Denise's Blog
Money Insights, Wisdom, and More
Women and Money | One of our longest most important relationships
I think you would agree… even though it’s not a human relationship, the relationship between women and money is lifelong (first it buys us toys and then it buys us long term care). While we can divorce our partners, become widowed or end relationships that no longer serve us…money hangs with us through thick and thin and is a medium we engage with daily.
Like any relationship, the one between women and money, has it’s complexities. As we work through our fears, struggles and pain with money, we have the opportunity to step into a space of personal power, freedom, and security. In my own life, I’ve found working through my projections, fears and scarcity mentality about money has brought me to a space of emotional and financial freedom (regardless of the amount of money I have in my bank account).
I’m going to “think out loud” with you about WHY it is important for us women to have a healthy relationship with money. I invite you to post your “think out loud” thoughts with me here in the comments below.
We make better decisions
We make better decisions for ourselves and our family when we have our money handled. We don’t have to sacrifice our values and emotional health while staying in relationships or career situations just for the money. I think all women can relate to this…earning our worth and learning smart money management skills keeps us in a place of personal power and keeps our emotional health front and center. The bottom line is we have MORE freedom, more choice and make better decisions for ourselves and our family.
I learned first hand from my mom how important it was to be able to stand on my own two feet financially. She always told me, “you never know what life will bring your way, go to school, build a career and always bring in your own money so that if anything happens you can always stand on your own two feet.” My mom was “asked” to leave her corporate job when she was pregnant with me. She was told, “women can’t be dependable at work if they have children (it was a different time).” Over time, she became dependent on my dad’s earnings and in some way, this crimped my mom’s experience of freedom for herself and her family.
We create smoother transitions for ourselves
We open ourselves to creating smoother life transitions when we are financially smart. Whether it’s getting married, having children, going to school, getting divorced, unexpected illness, moving through loss of a spouse or parent…all transitions require emotional energy. Personally, I find it comforting to know that I can fully direct my emotional energy to a transition rather than split my energy with financial worries. Transitions can be stressful enough without the added worry about “do I have enough money to make it through this the way I want to?”
Money in the bank gives me breathing space, time to process, play with possibilities about how I’m going to move forward in the transition presenting itself to me. I think that is one reason why I am a good saver. I save to take care of my future self because I know she has high freedom needs.
We can give more
We can give more and give longer when we first create a stable financial base for ourselves. Women are givers. We want to help our children out with school. We want to help our parents out. We like to give to causes and charities to make the world a better place. If we establish a solid financial base for ourselves, we can continue to give throughout our lives without jeapardizing our well-being over the long term. It goes back to that old airline saying, we need to put our own oxygen mask on first.
By not taking care of our own financial situation first, we make ourselves vulnerable, limit choices for our well-being in the longer term. I don’t think any of us want to create a situation where we depend on our children in our later years or county services, but this is exactly what we create when we don’t put ourselves first. I can’t emphasize strongly enough, that caring for ourselves FIRST financially is a NEED and that comes before taking care of another’s WANTS.
Honestly, this isn’t a lesson that’s come easy to me. Just now in my 50’s, I’m learning how to “receive” and feel good about it. I’m learning how to wisely “spend” my time, energy and money while evaluating the rate of return with each of these energies. Marie Nemeth’s book, Mastering Life’s Energies has been a Godsend for me to help me in this area.
We can be more creative
We can spend more of our brain space on higher level activities…like creativity, our passion and soul filled next steps and manifesting dreams. When our brain space is occupied with how we are going to pay our mortgage or meet our monthly bills…our energy and brain space get taken up with these lower level survivor needs…and we have less energy and brain space to create with. It all goes back to Maslow’s heirarchy of needs…certain needs have to be met first (survival needs) before we can move up the pyramid to higher level ways of being in the world.
I remember with clarity how it felt when my husband and I were in 60K of debt, when our bills became debts, and when the tension was so thick between us “over money.” I am glad those days are gone, yet my nervous system can recall them with great clarity. This was not a time, where I had energy to dream because I was in survival mode. It took lots of work to dig ourselves out of this space and it is not one I ever want to go back to.
You are so right about the importance of a women’s relationship to money. It’s important energy to be opened up to.
I’d like to throw in the idea that as givers- women tend to not be all that great at receiving. Being able to receive and open up to all the juicy goodness and prosperity the Universe has to offer is a big part of having a good relationship with money.
Especially if you are in business for yourself! You need to freely let it in without thinking you need to EARN it. Say YES to what is offered without feeling like you need to give something back.
Align yourself with the idea that money flows freely to you and see what happens!
Leah, YES on women being better receivers. Thanks, this gives me an idea for a new post! I agree with you!
I agree with you that women and money need to have good relationship and it’s difficult to dream big when you are not sure what you are going to put on the table next day.
I found it very effective when in the survival situation you can find strength and energy to think big and keep a mindset of abundance. When you ground yourself and concentrate on opportunities to make money rather worries that you don’t have enough. I’ve been in situation when I had to choose to use public transport and pay for the ticket or walk and buy food for dinner, and I also experienced miraculous solutions when I focused on wanted results.
Yes Inga, you are an inspiration here and it is our mindset that creates abundance, not our bank accounts.
I think you’re spot-on with all of this, Denise. And I would add that some women who become stay-at-home moms may have an extra layer of “stuff” to work through. I know I do: I grew up believing that your job is your identity, and the bigger your paycheck, the bigger your worth to the world. So it was a very tough transition for me to give up a steady paycheck — even in exchange for doing what I believe is the most valuable job in the world. Great post, and lots of good stuff to think about and learn from.
Yes Jessica, you make a great point and I agree that raising a family is one of the most important jobs ever…and that self worth is not the same as net worth. We all have our layers of stuff. Me too. Thank you!
I love that you have addressed money from a female relationship perspective. Very different from the usual.
I had not thought of our relationship with money having gender differences but see that it makes total sense.
At the end of the day reading this I’m feeling a need to be kinder to myself about some of the money screw-ups I’ve made, brush myself off and move on.
Keep up the good work!
Jacqueline, YES…great kindness and compassion…because what you call a screw up is really the Universe sending you a gift of learning…so you can step into a greater space with the energy of money! Thank you for your post!
I think it is interesting to look at the values our parents instilled in us – it really helps explain a lot. My husband is the saver (thank God) and I used to be the spender. My mother grew up in poverty and brought into her parenting the false belief that “things” could make you happy and the idea that there was never enough. My father was an entrepreneur and could make money magically appear out of thin air. His favorite line was “it takes money to make money.”
To help me overcome my limiting beliefs I worked with hypnosis but one little thing I did that made an unbelievably HUGE difference was…
I bought a red plaque that said “SIMPLIFY” in big bold letters and put it in a prominent spot in my living room. So every time I walk into the room the first thing I see is this plaque screaming the word Simplify at me. In the beginning it was quite annoying but now it’s quite affirming. Over the course of a year this plaque has had a HUGE impact on my spending.
Now, I rarely go into a store and whenever I buy something I ask myself, “Does this move me toward my goal of simplifying or away from it?”
Julie, I LOVE your “Simplify” plaque and I most enjoy hearing how you allowed it to guide you toward or away from a goal! Way to go! In my 5th decade, I am finding that simplifying is equivalent to a deep pruning…a sacred process in some way…there is something free-ing about it! Thank you for your insight and sharing! XX
Bri, I love the playfulness with your questions. They are so foundational aren’t they? Thank you!