What We Wished We Had Known About Money

Janine and I recently had the good fortune of joining part of the final session of the Financial Courage for Young Women course that Invest for Better is offering with the Women’s Money Lab.

Wow, if I ever for a moment doubted the power of this work, that evening’s session dispelled it all. First, those of us who had personally sponsored young women to be part of the course (I sponsored 3 amazing women) were asked to share “what we wished we’d known about money when we were young” along with any big mistakes about money we’d made. The power of money to express our values was, of course, the dominant theme for what we wished we knew, but several of the group also mentioned just how little we knew about money at all when we were in our 20’s or 30’s!  A couple of us regretted the fact that we hadn’t negotiated harder for what we deserved money-wise in those early days.  But it was the young women’s comments about some of their biggest course take-aways that really blew us away!  Among them were learning about compound interest, reckoning with the emotional aspects of money including “money shame”, and developing the confidence to set goals, ask questions, and engage in alignment with their values. At least one participant was ready to embark on a search for a new financial advisor. We were inspired by the younger generation’s willingness to talk about money in new ways and be far more aspirational than many of us were at their age.

Written by Ellen Remmer, co-founder of Invest for Better, this article was posted in a December 7, 2022 e-newsletter.