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| This Week In Your Wallet |
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And speaking of Mrs. Kelce, she’s part of a small (but mighty!) club: women who outearn their husbands. While women now make up three-fifths of American university graduates and over half of college-educated workers, among dual-income couples, only 30% of wives outearn their husbands. As The Economist reports, it’s not just about occupations – in many cases, couples are more comfortable with traditional breadwinner norms even when the numbers say otherwise. For example, men whose wives are the primary earner are roughly 1.5x as likely to report serious psychological distress. And breadwinning wives tend to report lower relationship satisfaction, often because they're still doing the lion's share of the housework on top of earning the bigger paycheck. The takeaway here isn’t to earn less to keep the peace…it’s to talk about it before any resentment builds. If you’re the higher earner (or likely will be in the future), have the convo now about how you'll split not just the bills, but the mental load and the housework, too.
Here’s a student loan update worth flagging: An important change to Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) kicked in on July 1. PSLF – the 2007 federal program that forgives eligible loan balances for certain government and nonprofit employees – now requires being part of a specific repayment plan to count. Borrowers taking out federal loans on or after July 1 must actively enroll in the new Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP) for their payments to qualify. The catch? The default plan, the Tiered Standard repayment plan, doesn't count toward PSLF at all. "For anyone borrowing a new loan on or after July 1, 2026, this is especially important, because the Tiered Standard plan is the default," Rich Williams, former deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Education, tells CNBC. "New borrowers who don't actively pick a plan get placed there automatically, quietly earning zero PSLF credit." Here’s everything else you need to know.
Divorces are hard on everyone…but one group is typically a bit more challenged: The spouses who forgo advancing their careers and stay at home to help raise the children. Now, there’s a prenup for that. Divorce attorneys say they are increasingly being asked to draft agreements with a "leaving the workforce" trigger that’s activated if a spouse steps back to raise kids. While state laws typically allow for spouses to have an equitable split of assets, in many cases it doesn’t make up for the lost earning power of a spouse who stayed home. "Judges don’t always factor that in," Daryl Weinman, a divorce lawyer in Austin, Texas, tells The Wall Street Journal. "You are the one out of work and not building up savings and retirement." |
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| Things That Save You Money |
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| The Financial "Invisible Labor" Women Carry — And What It’s Costing Us |
Someone remembers when the property taxes are due. Someone tracks the deductible before scheduling a procedure. Someone keeps tabs on childcare payments, updates beneficiaries after a life event, coordinates care for aging parents, budgets for holiday gifts, and replenishes the emergency fund after the hot water heater dies. More often than not, that someone is a woman.
"Many women serve as the emotional CFOs of their households and they are owning the financial ‘mental load ’— the invisible labor of remembering, organizing, planning, and worrying that keeps a household functioning," shares Lacy Garcia, CEO of Willow. "Financial invisible labor doesn’t appear in a spreadsheet or estate plan, but consumes an enormous amount of time and mental energy."
Here’s the irony: women who manage the day-to-day are often the least connected to the decisions that shape their long-term future. There’s simply no bandwidth left for tomorrow when today eats it all. It’s time to make sure that someone is looking at the big picture with you… |
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| …Because "emotional CFO" isn’t a job you should have to do solo, or without expert backup. That’s where Willow comes in. It connects you with vetted fiduciary advisors who specialize in exactly this: taking the long-term planning off your plate so you can stop reacting to every little task and start building for the long haul. Answer these quick questions to get started. |
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| Ask Jean |
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| Q: |
Today’s question comes from Britt. She writes: "My husband and I welcomed a baby boy 6 months ago and we’ve been struggling to find daycare. While away visiting family recently, my husband found a daycare with availability for $2,200 a month (two days per week, no less – we live in Seattle, so cost of living is high) and signed our son up. He’s asking that we split the cost – but he makes more than I do, and I’ll be honest, I’m a little miffed he didn’t consult me. How would you handle this?" |
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Being married and managing money is stressful enough. Add a baby – and baby costs – and it goes to another level. Honestly, the real fix here should have happened before or right after you got married: sitting down and deciding how you’d split expenses as a couple. The second best time, though, is now.
Your husband suggesting a 50/50 split on daycare when he outearns you doesn’t seem fair. My advice is for you to both take a step back. Total up all your family expenses – from housing to diapers – and divide based on income. If he earns 60% of the family take vs your 40%, for example, that would be how you contribute to the household expenses. Many couples simplify things by having a shared account where a set amount, based on each person’s share, is deposited weekly or monthly – whatever works for you both – and then, expenses are paid out of it.
One more thing: $2,200 a month for two days a week seems steep – especially since recent numbers show the average family in Seattle is paying about $1,900 a month for full-time childcare. That said, I know that finding childcare is genuinely hard, so I’d love to hear from our community…does anyone have tips for cutting costs? Reply with your ideas (we’ll even take Seattle recommendations). Then we’ll pass them along to Britt, or feature them in an upcoming newsletter. |
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| Submit your questions to Jean here. |
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