Money Diaries ropes you in with its stories, but it’ll leave you frustrated with the system

Several weekends ago, my partner and I set aside an afternoon to research health insurance in the U.S. The task left me frustrated and perplexed, but it also gave me an especially personal incentive to read Money Diaries from newcomer Lindsey Stanberry — one of the year’s most buzzed-about personal finance reads that aims to help millennial women navigate the convoluted world of money.

In mid-September, my partner and I will be moving to Los Angeles; he’ll be starting a PhD and I’ll continue writing for LowestRates.ca remotely. The move feels beguiling for a number of reasons, chief among them the end of winter — a season that I’ve never exactly “acclimated” to, hailing as I do from the Pacific Northwest, and which I could pretty much immediately quit with zero remorse or potential for nostalgia. But to get there, to California, I was going to need local health insurance — a requirement for the student visas that would allow us to live in the U.S. in the first place. It is also, I think, a good thing to have in general.

Here were my options. As my partner’s legal “dependent”, I was eligible for a basic medical plan through the university — meaning no dental, optical, or other “extras” — for which I would have to pay about US$6,000 per year. The State of California runs an online marketplace, Covered California, that allows residents to compare rates from local insurance companies; between that, and two other, online health insurance quoters — one run by an established 21-year old company, the other by a startup — the lowest quote I was able to find for the most minimal, bare bones plans averaged at about US$179 per month, or US$2,148 per year. If I got one of these plans, I’d be allotted three “free” appointments before I’d have to start paying down the deductible, after which my insurance will actually start paying for anything. The cost of that deductible? US$7,000.

I thought the numbers were wrong. I reached out to my American friends and family members, some of whom used to live in the U.S. and some of whom still do, to ask for confirmation. They told me that the quotes looked about right. I was… livid. In Ontario, I declared, with plenty of histrionics, the basic medical care offered through public health insurance cost residents between $0 and $900 a year, Canadian, depending on which income bracket you’re in.

The series, which ranks among Refinery29’s best trafficked, is successful because it’s done what no one else cared to do before: give women a place to openly talk about money

My friends stayed composed. Yes, the U.S. healthcare system is messed up, they agreed. But that is just how things work. Most Americans get their health insurance subsidized through full-time jobs. But if you’re unemployed, or you work part-time, or you’re a freelancer, you’re usually on your own unless you fall within a very low income bracket, in which case you’d qualify for government-subsidized healthcare. And if you don’t buy any insurance at all, you risk being fined a penalty under the terms of the Affordable Care Act. One friend, who lives in New York City, pointed out that the system was worse before Obamacare was introduced. Yes, it needed to be reformed. But in the meantime, what could you do?

A few weeks later, I read Money Diaries: Everything You’ve Ever Wanted to Know About Your Finances… and Everyone Else’s (Sept. 4, Touchstone), a book that seems largely — if not always self-consciously — devoted to answering this question. Written largely by Stanberry, Refinery29’s work and money director, Money Diaries is meant to serve as a corollary to the website’s “Money Diaries” series, in which real-life, anonymous millennial women document their spending for a week. The series, which ranks among Refinery29’s best trafficked, is successful because it’s done what no one else cared to do before: give women a place to openly talk about money. It has always felt voyeuristic to consume — curiously thrilling given the banality of the premise. But then again, maybe it isn’t so curious after all: as the site itself points out, money — especially how much we make and how we spend it — is still largely taboo, which means that any project that divulges specific numbers will inevitably take on a prurient cast — and attract a lot of readers. 

Bulked up, as it is, with actual financial advice in addition to a handful of previously unpublished money diaries, Money Diaries reads decidedly less pleasurably than the web series — it asks readers, after all, to engage in sober self-reflection. But the point of Money Diaries, like most personal finance books, is not to be fun so much as it is to be helpful. And it is helpful, particularly in one regard: giving actionable advice to women on how to navigate a system that, by all accounts, doesn’t care about them.

The advice that Stanberry gives feels conscientious. She’s a student of the American system and the financial transactions that shape the experience of living within it

The chapters in Money Diaries covers issues standard to personal finance books that are aimed at women, sketching out accessible guidelines on how to divide expenses with your live-in partner, apply for a mortgage, determine the value of your compensation package at work, and budget for children. But, like the best books on the subject, Money Diaries also talks extensively about feelings. The book is laced with prompts to interrogate why readers feel the way they do about certain financial transactions: why do some women feel, on principle, that they need to split the tab 50/50 on a first date? What experiences and historical dynamics make most women insist on keeping and building independent emergency funds, despite living with and ostensibly trusting their (male) partners? Why is it so awkward to talk to parents about their wills? Why is it so hard to withhold judgment — or keep bad feelings in check — when you see someone spend money differently than you do — e.g., via a “Money Diary”?

The advice that Stanberry gives feels conscientious. She’s a student of the American system and the financial transactions that shape the experience of living within it, and she insists her readers also do the research (which might include completing the worksheets and exercises that punctuate Money Diaries) that will help them live with minimal hardship. Women tend to face diminishing career opportunities after they’ve given birth? Figure out how to “baby-proof” your career. Didn’t have health insurance when you were suddenly diagnosed with breast cancer? Research alternative ways to fund your treatment. Buried in student debt? Find out whether you’re dealing with a fixed or a variable rate, if you’re eligible for an income-based repayment plan, and how to refinance your loan. The ethos that’s implicit in all these strategies is one of practicality — of bucking up and playing the hand that’s been dealt to you. The tone, in other words, is one of “taking control” — by knowing what’s available to you, and making use of those resources — which, in some contexts, might go by the name of “empowerment.”

This attitude is prudent in some instances, as in the chapter on “love and money” when Stanberry provides a list of questions that “everyone should ask his or her romantic partner” — questions that are tailored to help readers parse out their partners’ attitudes about money so that they can decide whether or not they’re compatible with their own. In other instances, though, the notion that resourcefulness, hard work, and optimism are enough to forge a path to “financial freedom” can register as misguided — and even unfair.

Take the chapter on student loans, in which Stanberry lists strategies on how to manage your payments so that the amount of money you put towards the non-principal part of your debt — interest, late fees — stays minimal. If you have to default, Stanberry writes, don’t worry: “student loan lenders want you to get back on track, and there are loan rehabilitation programs in place to help you.” This sentiment, while reassuring, stands in direct contrast to numerous reports which show that participating in rehabilitation programs can actually lead to larger debt loads — and seems, in its wilful disregard of the widespread discourse on predatory student loan lenders, unfairly designed to make borrowers feel optimistic about a system that will likely let them down.

Money Diaries has a lot of solid advice. Like so much of personal finance literature, though, its message is backed by the belief that you can find individual solutions to what are essentially structural problems

Money Diaries features multiple casualties of American social infrastructure, whose experiences disprove the book’s upbeat attitude. The woman who was diagnosed with breast cancer while she was in between jobs, uninsured, paid for all her testing (biopsies and a mammogram) out of pocket, and is now holding on to the money her friends raised through a GoFundMe page in case she can’t get access to insurance in the future. In the chapter on “kids and money”, Stanberry herself talks about the difficulty of returning to her full-time job after a mere 12 weeks of fully-paid maternity leave — “practically a luxury in this country,” she writes. “I wasn’t ready to go back to work. My baby wasn’t sleeping through the night, and I was absolutely exhausted. Most days I went into the office feeling like a shell of my former self.”

Money Diaries has a lot of solid advice. Like so much of personal finance literature, though, its message is backed by the belief that you can find individual solutions to what are essentially structural problems. To an extent, personal control is possible — the book ends, cheekily, with several women detailing how much they spend on coffee each month compared to how much they contribute to their 401K. But, by and large, it’s not the individual, and her inability to change her spending habits, that’s the problem. Stanberry lives in a system where families can go bankrupt from one member getting sick; where people can die with their student debt intact; where, in many states, women can give birth to children and are not entitled to paid leave at all. A question that personal finance might do well to confront, is not what else we can do to change ourselves; but what we can do to change the system. Instead of feeling upbeat, maybe it’s time to feel bad — and think about why.