Page 46 - Investment Advisor April/May 2022

WOMEN IN WEALTH

By Jane Wollman Rusoff

‘Sex and the City’ Hurt Millennial Women’s

Relationship With Money

“It was a financially irresponsible view of womanhood,” says Chelsea

Fagan, founder of The Financial Diet.

helsea Fagan’s relationship with
money was a hot mess — but
Conly till she earned a chunk
of change and paid off her debts. As
founder and CEO of The Financial Diet,
a digital platform, Fagan, 33, has been
teaching millennial women for more
than seven years how to get smart about
money and avoid slipping into hot mess-
es of their own.
The heart of TFD is “the intersec-
tion of financial education and cultural
commentary,” Fagan told Investment
Advisor. Therein, she served up an
example of the latter by taking to task
the TV show “Sex and the City” for hav-
ing a financially “irresponsible” protag-
onist that “negatively” affected “women ThinkAdvisor recently held a phone will manage day-to-day household con-
and their money.” interview with the Florida-born Fagan, sumer choices and purchases.
Since 2015, Fagan has hosted The whose firm is based in Midtown It’s a sort of self-perpetuating cycle
Financial Diet YouTube channel, the Manhattan. Here are excerpts of our wherein we teach women quite a bit
largest women’s personal finance chan- conversation: less about money growing up; and then
nel and one of the first — with 957,000 we assume that men are naturally better
subscribers and chalking up more than Investment Advisor: Why is your busi- at handling money. But that’s not true.
96 million total views, she says. The ness called The Financial Diet? It’s just that men are often taught more
entrepreneur is neither a financial advi- Chelsea Fagan: Similar to the way we about it.
sor nor financial planner. But through eat, the changes that are important to
TFD, she is educating young women make are the ones that are sustainable, You sounded off on a YouTube video
about the practical aspects of handling rather than radical overnight changes about how TV’s “Sex and the City”
money. Ninety percent of TFD’s audi- that can’t work in the long term. (1998–2004) had a negative impact on
ence is young women. women and their money. “The unspoken
The Financial Diet focuses on the meat Why do women often mess up with fifth character was money,” you said.
and potatoes of managing one’s finances, money? Why was it important for you to talk
along with some neat treats. But it is According to statistics, women don’t about this?
anything but stuffy. One newsletter topic, receive financial education growing up, It was a humongous pop-culture tent-
for instance, was a “Night Time Get Your but male children do. Generally, women pole that’s still relevant 10 years later.
Sh*t Together Checklist.” Its interview are raised to assume that when they Many young women grew up looking
podcast, “The Financial Confessions,” get married — which is usually to a at that show, not just in an aspiration-
recently featured a psychologist on “How man — it’s the man’s responsibility to al sense, but they got a really forma-
to Identify and Deal With a Narcissist — handle the longer-term financial plan- tive idea about what adult womanhood
Financially and Otherwise.” ning [aspects] and that women typically should and can look like.

44 INVESTMENT ADVISOR APRIL/MAY 2022 | ThinkAdvisor.com