Financial Irony and Toolkits

This week I received mail from my Member of Parliament (MP) Joyce Bateman.  She is letting me know that the "our government wants to strengthen financial literacy across the country".  This sudden need for the population of Canada to become more financially literate is in part due to the increasingly large individual non-mortgage related debt load we are accruing each year.  So there is this new nifty website that you and I can use to assess our financial literacy and then decrease our individual debt load.  It appears to be well organized and have some sound advice and fun ways to determine the users financial literacy.

May I suggest an additional step to decrease the debt load for some Canadians would be for the government to offer more grants and scholarships (not based on GPA as a mark of those who are deserving), rather than hand me out more students loans (which I do appreciate), then charge me interest (which is hogwash).  Not sure how me paying interest back to the government on student loans is helpful for recent post-secondary grads and our financial debt load, but at least my financial literacy will increase in having to adjust my payments for such financial intricacies.   But, as usual, I digress.

Here is the website and I will look it over to see if my financial literacy is high enough to get out from under the load of debt I have accrued doing my master's degree:

Financial Toolkit

In other, but related news, the federal government has hired a private company to help them increase their financial literacy.  The company has been hired by the federal government to find ways for the government to decrease its spending and save money, and for these services the company is being paid $90,000 per day, $20 million in total for the entire contract.  In response I just want to say...let me introduce you to a little tool kit of which I am aware ;)......


Here is Rick Mercer's response:

Dish

Dish: Midlife Women Tell the Truth about Work, Relationships, and the Rest of Life by Barbara Moses
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As I push 40, I have pulled out this book given to me by my sister during a Christmas several years ago.  She is a thoughtful gift giver and I am really enjoying this book thus far.  I look forward to my 40's when my opinions of myself and my life are far more important to me that are other opinions.  More later.

Finished the book and I plan on returning to my sister and she turns 40 next spring.  I have now reached 40 and as usual, a birthday does not make me feel any different.

According to this book, it seems as though I went through my mid-life crisis a little earlier than most.  Three years ago I was in a profession (elementary school teacher) that I enjoyed for several reasons but could not see myself content in for the next 30 years.  I bailed, moved to London, UK to play, applied to graduate school, am now completing graduate work, no longer religious, befriending a larger swath of people, enjoying the occasional rendez_vous, and living in a city that never thought I would even visit.  Strange how life takes on its own plan once you start rearranging yours.

That is what this book is about.  Taking time to stop and assess your life.  Acknowledge the good, address and let go of mistakes, plan a better future after some deep thought, and proceed with life, living it better than before.  Inspiring and a reminder that I am one of many who have left a past life, reinvented myself and am enjoying life so much more than before.

Some of the best parts:
"Sometime in my forties, I realized how important it was to be one whole, integrated person.  I did not want to work in an environment where I would have to segregate a work personal and a personal persona." - Writer p. 45

One [employee] of a bank provides a regular check and balance for herself.  She makes a 'date' with herself at the end of every workweek.  She reflects on the week past and asks herself questions like: Is this work meeting my needs?  Did I do anything significant this week?  Did I have fun?  Did I feel good?  And then she thinks about the coming weeks and what she hopes to accomplish.  p. 116

About 75 percent of the women said they did not have the financial security that they had expected at this life stage - they didn't want a lot, just some latitude or a safety net for taking risks.  Virtually all of them said one of their major life regrets was "buying too much crap and not starting to save earlier."  p. 127

For goals to be meaningful, like our lives, the must be dynamic and changeable.  Do you see yourself as being on a journey, or are you on a fixed path to a predetermined destination?  Many women in midlife see themselves as moving toward a state, such as being debt-free, or leaving a legacy, but their goals are implicit, not explicit.  They trust they will get there.  p. 133

The great British management thinker Charles handy coined the idea of a portfolio career.  He wrote that he balances '"core" work, which provided "the essential wherewithal for life" with work "dome purely for interest or for a cause, or because it would be stretch me personally or simply because it was fascinating or fun."...Every year I take on one new activity that stretches me, and absorbs me completely...I think this is one of the most organic types of career configurations available to midlife women, especially those wit multiple interested or the drive to explore new territory.  It is based on the assumption that we have many needs and desires and play many roles.  p. 154

I asked women I interviewed, "Looking back over your career, what regrets do you have?  What are you most proud of?  If you had one piece of advice to a younger woman, what would it be?
- know yourself
- act on what is most important to you
- maintain your integrity
- distinguish between the big issues and those that are a matter of taste
- find a mentor / be a mentor
- don't make work the centrepiece of your identity
- be able to navigate the political currents
- confront the fear reptile and take informed risks
- invest in yourself
- be financially literate
- be yourself
- never be deterred by lack of confidence
- don't worry if you don't know what you want to do "when you grow up"
- think trade-one, not trade offs (forget having it all, prioritize what is most important in your life)
p. 157-161

The nature of our relationships with our partners is shaped by who we are, what we want from our lives, as well as our partners' personalities, what we project onto our partners, and what we accept in our partners.  p. 221

Although we all have different expectations of our relationships, we agree on the big issues:
- create a life that is not dependent on a partner
- don't allow yourself to be swallowed
- don't swallow your partner
- enjoy and accept your partner for who she/he is
- make time for each other
- recognize and discuss your feelings when they occur
- be realistic
- monitor your thoughts and your speech when you have a disagreement
- know what is important to you
- don't tolerate any kind of abusiveness or behaviour that makes you feel belittled
- take your own counsel when it comes to ending a relationship
- get support through a bad period

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Money, Travel, Knowledge

With ability to look back, there are moments in life that may not have known that were defining, but with hindsight, proved to be pivotal moments in changing your life course.  Not as dramatic as you might have thought.  Not as obvious as you had expected.  Nonetheless, you and your life path changed.

This is not one of those moments.  I know that whatever I choose will define my life for at least several years if not the next decade.  I stand on the precipice of choice with three paths in view, two more tempting than the third.  Each represent focusing on a different option:  Money, Travel, Knowledge.

$$$Money$$$
In the two months that I have been back I have been working with a company that has opened my eyes to the world of cash.  As as friend of mine recently said to me, 'How does it feel to have sold out to the money man?"  Never has my education or career been about the pursuit of money, but here I am, in the throngs of how to encourage people to drop more cash, how to up-sell, and how to close the deal.  It is a strange place and surprisingly, a place in which I am thriving.  Within two weeks I was receiving offers of more responsibility; in one month access to a supervisory position; in two months, an offer to join the management team from which the entire country's chain would be at my disposal to climb.  Most of my co-workers have no higher education, and I have the education advantage, I could start climbing this success ladder of $$cash$$.  

For the Next Wistful Voyage....

I have recently been offered a position at the Canadian International School in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates starting in September 2010.  I have said yes and will be under contract with them for two years.  While making my decision I took into account my love of seeing and being in the midst of new things, my desire to travel and earn a living, my enjoyment of learning and sharing what I learn, and in the end I tried to come up with three good reasons to say no and I could not identify them.  There were only two on my brain: family, friends, ?.  See, no third reason, so I go.

I will be teaching Grade 6 and am excited to be living in a completely different place in the world, the middle east.  This means that my Wistful Voyages Blog will be coming to you from another country starting in September.  Check out my writings and pictures here to live my adventures in tandem.  Part of me is very excited and the other part is scared, oh so scared.

As my brother wished me on my birthday after hearing about the job offer, "I am not wishing you happy birthday, but Happy Abu Dhabi!"

Stepping out onto the unknown road to see where it leads.

WRI at BYU

My Aunt forwarded the latest news on the Mormon blogs.  Turns out Brigham Young University (BYU) is closing its Women's Research Institute (WRI).  Here is a posting my Aunt sent me from the Mormon Feminist Network.

Shutting Down BYU's Women's Research Institute

By: Guest - November 4, 2009

My name is Elisa. I am a senior at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, a famously conservative university owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormons. 98% of the student body subscribes to the LDS faith, but we are nevertheless an extremely diverse group of students, ideologically speaking. Of the approximate 30,000 students at BYU, 48% are female, and 2,691 students are enrolled in the Women's Studies minor, almost 10 percent of the entire student population. At such a (let's face it) conservative school, the fact that we even have a Women's Studies minor is a pretty big deal, and the BYU Women's Research Institute has contributed enormously to the university community since its founding in 1978.  From 2006 to 2008 alone, the WRI funded 132 faculty research publications relating to women. Some of the brightest and most promising students at BYU are involved with this program.

However, on October 29th the BYU Administration issued a press release (that's what it's called, but in fact it's nowhere to be found on the BYU website or in the school newspaper) saying that the WRI is being shut down come January 2010. The Administration claims that they are "streamlining and strengthening" the program but what they're really doing is removing all funding WRI used to receive and consolidating it into one faculty research grant and a token amount of funding available for students. Most BYU students found out about this through blogs or other outside media sources rather than through the university itself, and to put it lightly, most of us are infuriated.

There's a reason why this is being kept hush-hush. All major universities have a Women's Studies Program, and shutting down ours is more than just a bad idea, it's a disaster waiting to happen. Money is not the issue: BYU receives generous donations from LDS alumni even in this economy. Additionally, 52% of the WRI budget came from outside, non-BYU sources. This is, in short, another attempt by an overtly conservative administration to shut down any feminist activities because a lack of education makes many people at this institution think feminism is a dirty word.