What I would appreciate is a personal finance book geared towards women that address actual, quantifiable differences in money. For example, differences in earning potential, the unfortunate reality of “the mommy track” when you take off time for children, more diverse and frequent needs for healthcare and the costs, etc. Take real world, proven problems that largely affect women only and give real solutions and advice. Swerving off into validating stereotypes or the perfect heterosexual marriage where the wife is a financial nincompoop just distracts women from the actual challenges they face in money matters.

Well, there’s plonkee, who sometimes comments here. She is single, British, financially capable and smart. Not in debt, I don’t think, and relatively young but her posts are always thoughtful and interesting. No posts about cloth nappies, dual income smugness such as honking on endlessly about ‘net worth’ down to the fact one’s spouse bought one a really swank house back in the day or other irrelevancies to scroll past, obviously.

Myself, I’d like to see something aimed at people – male, female, trans, whatEVER – that doesn’t assume one is welded to the Life Script of marriage, kids and a house in the ‘burbs. I’d like decent advice on investing and financial products for people who have modest incomes and inspirational stories about people who’ve made it without, say, a low-profile spouse with a really well-paid job to support them, an inheritance or other get-out-of-jail-free card. them being around my age – late thirties – would be nice too.

As it is, I look through any number of sites and blogs and just try to reap what relevant nuggets of wisdom I can from them and apply it to my life. Mostly I read just to be ‘around’ people who like me, want to save and save and be financially stable, rather than serial-spenders and debt addicts.

Speak for yourself. Seriously.

“From the choice of words to the choice of examples, it’s pretty clear that the audience for this book is female, roughly ages twenty five to fifty five, and mostly married (although much is applicable to non-married females, too). I felt like an outsider.”

Now imagine having this feeling when you are confronting, say, most books on personal finance. When the default audience is male, the effect is not neutral. It’s exclusive. I noticed someone above referring to not needing different books for different demographics, but, if considerable thought isn’t given to the matter, the book that’s written for the “universal” demographic is actually written for the straight white male demographic. It’s just harder to notice that because we’re taught that that’s the default. Your woman correspondent noticing it isn’t demanding special or different treatment, she’s asking for the same treatment that the white male reader gets.

Not a criticism of this post–just something you might want to kick around in your head, since I think you’ve unintentionally framed it well here.

I love your blog, Trent, and get a lot of information from it, but I do sometimes miss the perspective of a single person without a second income, without a lot of time for saving for retirement (I’ve already decided I can never retire, but I don’t regret my travels and working overseas).

I don’t need to know about saving $$ on diapers and communicating with a spouse about money issues–nor do I have the advantage of a second income.

Please don’t get me wrong–I read all your posts and Get Rich Slowly every day, and there is a lot that I can take away from them–thanks for all you do on The Simple Dollar.

I just wonder if I am alone in my situation.

The content is way basic for me as usual, but it was REALLY nice that the target demographic was young urbanites and therefore the author actually treats us as able to read beyond a six year old’s level. And I liked the way the content sort of jumped around a bit. Many of the popular personal finance writers either can’t really write very well or are edited to appeal to idiots with bad eyesight and low attention spans, in my opinion.

Maybe, or maybe as I said before, she’s confusing halfwits or maybe dorrmats, with women. My mother is in her seventies and has always had an equal role in controlling the finances in her marriage.

Anyway. My old female boss’s mum died recently. Her husband, my boss’s father, was left not only grieving but incapable of managing his own affairs – he’d never written a cheque, paid a bill, or had any control over the finances in his entire marruied life and he’s in his early eighties. My point is that financial cluelessness is not confined to gender or generation.

Right on.

Beyond that, what irks is this assumption these authors make that all women have the same lives – middle-class/upper-middle-class lives with dual incomes, husbands, excess income for those shopping sprees and kids. Oh, and who think vagina-ownership inevitably = attitudes such as ‘maths is hard’, ‘numbers are intimidating’ and ‘tee hee, my husband does that!’. Ugh. That’s finance for halfwits, not women! As a woman who thinks that numbers are actually easy, dude, and who doesn’t have financial support from a partner, isn’t seeking any, doesn’t think of shopping as a hobby and who absolutely does not want kids in her life, I find all these books purporting to be for me simply on the ground of vagina-ownership tedious, patronising and useless.

Plus, anything that’s described as ‘chatty’ (read: dumbed right down because maths is scary, dude) needs to be thrown out of the window ASAP.

Sounds like the problem is with the reader to me.

But nothing rocks like YMOYL. Generally, I don’t really need a book that treats me like I need to be talked to differently because I have different plumbing. But then, I’m a single 40-something woman, independent and the master (mistress) of my own household. It all falls on me.

I guess you write best from your own experience and surroundings.

I think that’s actually pretty accurate.