One day my brother came home and saw my mother and father on opposite sides of the table typing away in their computers.

He looked at my father’s computer and noticed that he was researching appetizing recipes. He looked at my mother’s computer and it had spreadsheets with all the home investments and expenses.

Then he said, “In this home the roles are inverted.”

No, the roles were not inverted.

Every adult woman and every adult man should be able to look after the things that matter for them, be it nutrition or finances.

My mother wanted to also be 100% in charge of household money. She did not let my father make all the financial decisions without her participation. Because she had her own opinions, she made her own financial research, she had her own hard-earned income, and she knew that together they’d make much wiser financial decisions.

When you take charge of your money, you can build wealth, you’ll know how to optimize your budget and create savings, you’ll be able to make your money grow and serve your dreams.

Take Charge Of Your Money

Disclaimer: I am not an accountant, nor financial advisor, and don’t have expertise in personal finance management. This is an opinion only and has entertainment and marketing purposes.

Whether you are single, married, earning, spending, like investing or not, financially educated or not, have an MBA or never finished high school, it is time for you to take charge of your money.

If you are nearly blind with your personal finances like moles, people and institutions will take advantage of you.

They will take advantage of the fact that you don’t ask questions, that you don’t want to look dumb or financially uneducated, and that you don’t do your research and planning ahead. They will charge you very high fees, interest, and penalties and you’ll never even understand.

Millennials and Gen Z cannot rely on social security, pensions, or anybody to secure their financial freedom during retirement. They are all that they’ve got. Making big financial mistakes may mean ending up worrying about how to pay for the most basic needs in their future.

And since most people in the financial space will be trying to extract as much as they can from you, and since financial products are key to your financial abundance, you have no option but to be closely involved with your personal finances and to be your very own best advocate and for your family.

Excuses You Tell Yourself To Not Take Charge Of Your Money

Most people have many excuses for not looking after their personal finances, including:

• “I don’t have the time.”
• “It’s too difficult for me.”
• “I don’t have financial education.”
• “I don’t want to look stupid.”
• “It’s too late now.”
• “Others can make better decisions for my than myself.”
• “I don’t want to bother them.”
• “I don’t want to come across as pushy.”
• “I don’t want people to think that I distrust them.”
• “I don’t want to upset them.”
• “They told me not to.”
• “I’m just not good with money.”

But it certainly doesn’t have to be that way. And you don’t need to be rich, a CPA, or have an MBA to take control of your money again.

Assertive communication allows you to politely and respectfully ask for, negotiate, and communicate your financial questions, needs, and rights. These financial assertive conversations will empower you to take better care of your money, build more wealth, and gain financial freedom sooner.

Here are 8 ways you can take charge of your money by being more assertive.

1. Clarify with Human Resources all of your employment benefits and rights and how to access them.

Most companies have several financial benefits that most employees don’t take advantage of. And most companies don’t advertise these benefits because it costs them more money.

That is why you need to proactively seek to know all the benefits that your company offers and how to get them, including pensions, 401k, health insurance, matching, tuition, paid unused vacation days, and so on.

Let me warn you, you may have to insist on getting the information and access you need to take advantage of these benefits. Nobody is going to do it for you.

2. Negotiate your compensation when you get a new job, even if it feels pushy.

3 in 5 job applicants don’t negotiate the very first offer they are given, according to Glassdoor research. Women and older professionals negotiate significantly less than men and younger professionals.

But the majority of employers (84%) expect job applicants to negotiate their compensation during the interview stage, according to a Salary.com study.

What does this mean? If you do not negotiate your compensation and salary, you are missing out on free money! You are not respecting your value and your work’s worth, and you are positioning yourself to feel unhappy with your pay later (when you discover your peers are earning more).

Sure, it can feel uncomfortable, pushy, and even selfish to negotiate for yourself. Sure, you may fear losing the job offer because you are being unreasonable or ungrateful, but the reality is that employers expect you to negotiate!

Negotiate and it will make you look smarter, more confident, and in charge. Those are traits that employers want. The secret is to negotiate in a way that is thoughtful, considerate, and informed.

3. Ask your boss about the path to a raise, and then keep them accountable.

Most people, once inside a job, wait, wait, and wait some more for the day when someone will notice their hard work and unilaterally decide to compensate them for it with a raise. They hope that their work will magically speak for itself and be rewarded accordingly.

Spoiler alert: for most of you, that will NEVER happen!

Do you know why? There are several reasons.

First, why would an employer who is pressured to keep costs down give you more money if you seem perfectly happy and productive with the money that you are earning already?

Second, how do you know the work you do right now is seen as high value work by your employer, and that they are willing to give you a raise?

Third, if your employer gives you a raise, they will be on the hook to give raises to other employees too, and that would require considerable political capital.

Fourth, in most cases there are specific company rules that govern how people can get raises. And those rules don’t work in your favor because companies needs to keep costs down. Your boss probably doesn’t have absolute freedom to give you a raise in a heartbeat whenever they want to. There are restrictions, timelines, rules, and you need to understand those.

If you want a raise, you’ll have to align with your boss, demonstrate your value, understand the policies, and work together towards them. Not just wait.

4. Source and actively manage your financial team: accountant, financial advisor, spouse.

Part of being assertive with your money is to seek support for optimizing your personal finances and actively managing that support (as opposed to letting others run wild with your money).

Consider carefully sourcing a personal finances team including accountant, financial advisor, and your spouse. That way, you’ll be equipped with the right people to support your financial decision-making.

This is not about outsourcing your money decisions (not assertive!), this is about intentionally seeking guidance from the right people.

5. Insist about the exact fees, interest rates, penalties, and conditions, even if they change topics.

That irresistible loan, credit card, kind-hearted financial advisor offering free services… it has a catch. You just don’t know what the catch is. Nothing is free, especially money. Everything has a cost. Your job is dig deep until you find the real cost.

Bank loans, credit cards, financial advisors, investments, brokerage accounts, taxes, mutual funds make money off of fees, interest rates, penalties, and conditions like when and how you can and can’t access your money. And it’s ok if you don’t know this right now, but know that you know, it’s time to learn.

And that is exactly why most of the information around fees, interest rates, and penalties are hard to find and hard to understand.

It is your job to figure those out before you hire or use any of their services or products. You are your own best advocate. Do not trust anyone with your personal finances.

Read the fine print, ask for the numbers, look for benchmarks, alternatives, compare options, understand what a 7% interest rate or a 3% fee means in terms of how much money you’ll overpay in total, and only then decide.

For years I was paying unreasonably high investment fees that were locked in for 7 years, because I never asked the important questions. I lost a lot of money because of not taking ownership and asserting my rights to information.

6. Negotiate terms and conditions.

Nothing is set in stone. You can always negotiate, which is a highly assertive act. Understand and negotiate terms and conditions for financial services and products that you plan to purchase. Stay up to date with changes on those terms and conditions.

You can negotiate fees, interest rates, liquidity, access, control rights, etc.

7. Ask all your “stupid” financial questions to your accountant, financial advisor, bank even if they try to overwhelm you with jargon.

It is common for financial advisors and bank representatives to try to manipulate you by using difficult to understand financial jargon so that you feel overwhelmed, don’t ask questions, and rely on them to make your financial decisions for you.

Those are the worst type of professionals.

Only hire people to help manage your money if they demonstrate they will also educate you on your own money. Your goal is to work with people that will discuss your financial needs in easy-to-understand language and seek to help you clarify all your questions, instead of making you feel even more confused.

The best way to quickly identify the good from the manipulator financial professionals, is to ask a lot of clarifying questions.

Don’t worry if your questions feel “stupid,” even if they hint your questions are stupid (which is another manipulative tactic). But not asking questions when you don’t understand and then making uninformed decisions that will affect your financial health…well that’s reckless.

Your questions will signal that you are an informed decision maker and that you want them to take your money seriously. But it will also help you quickly evaluate if they are good people to work with or not.

8. Ask your bank or financial advisors if they are fiduciary.

What is fiduciary you may be asking? Most financial advisors may recommend products that will give them the highest possible commission so that they can make more money. Therefore, they don’t act in your best interest, they act in the interest of their paycheck.

A fiduciary advisor makes investment decisions with your best interest in mind, and will receive a pre-negotiated commission from you without any commissions and kickbacks from the solutions they recommend.

If you decide to work with a “free” non-fiduciary advisor, make sure you understand exactly how they get paid, what commissions they get, and what fees you’ll be paying for each of their recommendations.

Disclaimer: I am not an accountant, nor financial advisor, and don’t have expertise in personal finances. This is an opinion only and has entertainment and marketing purposes.

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