We know how important it is for women to take control of their own finances, but studies have found that in the last year, women’s financial confidence has faltered. During Worth’s latest session of The Next Normal, we discussed how women can become empowered by their finances with CeCe Olisa, founder and curator of the Curvy Girls Guide, and Kathleen Entwistle, private wealth advisor at Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management. And what we discovered is that, for many women, money management can be quite intimidating.
“For me, money is a very…it’s almost like a very masculine thing,” Olisa said. “I think I get intimidated, and I think that’s when my imposter syndrome starts to pop out because…I think, you know what it is? I think finances are like the one thing that like you can’t see it; I could walk around in labels all day and be broke, or I could look like a bum and be a billionaire. So, I think I probably have a lot of secret shame around it. I probably have those moments when I was, I have had moments in my career, I’ve had a marquee moment and [felt] like, ‘If they only knew what my bank account looked like right now,’ like it doesn’t look like what you see, and then for me, that’s always like, ‘OK, you got to work harder so you never feel like this again.’ So, it’s taken me from my 20s up to figure that out. But I think all those shame gremlins still hang out, they’re still here, so I think that what I know, I know, and what I don’t know, I get real fidgety about it, so that’s probably the difference.”
This is why Olisa and Entwistle agree that knowing how to take care of your finances is a form of self-care because it reduces stress about your money situation, especially in crisis scenarios.
“It is self-care because some of the most stressful times we have are when we’re worried about our finances like, ‘Can we afford that trip?’ ‘Can we afford that apartment?’ ‘What’s going to happen if my career changes?’ And you start to worry, and there’s a way to create calmness around that and we can reduce the financial stress. It brings us wellness,” Entwistle said.
And while money is absolutely power, Entwistle stresses that when it comes to implementing and navigating a financial plan, it should be about “progress not perfection.”
See the whole conversation about ‘How Women Can Boost Their Financial Confidence Right Now’ below.
