Personal Business, Personal Finance And Why Finance Is Personal

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photo credit: sunside

I struggle often with how much to disclose around our personal finances as I get lots of questions around why I don’t disclose our income and debts as other bloggers have in the personal finance blogosphere.  I don’t have the luxury of anonymity as other bloggers do, so this is one thing we can keep to ourselves.  Trust me, I have my reasons why I may not share the whole picture with you and here’s why.

Family and Friends

After the MSNBC interview last summer, I had so many people come out of the woodwork to tell me they read and subscribe to the blog, especially family and friends.  So I do feel some kinda way about disclosing our salaries to everyone because no DOUBT it’ll become the subject of conversation and late night calls asking to borrow money and I haven’t even disclosed HALF of what’s really going on.  I may talk about how much we spend and save but never how much we actually make or specific numbers around our debt.

Employers/CoWorkers

Yes, our respective bosses/coworkers know about this blog LOL  Im often reminded of this when my husband’s coworker sends me a message on Facebook (hi Andy!) or old coworkers write me personally about an article I’ve written.  Here’s the thing, while I personally don’t have a problem discussing numbers face to face, I know the salary thing can be real tricky, especially when you’re telling people in this environment how much you make and what you spend it on.  It’ gets sticky real quick.

Privacy

Some things I just want to keep to myself.  You all know that Im in a ton of debt especially due to my student loans.  And it’s over 100k just for MY student loans meaning a $1k payment when it all kicks in.  There are times when it becomes overwhelming but I choose not to talk about it here and only deal with it when it’s time to pay Sallie.  I definitely have my reasons but most of all because I tend not to harp on the negative aspects of my finances and if you know me at all in real life, I just tend to be a really private and guarded individual.  I guess if I were successful in maintaining my anonymity early on it would be easier but

I’ve had people stop me in the mall after recognizing me from the media blitz we had here last summer and it was lil creepy.  Im not at all OK with “strangers” knowing so much about me and then approaching me with it in person.  Trust me, it’s a lil weird LOL.  But after the initial “Heyyy, are you Ginger from Girls Just Wanna Have Funds?” Im more than willing to chat you up and shoot the breeze LOL

Im Better Than You/You’re Better Than Me

Im also not here to post how much I make as a contest or even to have anyone critique my finances<—-yes I said it LOL  I’ve gone back and forth about this many times even when I tell myself it’s a great way to be accountable to my readers about how we spend our money.  Ehh I’ll be honest, I’m not that cool with it just yet.  I’m spoiled and I wanna spend my money how I want it without someone coming by looking at a chart and then making judgments where snarky comments are sure to follow.  I’m not OK with it just yet because there are SO MANY things going on behind the scenes with our money that has to do with family issues that I would have to explain here for you all to get the big picture.

For example, we’ve had my FIL stay here with us when he had a stroke which depleted our emergency fund, we send money back to our native countries to help our families there and then there are times like now when Ive got to send my aunt $2500 for some personal issues she’s got going on.  We also just sold the house my father left to me after a long 18 year battle through probate, family tension and dealing with a buyer that dragged her feet for 3 years but that situation was in part responsible for the birth of this blog.  [Aside: In short, my dad passed, left a will but had a shady executor which left my mom and I in the lurch for years.  But, watching her save money diligently and get through a year of being unemployed after I graduated HS because she had a nice emergency fund/savings inspires me to this day.]  But I digress.  Sure I could have written about allll of it but some things I like to keep to myself.

Im not at a point where I really want to share all of that right now because some of this stuff is just incredible personal.  After all finance is personal, still I realize that you want more personal information about the woman behind the blog.  I’ll try, but I make no promises.