Wow, my mind is still buzzing from all the stimulation at BlogHer. My latest thoughts? I’m feeling the need to beef up my knowledge of personal finance and investing. I know, as boring and dry and tedious as that sounds, I am determined to get a handle on this aspect of my life.

So I’m gonna start by coming clean with a major confession. I am 40 y/o, and I have never ever done my own taxes. Yes, I know. WTF kind of Bubble Girl life have I been living? My friends insist that doing taxes is not that hard and with TurboTax, the task is pretty straightforward. Still. I have never done it on my own. When I was growing up, my father had a CPA who did taxes for his business and investments. As soon as I was of working age, my father had me stashing away my paltry internship stipends into various IRAs. At the time, I just did as he advised, bc I mean, as a 16-y/o, I really didn’t give two fucks about the details of “adulting:” I instinctively trusted what they said as best practice. As I evolved into an adult, I continued doing the same habits: maxing out my 401k contributions and stashing funds into IRAs. When I joined forces with Bubs, he took on the responsibility of doing our taxes bc he had been doing his taxes since forever. As a side note, can you believe J and I are celebrating 20 years together this month? It’s crazy to think about just how young we were when we got together. We met when we were mere 20-y/os and then we got married at 26/27. I feel like, when people hear about how young we were, their reaction is similar to mine, like if I were to hear about someone having a baby/getting married as teens or newbie college grads. It feels like, inappropriately young, you know?

Honestly, it’s a fucking miracle that we are still together. Haha. I mean, yeah, we’re both amazing people 🙂 and all, but shit, two decades is a long-ass time to grow together, through so many big life changes. And I mean, not to throw the hubs under the bus, but Bubbey has A LOT of quirks. I know, most people who know us probably think I’m the more difficult/challenging person to tolerate of the two (It’s ok, I know Bubbey’s got that world class social and emotional intelligence that makes him instantly loveable), but shit, he can be difficult. The road hasn’t been all smooth sailing. We’re both super stubborn beotches in our own ways. But I digress…

So yeah, I’m basically admitting to being a princess. I HATE that description, bc it totally suggests a coddled life (which in turn, conjures bad thoughts about my brother…) but at the same time, my background is what it is.

Fast forward to BlogHer. One of the speakers was a former Wall St. baller. She talked about how financially, women are often behind men, bc three big factors work against them: 1) the pay gap 2) an investing gap 3) falling out of the workforce to raise families. While year to year, the gaps might not seem significant, over the entire span of our working/earning lives, the differences compound into something huge. By retirement age, women have less money saved than men even though they outlive them! I came away from this talk realizing that I need to have a better understanding of my personal finances. I’m not talking so much about saving. I’m pretty good at that, but saving only goes so far.

By not educating myself about growing my money, I am only doing myself a disservice. For example, we’ve all read about salary negotiations and how women consistently avoid making the ask. Sure, it’s confrontational and uncomfortable but you know what? The difference is not just in that one moment/instant. The difference is cumulative. I just had a call last week with my friend P. Her boyfriend was urging her to ask for a raise. She had never done this before and she was so stressed. It made me think about a job offer I got many years back. I’d negotiated for salary before, but I was still so nervous and a part of me wanted to just not ask. But thank goodness I did, bc you know what? I got $70k instead of $48k. And if you factor in annual increases or whatever over a woman’s working lifetime, that extra lift is a big fucking deal. Thankfully, my friend made the ask. Unfortunately, her employer is undergoing some management changes, so no results just yet. Still though. No matter what, asking is better than just accepting.

Ultimately though, my takeaway is this. It’s great that I have my father and J as trustworthy, financially-savvy resources, but I need to know this shit for myself bc as I have seen with friends and family, life happens: divorce, cancer, whatever. If empowerment, independence, and self-sufficiency truly are my values, I need to step this shit up.

So the plan is this: I’m going to start reading this book published by The Motley Fool: Warren Buffett Invests Like a Girl, and I’m starting to ask questions, like immediately. This afternoon, I emailed Schwab with some questions about rollovers, and I also called Fidelity about my employer-sponsored 403b. Then I talked to dad about IRAs. My head kinda hurts now, so I’m going to go color my hair. See? Random thoughts all crammed into one head! And all of it discussed on the blog. I do what I fucking want, man! Haha.