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In this week’s Ten Money Questions, we speak with Suzanne Reisman. She is the contributing editor for feminism and gender at BlogHer and also blogs at Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants. Suzanne provides us with some sapient views on the almighty dollar flanked by a perspective on gender. Enjoy!
1. Do people assume roles in relationships based more on earnings or gender?
I think increasingly people assume roles in relationships based on personal strengths and interests versus gender or even who earns more. It seems like couples are finding that one person may be better at managing a checking account or retirement investments than the other, and so they run with it. Maybe this does have to do with women bringing home ever more significant portions of the family income, but it’s nice.
2. What is your most significant memory about money?
I remember being at the grocery store with my mom when I was in early elementary school, and the total being more than she had. At that point, grocery stores didn’t take credit cards (which seems hard to believe!), so we had to decide which items we would put back until we got to a number that we could cover. My mom was mortified, and I couldn’t understand why. I thought it happened to everyone, but clearly this was not the norm in the middle to upper middle class community we lived in.
3. What is your worst habit around finances?
I am inexplicably and irrationally cheap, and often it ends up costing me more than if I had just not tried to save 13 cents or whatever in the first place! For example, when I was planning my wedding eight years ago, I was increasingly disgruntled at the mounting price tag. I thought that buying a wedding dress off eBay would save a lot of money. Unfortunately, I got completely caught up in a bidding war and spent a little more than I really planned to. That would have been fine had I not also grossly misjudged the size I wore. It was so big that alterations would have been absurdly expensive, so I relisted on eBay. Eventually I did sell it (to a 6 foot tall drag queen, which might give you a sense of how wrong the dress was for a 5'1" 135 lb. woman!), but at half the price. I did keep the veil, though, so at least it was not a total loss. Anyway, I am often penny wise and utterly pound foolish.
4. Do you think women are still conditioned (perhaps by mothers and society) that marrying a man is a financial plan?
I think that some women are conditioned to think that they need to marry, but increasingly that it not the case. Women are taking their financial security into their own hands. I just saw a report in “USA Today†showing that college enrollment in the 1970s was something like 58% male, and today it is 50-50. The projections are that college enrollment will be 60% female in the near future. In a world that increasingly requires two incomes to make ends meet (and I am not talking about making ends meet in a luxurious lifestyle, but in a basic comfortable one), women are making plans to meet these challenges, which is important.
5. You wrote in one post, “Damn, I save a lot of money by not wearing make up.†How else do you save money?
I don’t drink alcohol. (I hope that doesn’t mean people won’t want to hang out with me at BlogHer!) I don’t really like most alcoholic beverages very much, and they can be $10 a glass and more, so why bother? Also, I try and buy things like clothes only when they are on sale or off of eBay.
6. Has debt had any impact on your life?
I have been very lucky when it comes to debt. My parents are extremely debt averse, so I grew up with the attitude that you should never buy something unless you can pay for it at once, unless it is a house or a car. As a result, I never charge anything that I can’t pay for when the bill arrives, and I always pay in full, or I don’t buy it. I took out some loans when it came to college and grad school, but my parents and scholarships ensured that I didn’t have an unreasonable burden for my undergraduate education, and my husband and
