Financial Adulting. Ashley Feinstein Gerstley

Preface

      If anyone were to know about personal finance, you'd expect it to be me. I majored in finance in college (at Wharton) and then worked in finance. I learned a ton and I know that a lot of what I learned translates to what I do now. Yet, never once in college or in my time working in corporate finance did anyone talk about my own money – my personal finances.

      As I went through my twenties and thirties, and was trying to “adult,” I continued to come across new financial systems I had to understand and navigate. First it was understanding how to put together a budget and afford life, then retirement and investing, then insurance and credit, then navigating finances with a partner and buying a home, and then planning financially to start a family. Each new milestone came with a system that was just as complex and opaque and daunting as the one before, even for someone who has a background in finance and helps people with their personal finances all day, every day.

Taking all this in took a lot of time, learning from mistakes (big and small) and seeing that each of these systems does not serve people equally. As a woman, and later a mother, I experienced differences from say, what my husband (a white man) experienced, but I also know that as far as women* and mothers go, I'm probably as lucky as they come.

Let's Talk About My Privilege

      I am a white, nondisabled, cisgender, heterosexual, upper-middle-class woman, mother, and business owner, and I benefit greatly from intergenerational wealth.

      Intergenerational wealth is any type of financial support provided by the generation(s) before you.

This is a tremendous privilege. It means that not only have I received financial support from family, but also that I have not had to support them. Having to support parents and grandparents is a financial reality for many.

      Coming from an upper-middle-class family, there's a security in knowing that if something were to happen financially, I'd be okay. It's not necessarily a spoken-about safety net, but I know it exists. I know that if all else fails (or even kind of fails), I'll have a place to go (and it's probably a really nice place).

      I graduated without student loan debt. My parents paid for my college education and my living expenses for those four years – and all the years leading up to it.

      My parents gave me a monthly stipend the first year I moved out on my own in New York City as I adjusted to managing my own money. My husband, Justin, and I had our wedding paid for by our parents, and our parents have given us gifts to support us in everything from our first home purchase to helping pay for our children's school to taking us on vacations.

Why Do I Share All This?

First and foremost, most don't share my privilege. Intergenerational wealth, or even the opportunity to build intergenerational wealth, has not been available to much of the population, especially BIPOC† families. I cover this in detail in Chapter 2.

      At the same time, I have so much gratitude for our parents – for their generosity and what they've been able to build and share with us. I hope to be able to support my children in similar ways.

      Despite all my privilege and finance background, being a financial adult was really challenging. As I experienced predatory insurance sales (more on this in Chapter 10), came across credit repair scams (Chapter 12), or try to navigate childcare as a working mom (Chapter 4), what comes up, over and over again, is that if it's this challenging for me, I can only imagine how challenging it is for others who don't share that privilege.

Privilege has to be part of the personal finance conversation. We can't pretend we're all starting from the same place – we're not. We have to call out our privilege or this is never going to change. It's not okay to attribute our financial success to our individual actions alone.

      JEWS AND MONEY

      As a proud Jewish woman writing a book about money, I want to address one of the most common forms of antisemitism: economic libel. This is the accusation and conspiracy theory that Jews are obsessed with money, are all rich, and control the world's finances. These very damaging stereotypes and tropes are used to demonize and dehumanize the Jewish people and delegitimize their human experience.

      Although economic libel started much earlier, it was intensified during the Middle Ages when the Church outlawed “usury,” the act of lending money for interest. Jews, who were restricted from most other professions, were essentially funneled into professions that dealt with finances (because they were outlawed to Christians). This was out of necessity, not choice.

      I've seen a rise in antisemitism across the political spectrum. Given conspiracy theories about “Jewish privilege” (a concept championed by former KKK leader David Duke), I was even hesitant to use the word privilege in this book. As financial adults we need to beware of misinformation no matter where it's coming from. We need to challenge our own beliefs about money but also our beliefs about other people and money. I've included more resources in the Financial Adulting toolkit (financialadultingbook.com).

      While being Jewish in and of itself is not a privilege, Jewish people who pass as white benefit from white-dominant culture. Jewish people who are not white-passing experience the discrimination and racism that comes with being a person of color. I talk about intersectionality in Chapter 2.

I'm Hopeful

      Despite all the problems, I'm hopeful. If I weren't hopeful, I wouldn't be writing this book.

I see the personal finance conversation changing. I see more and more people uncovering and talking about what's wrong with our financial systems. I see personal finance