From the globally recognized personal finance educator and the TikTok star behind Her First $100K, an inclusive guide to all things money — from managing debt to investing and voting with your dollars — for the financial feminist in you.
Tori Dunlap was always good with money. As a kid, she watched her prudent parents balance their checkbook every month and learned to save for musical tickets by gathering pennies in an Altoids tin. At the age of 9, she started a vending machine business, and sold it at the end of high school before going off to college — where she discovered that her experience with money was pretty unusual, especially among her female friends.
It wasn’t their fault. Investigating this financial literacy and wealth gap, Tori found that girls are significantly less likely to receive a holistic financial education; they’re taught to restrain their spending, while boys are taught about investing and rewarded for pursuing wealth. In adulthood, women are hounded by an unfounded image of them as frivolous spenders whose lattes are to blame for the wealth gap. They’re paid less, perceived more negatively than men when they negotiate for more, and, predictably, end up with less capital to invest. Then when something like, say, a global pandemic happens, they’re the first to have jobs cut and the last to re-enter the workforce.
Believing there’s no equality without financial equality, Tori founded Her First $100K to teach women to overcome the unique obstacles standing in the way of their financial freedom. In Financial Feminist, she distills the principles of her shame- and judgment-free approach to paying off debt, figuring out your value categories to spend mindfully, saving money without monk-like deprivation, and investing in order to spend your retirement tanning in Tulum. Featuring journaling prompts, deep-dives into the invisible aspects of the financial landscape, and interviews with experts on everything money — from predatory credit card companies to the racial wealth gap and voting with your dollars — Financial Feminist is the ultimate guide to making your money work harder for you than you do for it.
Reasons to read it: Living in a capitalistic society unfortunately means participating in capitalism, but what if capitalism wasn’t made for you? People who fall under that umbrella seem to be exactly who Dunlap wrote this book for. I haven’t read this book yet, so I don’t know how well it adheres to Dunlap’s promises of inclusivity, but more books need to be written to help marginalized people get ahead financially, so I’m all for its premise.