salience

It may be the nerd in me coming out - but FICO is to his financial future was FAFSA was to his college potential, whether he likes it or not.

Culturally, I feel as though we don’t talk about our finances enough with those we love. Almost as if speaking certain words would cause unnecessary panic. But I think the anxiety of the unknown is alot worse.

Have you given any thought to what range of FICO you’d be willing to take on if you decided to marry the person you’re currently with? I wasn’t one of those girls who doodled her crush’s last name after hers on her notebooks in school. But I did wonder what the accounts set up would be like with my future husband: joint or separate? One joint for communal and maintain separate accounts for individual choices?

Is this normal thought for a woman in her midtwenties? Well, for me, the answer is yes.

My dad had me maintaining ledgers from an early age (allowance splits between me and my three siblings, $ awards for grades on report cards, etc), doing mental math at the cashier’s stand at the grocer. He opened my first checking account for me back when I was 10, back when that was legally possible. (You have no idea how proud I was to order pizza for our family via phone for my mom’s birthday lunch when I was 11 and then be able to pay the delivery man with my own check.)

You could say my dad shaped my perspective on women and money too. I’ve never been afraid to get into the details or learn about instruments, whether precautionary or reactionary to my current situation, as simple as that situation may have been in the beginning. He very much influenced my current career as well, and I’m proud to say I work with mostly men in a very masculine world within the Wall Street mayhem. No, it’s not feminism exactly.

Mainly it’s just self-awareness. It may be a harsh reduction to look at yourself in purely numerical terms, but ultimately the bigger events in our lives are limited by each our net worth and fiscal capabilites (whether FAFSA, FICO, VantageScore or otherwise).

At least that’s my $.02 on the whole thing.