Girl, pay off debt.
Girl, build your emergency fund.
Girl, put it in your Roth IRA (the current market is sorta like Nordstrom’s Anniversary Sale only better).
I did a little research and found some scary gender gap stats from a Visa 2007 study. “Our research has found a dramatic gender and age gap when it comes to saving money. Women under 50 save far less of their tax refunds than other groups and this could have significant ramifications for their financial health.” The Visa survey shows that only 30% of women age 18 to 49 plan to put the money they receive from their income tax refunds into savings. In contrast, 40% of men in that age bracket plan to put their refunds into savings. And, ladies, let’s face it – the numbers would look much worse if it was 18-30.
Think of this as a test.
Are you a money lady?
I had to admit, I struggled. I thought of my roots and split ends. My really tense shoulders. All of the sales going on now. So, what did I do? Of course, I won’t get my refund until the end of this week. It forced me to pause and think about how I want to spend this. Then my stupid Amex card charged me for a late fee that I didn’t deserve and it reminded me how much I hate that card. So, I’m going to use it for that. I sorta can’t wait.
