The Money Queens and their misguided influence

Anita Hamilton of Time magazine takes a look in the latest issue of female personal finance journalists such as CNBC’s Suze Orman and frequent Time contributer Jean Chatzky, who is Money magazine’s editor at large, and how they convince women to change their spending ways.

Hamilton observes that many of these personal finance writers are operating under a false belief about women and spending.

She wrote, “A favorite target for the money queens is the alleged penchant of women, especially frivolous single women, to waste money on themselves. As Lois Frankel writes in Nice Girls Don’t Get Rich, ‘Buying those morning lattes, extra outfits and expensive dinners with friends adds up to having less in your retirement and savings accounts.’ Women do spend $1,069–$246 more than men do–on clothing every year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics 2004-2005 Consumer Expenditure Survey. But that’s chump change compared with what single men spend on car ownership ($846 more than single women), eating out ($752 more), alcoholic drinks ($280 more) and audiovisual gear ($143 more).”

Later, she concluded, “Orman, Chatzky and their sisters in armchair behavioral psychology do eventually get around to sharing specific strategies for saving for retirement, building up an emergency cash reserve and investing in mutual funds and stocks. But other books, like Kiplinger’s Money Smart Women by Janet Bodnar, avoid the patronizing finger wagging and stick to giving advice that women can really use–like explaining when you can tap your Roth IRA to help with a down payment on your first house.”

Read more here.