To literally BEG women to set themselves up, financially?

[CallieRedux]

Typed out a long post full of personal details, then deleted, but, honestly, the specifics don't matter. What DOES matter is that you save every tiny bit you can, because having FUCK YOU money is - by far - the most important thing you can do for yourself.

It's saved me from everything from wrong relationships, shit jobs, from natural disasters... I have both made lots of money, and not, but having savings, and the ability to walk away is having POWER, and the best "self care" a woman can have.

Shit happens. Things change. Even to you. Yes, you can save - even a little - when you are poor.

Do it. Please.

Absolutely! My mum is living proof of this. She never worked, has bugger all pension and now things are ‘tighter’ my Dad controls the bank account. Gone on the days when she had her own credit card. She doesn’t even know how much money they have, a lot more than I think my Dad lets on by the way. It’s not a way to live and it didn’t used to be like that. My mum was spoilt at one time and my Dad would ‘let her’ buy anything. She has reaped what she has sown but remember times change and people change. Be financially independent.

Amen to this!

Never had a joint bank account. Never argued about money. Never felt like I could not support myself financially if he left. (And I love this man to bits, so I’m not just devising an exit strategy!!)

Men should have savings too just in case though, anyone who intertwines their life financially should. Invariably though men don't give up their careers or reduce their hours when they have a family, I kept working full time after having DC and got so much flack from people, but I don't care as it means my career is just as important as my partners and I'd be financially fine on my own.

100% agree.

being financially indépendant is our best form of protest against inequality.

👏👏👏👏

Amen!

I was in this position. Then I stayed in an abusive marriage far too long, had 3 DC, experienced redundancy & a recession - and while I left the abusive marriage, have a good job, I am on my knees financially.

I am possibly going to be able to leverage some money I would ultimately be due in the form of an inheritance, to pay legal costs (💶💶💶), secure my home & try to live some kind of life without endless strain, but making this happen is torturous in terms of poor family relations & I wish desperately I didn't have to.

It's so hard to imagine that one can be in this position. In my case, I ended up here by throwing my money after the financial messes my H created. He left, eventually (thankfully); I was a mess & he's swanned around doing little to support the DC for 10 years & by the time I woke up to it, it was all much more messy & complicated than if I'd had some base from day 1.

OP is absolutely right.

I needed deposit + one month rent on a one bed flat, plus living expenses for one month, plus one month's childcare plus a year's car insurance which happened to be due that month.

At the time it came to about £3,500 (2010).

Then during COVID I was out of work for 7 months and that cost about £7k to feed us and pay the mortgage/CT. Even watching every penny and taking JSA into account.

Put whatever you can into an emergencies fund and don't touch it.

Totally agree. I have a friend who is a SAHP to 3 small DC and unmarried. It terrifies me on her behalf. DH and I split bills, have equal in ISAs and I actually have more in savings than him. There's probably more I could do around pensions since I've recently gone down to 3 days a week, but I'll be going up to 4 days shortly and full time again once DD starts school.

This is true.

However, if you separate, having a job, and access to reserve money, allows you to make decisions quickly eg get legal advice, pay essential bills, avoid debt, keep on top of house repairs.

In the final reckoning, yes, your savings will be assessed & it's a bitter pill that they may be 'lost' to you BUT you will still likely be in a better financial & personal situation, with one less avenue of stress, than if you hadn't got this option.

Also it avoids you having to maybe go cap in hand to eg parents when that might be difficult (if you are even lucky enough to have that option).

This ^ will big brass balls on.

No 3 is a real puzzler.

I hope we can have some info from those in education but in the meantime from the Guardian -

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/aug/10/a-level-results-top-5-data-takeaways#:~:text=4%20The%20gender%20gap%20is%20at%20its%20highest%20level%20in%20a%20decade&text=In%20fact%2C%20girls%20attained%20higher,outperformed%20males%20in%20every%20subject.

In plain sight. You should never to hide money in a good marriage, you should have individually accessed money that neither of you have to bat an eyelid at. If you’re in an abusive relationship and having to hide the money you’re squirrelling away to enable you to leave (and go for it on that) you didn’t follow the OP’s advice not to get into that situation in the first place. No-one knows if their relationship will turn abusive. So don’t lose access to the money / your earning power in the first place.

If you are going to be sahp or carer, then marriage is a must. It is a legal commitment and gives certain protections.

Once bitten.
I would NEVER put all of my money into a joint account again. Joint account for bills, emergencies and little extras each month. The rest goes into our own accounts. I don't want to be answerable to anyone about how I spend or save my money and I don't want DP to be either. Appreciate everyone is different but It's worked for us for the last 25 years.
No one ever goes into a long term relationship or marriage thinking its going to go wrong.......

“Marital assets” only comes into play the minute your Consent Order is sealed and you have a courts instructions on when to act on it.

Accessing your personal money within a marriage to put a deposit down and pay moving costs into another home can happen a year before you get anywhere near that point, just following pretty average divorce timelines.

Or spending it keeping the marital home mortgage / rent paid and kids fed after he fucks off.

100% agree and I’ll be instilling this in DD when she’s older. IMO any woman who has a child must be prepared for the possibility that that she might be left to raise him/her alone. Ideally it’s better to have a child when you have a secure, independent financial footing.

However I’ve seen threads on MN where this view is criticised because it suggests “poor people are not allowed to have children”

Apparently the desire to have a child supersedes the rights of that child to not live in abject poverty.

Learnt this the hard way. Never again and I’ll make sure my DC always have one too.

@SerafinasGoose

A tough post but huge amounts of wisdom there.

With regard to working, the only thing that has saved me in the shitshow the last decade has been for me is that I was a well-educated professional. Prior to my marriage ending, I ( as had H) been severely affected by the recession, losing an very good job while pregnant with DC2. So many people said - oh take the time & stay home with the 2 DC. Thank God I didn't listen.

Financially I made little, as I was working contract roles for not great money but they were professionally relevant & when the marriage ended, I could work. I still had to do less than ideal jobs as I'd 3 v small DC, and no help. I lost money each summer as I paid more in childcare than I earned so had to borrow to live.

At the moment, finances are a mess. Protracted & adversarial divorce proceedings have cost so much. But I've a good job & ultimately have the potential to earn more / take on different roles when DC are older. And it kept me sane, a little.

SAHM really really need to think what they'd do financially & personally if their marriage ended.

One of the best posts on MN.

You can be more vulnerable by being married if you are the higher earned or if you have more assets. Being married is not by default the best thing.

I honestly blame romance movies, and a lack of education on the reality of divorce.

Even I fucking fell into it - I went freelance, kept earning, but 'we prioritised his career' - with the result that post-split, I'm still the one doing all the childcare, and earning pretty well (burning myself out to do so), and he's swanning off earning 10 times what I do - because I let him take no responsibility for our children. I could be in his position if I'd acted like the bastard he is (well, maybe not, because a lot of it has involved male bonding that I wouldn't be invited to)

And if you can't afford a Fuck Off fund, at least don't work against yourself by giving up your job. There may not be spare money, but at least you're keeping your hand in and maintaining the ability to earn money - getting back into work is so much harder than upping your hours at your existing job.

We are the same. We have a joint account and both contribute to that which pays mortgage/bills/food/petrol etc but then we have our own money.

I have always been self sufficient. However, one good thing is my husband is incredibly canny with money and he has actually invested my pension for me and made me an awful lot more than I could have done myself. He has also set up other investments for me (in my name only) so my financial future is secure. I will always be very grateful for him in that respect.

I think there's nothing wrong with being a sahp if that's what you want but I agree if possible to have savings and private pension - sadly not everyone's budget stretches to that

I have. Lots of them. And if they divorced (and some have), they would get a decent level of maintenance (and some have). These are all high earners.

BUT

That's entirely based on the exH being a decent person & father.

SOME ARE NOT. Abusive men will use this as a tool to control the exW.

I was not financially dependent on my exH. But I kept paying off his debts & was left with nothing spare. Then he left and has paid sporadic maintenance ever since. I'm in Ireland so no CMS etc. Court proceedings are protracted & nightmarish.

Essentially I did leave myself in a position of dependency, albeit unintentionally.

In my first job, when I was very young and ditsy, two women once sat me down and told me that my priority should be to create lifelong security for myself so that I could be completely independent. They were so earnest and insistent that I took it 100 per cent on board. They'll never know that what they did for me.

Amen

To have ISAs, pensions or premium bonds, the money has to be in your single name and I have those.

My DH is kind and caring and has shown no sign of cruelty, abuse or temper or anything other than being a bit too long on his work laptop occasionally, but if he snaps I have money in there and enough in my current account to get me out of the house and to safety without worrying. I would never tell him it’s a safety net for me as I think he would be upset I felt I needed it.

It might be part of the marital pot but he has the same and tbh if I needed to get out of there I would worry about it later anyway.

Everyone should have a running away fund male or female as you just don’t know when you need to get away