hard, it can
be hard to accept that we are inthe position of receiving, but
if we can accept, hey, we canboth give and receive.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
Yeah, that's, that's really what community is about
or, in that situation, if he hadan inkling that there was a kid
that was hungry, yeah, that kiddidn't stand out.
It was like no, everyone, takesomething.
Like it was, it wasn't takesomething if you want something.
It was like no, everyone, takesomething, love that.
It wasn't take something if youwant something.
It was like I want each of youguys to take something.
And my guess was that he had asuspicion that there was a need,
(50:24):
yeah, and he didn't want thatkid to feel singled out.
Speaker 1 (50:27):
That's brilliant.
That's so awesome.
Speaker 2 (50:29):
Yeah, I thought too it was really smart out.
Speaker 1 (50:32):
That's brilliant, that's so awesome.
Yeah, I thought too, it wasreally smart.
So the sixth and final item onour list here is that many of us
in the situation are trying tobreak cycles of financial
disempowerment.
I just want to say with thisthat 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'sworth.
(50:55):
Let me rephrase that In myexperience I'll only speak for
myself.
In my experience it has beenworth making that independence
possible, making it happen, andultimately I found myself in a
better financial position.
So when I was facing divorce,the financial impact of that was
(51:16):
one of my biggest concerns andit was rough and it was really
rough.
But now I'm in a more securefinancial position than I ever
was when I was married.
So I just say that and let mealso say this is while I'm in a
job where when we do get a costof living raise, it doesn't even
keep up with inflation.
So essentially I've beengetting a pay cut every year and
(51:40):
even so, my financial securityis better, and so I just want to
offer that as hope.
The struggle is real and Idon't want to diminish that in
any way.
But also the struggle sucks.
The struggle sucks and it isreal and I don't want to
diminish that in any way, butalso struggle.
Speaker 2 (51:54):
the struggle sucks, the struggle sucks and it is
really feeling, that feeling ofnot knowing how you're going to
make car payment, how you'regoing to pay rent.
It's, it's scary, it's real.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
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 dothings around the house, I've
learned to say if a man can doit, I can do it Exactly.
(52:27):
So, when we think about a coupleof action points here as we
close things out, one of thethings that I think about is a
suggestion that I heard someoneit may have been Heather Cox
Richardson who no, no, no, itwas Janet Yellen who was saying
recommending going in andfreezing our credit scores with
(52:48):
all three credit bureaus, andI'm going to put a link in the
show notes, because if you'regoing, what are you talking
about?
Read the article in the linkand it'll explain it to you.
But just given all the securitybreaches that have been
happening in recent months andthen in recent weeks, this is
one way to ensure that someoneis not going and setting up bank
(53:09):
accounts or credit cardaccounts in your name, and so
we'll link that in the shownotes.
Do you have any other pieces ofpractical advice you want to?
Speaker 2 (53:18):
add Think about what advice you would give to your
younger self and go, do that insmall steps now.
Starting now does make adifference, because the timing
is never going to be perfect,because the timing is never
going to be perfect, but takingcontrol and showing up for
(53:39):
yourself in small ways, I thinkreally well, the financial term
is, it compounds.
Speaker 1 (53:44):
It does.
Speaker 2 (53:44):
It does, sometimes not just in the sense of money,
but I think what it does for youinternally.
The sense of confidence thatcould get you Is just as
important.
Speaker 1 (53:56):
Absolutely so.
Our next episode in the seriesis going to be looking at the
secret salary of a stay-at-homeparent and how that factors in
the work the labor of astay-at-home parent, and how
that factors in the work thelabor of a stay-at-home parent.
How does that factor intoconversations about financial
(54:18):
independence for women?
So that's a whole other can ofworms, but we're going to open
it anyway.
Look at us All right.
Well, it's been great hangingout with you, our listeners, and
wish you the best as you gotake charge of your financial
future.
Speaker 2 (54:36):
And if you have any questions or any topics you hope
that we cover, send us amessage.
We would love to hear it.
But also I would be reallycurious to know what advice
you'd have for your younger self.
Speaker 1 (54:51):
There is a link in the show notes, at the top of
our show notes, where you cansend us a message right from
your phone.
So we can't wait to hear fromyou.
Take care.
Speaker 2 (55:16):
Thank you for spending time with us today.
The resources and materialswe've mentioned are linked in
the show notes and on Facebookat Uncovered Life Beyond.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
What are your thoughts about college and
recovery from high demandreligion?
We know you have your ownquestions and experiences, and
we want to talk about the topicsthat matter to you.
Share them with us atuncoveredlifebeyondatgmailcom.
That'suncoveredlifebeyondatgmailcom.
Speaker 2 (55:43):
If you enjoyed today's show and found value in
it, please rate and review it onyour favorite podcast app.
This helps others find the showWhile you're there.
Subscribe to our podcast so younever miss an episode.
Speaker 1 (55:56):
Until next time stay brave, stay bold, stay awkward.
Thank you.
This is Rebecca and this is Naomi.
We're 40-something moms andfirst cousins who know what it's
like to veer off the pathassigned to us.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
We've juggled motherhood, marriage, college
and career, as we questioned ourfaith traditions while
exploring new identities andways of seeing the world.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Without any maps for either of us to follow.
We've had to figure things outas we go and appreciate that
detours and dead ends areessential to the path Along the
way, we've uncovered a fewinsights we want to share with
fellow travelers.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
We want to talk about the questions we didn't know
who to ask and the options wedidn't know we had.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
So, whether you're feeling stuck or already shaking
things up, we are here to cheeryou on and assure you that the
best is yet to come.
Welcome to Uncovered LifeBeyond.
Hello everyone, Welcome back toUncovered Life Beyond.
(01:08):
This is Naomi.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
And this is Rebecca.
So we are back, and today we'regoing to talk about financial
freedom for cycle breakers, forwomen.
But before we get into all ofthat, I think it's time we do a
little bit update what'shappening in your life, naomi.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Oh well, snow cold, so much cold, so much cold.
Today, tomorrow, this week it'ssupposed to be up above
freezing, and so everybody hasbeen just kind of hanging on
till then.
So I've had a few Zoom classes,just so that my students and I
(01:53):
didn't have to get out at eighto'clock in the morning on these
super cold mornings, and thathas 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.
In a more personal sense, somethings that I've been thinking
about are you know, how toreally make more spaciousness in
(02:16):
my life for the things that arereally important for me, for
the things that will allow me tobe healthy, both physically,
emotionally, like in a lot ofdifferent levels.
And I know this is kind ofsounds abstract and I don't mean
to be vague, but in theinterest of transparency I'll
just say that one of those areasis in the relationship I'm in.
(02:38):
It's a relationship I've beenin for over five years and has
meant a lot to me, and yet thereare some things that we're
needing to figure out if it canmeet the needs for both of us.
And the reason I say this isbecause I know so often these
kinds of situations are nottalked about.
(03:00):
There's kind of a taboo abouttalking about them, at least
until they're all nice andwrapped up and we know what the
end of the story is.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
And I don't know what the end of the story is.
When things aren't messy, whenthings aren't messy.
When things aren't messy, wetalk about it.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Right, right, right.
And I guess I would like to seea world where we can be a
little more open about thosethings.
And I understand why peoplearen't, because it's complicated
and involves other people'slives and all that.
But I do think that, given thestatistical likelihood of how
many people are askingthemselves really deep questions
(03:35):
, big questions about therelationships 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 commonand yet we rarely talk about it
.
And I think that being openabout it can and not in a, not
in a nasty way, not in a I'm nottalking about a kind of
(03:59):
destructive way, but just beinghonest about the reality of it
can free us from that sense thatmaybe it can free us from the
burden of needing to look likewe have it all together all the
time.
Not that anybody would assume Ihave it all together, let's be
clear.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Quite the contrary, Quite the contrary.
You always have it together.
That's cute, you know.
I think so often and I'mgathering this from my own
experience, but even a lot ofwomen I've talked to, I thinkive
(04:43):
that we probably don't know andwe tend to be slow to not just
ask but insist that our voicesare heard, Because I think so
often we timidly ask for ourvoices to be heard and then when
they're not heard, we take itas confirmation that they
probably shouldn't be heard.
So I think sometimes at somelevel, you almost have to insist
(05:06):
that you're heard, and that sogoes against so much of what so
many of us have been taught.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Both for us as women, in terms of what we should do,
and also in terms of men andwhat they can expect.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
I think it goes both ways yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
And I think so often I see and women do this too, but
I think to a larger degree menconfidently show up and assume
that whatever they're thinkingis going to be taken seriously,
or whatever they're saying isgoing to be taken seriously, and
(05:51):
I think women often tend toshow up more timid and or
feeling like they have to have awhole case and have everything
all thought through.
It is.
It's like planning a court case, yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
And sometimes, if you don't have the court case,
you'll not be heard yeah, soit's not worth.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
it's not worth bringing it up.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
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 onInstagram that described this
dynamic and I think you know,like the comment section made it
clear, this is like such such acommon dynamic in.
(06:42):
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'sso true.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
And, to be fair, I don't think this is necessarily
ill-intentioned from the malepartner, so much as it's just
part of how we are culturally,religiously, trained.
It's a lot of the assumptionsthat come with it, and so
challenging those assumptions isgoing to get messy.
It just does.
(07:14):
It gets really messy and it'sscary.
It's scary from every angle.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
It is, and I will just say that also, as women,
we're conditioned to deny ourage, to wish for youth and do
everything we can to stay asyouthful as possible.
And I tell you, age is the bestkept secret when it comes to
women's empowerment.
(07:42):
And I tell you, when I thinkabout myself, comparing myself
now to who I was 10 years agoand some of that, I don't know,
might be hormonal shifts thereare a lot of different factors
that I'm sure go into that.
But I guess what I'm justsaying is like, well, I've seen
the expression and I feel likeit's finally true for me in a
(08:06):
really emotional way, like in away that I not just, not just
intellectually, but like Iactually feel this way that a
partner isn't competing withother partners Like their.
Their competition is not otherpartners.
A partner for me has to competewith how much I enjoy just
being by myself, and I think sooften or at least I know I'll
(08:29):
speak for myself, but I bet I'mnot alone in this We've been
brought up with this idea ofthat.
You know, talk about beingexcuse me, being ready for a
relationship or not.
Or you know, if you don't, ifyou don't take care of yourself
first, you won't be ready forthat, or if you don't love
yourself first, and it alwaysstruck me as kind of this, like
these are the qualifications youhave to have.
(08:51):
This is what you have to do toearn a relationship, a romantic
relationship, and what I'mfinding more and more like no,
no, no, no, no.
Having the rest of your life ingood shape, having financial
stability, having financialsecurity, having friendships,
having your own life that yougenuinely enjoy, is one of the
(09:16):
most empowering things that awoman can have, because it then
frees us from staying insituations that are not good for
us.
And when we are comparing onebad situation with another bad
situation, right, We'll stay inthere with the devil, we know.
But when we know that thealternative to a bad
(09:38):
relationship or a relationshipthat's not working out, or where
it's just simply two peoplegoing in different directions,
when we have those other goodthings in our lives, it's so
much easier to let go of thestuff that's not serving us.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
And I think the other thing that I've realized is so,
between moving fromPennsylvania to Ohio and then
getting married, there was aboutthree years that I lived on my
own, which was very unusual forMennonite girls, like that was
not a thing.
In fact it was taboo,especially at the time.
Right right, it was absolutelytaboo.
(10:13):
But in that I learned to beokay 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 becomfortable alone is huge.
(10:34):
And I think you mentioned thething of you know it's not
competing against anotherpartner, it's competing with my
own company.
That's real and I'm not sure.
Sometimes I wonder if that'snot why the push is to go from
your parents' house to yourhusband's house for women.
So you don't have that, youdon't get a taste of, yeah, you
(10:57):
don't have the space of havingyour own independence, your own
space, your own, your own person.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
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 thosewords and it sounded like the
aloneness was like eating yourvegetables, like you just got to
learn to enjoy those vegetablesand you know what.
(11:27):
No thanks Like but, and so Ijust want to be really clear,
and again, this is where I go.
Maybe it's, maybe it'sperimenopause, 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 likeeating your vegetables, it
(11:47):
doesn't have to be like takingthose big, you know horse pills
when we are talking aboutgenuinely enjoying our own lives
as a single person.
To my former self, I would sayit's possible and it's worth
cultivating because of the wayit empowers you.
Yeah Right, so well, that gotdeep fast.
Look at us.
(12:08):
So how about you, rebecca?
What's going on in your worldthese days?
You've had snow too right.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
So much snow, so cold .
30 feels downright balmy.
Yes, when it's 30, I wonder ifI should wear a coat as a
necessary no joke.
Yeah, in some ways it's nice.
The snow makes Ohio feel lessgray because there's more
reflection.
When the sun does shine alittle bit At some.
(12:36):
On some occasions, though, it'salmost offensive, because it is
really bright some mornings atseven 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 alot 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'regoing to be into March and we're
(12:57):
on the home stretch.
So, yay, spring, yeah.
So, like I mentioned earlier,today we're going to be talking
about finances, and I mean, youknow, this is what we know about
finances.
None of us have an accountingdegree.
My husband does, so I'm goingto tap into that, but this is
(13:18):
just more about and we're goingto be including some resources,
but this is really aboutobservations.
We've had conversations we'vehad, and recently I've had
multiple conversations withfemales who went from their
parents' home straight to theirhusband's house their home,
(13:41):
married home, their home,married home and 20 years later
realized they have no idea aboutinvestments, they have no idea
about accounts, they have noidea about passwords, they have
no idea what's going on andoftentimes they're kind of
reprimanded when they ask andfor several reasons and probably
(14:04):
because I wasn't on my ownplayed into part of the reasons.
Things were different for Mattand I because I would have had
my own established account, Iwas saving money, I was paying
bills, you were livingindependently.
I was living independently, Iwas making my own car payments,
(14:24):
but I also worked at a companywhere I did payroll and I knew
how 401ks worked, I knew howinsurances worked, I knew how
that was and I had my own.
I had my own retirement funds.
So I always knew theterminology, sort of, and I knew
how to ask questions.
(14:45):
So I'm sure that to some degreeit helps when you have an idea
of what type of questions to ask, when you have the terminology
Sure.
Sure, but I always had my ownaccount, my own checking account
, and to me that was reallyimportant, not because I had
(15:06):
anything to hide, so much as Iwanted to be able to buy a
Christmas gift for my husbandwithout asking him for $200.
And I wanted, I just neededthat independence.
And at some point, after one ofthose conversations with these
women who didn't have access toany of this, I was telling my
(15:30):
husband a little bit about theseconversations with these women
and at one point I said thankyou so much for not doing that
to me.
And then, like three minuteslater, I was angry that I was
thanking him for it, because isthis how low the bar is?
Speaker 1 (15:47):
That treating you like an equal partner is some
kind of special favor.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yeah, and so, yes, I mean I am grateful, but I also
think it should be normal.
This is what should be expectedin relationships, and I also
want to acknowledge havingfinancial conversations are
difficult, they're stressful.
My guess is, many times thehusband might not know as much
(16:19):
as he thinks the world expectshim to know, and I think women
are taught.
They just don't know, and sothey don't know what kind of
questions to ask, when thereality is, maybe the guy
doesn't know as much either, andso it's okay to learn together,
it's okay to figure things outtogether, but let's do it
together instead of assumingthat one party is incompetent.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Yeah, so that one party knows everything and the
other one knows nothing?
Speaker 2 (16:48):
you know like, yeah, yeah yeah, I mean, you know, to
be fair in my situation, myhusband's an accountant.
He, he, he can spend numbersall around me and I'm happy for
that.
I don't, like, I don'tnecessarily enjoy numbers.
At the same time, I do askquestions and I am somewhat
involved.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
And.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
I certainly have access to passwords and accounts
.
Right.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
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, ifthe marriage dissolves, things
are split down the middle, right?
So from that perspective, thosespouses who have no clue what's
going on their names are stillon those accounts.
If something happens, they'regoing down with the ship and
(17:36):
their lack of knowledge doesn'texempt them from legal
responsibility.
So it's not just about knowingfor one's own benefit, but also,
like, if I'm gonna be held toaccount for something, I need to
know what's going on.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Your point is really important.
I was just in a conversationwith somebody and she said all
of a sudden, I'm afraid that heopened up accounts in my name
using my social security numberthat I was not aware of.
And I'm just now starting towonder.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Guys, guys, guys, that is financial abuse.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yeah, fraud yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
That's a big problem, I don't care if you're married,
that is financial abuse.
Yeah.
Fraud yeah, that's a bigproblem, 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 allabout.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Absolutely, and I think many of us who are first
generation non-traditionalcollege students right so who
maybe haven't been expected tobe financially empowered or you
know, know about these things,struggle with this, but I think
there's lots of others too.
I think it's, you know, as weemerge from centuries of
(18:53):
patriarchy well, I hope we fullyemerge.
It's an ongoing struggle, butas we struggle for equality, I
think then this is somethingthat is not just limited to
those of us from this background.
Another layer that can add tothis lack of knowledge or lack
of exposure is also if we comefrom a family where
(19:14):
entrepreneurship or beingself-employed was the norm or
the family business.
So if we are the firstgeneration who is getting a job,
with a 401k and with insuranceand dealing with all those
things, then I know for myself Ihad a lot to learn about all
(19:36):
those things, just because theyweren't part of the world I grew
up in, and so my familycouldn't have coached me on that
if they wanted to, because thatwasn't part of their experience
either.
So just kind of the familyculture, aside from the
patriarchal structure, can alsobe an issue.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
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 receivea paycheck.
We kind of work for free.
So we did not even have moneyto manage, and if we did, it was
just a.
You know, I got 20 bucks amonth.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
I mean, that was miserly back in the day.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
So I think, I think there are many situations where
our work wasn't valued, weweren't given money to manage,
and so it's really something wehave no experience with.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Right and then yes, and one of those places where it
leaves us unequipped is whenwe're negotiating a salary at a
job, when we're thinking aboutwhat is reasonable, what's a
reasonable ask, or how do youeven go about approaching an
(21:00):
employer about salaryadjustments, that kind of thing,
like all that.
There's a whole skill setaround that and the good news is
that there's no secret saucelike anyone can learn this right
.
It's just about some of us getthat as we're growing up and
don't even think about the factthat it's a thing, and then the
(21:23):
rest of us maybe don't know it'sa thing because we didn't grow
up with it.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
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 thatI was getting a raise and I
remember at one point saying Iknow you are good with money,
(22:01):
but I think I understand moneyas well.
Maybe I said I understand math,but I do understand math.
And what you've done is told meyou're giving me a raise
because you appreciate me, butyou've literally given me less
money to take home.
Yeah, I said I don't understandhow that's good money logic for
anyone but you and I'm not okaywith it, and I say that to say
(22:24):
trust yourself.
I would never survive as anaccountant ever, like I would be
in a puddle in the cornercrying.
That type of detail just doesnot work well in the life of
Rebecca.
But I can do basic math and socan you Right and you know.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
And now that you say that I've had the same kind of
situation, I, to my regret now Idid not speak up about it.
It was a situation we weregoing into a work project that
was going to take a lot ofovertime and so I got promoted
to a salaried position so now Iwouldn't be getting overtime pay
(23:06):
.
And I remember making just acomment in passing about it, you
know, and just kind of gettingthe message that I was just
really being ungrateful and I'msorry, and I was still in the
headspace of wanting to show Iwas a team player and all these
things.
And I know I was getting a paycut in terms of the hourly.
(23:31):
You know what I was getting perhour.
And I guess I just want to sayto people who are in that
situation let yourself, even ifyou're not 100% sure how to go
about it, a of all, there islots of scripts out there that
you can use to give you aframework, you know, give you a
sense of how to go about doingit.
But even if you aren'tconfident, do it anyway, because
(23:54):
you'll figure out how to do itbetter next time and, most of
all, they don't respect you ifyou don't call them on that BS.
They do not respect you.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
They might shame you, they might use all kinds of
manipulation to give you a hardtime for negotiating for
yourself, but they still don'trespect you if you don't speak
up, right, and they're going torun under the assumption that
you're going to be intimidated,yeah, yes, and they're going to
tell you how great they are withmath or with money, assuming
(24:29):
that you, in turn, believeyou're not quite as great and so
the way you're doing math isn'tmaking sense.
Your math is just fine.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Well, and you don't have to be great at math to do
addition and subtractionmultiplication Right, we can do
this.
We can do this.
I think if you get throughelementary school, you know you
got that.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Trust what you know, trust what you see and learn to
advocate for yourself Absolutely.
And I think this is going to bereally hard for those of us who
have worked for peanuts,whether it was in a family
situation, whether it was as astay-at-home mom, whatever it
(25:13):
was.
When you're used to working andnot getting money for it, it
becomes really hard to advocatefor yourself, but it's a skill
we need to learn and it's askill we need to teach our
daughters.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Absolutely so.
Some of the resources that areout there are, you know, freely
available on YouTube channelsMint and YNAB.
You Need a Budget are tworesources 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 recentlythat I like is it was like less
(25:51):
than $4 on Etsy.
It was a spreadsheet bundlethat had an integrated household
budget so integrated withsinking funds and investments
and debt and all these things,along with a monthly budget and
you put in the numbers from yourbank account and then it kept
these running tallies.
(26:12):
Hats off to whoever put thatspreadsheet together.
I will link it in the shownotes because I think that's.
If you don't want to go withsomething that has like a
monthly fee, this is a goodalternative.
But also if you're involvedwith a, if you're attending
college, your college oruniversity might have financial
(26:36):
advising of some sort, orthere's a business school with
financial planning, they mightoffer some kind of service
activity for students.
So that's something to thinkabout.
Also, I've already receivedfree tax help at the library,
like at the public library,where they'll have retired
(26:57):
accountants who will be thereand volunteer their time to help
work through simple tax forms.
So another one is the FinancialFeminist Podcast, and one of the
reasons I love her is she hasthoughts about Dave Ramsey, and
I think Dave Ramsey has a lot ofgood things to say for a
(27:18):
certain income bracket, but Ithink if you're not in that
income bracket, his advicereally is not very helpful, and
so she does some really goodanalysis of that, and she's also
tuned into, like, the politicalrealities of the time.
And then someone I came acrossmore recently is this, catherine
Ann Edwards, and on IG herhandle is Keds Economist, and
(27:42):
she has some really well puttogether, very thoughtful reels
about the economy as a whole andhow it affects us as women.
She had one of the bestanalyses of multi-level
marketing and why that plays therole that it does in our
society, and so it's like one ofthe best breakdowns of it that
(28:03):
I've ever heard, and she's gotlots of other good things to say
too.
So we'll link all theseresources in the show notes.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
So our next point is dependency on family and
religious institutions and Ithink, for a lot of us, when we
come from groups that actuallyencourage this financial
dependency on spouses, parents,church leaders, whatever it is,
what it does is createsdependency on anyone and
(28:31):
everything but yourself and, Ithink, reinforces this notion
that maybe we don't have theskills or the abilities.
Some of us even had parents whowould take all their money
until they turned 20 or 21.
Some of us came fromenvironments where we were able
to pilfer money away.
(28:52):
Your parents might take it fromyou, and I think that really
can develop this mentality ofscarcity and this mentality of
will I be even able to hang onto it?
True story when I was 16, Iwalked into a bank that my
(29:12):
parents did not bank with andset up my own account.
I had $10 to put into it, but Iset up my own account and
ensured that my parents wouldnot be able to get into it.
I mean, I stood there and Iasked them how can I do this so
my parents cannot touch it?
Wow, in hindsight I'm likefreaking out a little bit that I
(29:34):
did that, but the concern wasreal.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
I just think that's so poignant.
But also it speaks to yourdesire 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 talkingabout here, this kind of
dependency is shrouded in allkinds of hyper-spiritual
(30:00):
language and it's all in the.
You know, if it's notself-sacrifice, then it's about
loyalty or about well, mutualaid 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 sobig, right, and the sense like
if you go out and do anythingindependent, you are acting in
(30:23):
rebellion, and you know.
This is so, you know, and yet Ithink that's something we're
gonna we're gonna tackle here inthe coming conversations about
this, because that is such atool of control and abuse and
we've got to call it what it is.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
It is.
And the other thing I wouldsuggest is I had the luxury of
being number four in a row ofeight kids.
Yeah, I could observe what washappening in my family.
I saw what was happening, but Ithink the rest of us all have
that luxury.
We can observe what's happeningin our communities.
We can observe what's happeningin our churches.
(31:03):
We can observe how other wivesare doing or not doing, and we
can all take steps to protectourselves and others within that
.
And it might be taking $10 to abank that has no connections to
(31:24):
anyone you know, that you knowof, but that $10 can change
things and, if nothing else, itgives you the autonomy you're
looking for, it lets you knowyou can do this yes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
And I just want to say that is more revolutionary
than we might think.
I know for myself, when my exand I were kind of in the early
stages of splitting up andthings were not.
Things were amicable, you know,we were, we were, you know,
working together on this, but Iwent to set up my own bank
account and I could not believehow hard it was to communicate
(32:00):
that no, this is a separate,whole, separate thing, not just
like a sub account.
And you know, and just a coupleof weeks before my now ex had
gone in and set up an accountfor himself and his business, no
big deal at all.
Nobody blinked when I went in.
(32:23):
It was like they weren't quitesure 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 is2018.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
So yeah, about 15 years ago I went to set up my
own account at another bank andat one point the lady I was
working with shook her head andshe said I think you're the
first woman who's come inindependently to set up an
account.
And this was like 15 years ago.
She could not believe myhusband wasn't with me.
(32:54):
She was impressed, but she keptshaking her head and making
comments about it.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
And I think the takeaway here that's so
important to underscore is thatat least as of right now in the
US, no one can force you to giveup your paycheck, even if it's
a religious expectation and Ithink so often it is framed in
this religious language ofgenerosity or giving or tithing
(33:22):
or family loyalty because thelegal right's not there and they
can't legally take that moneyfrom you, and so it gets
manipulated, spirituality getsmanipulated as a way to take
that, and so just know that'sillegal.
This might sound overlydramatic, but just bear with me.
(33:42):
When you look at thedefinitions for child
trafficking, that definitionhits closer to home than I think
a lot of people would like tothink.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Well, in any situation where you have people
attempting to control and takeaway autonomy and independence,
it has its own form of abuse,and I think sometimes we are so
(34:12):
accustomed to that being thenormal that we don't always
recognize it.
At the same time, I think asyou work your way through the
process, we might often be thefirst ones to recognize it then.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Once you know what it looks like.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
All of a sudden, you're like, oh, I've seen this
before.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Right, Because I think this brings us to our,
quite naturally to our thirdpoint, which is that many of us
in this situation are at risk offinancial manipulation and
control, you know, whether it'swithin that community of origin
or then after.
We leave it until we figure outthose patterns, until we are
(34:59):
able to recognize them.
And I think we just got to getreally clear with ourselves that
financial abuse is stillfinancial abuse, regardless of
what kind of good name you puton it.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
And again, there are a plethora of podcasts, of
Instagram accounts who arespeaking about this.
We can easily educate ourselvesenough to at least have a basic
understanding of what ishappening and figure out ways to
(35:33):
start protecting ourselves.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Yes, and when you say that, okay, I have mixed
feelings about Dave Ramsey.
No, I have a lot of beefFeelings.
I have a lot of feelings, butonce in a while he says some
things that are really true andthey're not original with him,
it's just I associate them withhim.
But one is you know he talksabout, like, when you go to a
(35:56):
place of business or wherever itis, and they start talking down
to you and, and and I would saynot just place of business a
family member, um, they starttalking down to you, um, as if
like, oh well, your questionsabout this and this and this,
you just don't understand.
And they're like recognize,it's not that hard.
And yes, there's lots.
(36:17):
I think there are lots ofsystems, financial systems that
are set up to be difficult andconfusing for many of us to
navigate.
But anyone of averageintelligence like it can be
explained to someone of averageintelligence.
And if someone is suggestingyou're not smart enough to
(36:39):
understand, that's a red flagright there, because if they
can't explain it to you insimple words, like a
five-year-old could understand,there's a problem Exactly
Because they're benefiting offof you not understanding.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
They don't want you to.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Yeah, I feel like we have one of the best financial
advisors out there, and I wasjust on a phone call with him
the other day and I said so.
Now, I know that there's stocksand I know what stocks are.
I know there's bonds, Iunderstand what bonds are, but
what's the other thing?
What's that other thing calledMutual funds?
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Yes, sucks bonds and mutual funds Right right, but he
didn't laugh at me.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Yeah, yeah, he didn't laugh at me.
He said you're right, it'smutual 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 mylife where I didn't know and I
could say that same thing and bemet with you, silly little
(37:41):
goose, ridicule, yeah, yeah, payattention when that happens,
like really pay attention, andI'm going to even say be
offended when that happens, beoffended, walk away, because I
am at the point where I don'tlike to agree with Dave Ramsey.
But yes, if that's happening,walk away.
(38:02):
There's other people out there,you don't need to subject
yourself to that.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Absolutely Well, let's be clear, dave Ramsey did
not come up with that.
He just happened to be theperson that stuck in my mind.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Are you saying that if Dave Ramsey says something
that actually makes sense, heprobably wasn't original with
him?
Speaker 1 (38:23):
I wouldn't, I'd never think of something like that.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Back to the point.
I do think we need tounderstand that there are
options available to us and thatpilfering money away, even if
it's $10 at a time, makes adifference.
In Tia Leving's book AWell-Trained Wife, she writes
about collecting gift cards thatshe had received as payments
(38:50):
for blogging that she had done,and she used that to escape
because she had literally noaccess to the family's income.
And the one thing I do know iswe women and probably we humans
(39:11):
men are smart too, but we knowhow to figure out ways to meet
needs.
I mean, that has been our job.
That has been our job sincelittle up figuring out ways to
meet needs that we might notnecessarily have even good
access to.
We can figure this out andfigure it out without guilt.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Exactly, exactly, for sure, for sure.
Well, I think Tia Leving's bookis such a good description of
the danger of marrying withoutfinancial protection or how that
can look when you just likeslide into a situation where
you're set up to be blocked fromaccess to that kind of thing,
(39:58):
and I think it's no accidentthat the net result of this is
leaving a woman without options.
And I think even in some of theFLDS, the Fundamentalist
Latter-day Saints, narrativesI've read of people who have
escaped, and so those are someof the very reclusive groups in
(40:22):
Utah that practice polygamy anda whole bunch of other things,
and they were very consciousabout getting these young women
married and with lots ofchildren and pregnant lots of
times, so that they couldn'tescape, and they were
financially dependent.
And, man, you talk about themountains that they had to
(40:45):
overcome to gain any kind offinancial stability when they
did escape the few who have.
But I guess what I'm saying isthat plan to cut people, often
women, out of knowing what'sgoing on is not an accident, and
they might drape it in allkinds of hyper-spiritual
language, but it's intentional.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
So remember the banking account that I started
when I was 16, with $10 for twoyears and I would receive an
allowance of $20 a month.
That's what I $10 here when Iwas disowned at 18, I had $100
(41:35):
in there and that was all.
That was literally all I had.
That was it.
That was it.
I don't think I can underscorehow important having that type
of resource is, and if someonetells you you can't have it, I
would be concerned that themotivation is to ensure that you
(41:59):
don't have a way out.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Absolutely.
And you know, something thatmight feel like a world away
from what we're talking abouthere is the issue of a prenup
agreement, and that's just anagreement before a couple gets
married about what would happenif the marriage dissolved.
And I'm bringing this up hereunder the umbrella of this point
(42:22):
about the danger of marryingwithout financial protection and
how often this can happen.
And I just want to say that Ithink the prevailing idea out
there in a lot of communities,like religious communities, is
that a prenup is a plan to getdivorced.
In fact, I think Dave Ramseysays that too, and I was
(42:43):
watching Love is Blind this weekthe most recent episode and the
most recent season and therewas a woman on the show who was
suggesting that she and herfiance get a prenup before they
get married, and there was some,you know, his family was kind
of like wait, what's going onhere?
(43:04):
But when you drill down intothe situation, it actually made
a lot of sense and she was veryclear no, no, no, she's not.
She wants this marriage to last.
That's not the issue.
But then she described what theterms were that she was wanting
and they were incrediblyreasonable terms, and so I think
when we that the devil is inthe details and, I think, being
(43:27):
aware that a prenup doesn't haveto favor the person who has the
most power already, a prenupcan be fair.
A prenup is like for worst casescenario Just because we have a
fire extinguisher in our housedoesn't mean we're planning to
set it on fire.
Having a prenup and knowing andI think part of the reason
(43:49):
probably that this is not moreof an issue in a lot of our you
know backgrounds is that we werecoming into marriage without
anything.
You know.
I mean like I know there wasnothing to, as they say, there
was nothing to nap when I gotmarried.
But, you know, when we thinkabout the next generation, when
you think about preparing yourkids, especially if you've got
(44:09):
daughters who are having careersbefore they're married, I think
this is something that we canbe thinking about.
So another way that we can befinancially vulnerable is just
the fact of having limitedsafety nets and family
estrangement when we do leave arestrictive or high demand
community, and it might meangiving up an inheritance, it
(44:33):
might mean giving up familysupport, and even when that's
just moral support that matters,or a boomerang home to fall
back on, as they call it, like aplace to land if the bottom
falls out, and I think thatprecarity is so real, so
terrifying.
I feel like in the last fewweeks I've read multiple posts
(44:56):
on social media about youngpeople who are maybe in poor
health or in a really vulnerableposition and their families are
putting all kinds of religiouspressure on them, like trying to
force them to church or forcethem to do this or that, and I'm
sure the families mean well,but it is abusive and it's
(45:19):
oppressive and it's why manyyoung people in these situations
choose precarity over hangingaround for that kind of
situation.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Caring for other people with strings attached is
just some of the worst type ofcare.
It is the worst type of careand like can we please stop
doing that?
We have an obligation to eachother because of our humanness,
because we are human.
That's enough to meet needswith strings attached, whether
(46:00):
it is attend my church orwhether it is give me some of
your money or whatever it is Ijust think is so manipulative,
scammy, cruel.
Speaker 1 (46:06):
Yeah, it's cruel.
Yeah, you're right, it is, itis, it's cruel, it's cruel, it's
cruel.
It's exploiting an advantage,exploiting a position of power
yeah, to force someone else tocomply with your wishes, yeah,
and I think it's like we, ifwe're used to needing to present
a whole legal case to advance,we might feel like, oh well, I'm
(46:35):
not sure how to respond to this, so I guess I have to go along
with it.
No, no, when someone is tryingto control you, you do not need
a good reason.
You do not need a good reasonto push back.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
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'redumb or uneducated, it just
simply means you don'tunderstand it.
And if it can't be explained ina way that makes sense, no is a
(47:07):
good enough answer 100%.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
I also want to say that for folks who are maybe
going to college or and so thismight be someone who's young, it
could be someone who's older,but any.
If you're in a situation likethat, don't feel shy about
asking for help.
The default assumption aboutmost college students is that
(47:31):
they have a family at home whoare sending them care packages
and they've got dad's creditcard or something right.
That's often the defaultassumption.
That is not the reality formost students today, and I think
there are I'm not saying allfaculty and staff on campuses,
but I think the vast majoritygenuinely care about the
(47:54):
students there and if they knowsomeone needs help, they want to
do what they can.
Oftentimes, schools will havelike a, or some schools will
have like a food pantry forstudents, but this is not going
to be something that's going tobe promoted on the website or in
the brochures when they'rerecruiting students, right, so
(48:15):
you have to go, look for it, youhave to ask for it, but this is
why you know spending timehanging out at in lounges or
around you know staff offices orfaculty offices like getting to
know people on campus anddeveloping those relationships
can be so helpful in connectingyou to those resources and just
(48:40):
know they might look differenton different campuses, but they
are worth exploring, they areworth asking for.
Speaker 2 (48:46):
You know, I had a professor once who one day said,
hey, we're going to go on alittle field trip today, and he
was slightly odd and I was kindof like eh, but he took us to
the food pantry on campus.
And he just said I want youguys to know that it's here.
And since we're here, anyway,everyone just pick something out
(49:07):
and let's go back, but knowthat it's here.
Oh, I love it and I hope youmake good use of it.
I love that All of a sudden hewasn't quite so weird to me.
I mean he was still slightlyweird, but that's huge.
That was huge to me and I wasso glad I didn't know there was.
(49:28):
Well, I think I had heard aboutone, but I wouldn't have known
where to find it and I soadmired that he did that.
Speaker 1 (49:37):
And one of the things I love about what your
professor did is promptingeveryone to take something,
because I think it's so easy.
If we are used to being theones giving, it's hard, it can
be hard to accept that we are inthe position of receiving, but
if we can accept, hey, we canboth give and receive.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
Yeah, that's, that's really what community is about
or, in that situation, if he hadan inkling that there was a kid
that was hungry, yeah, that kiddidn't stand out.
It was like no, everyone, takesomething.
Like it was, it wasn't takesomething if you want something.
It was like no, everyone, takesomething, love that.
It wasn't take something if youwant something.
It was like I want each of youguys to take something.
And my guess was that he had asuspicion that there was a need,
(50:24):
yeah, and he didn't want thatkid to feel singled out.
Speaker 1 (50:27):
That's brilliant.
That's so awesome.
Speaker 2 (50:29):
Yeah, I thought too it was really smart out.
Speaker 1 (50:32):
That's brilliant, that's so awesome.
Yeah, I thought too, it wasreally smart.
So the sixth and final item onour list here is that many of us
in the situation are trying tobreak cycles of financial
disempowerment.
I just want to say with thisthat 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'sworth.
(50:55):
Let me rephrase that In myexperience I'll only speak for
myself.
In my experience it has beenworth making that independence
possible, making it happen, andultimately I found myself in a
better financial position.
So when I was facing divorce,the financial impact of that was
(51:16):
one of my biggest concerns andit was rough and it was really
rough.
But now I'm in a more securefinancial position than I ever
was when I was married.
So I just say that and let mealso say this is while I'm in a
job where when we do get a costof living raise, it doesn't even
keep up with inflation.
So essentially I've beengetting a pay cut every year and
(51:40):
even so, my financial securityis better, and so I just want to
offer that as hope.
The struggle is real and Idon't want to diminish that in
any way.
But also the struggle sucks.
The struggle sucks and it isreal and I don't want to
diminish that in any way, butalso struggle.
Speaker 2 (51:54):
the struggle sucks, the struggle sucks and it is
really feeling, that feeling ofnot knowing how you're going to
make car payment, how you'regoing to pay rent.
It's, it's scary, it's real.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
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 dothings around the house, I've
learned to say if a man can doit, I can do it Exactly.
(52:27):
So, when we think about a coupleof action points here as we
close things out, one of thethings that I think about is a
suggestion that I heard someoneit may have been Heather Cox
Richardson who no, no, no, itwas Janet Yellen who was saying
recommending going in andfreezing our credit scores with
(52:48):
all three credit bureaus, andI'm going to put a link in the
show notes, because if you'regoing, what are you talking
about?
Read the article in the linkand it'll explain it to you.
But just given all the securitybreaches that have been
happening in recent months andthen in recent weeks, this is
one way to ensure that someoneis not going and setting up bank
(53:09):
accounts or credit cardaccounts in your name, and so
we'll link that in the shownotes.
Do you have any other pieces ofpractical advice you want to?
Speaker 2 (53:18):
add Think about what advice you would give to your
younger self and go, do that insmall steps now.
Starting now does make adifference, because the timing
is never going to be perfect,because the timing is never
going to be perfect, but takingcontrol and showing up for
(53:39):
yourself in small ways, I thinkreally well, the financial term
is, it compounds.
Speaker 1 (53:44):
It does.
Speaker 2 (53:44):
It does, sometimes not just in the sense of money,
but I think what it does for youinternally.
The sense of confidence thatcould get you Is just as
important.
Speaker 1 (53:56):
Absolutely so.
Our next episode in the seriesis going to be looking at the
secret salary of a stay-at-homeparent and how that factors in
the work the labor of astay-at-home parent, and how
that factors in the work thelabor of a stay-at-home parent.
How does that factor intoconversations about financial
(54:18):
independence for women?
So that's a whole other can ofworms, but we're going to open
it anyway.
Look at us All right.
Well, it's been great hangingout with you, our listeners, and
wish you the best as you gotake charge of your financial
future.
Speaker 2 (54:36):
And if you have any questions or any topics you hope
that we cover, send us amessage.
We would love to hear it.
But also I would be reallycurious to know what advice
you'd have for your younger self.
Speaker 1 (54:51):
There is a link in the show notes, at the top of
our show notes, where you cansend us a message right from
your phone.
So we can't wait to hear fromyou.
Take care.
Speaker 2 (55:16):
Thank you for spending time with us today.
The resources and materialswe've mentioned are linked in
the show notes and on Facebookat Uncovered Life Beyond.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
What are your thoughts about college and
recovery from high demandreligion?
We know you have your ownquestions and experiences, and
we want to talk about the topicsthat matter to you.
Share them with us atuncoveredlifebeyondatgmailcom.
That'suncoveredlifebeyondatgmailcom.
Speaker 2 (55:43):
If you enjoyed today's show and found value in
it, please rate and review it onyour favorite podcast app.
This helps others find the showWhile you're there.
Subscribe to our podcast so younever miss an episode.
Speaker 1 (55:56):
Until next time stay brave, stay bold, stay awkward.
Thank you.
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