I was in my early thirties when I had an appointment at my bank for some administrative reason. My counterpart was a friendly “advisor” (i.e. saleswoman) considerably older than I was. She immediately began a sales talk. “You know”, I said, “my husband takes care of the money”. That was obviously convincing, she gave up right away. About a year later, my counterpart was a dynamic young man. Same game, I was referring to my husband. His answer: “Does your husband know anything about money?”
I was truly offended. What was he thinking? Today I think that his question was absolutely justified – if it hadn’t been for selling me an expensive financial product that would at most have served to make the bank rich, but not me. And apart from that – if the bank employee knew more about money than my husband, he would hardly have been a salesman at a bank.
I used to think it was cool not to be interested in money. Why should I? I earned enough money to live on, and that’s it. Well, you can’t be interested in a lot of things, like poodles, for example, or the Kardashians. The consequences for your own life are manageable. Not being interested in money, or rather being interested, has considerable consequences. Always.
Actually, it’s not so stupid to be interested in poodles. With a poodle you have a friendly companion, take over responsibility, have someone to cuddle with, get exercise in the fresh air and feel loved.
And now five reasons why you should be interested in money.
If you care about money, you take responsibility for equality: The difference in average hourly wages between men and women in Germany is 18 percent. Let's put it this way: Women work for free every year from January 1 to around March 5. And: social jobs are predominantly taken on by women - you know how badly they are paid. Whether we like it or not: we live in capitalism, which was established by patriarchy. As a woman, not to participate means to be a victim of both. Otherwise, it doesn't change anything. If we want to change something, we need power. In our system, we get that primarily through money.
If you don’t care for your money, it disappears: If you invest monthly 10 percent of 2,000 euros (average net salary in Germany per month) in a clever way (yes, you can), you’ll invest around 48,000 euros in 20 years and thanks to compound interest with an average return of 5 percent you’ll earn around 81,500,000 euros in total. If you save the 48,000 euros on a savings account with 0.2 percent interest, it’s around 49,000 euros after 20 years. Now calculate an average inflation rate of 1.8 percent. If you take care of your money, it is still worth around 57,000 euros, if not, an equivalent of around 34,000 euros remains.
If you don’t take care of your money, others do: Bank fees, overdraft interest, commissions for insurance brokers, fees for actively managed funds, etc. - do you actually have an overview of what others regularly earn from you? Are they or their products worth you having to work more for them?
If you care about money, you take responsibility for your future: The average statutory pension of a woman in Germany was 809 Euros in 2021. For the money you can live in Frankfurt with a little luck on about 37 square meters – and then you haven’t had a meal.
And the most beautiful reason: money is freedom! The freedom to make the world a better place because you can support the things that you value, the freedom to decide what you do for a living, the freedom to pay for the education of your children and the freedom to decide how you want to live in old age. Money is living on your own terms, to have a choice, and to have a voice. Do you really want to leave that to men?
