Ashley Feinstein Gerstley - Financial Adulting: Everything You Need to be a Financially Confident and Conscious Adult

ASHLEY FEINSTEIN GERSTLEY

Copyright 2022 by Ashley Feinstein Gerstley.

All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Names: Feinstein Gerstley, Ashley, author.

Title: Financial adulting : everything you need to know and do to be a financially confident and conscious adult / Ashley Feinstein Gerstley.

Description: Hoboken, New Jersey : Wiley, [2022] | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021054276 (print) | LCCN 2021054277 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119817307 (cloth) | ISBN 9781119817321 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781119817314 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Finance, Personal. | Adulthood.

Classification: LCC HG179 .F3925 2022 (print) | LCC HG179 (ebook) | DDC 332.024dc23/eng/20211208

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021054276

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021054277

Cover images: choness/Getty Images

Cover design: Wiley

For anyone who has ever felt that the financial world was not for them.

This is for you.

If anyone were to know about personal finance, you'd expect it to be me. I majored in finance in college (at Wharton) and then worked in finance. I learned a ton and I know that a lot of what I learned translates to what I do now. Yet, never once in college or in my time working in corporate finance did anyone talk about my own money my personal finances.

As I went through my twenties and thirties, and was trying to adult, I continued to come across new financial systems I had to understand and navigate. First it was understanding how to put together a budget and afford life, then retirement and investing, then insurance and credit, then navigating finances with a partner and buying a home, and then planning financially to start a family. Each new milestone came with a system that was just as complex and opaque and daunting as the one before, even for someone who has a background in finance and helps people with their personal finances all day, every day.

Taking all this in took a lot of time, learning from mistakes (big and small) and seeing that each of these systems does not serve people equally. As a woman, and later a mother, I experienced differences from say, what my husband (a white man) experienced, but I also know that as far as women and mothers go, I'm probably as lucky as they come.

I am a white, nondisabled, cisgender, heterosexual, upper-middle-class woman, mother, and business owner, and I benefit greatly from intergenerational wealth.

Intergenerational wealth is any type of financial support provided by the generation(s) before you.

This is a tremendous privilege. It means that not only have I received financial support from family, but also that I have not had to support them. Having to support parents and grandparents is a financial reality for many.

Coming from an upper-middle-class family, there's a security in knowing that if something were to happen financially, I'd be okay. It's not necessarily a spoken-about safety net, but I know it exists. I know that if all else fails (or even kind of fails), I'll have a place to go (and it's probably a really nice place).

I graduated without student loan debt. My parents paid for my college education and my living expenses for those four years and all the years leading up to it.

My parents gave me a monthly stipend the first year I moved out on my own in New York City as I adjusted to managing my own money. My husband, Justin, and I had our wedding paid for by our parents, and our parents have given us gifts to support us in everything from our first home purchase to helping pay for our children's school to taking us on vacations.

First and foremost, most don't share my privilege. Intergenerational wealth, or even the opportunity to build intergenerational wealth, has not been available to much of the population, especially BIPOC.

At the same time, I have so much gratitude for our parents for their generosity and what they've been able to build and share with us. I hope to be able to support my children in similar ways.

Despite all my privilege and finance background, being a financial adult was really challenging. As I experienced predatory insurance sales (more on this in ), what comes up, over and over again, is that if it's this challenging for me, I can only imagine how challenging it is for others who don't share that privilege.