Homefront Updates

Some quick hits of the personal variety:

1) In the nick of time Shiner and I bought airline tickets for a honeymoon using frequent flyer miles. I'm glad I never jumped on the frequent flyer credit card bandwagon. Pretty soon you're going to have to pay to redeem them. Oh wait...

2) I have an interview for that job with the big old pay cut I've been hoping for. Gooooooo pay cut! Still need to print out a fresh copy of my resume and writing sample, skim a couple recent publications for topical talking points, finish up a draft of an unrelated project that has to by done tomorrow morning, shave my legs and/or find my sole pair of nylons that are not in a disgraceful condition, and get a good night's sleep. That's kind of a lot yet to accomplish tonight. Eep.

3) I wish people would stop asking me if I'm going anywhere over the Fourth of July. I'm not. I'm working. Shiner's working. It's going to be a truly delightful celebration of our overthrow of monarchical tyranny in favor of market tyranny. Except with firecrackers.

Hey there, Feministing Readers

Imagine my surprise today when, in my routine morning bloghopping, I saw a shoutout... to myself. Jen at Feministing gave me some love this morning. I'll send it right back her way because there is no better way to start a Monday morning than to know one of my favorite bloggers has read my stuff.

If you're visiting via Feministing, I hope you'll poke around, visit a while, and let me know if there's anything you especially want to see Feminist Finance tackle. Here are some places to start.

And if you're not visiting via Feministing, those fine folks are well worth a visit or many.

Blogoversary

Surely I am not the first person to notice that (gasp!) sexism exists on the interweb. Even just in this little corner of pf blogdom, it seems like not a day passes that I don't see a post or a comment from someone with depressingly dated ideas about sex, gender, and money matters: paying for day care is child abuse, women should leave their careers to stay home with their kids; hypogamy is biologically innate, women are predisposed to marry for (financial) status; married couples must give up any vestige of their independent financial identities and pool all money in one joint account or they're doomed; the wage gap is a myth perpetuated by that bastion of socialist feminism, the U.S. Department of Labor.

Or perhaps most memorably, that getting blow jobs is more frugal for a man than having sex (well of course it is, because once you publicly out yourself as an ingrate who is utterly uninterested with your partner's enjoyment, in the long run you will save money by staying home, alone, and watching the same three pornos over and over again because no one in her right mind will date you).

I haven't posted links to the egregious stuff. I don't especially want to bounce anyone's traffic that way. And besides, it's much more fun to link to things that are worth reading. When I come across a post that gets my choler up, I usually swear a little, and maybe I comment on the post itself, but usually I don't. Frequently it just does not feel worth the time.

But you know what does feel worth the time? Blogging. Being a hale and hearty--and insouciant and possibly even hip--nuh-uh right back. Writing for people who don't think women are stupid (and who don't think men are, either).

It's my three-month blogoversary today. Thanks to everyone who reads, subscribes, comments, links, or e-mails. You are the awesomest. We really must have drinks sometime.

Things to come

This is the post where I tell you who I am, why I'm here, and what sorts of things you can expect to find here in the coming year. And we'll take first things first.

I am a twenty-something professional woman living in the midwest with my sweetie. We're planning to get married in about a year, and are integrating our finances slowly but surely in preparation. We've made some progress on that front, but we've got a ways to go. Between the two of us, I am the primary breadwinner, and I work in a male-dominated field--the storied private law firm. It's a good gig for me, but I don't know how long I'll be on that path, and I'm not yet sure what I want to be when I grow up should that day someday arrive. I am a saver, a student loan debtor (shocker!), a retirement investor, and a homeowner. I have never had a traditional, itemized budget, and though I recognize that probably isn't doing me any favors, neither has it caused me to be financially smote by the hand of God. At least not yet. Oh yeah, and see above: I'm a feminist.

I have been reading personal finance blogs for a while now, and have learned from them, reflected on them, gotten irrationally angry at them, and more. I've developed some favorites, some of which are listed at right, but even in the ones I read regularly I haven't seen much discussion of the personal finance topics I have been thinking most about lately. How much standard personal finance advice is equal access, and how much assumes its audience is made up of men? How do stereotypical gender roles play out in a relationship when it comes to making, spending, and saving money? How do you simultaneously prepare for and work against the "Mommy Tax"? Why are so many women continuing to leave private legal practice and what does that mean--economically, professionally, culturally--for the rest of us? And in the end, how much really does it matter if some highly educated, highly paid women "opt out" of high stress, high prestige jobs? Why does birth control keeping getting more and more expensive? What is up with Bizarro Wedding World and its expensive, sexist trappings?

That's a flavor of what you can expect to see here. Leave a comment if you've got other suggestions.

Another year, another blog.

Ain't that always the way it goes.

You're asking yourself, "why, exactly, does the world need another blog?" That, friend, is an excellent question. I've been reading personal finance blogs for about a year now and, in a move that manages to be simultaneously community minded yet completely self-centered, have decided to fill a bit of a gap in the p.f. blogoworld by contributing my two bits. My two feminist bits.

Whoa, feminism? What does that have to do with money? Well, a lot, actually, since I am (1) a woman, (2) a wage earner and money manager, and (3) am interested in the interplay between items (1) and (2). Yes, yes, we all know that money is numbers, and numbers have no gender. But the people managing those numbers do. And my gender, and more importantly my feminist lens, inform the way I think about my finances, my job, my relationships, and my goals. I'm willing to bet I'm not alone in that.

I'm going to quit while I'm ahead on this inaugural post, save the icebreaking exercises for a later date, and turn to some general sprucing up of the page. Nice to meet you, and I'll see you back here soon.