blogger profile

Sara Conrad

Editor, skirt! Jacksonville

I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. I love thinking and talking about feminism and writing for skirt!. I went to the University of Iowa and I'll put up a good fight about spelling. ...

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money, money, monaaay!

I was under the impression growing up that the good ol’ US was built in such a way that everyone who worked their ass off deserved and acquired a good chunk of change. That could have been because I went to high school with a severe lack of diversity in economic status. When my friends got new cars for their b-days (and nice ones, too) I actually complained to my parents about “having” to drive my “old” ‘80’s Toyota (stick shift lessons were hell on my 15-and-a-half-year -old ego). I’m lucky I got a damn car at all. (Omigod, I sound like my dad! Help!)

But, although the world is opening up today via the internet (thank you web gods and goddesses!) and financial advice is blooming in blogs and more palatable servings of dry numbers advice (math was never my favorite subject) I just can’t help but think that I was stuck in some weird generational warp that forbid the talk of cold hard financial planning. Now, in my 20s, I have jumped on that boat, or, caught the caboose of the train, rather, and am making it a hobby to beef up on my financial duty to myself. You know, hopping on the save your money like crazy train. I’ve spent a lot of time reading up on how to better myself intellectually, soulfully, emotionally, creatively, physically and aesthetically, but fiscally? I  feel I should have started on those books when I was ten. (Although, at the time, what kid younger than 14 could swallow prose that dry? Good for you, Bill Gates! Good for you....sigh.)

Growing up today gives us more choices and more chances to take ownership of our finances, so why are so many ladies in my generation still wrapped in a time-warp of not researching and talking about their finances? Is this even a gender divide--or is it more of a generational gap? Why is talking about money still kind of a taboo amongst women?

At the Girls' Day event a few weeks ago, Girls Inc. of Jacksonville gave me a cute t-shirt with a caricature of a girl and the motto “Fiscally and Physically Fit.” Kudos to you all! : )