291. Why Every SAHM Needs a Financial Safety Net

0:00Financial Feminist:I posted a video last week, 15 whole words on a screen, and my phone has not stopped blowing up since. In this video, I said, we're not envious that you're a trad wife. The hand that feeds you can also starve you. The comments split into three camps. Camp one, just say you're traumatized and leave people in healthy relationships alone. Camp two, nobody plans to marry a narcissist. There are reasons our grandmas told us to keep a stash of money hidden. And Camp 3, no one's starving me. I have a law degree and my name is on every goddamn thing. Here's the thing. All three of these women are making my point, and I don't think they realize it yet.

0:36Financial Feminist:So let's talk about it.

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2:13Financial Feminist:Hi, I'm Tori. I'm a money expert. I'm a multimillionaire. And I've helped over 5 million women be better with money. And today on Financial Feminist, we are talking, yes, about the trad wife movement. But more specifically, are trad wives and stay-at-home moms the same thing? And more broadly, how do we think about women who earn a living but don't actually make money for the work that they do? So first, we need to define what a trad wife actually is. If you are unfamiliar with the phrase, which, by the way, fun fact to my producer, Kristen, and anybody listening, I have brought up Trad Wives multiple times in my life recently because, like so many other people, I have recently read and absolutely devoured Yesteryear, which is an incredible book if you have not read it, about Trad Wives.

3:05Financial Feminist:And I brought up this book multiple times to people and they went, I have never heard that term. So first of all, tell me you're not chronically online without telling me you're not chronically online. But I think it's important that we all have a working definition before we continue with this episode. Tradwives, as the internet has come to understand them, are women who end up living a very traditional relationship with their husband. And I say husband because it's never with another woman. and it is always with a husband. And this lifestyle is not only a lifestyle that they live, but also a lifestyle they promote.

3:43Financial Feminist:And this looks in practicality like maybe living on a farm, having seven children, and being subservient to your husband. At the end of the day, trad wives are out here telling you that you should live a soft, feminine life, and that the greatest gift you've been given is being a doting wife and mother. In our society where capitalism has weaponized absolutely everything and we are all exhausted and the cost of absolutely everything is more expensive, it is very easy to look at the trad wife movement as something that feels idyllic, that something that feels like your shoulders dropping and you breathing a big sigh of relief because maybe you won't have to worry so much anymore.

4:37Financial Feminist:Maybe if you can give someone else the responsibility of earning an income, of managing the finances, of worrying about a lot of the stuff that you're worried about, because capitalism makes you worry about it, you can focus on what truly matters. being a good partner, specifically being a good wife, but also being a good mother. The issue that we start having with trad wives is not the demonization of motherhood or partnership, which are two incredible roles that women can play, but it's in this larger movement of giving away your power, of saying that above all else, you should sacrifice your own needs and definitely your own wants for everyone else other than yourself.

5:30Financial Feminist:And that not only should you sacrifice all of those needs and wants, putting you in a very precarious position, but you should also promote that kind of lifestyle to women everywhere. We're thinking about Ballerina Farm, right? That is the token tradwife that we are discussing. But the irony of tradwives on the internet is that they haven't given up any money or power at all. The very women that are promoting a trad wife lifestyle who have millions of followers and a whole product suite and a whole content team, they're actually the breadwinners. They are the ones making the majority of their family's money.

6:16Financial Feminist:They have turned this lifestyle into a product. So when we talk about Trad Wives and the promotion of the Trad Wife movement, we are talking actively about women giving their power away to patriarchy and specifically over to their husbands. So when I went online and I talked about how we're not envious of Trad Wives because the hand that feeds you can also starve you. The internet decided that when I said trad wife, I meant stay at home mom. Ultimately, trad wives are an ideology. This is submission. This is a rejection of women's financial independence. It is often religiously rooted. Fun fact, Cambridge even added the word trad wife to the dictionary in 2025.

7:04Financial Feminist:But a stay at home mom, or as Tiffany Dufu, who was a previous guest on this podcast, calls stay at home moms, non-compensated working moms, this is a logistical arrangement. You are home with the kids, but it says nothing about your values or whether or not she has her own financial plan. And what social media has done is they have merged these into one aesthetic. They have collapsed these into one thing. This is sourdough. This is sundresses. This is submission. And that's dangerous because it romanticizes dependence as aspirational. Now, in no way am I anti-stay-at-home mom. My mom was a stay-at-home mom.

7:44Financial Feminist:Like, in no way am I saying that trad wives and stay-at-home moms are the same, and in no way am I vilifying the very necessary and, frankly, continually undervalued and undercompensated work that stay-at-home moms do. Staying home can be an incredible choice. Working from your home to raise your children can be an incredible choice if you have built the financial infrastructure to do it safely. And that if is what this episode is about. One of the things that my parents are very conscious of is the fact that my dad has made all of the money for the last 30-something odd years. But in no way is my mom powerless in our financial decisions.

8:30Financial Feminist:Every big financial decision is made collaboratively with my parents. My mom has what's called a spousal IRA, which basically exists for this point where he is contributing to her retirement, even though she is doing uncompensated labor. And they very much know what's going on together with the money. Like my mom has full logins to things. She makes financial decisions as much, if not sometimes more than my dad does. They are going to meetings with their accountant together. They are having so many conversations about money where they are both active participants. Ultimately, where this gets to be potentially harmful is that if you are a stay-at-home mom, and especially if you're married to a man, and he is not involving you in anything in regards to financial decision-making or in regards to where the accounts are kept, This is where it becomes a problem.

9:28Financial Feminist:Now, I originally talked with my friend Liz Moody on her show about this theory that I'm throwing around, and I think it's really, really important to talk about here. I think in heteronormative relationships, in fact, I know in heteronormative relationships, women are exhausted. Women get the brunt of the emotional labor. You have to know when t-ball practices and you know exactly when to pick your kids up from school and what their allergies are and when laundry needs to be done and your mother-in-law's birthday. You know all of these things. And you're carrying all of these responsibilities.

10:06Financial Feminist:Because in the vast majority of heteronormative relationships, even in progressive ones, women still carry the brunt of the emotional and unpaid labor. So I think what starts to happen is that we feel so exhausted by everything we're tasked to do all day long that if we can give one thing away, it feels like a relief. If we can say, oh my gosh, he's going to handle finances. He's going to handle our money. Oh, thank God. That is one less thing I have to worry about. And by the way, he's better at it anyway. He's better at math than me. I don't know what's going on. He knows how to manage our money.

10:40Financial Feminist:He knows how to invest in the stock market. He can just handle it because thank God that isn't something additional that gets added to my plate. It's a totally understandable feeling. It's totally understandable because you've got a million things already. And you've also been told actively by society that men are better with money, men are better at math, they can manage it. In fact, they'll probably do a better job, right? But what happens is you're giving away not only your financial power, but your consciousness of what's going on with money. This is one of those things that you cannot give up.

11:17Financial Feminist:Now, I'm not asking you to add another thing to your plate, but I am asking, in fact, I'm requiring you to be in a relationship with your partner where you can actively manage money together, where you can talk openly about money, where you have access to the accounts, and where you, especially if you're a non-compensated working mom, are being compensated in some tangible way. because we never think that we are going to be the statistic. We never think we're going to be the statistic. But I have to tell you a really, really honest truth. I wish you could see how many emails and DMs and comments we get from women all across the world who never thought it would happen to them, but who are in relationships that they cannot get out of.

12:10Financial Feminist:or are still in love with their partner, but their partner's making really stupid financial choices. And they had no idea. In fact, if you have not listened to an incredible episode with Jen Hatmaker on this very show, this was her reality. She was married to her husband for 25 years, had multiple children with him, had built a whole life and a company and a religious network with him. And their relationship fell apart. She had no idea what was going on with the money. and he was mismanaging it. We never think it's going to happen to us, but this is why I need you to be an active participant.

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15:10Financial Feminist:There was a comment that I found really, really interesting that came up repeatedly, which was in defense of the Trad Wife movement, which is, well, your boss can starve you too. So why not me just marry somebody that i've picked who I think is really great who would never ever do this to me I we got a lot of engagement on this comment, which is like okay hand that feeds you can also starve you well Your boss can starve you too. Well, yeah, she's right, but she's incomplete here If you lose a job if you get laid off if you get fired if something happens You have a resume you have work history.

15:44Financial Feminist:You have a network you have unemployment insurance You have unemployment benefits, potentially. You can find a new work opportunity. If you lose your marriage after 10 years out of the workforce with no income, no credit, no retirement, you are starting from below zero. These are not the same starting lines. These are not the same thing. Some of the other most liked comments, this one in particular, grinded my gears, which was some version of, well, you're not going to be in this position if you just marry the correct man. Let's see what the data has to say about this. Women's household income drops 41 % after divorce.

16:28Financial Feminist:Men's drops 23%. Let's go back even further. Divorce right now, all-time high. It's over 50%. Over half of marriages end in divorce. And ultimately, that gap in income, that's not really a gap. That's a cliff. It's a motherfucking cliff. The math does not care how much he loves you. The math does not care. If I was getting in a car, okay, and I was starting to drive that car and I'm going 70 down the freeway, which is the speed limit, by the way. Okay. And I am making really smart choices. I'm like putting my blinker on. I've got my seatbelt on and I am a really great driver. I have no control over anybody else around me.

17:14Financial Feminist:And in fact, yeah, I might know the person who is driving next to me. They could make some sort of crazy decision right in the car. I still have car insurance. I still have car insurance. And it's not because I think I'm going to fuck up or anybody around me is going to fuck up. It's because I have no idea what the future holds. If you got in an accident and the person who hit you didn't have car insurance, you're thinking, why? Why don't you have car insurance? Yes, it's probably an economic thing. That's a whole other episode, right? The fact that car insurance is more expected, you know, blah, blah, blah.

17:47Financial Feminist:That's a whole other thing. Nobody gets in a car expecting to get in an accident that day. This is why we have car insurance. This is why we have business insurance. This is why we have home insurance. No one expects to light a candle and have your entire house burned down, sometimes that's what happens. This is why it is so naive to just say, well, just marry the right man. And also so insulting to people that just implies, well, I have good taste, but you don't. The grandma comment is so relevant here. The top comment on this post was, quote, our grandparents weren't together 60 years because they were madly in love.

18:25Financial Feminist:Before no-fault divorce, before a woman could open bank accounts without a husband or father's approval, that's 1974, not that long ago, staying was not a choice. In fact, it was the only option. And the tried-wife aesthetic romanticizes an era where women could literally not leave. Women could literally not leave. And ultimately, 99 % of abusive relationships are somehow financially abusive as well. Women who are financially dependent on partners are more likely to stay in abusive relationships. And this might not be about your marriage, but it's about what happens to women as a population when we romanticize dependence.

19:09Financial Feminist:This commenter, I think, nailed it. Quote, it's not all men, but knowing that some of them is enough to build a safety net. And only 10 % of men and women statistically agree a man should earn money while a woman stays home. 60 % say that they both should contribute. So the Tradwife trend isn't nostalgia. It's burnout wearing a sundress. It's sourdough, sundresses, and submission. And women aren't dreaming of the 1950s. We are exhausted in 2026. The real villain is not the woman who stays home. It's not my mother. It's not Janice Dunlap. It is a system that makes child care so expensive so that one person, one parent is forced to stay at home and then punishes the parent if the marriage ends.

20:01Financial Feminist:It is a system that is so expensive that it's actually cheaper for statistically a woman, because she's not earning as much as her male partner, to actually leave the workforce, to stop her resume building, and to stay home. That's the villain here, is a system that exists where a woman might not even get to have a choice on whether she stays home or not, but forces her to stay home because it's the more fruitful economic decision. And I get why this makes women defensive. Protect yourself financially and don't be dependent on a man. Sounds like your marriage is going to fail. I am not saying that.

20:39Financial Feminist:I'm not saying that. This is where the car insurance comes in. You don't have it because you're planning on crashing your car. A financial safety net is car insurance for your marriage. It is not a bet against your partner. It's a bet on yourself. And ultimately, this is why we spend so much time on the show and in my work talking about things like prenups and talking about talking about money. Because ultimately, marriage should be about love. It should be about two people choosing to be together, not having one forced to be with the other because they can't financially leave. There was one comment on the post that said, quote, no one is saying to break up with your partner, but we have to build a life we can be proud of regardless of who is in it.

21:23Financial Feminist:And that's what we're talking about here. If you're thinking that having a plan B means you expect your partner to fail or you expect your marriage to fail, no. Having a plan B and being fully transparent about you and your partner's plan B means that you're investing in yourself. That is not disloyalty. That is not sabotaging your marriage. That is actually protecting the sanctity of the partnership. Because the hardest truth is that a woman who could leave but chooses to stay is in a fundamentally different marriage than a woman who stays because she cannot afford to. Okay, before we keep going, I want you to have a free resource to get started with your money.

22:08Financial Feminist:Over a million people have taken this quiz that delivers a customized free financial plan to their inbox. Head on over to herfirst100k.com slash ffpod to take our six-question quiz. It is the easiest resource we've built for you to immediately start on your financial journey. herfirst100k.com slash ffpod. Okay, the internet fights over, okay? We have agreed that trad wives are different from stay-at-home moms. And we've also agreed that if you are a non-compensated working mom or in any relationship whatsoever, you need to make sure that you're protecting yourself financially, even if you're not earning an income.

22:45Financial Feminist:So here's what you're going to do. Number one, your name goes on everything. Bank accounts, mortgage, car title, investments. If your name is not on it, it is not yours. And it doesn't have to just be your name, but it should be you and your partner's name. And this is especially something I see all the time. you should not just be an authorized user on your partner's credit card. You need to have your own credit card with your own credit. Number two, you need your own money. This is a bank account that is yours alone. It is not secret. It doesn't have to be shameful. It is necessary. This should be at least a three-month emergency fund in a high-yield savings account, okay?

23:27Financial Feminist:Even if it's just$50 a month that's getting squirreled away, this can be that emergency fund, a freedom fund, whatever you want to call it. Our grandmothers hid money under our mattresses. You can do better than the mattress. You need some of your own money. And again, you don't have to hide this from your partner. Your partner should actively know, yeah, I got some of my own savings in case something happens. Number three, speaking of credit, you need to keep your credit alive. You need to have one credit card in your name, but you also need to use it and pay it regularly. If you've been out of the workforce 10 years and your marriage ends, you will need a credit score that didn't die in 2016.

24:07Financial Feminist:Number four, you need to know every number. Your monthly expenses, the total debt you and your partner have, your retirement balances, your insurance. You need to set up beneficiary information so that if one of you passes away, the other one can easily access the accounts. if your partner handles the money and you don't know the numbers, you're just in the dark. Okay? So if you have no idea what's going on, you're going to schedule a money date with your partner. If you're unsure how to do this, listen to episode 11 of this show, or you can read chapter 7 of my book. It guides you step-by-step how to go through and have a great productive money date with your partner.

24:47Financial Feminist:If this conversation feels scary, that's totally understandable. You're doing this for the first time. And again, if you don't know your numbers, I need you to go to herfirst100k.com slash ffpod, take that quiz. It'll give you a customized financial plan to get you started so you can ask informed questions when you're meeting your partner. Number five, I need you to keep your skills and network warm. This doesn't mean going out every other day for a networking event or scouring LinkedIn at all hours of the day, but it does mean continuing to talk to people. Maybe you're freelancing. Maybe you're volunteering in your field.

25:24Financial Feminist:Maybe you're just taking a course or keeping your LinkedIn profile alive, okay? You do not need a full-time job, but we just need you to not disappear. We need you to keep that network active. Number six, understand your legal protections. Do you have a prenup? Can you get a postnup if you don't have a prenup? Postnups are a thing. Prenups are a thing. And they're not just for rich people. Fun fact, if you got married in the United States, at any state in the country, you already have a prenup. Yes, really, if you got married, you already have a prenup. It's what the state decided for you. In Washington State, where I live, it's 50-50, unless you dictate otherwise.