Welcome to another week of the Women’s Personal Finance Wednesdays roundup. I started this series after months of debate because I wasn’t certain I wanted to up the ante and commit to publishing three posts a week. However, now that I’ve started sharing these posts, I’m so glad I started.

There are so many fabulous women writing about personal finance online, and yet there is still a perception that women aren’t good with money, don’t care about money, or don’t understand it on a granular level beyond perhaps knowing how to coupon and score a good shopping deal. These roundups are my way of doing a small part to change that perception. There are no shortage of women online doing their part to make it clear that they DO understand money, and these posts are meant to amplify that fact.

The hardest part of this post every week always is narrowing it down to my favorites, because there is just so much good content out there. 

Our Women’s Personal Finance Facebook group also has a sharing thread on Fridays, and that’s the place to read all the blog posts written by members over the previous week. If you’re looking for more articles written by women, that’s a great place to continue reading (plus we have plenty of great discussions on finances the rest of the week as well!).

If you don’t have the time or inclination to go searching down myriad posts, though, I will be continuing this series every week to showcase some of the best of the new content I read. If you ever read a post you think I absolutely need to consider for this roundup, please let me know! I am always open to reading new blogs (and posts of blogs I do know, because I miss some).

Women’s Personal Finance Wednesdays – Week 110

1. Thanksgiving Dinner for One (or Two) Zero Waste Chef

“For the first time since I moved to the US in 1998, I’ll spend Thanksgiving alone. I won’t see my kids. I won’t have a potluck with a group of friends like I usually do. And honestly, I don’t feel very motivated at the moment to bother cooking. But I know that once I have cleared the hurdle of shopping this weekend—for me, the most daunting part by far of preparing Covid Thanksgiving dinner—I’ll enjoy cooking my meal. Plus I need to eat. I may as well eat pie.”

Please, please stay home. But home doesn’t mean you can’t make some tasty food and have a good – scaled down – holiday. We will also be eating pie. I was having a conversation with our roommate the other day about dessert choices, and only he likes pumpkin pie. Since we’re just making and eating with the four of us in our household, I’ve decided we will have four desserts – one favorite for each of us.

2. Preparing for Maternity Leave Amid COVID and Unexpected News Metalhead Money

“It’s clear that the United States needs universal paid maternity leave and an expansion of public health care options. With the presumptive election of Biden and Harris, this looks like more of a possibility than a pipe dream — so let’s keep reminding the oligarchs, er, elected officials to level the maternity leave playing field. If more than 120 countries on six continents have figured out how to value this irreplaceable time in a family’s existence, why can’t we?”

This post is combo how to get ready to have a baby in general along with her personal story of what’s going on with her first pregnancy – from money and leave to complications. If you’re planning on a baby in the future, read this. If you’re interested in the hoops that are needed to jump through for any kind of paid maternity leave in the United States, read this too.

3. Why I Joined, Then Left, The FIRE Movement Emma Pattee on The Financial Diet

“I’m not discounting the value of hard work or trying to pretend I just woke up one day and was financially independent, having no clue how I got there. I certainly put in late hours, took on extra jobs, and did a fair share of labor on the rental properties. I also made a number of personal choices that helped: having roommates, working a second job, not having a wedding, driving an old car, the list goes on. And while all of those things helped, just how much did my personal responsibility move the needle?”

I can relate to so much of what Emma wrote here. Yes, I’ve worked darn hard to get where I’m at. But yes, we’ve also been very privileged, and very lucky. To say otherwise erases the struggles of people who don’t have those advantages. There are also so many people in the FIRE community now that aren’t the white cis-male tech bro, and the narrative is changing as a result.

I hope you enjoy the posts this week as much as I did. I read a ton of content and it was hard to narrow down my favorites. I’m looking forward to sharing some new ones with you again next week!

As always, if you’re looking for a categorized list of self identified women writing and speaking about personal finance, here is my comprehensive guide to the Women of the Financial Independence Community.

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