Aww yeah.

Below, I’ve embedded the article itself. But this isn’t just to point out how Scarlett and I are destined to be together.

Notice how my content has been translated for a female audience. Same material, but it’s completely different than the way I write. It reminds me of some of my previous articles on prior guest post on women and money, specifically an article on how women’s magazines and men’s magazines write about money.

Below, click “Fullscreen” to read this:

More reading

• See my other press appearances
• See an extremely detailed interview on how I get press coverage

I taught my friend how to negotiate an $8,000 increase in salary and a 50% boost in equity in 4 hours. And this was after she’s committed the cardinal sin of negotiating: revealing what her salary expectations were.

This is the kind of thing we all know we “should” do…but we don’t do it. Even though we can get the information for “free” online. Hmm….

In this video, learn how to:

• Negotiate with an experienced recruiter
• Rebound after you undercut yourself
• Why reading a negotiation book is not enough
• Know when to be adversarial and when to be cooperative

This video is probably worth $3,000 – $10,000 for my average reader IF YOU IMPLEMENT IT AND IMPLEMENT IT CORRECTLY.

Oh yeah…I have more videos on negotiation (thanks to Chris Whitmore for filming/editing).

Get more negotiation videos: For detailed videos of EXACT phrases, situations, and tactics for dealing with tough recruiters and intimidating executives, join the Boot Camp pre-launch list. Do it today because I’m closing it down soon.

• An overview article: Given a Shovel, Americans Dig Deeper Into Debt
• A timeline of debt from the 1920s until now
• A haunting video of Diane McLeod. Just watch her attitude and how her debt affects her.
• 700+ comments from people (I suggest sorting by Readers’ Recommendations). The condemnation is both enlightening and saddening. We seem to take pleasure in seeing other people’s pain (”She could have made better choices…Idon’t buy all that crap”) and yet, some of it is very true. I agree with most of the comments about the evilness of credit-card companies, and yet, we do have choices.
• A tool that lets you compare how much debt you have with others like you

Want to watch it all? Click here to start.

Here’s my take: On one hand, we all know people like Diane, who make poor financial decisions, never take the time to get educated about money, and sink into a hole of financial quicksand. These people are easy to judge because they have all the visible signs of financial stupidity: New cars every two years, expensive high-definition TVs, vacations, houses they can’t afford. And yet, on the other hand, financial institutions, advertising, and social influence have all coordinated an attack on us to spend more. In fact, we’ve been told for decades that owning a house is the single-best financial decision we can make. It’s not.

Is education the answer? Maybe, but it’s not a panacea.

Should we just stop spending so much? Of course we should, but that’s like saying we should all lose weight by making better choices. Easy to say, extremely difficult to do. I’m hopeful that the current environment calls for a restructuring of our priorities. I hope that we get conscious about our spending and start prioritizing saving over spending. With extended hardship, this will become more likely. We all need to be conscious of our finances, but we’re playing in a world with the deck stacked against us.

I’m tired of demonizing people for making poor spending decisions. It might make you feel good about yourself, but it doesn’t actually change behavior.

And fundamentally, that’s what this site is about. It’s not about making people feel better about themselves by looking down at other people. It’s about getting behavioral change. In that vein, the 557 examples of changes people have made as a result of reading this site are probably my biggest success.

I fully expect lots of commenters to brag about how you got out of debt by making hard choices (just as they annoyingly bragged about their inexpensive weddings in the comments of this post). That’s great. But I’m sick of those comments that tell people to “just spend less.” Not everyone can stop spending 30% of their money on going out, because a lot of people don’t have that extra money.

There’s nuance to these arguments that’s missed by idiots who blather about how we should all “make better choices” and “start being responsible.” Of course we should, and if you’re reading this blog, you’re already doing this. But there are details that are missed by such superficial statements.

Here’s what I suggest: Read the New York Times article. Then, read the 152 comments from other iwillteachyoutoberich readers about how they got into debt. That’s 67 pages of startlingly honest stories, most of them having to do with educational loans. Then, I would encourage you to carve out some time for two resources to understand some of the nuances of why many people — especially poor people — can’t get ahead. Here are two resources I fully recommend:

Also, check out 30 Days of Working Minimum Wage, a video in which Morgan Spurlock (who brought you Super Size Me) and his girlfriend work minimum wage. Sure, it’s gimmicky, but it’s a truly eye-opening movie that provides insights on why it’s nearly impossible to get ahead if you’re earning a certain income.

I’d love to hear your comments.

It turns out that her overdraft fees totaled $1,300 in the last year.

Here’s where it gets really interesting. He didn’t freak out or start yelling about how to negotiate out of bank fees. He simply pointed out something very gently: “What if you could focus on your overdrafts? If you eliminated just that fee, you’d be so much better off.”

Not set up an entire investment plan and global asset allocation. Not create a fully automated system with multiple accounts and savings strategies. Just focus on one big problem.

Now the question is…what’s your one big problem?

(Mine is eating out too much.)

-Ramit

Investment advice comes in all shapes and sizes. Grab a few back issues of Esquire and a quick scan of its “investing” columns reveals “investing” advice. For example, they give opinions on buying Wal-Mart, selling Apple, and buying the Baby Bells vs. Cable Companies.

But do the same with O, the Oprah Magazine and this is what the editors categorize as “investing”:

• How to buy life insurance
• The basics of financial planning and investing
• Home finance basics everyone should know
• Know how much home you can afford
• How to play rollover with your 401(k)

So here’s my Aha! moment: why do men get “investing” advice in their magazines and we get financial basics in ours?

Women get touchy-feely encouragement
Suze Orman is an O Magazine columnist and typically I like her advice. She’s spot on when it comes to buying a used car and term life insurance. But when speaking to women, is she talking down to us?

Case in point: look at what she says about establishing a rainy day fund in this O article. She writes, “Ideally, you will have eight months of living expenses stashed in a savings account. I know that sounds daunting, but make it a goal. Start putting away a little each month. Every penny you save is a step toward building your own personal insurance plan.”

Ahem… “I know that sounds daunting but make it a goal.”

Would a male personal finance expert ever instruct a man this way?

Men get hard-hitting advice
Ken Kurson, the columnist at Esquire and author of The Green Magazine Guide to Personal Finance: A No B.S. Money Book for Your Twenties and Thirties writes, “You’re keeping your emergency cash in a money market fund. In other words, don’t fund the expansion of your portfolio into stocks and bonds with the money you’re keeping on reserve, but feel free to consider that money part of your portfolio.”

See the difference? First let’s consider the demographics of O Magazine: The median age is 45, readership is predictably female (91%), married (66%), and a median household income of $88,000. Their readers aren’t exactly females fresh out of college.

So Orman is encouraging forty year old women to make sure they have an emergency fund and Kurson assumes twentysomething guys already have a stash in reserve. Perhaps this is why CNBC gets Jim Cramer and The Today Show has Jean Chatzky.

A commenter at BloggingStocks had this analysis of Orman’s writings by saying, “When someone is talking to me about money, I want math. I bought one of Suze’s books and when she started talking about how I ‘felt’ about my money, I put the book down in disgust. Behavior patterns as applied to money fall under psychology; everything else is quantifiable. I don’t need to have a good relationship with my money; I need to understand how the stock market, the housing market and my 401K work.”

Gender-specific behaviors with money
But do female money experts talk down to us or are we inviting the tone by behavior? After all, according to Manisha Thakor and Sharon Kedar, authors of On My Own Two Feet, the average woman between ages 24 and 35 has only $500 in savings.

Woman’s Day acts like their readers only have $500 in savings as well and I don’t know any women under fifty subscribing to that magazine. Mary Hunt is their columnist and a quick glance at her 2007 columns reveal topics like “Big Online Bargains” and “Slash Your Food Bills”.

Kay Bell, the blogger at Don’t Mess with Taxes, gives her perception on the male vs. female financial behaviors. She writes, “Even today, some gender-specific societal expectations manage to persist… That is, a lot of women take a more ‘supportive’ fiscal approach, focusing on money maintenance, holding on to what they have, instead of taking steps to advance it.”

“We need to get over that right now and get more aggressive when it comes to money – making it, saving it, investing it. The go-for-it approach seems to be more typical of male financial bloggers. Men, at least in my anecdotal observations, are more apt to be risk takers with their money. They embrace the idea that to make more money you sometimes have to take some financial risks with what you’ve got.”

And it’s not just Oprah
I couldn’t find any money advice in InStyle magazine, but they offer plenty of ideas on how to spend it. Glamour claims to have a money expert, but the only thing I could find was an online debt quiz. Take it and see how you stack up with their readers. If you’re a regular follower of personal finance blogs then it’s likely you’re way of ahead of these well-heeled and in style consumers.

Just to be fair and balanced, I reviewed some other men’s magazines and money was either missing or sexualized and presented by young, attractive female writers. Check out the article by Anya Kamenetz in Men’s Health called, 7 Financial Habits of Highly Laid Men. Enough said – otherwise this might segue into a different discussion.

But maybe money is missing from general interest magazines because men go to the source for their financial advice by subscribing to the money periodicals. As an example here is the male / female readership break down for Fortune and Money:

Money: Male/Female (64% / 36%)
Fortune: Male/Female (79% / 21%)

And guess who is reading The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times?

Money spends the same whether it’s carried in a purse or wallet
So does tone and depth of the advice really matter? In the end, money is money and basic truths are better than nothing at all. But if empowerment and financial independence are what Suze Orman wants for the ladies, then maybe it’s time to butch up the advice. Don’t sugarcoat or wrap it in a soft, pretty package. We’re ready to take it like a man! That’s how you turn women savers into women investors!

Finally, for the sake of starting a conversation below, do you agree that women get fed the softer side of money from women’s magazines? Or will some of you accuse me of gender-generalizing? If you agree, then what should we do about it? Write to Oprah? Or just subscribe to Fortune and Money like the big boys?

—————
Nina blogs about money at Queercents.

(Cool note: This weekend, I Will Teach You To Be Rich crossed 7,000 comments.)

Thanks to the 35+ comments on the last post, Rob from BankSwitcher (”Switching banks is hard…we make it easier”) was kind enough to re-analyze the data from my survey on gender and money (n=1,167).

Below, you’ll see red highlighting around areas where there are dramatic gender differences. For example:

• Slide 10: Guess who negotiates their salary more?
• Slide 12: Indulgences by gender
• Slide 16: Feelings towards money are dramatically different
• Slide 19: What personal-finance topics do men vs. women prefer?
• Slide 25: Absolutely staggering differences in perceptions of equal pay

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If this is your first time to iwillteachyoutoberich.com, the blog on personal finance and entrepreneurship, here’s a quick guide to get started.

Rob has offered to do a deeper analysis if there are concrete questions about the data. From taking a look below, what jumps out at you? What questions do you have?

Please take a couple minutes to answer this survey on how you think about money. I’ll post the results next week. **RSS readers, please click here.

Note: This survey is now closed.

Barbara Stanny is a powerful speaker who has devoted herself to transforming women’s relationship with money. She is the author of five books about personal finance and women in business, and working on a sixth! Barbara is the daughter of the late entrepreneur and philanthropist Richard A. Bloch, who co-founded H&R Block with his brother Henry in 1953. But her experience with her father and financial tragedy with her husband led her to make it her mission to empower women financially. She has since interviewed hundreds of women who make over six figures, taught innumerable clients how to get out of financial burden, and she even recently spoke at the WomenLead 2007 conference! Barbara is full of a lot of financial experience and wisdom. In the interview that follows, she shares a few great principles — in detail — and how you can apply them to your own financial life. Her answers are sure to both inspire you and surprise you.

Tell us about yourself and your background to start off. I’m curious how your father Richard influenced your financial education growing up?

I grew up wealthy, the daughter of the R of H&R Block. My father (being a product of his generation) truly believed that making and managing money was a man’s job. The only financial advice he ever gave me was “don’t worry.”

Now you’re someone who’s devoted much of your life to empowering women financially. You’ve said that financial enlightenment demands far more than just picking up a few facts here and there and buying a few stocks. Tell us about the psychological challenges that exist for women to reach financial competency.

I am convinced that the reason the vast majority of women are not protecting themselves financially, even though they know better, is because the Prince Charming Syndrome is alive and well. Prince Charming doesn’t need to be a man…it could be anything you think will save you…the lottery is a popular example. In order for women to get past their passivity and ignorance around money (they may be doing a little bit, but not saving/investing nearly enough), they must deal with their emotional blocks, limiting beliefs, irrational fears, and early decisions they made about themselves and money.

Your journey from financial dependence to independence was a defining transformation for you. How did that come about?

It came about because my husband was a compulsive gambler who lost a fortune of my money. After our divorce, I got tax bills for over a million dollars for back taxes he didn’t pay, illegal deals he got us in. I didn’t have the million dollars. My husband had left the country. My father wouldn’t lend me the money. I had three young daughters…I was not going to raise them on the street. That was the moment I knew I had to get smart about money. I had no idea how I was going to do it, but a miracle occurred. As a journalist, I was hired for a freelance writing project to interview women who were smart about money. Those interviews literally changed my life.

Right. For Secrets of Six Figure Women, you interviewed over 150 women who earn between $100K and $7 million a year. What lessons did you take from that experience?

I was a classic underearner. But I started earning six-figures before I even finished writing the book. The three biggest lessons were how critical it is to:

1. Have a profit motive;
2. Truly value yourself;
3. Be willing to be uncomfortable, to do what you don’t want to do.

What things did these high earners have in common, and how can female readers of IWillTeachYouToBeRich apply those things in their own lives to see their earnings increase?

I saw the exact same strategies show up in each and every one of the High Earner’s stories. Seven years ago, I began teaching a workshop based on what I learned from those women. My third book, Overcoming Underearning: a 5 Step Plan for a Richer Life, is based on over 200 interviews with women (and men) who had been through my workshops and saw a significant increase in their earnings. The steps are:

1. Tell the truth about what’s not working in your life, even if you don’t have a solution in sight;
2. Commit to making a profit;
3. Stretch, by doing what you’re scared to do;
4. Surround yourself with supportive people, and eliminate the naysayers from your life;
5. Respect and appreciate money by taking care of it. How? By following the 4 Rules: Spend Less, Save More, Invest Wisely, and Give Generously…in that order!

For your new book Finding a Financial Advisor You Can Trust, you say that money management can be overwhelming and how some people don’t have the time, knowledge, or skills to do it themselves. Explain your thoughts on this. Do you think most people can (or even should) be empowered to manage their own finances, or do you recommend a little more hands-off approach for some individuals?

My biggest surprise when interviewing financially successful women was how few of them were actually wealthy. In all my research, I have found that the women with the highest net worth were not necessarily the ones who made the most (or inherited it). They were the ones who worked (at least at some point) with financial advisors…and most had a team of professionals they consulted (i.e. estate lawyer, accountant, investment advisor, financial planner, etc.).

You also contributed recently to Breaking Through: Getting Past the Stuck Points In Your Life, and you worked alongside several fantastic female authors, leaders, and role models. Tell us about just a few of them and what you learned.

Breaking Through is an anthology. I contacted over 60 professional women with this question: How have you gotten past the stuck points in your life, or how have you helped others? I was so impressed with their responses…and I learned that 1) stuck points are inevitable, 2) stuck points need to be respected rather than resisted, and 3) stuck points have a purpose…they actually force you to grow. Often, just past the stuck point lies a significant breakthrough.

Any last thoughts you’d like to share?

I always thought the whole point of financial success was to have more money in the bank and greater security for the future. And indeed that is important. But what I learned from the women I interviewed, it wasn’t just how much money they had…it was what they were doing with their money once they felt financially secure and empowered. They were using their money to make a difference in the lives of people they loved, in causes they felt passionate about. Having an impact, I began to see, was the ultimate reward for creating wealth. Philanthropy is where the real fun and power lies!

I want to thank Barbara so much for sharing some of her very valuable time with us, and for the many ideas that we can apply to our own lives. Learn more about Barbara Stanny and her books, workshops, and coaching at BarbaraStanny.com, and keep an eye out for her next book, Women, Wealth, and Power.

Cody McKibben is a leadership blogger, web designer, and career instigator in California. He writes regularly at THRILLINGheroics.com.