An Essay by Jeanne Supin

If my money was my child, I would be reported to the authorities for neglect and abuse. In the last two years, I have stopped balancing my checkbook, ravaged my savings, overextended my credit cards and, at 48, my retirement account remains an ancient government pension to which I have not contributed since leaving that job a decade ago. To make matters worse, my personal financial foibles are magnified by staggering daily reports of our collapsing economy.

Sure, there are legitimate reasons for my recent behavior—unexpected bills and circumstances that will soon run their courses. Nonetheless, I feel embarrassed and ashamed about my personal mess and terrified about our global disaster. And yet, in some very odd but real way, I also feel hopeful. More hopeful than ever, in fact. There is a cleansing afoot, something I quietly rejoice in when I can subdue my shrieking inner voices. Hitting the financial bottom forces me—and the world—to take stock.
Even in the best of times, money and I have danced a dysfunctional tango. Oh, I’ve earned plenty and maintained an enviable credit score, but I spend too much and make silly decisions. What’s worse, money worries—both real and imagined—often clench my heart and ruin my sleep. Evidently, I’m in good company. I find two fascinating categories of advice related to money and personal finances: rulebooks written for everyone and those written expressly for women. Whatever ails me, it seems to ail enough other women to warrant our own bookstore aisle.

American women earn unprecedented amounts. According to the U.S. Census, median income among women jumped from $24,973 a year in 1997 to $35,102 a year in 2007, the latest year for which data is available. Median income for men is still higher, at $45,113 in 2007, but that gap is closing. And women make around 80 percent of household buying decisions, according to Marti Barletta’s Winnetka, Illinois firm TrendSight, which studies marketing to women. Yet as Suze Orman describes in her 2007 book Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny, many of us don’t control our own finances. We ignore our bank statements and don’t save for emergencies. If we’re not the breadwinner, we don’t open our own accounts or track our family’s investments. No matter our age, race or tax bracket, we max out credit cards and ignore their huge fees.  And 53 percent of working women—almost 35 million of us, according to Orman—don’t have a pension plan.

The good news is that there’s plenty of new advice out there about fixing bad habits. Just starting out? Try Farnoosh Torabi’s You’re So Money: Live Rich Even When You’re Not (www.farnoosh.tv). Her hip book and website show young women ways to turn even those early paltry paychecks into lifelong security. On My Own Two Feet: A Modern Girl’s Guide to Personal Finance, by Harvard MBAs Manisha Thakor and Sharon Kedar, takes money management further, offering tools for “financial empowerment” and investment strategies.  Sign up for the authors’ e-newsletter (onmyowntwofeet.com) and peruse their links for more suggestions. On the other hand, if you can afford to hire a financial planner, there are plenty in the Asheville area who work specifically with women and women’s issues (see VERVE’s tips from a few of them, starting on page 50).

But deeper subjects than savings and investments affect our wallets—and our lives—even more. For Orman, it’s about wealth in some larger sense of the word. Torabi says we should know what matters most and grab it with gusto. This part of financial advising seems to be about aspiration and goals, creating ways to live our values and engage in activities we love. It is about planning for the future, shaping our destinies and legacies to reflect and amplify who we are. Sure, I want to afford my daughter’s college tuition, but that’s just money management. Suddenly, pondering what really matters raises tougher questions: What do I really value? What would I purchase with my wealth—things? Knowledge? Freedom? If I sail off with wealth, will I leave compassion washed up on shore? Thinking about U.S. economics, the questions remain the same. Did the specific policies that led to the current cataclysm truly reflect our national values? If not, how do we reconnect to those values, and what do we change? Opening an IRA sounds like a breeze compared to wading through such quagmires.

Often, the hardest part is staying positive, especially in anxious times. I found surprising help in Esther and Jerry Hicks’ Money and the Law of Attraction:  Learning to Attract Wealth, Health, and Happiness. They talk about “abundance,” the idea that life is full of limitless opportunities and the world is a safe, creative and loving place. Yeah, right. At first blush, it seemed both naive and weird. But subduing my own skepticism, I’m finding it pretty helpful. It’s an approach to positive thinking that rests on a growing understanding that our thoughts and beliefs help shape our reality. It’s the difference between panicking when a bill arrives and feeling serene, or even grateful, that I’m at least able to pay part of it. It stretches my logic a bit, but it prompts me to try to do things joyfully, or at least hopefully—from reviewing a bank statement to purchasing a sweater to earning a living to rethinking the global economy. Not a bad place to start when putting my finances, and my life, in order.

If my 401(k) had remained plump and my QuickBooks up to date, I never would have read all these advice books. And if our banks hadn’t failed, we as Americans would have continued down our economic road without a thought. Money and I would have tangoed on, never falling outright but not relishing the steps, either. Impending disaster rattled my complacency, and for the first time, I’m learning radically new things. And feeling inexplicitly excited about their possibilities.