A Story of a Fuck Off Fund
January 20, 2016 8:38 AM   Subscribe

If any man ever hit you, if anyone ever sexually harassed you, you’d tell him to fuck right off. You want to be, no, you will be the kind of woman who can tell anyone to fuck off if a fuck off is deserved, so naturally you start a Fuck Off Fund.
posted by DynamiteToast (71 comments total) 41 users marked this as a favorite
 
This would be such an amazing article if this wasn't such an impossible to reach for the majority of women in America.

More than half the country would be broke if they were required to come up with $400 for an emergency. At least half of those "half the country" are women. Ergo, more than half the country's women would be broke if they needed to come up with $400 for an emergency.

So, in today's "Previously, on MetaFilter," let's look at what we were talking about just the other day.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I totally am into the article, and absolutely support women in that position. The problem is in that it is presented as this is the norm and you should be proud and self-assured of yourself for being able to tell men to "fuck off." It's about individuality. It doesn't say "Now go start volunteering to help women's shelters and women who will never be able to afford a Fuck Off Fund, let alone living alone."

It's a great idea, but it falls short because it forgets the vast majority of the country will currently never make enough money to do this themselves, and thus truly be that independent. For that, we require vast systemic change.
posted by deadaluspark at 8:53 AM on January 20, 2016 [71 favorites]


I understand that this essay is illustrating a very specific point, but I wish that pieces like this expanded a bit on exactly how much money you should have in that fund. Is $4,000 enough? Is $10,000 enough? How much money do you need before you actually get to say "fuck off"?

And, also, in what instances is it justifiable to use and for what? Because the fancy hotel room drinking champagne example seems like it would very quickly drain a meager savings (at least in the areas of the U.S. where I have lived).
posted by aaanastasia at 8:55 AM on January 20, 2016 [9 favorites]


It seems like a 'fuck off' fund is basically the 6-12 months of living expenses that all people of all genders are recommended to have on hand. And which, of course, almost nobody has for obvious economic reasons. I sympathize with the author- it's so easy to be sure of how you will react in a situation, and then it happens, and it's more complicated than you think to do the 'right' thing.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 8:59 AM on January 20, 2016 [30 favorites]


I don't think the article pretends the vast majority of women are in a position to say, "Fuck off" if they need to. I think it's conscious of the fact that systemically it's all too easy to get sucked into easy money and large purchases without much thought, and that for women who have the capability to put aside those funds, they should do so.

Not every article can consider every outcome or possibility or current reality, but this would be something I'd send to friends who have the ability but not the consideration of what building for a future can afford for them personally in the long term.
posted by glaucon at 9:00 AM on January 20, 2016 [11 favorites]


I've had some really questionable people tell me about "Fuck you money".

When they were saying it, it was "Fuck you, I have more money than you, so your views/statements/opinions are shit. Listen to me."
posted by OwlBoy at 9:02 AM on January 20, 2016 [5 favorites]


It seems like a 'fuck off' fund is basically the 6-12 months of living expenses that all people of all genders are recommended to have on hand. And which, of course, almost nobody has for obvious economic reasons.

Right, but as the article notes, "It’s a story no one ever told me. It’s the kind I’d hope for you." It does a better job than the usual financial advisor bullet point story of explaining why that 6-12 months of living expenses fund should be something to work hard on, if it's at all achievable. It's usually framed as a Rainy Day Fund, like if you lose your job or get seriously ill or injured, but thinking of it as a Fuck Off Fund is much better advice. And, while the women's case with regard to sexual harrassment and boyfriend issues is compelling, the advice should apply to men and to couples, as well.
posted by beagle at 9:05 AM on January 20, 2016 [27 favorites]


This story was incredibly powerful, so much so that I'm wondering if it's hideously inappropriate to send it to my teen.
posted by corb at 9:08 AM on January 20, 2016 [7 favorites]


If an idea cannot help everyone, perhaps it can help someone, and that is a pretty good idea.
posted by Etrigan at 9:12 AM on January 20, 2016 [19 favorites]


Corb, I wouldn't think that'd be inappropriate at all.
posted by pretentious illiterate at 9:13 AM on January 20, 2016 [10 favorites]


This comes across as tragic and not inspirational considering the economic circumstances most of us are in
posted by enkmar at 9:14 AM on January 20, 2016 [3 favorites]


I've had some really questionable people call this "Fuck you money".
*I*'ve heard the other kind of money called "bitch money." As in, "Fuck you, that's bitchwork. I don't do bitch work because I can't live on bitch money." There's a way you live (kindly. with likeminded, other kindly people) when you make "bitch money" and a way you live when you make "fuck you money" (obliviously, profligately, ostentatiously, disdainfully, wastefully, exploitatively, like an outrageous, noisome human garbage gyre). If you make bitch money, stay away from the fuck you money fuckers because the fuck you money fuckers are the reason everybody else makes bitch money. Don't try to be like them, don't try to be with them. Fuck you money fuckers need to fuck the fuck off.
posted by Don Pepino at 9:14 AM on January 20, 2016 [15 favorites]


I really appreciate this message and I think it's spot on that it's targeted to young women. I've seen a lot of 22-year-old young women with no Fuck You Fund become 35-year-old women--now with two children, a house, a certain lifestyle, and no paid employment because they are home with the children-- with no FuF, women who would really like to leave, but can't due to their circumstances. Entrapped and isolated, much more so than they were at 22.

My takeaway: start your FuF early and don't ever stop contributing to it, even, and perhaps especially, once you attain a comfortable lifestyle.
posted by scantee at 9:16 AM on January 20, 2016 [20 favorites]


And which, of course, almost nobody has for obvious economic reasons.

Which is very hard to do as a singleton, female or male, effectively paying double for everything important. Singles adults are in one of the leakier boats in our economic society. Often the bailing only just keeps up.

It's marginally easier as a couple, but then whose money is it really? And so that gets a lot stickier too.
posted by bonehead at 9:17 AM on January 20, 2016 [4 favorites]


The way I have always understood "fuck you money" isn't "you should listen to me". It's "I don't have to listen to you".
posted by brennen at 9:17 AM on January 20, 2016 [15 favorites]


Health care is, as ever, the thing that fucks up everything, at least in America.
posted by Artw at 9:18 AM on January 20, 2016 [9 favorites]


I would have loved hearing this as a young adult on my own for the first time. I got better about sticking a chunk of paycheck in a secret fund--it was never more than $20 a week either from tips or the check itself--and it snowballed in a few hundred dollars over time. It would not have been the Fuck Off Fund the author describes but it would have been a start.
posted by Kitteh at 9:18 AM on January 20, 2016 [7 favorites]


This comes across as tragic and not inspirational considering the economic circumstances most of us are in


The solution is always to buy stuff.
posted by OwlBoy at 9:23 AM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]


If you look at it in macroeconomic terms, women entering the workforce in the 1960s and 70s played a big role in the rise in the divorce rate, as women could say "fuck off" to their husbands and earn a living on their own. To the extent that a "fuck off fund" just advances the logic that the rights of women are best protected by their financial independence from men, then it's a fine argument to make.

What's bothersome, I think, is the personal finance framing of the piece, which relies on the Latte Fallacy that is endemic to most personal finance writing. Perhaps on the margin, spending less on clothes and cocktails will yield enough money to make leaving a bad relationship or a bad job easier, but in a world where wages are largely stagnant and housing, education, and health care take up a greater share of expenses, that strategy will only go so far.
posted by Cash4Lead at 9:23 AM on January 20, 2016 [53 favorites]


The way I have always understood "fuck you money" isn't "you should listen to me". It's "I don't have to listen to you".

This is very true, but this is also pretty much par for the course for fundamentalist religion and the Republican Party.

"I have so much money I can just stick my fingers in my ears and go 'La la la la!' Fuck public opinion! I do what I want!"

"I don't have to listen to you," seems like a nice thing at first, but in the current form, it goes headlong into having a small elite (not in the illuminati kind of way, in the economic access kind of way) dictate the ways of the world and genuinely feeling like they don't have to listen to any of the rest of us.
posted by deadaluspark at 9:24 AM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]


I'm not sure how I feel about this essay, because it seems like a Rorschach test: If you are already sympathetic to women in this position, you will have a sympathetic view of the narrator.

But it presents the financial dilemma as the result of decisions about things like clothes, eating out--things that are easily seen as frivolous and unnecessary and unwise in hindsight. Things that she will be judged negatively for by readers who are not sympathetic.

Obviously, it's preferable to have savings and I'd advise any woman to prioritize building them. But women should not have to be sufficiently monastic, avoiding unnecessary purchases, for the problems the narrator faces to be viewed as structural bigotries, rather than problems of her poor planning. It is not her fault that she didn't have a "fuck off fund" when her boyfriend became abusive, or when her boss sexually assaulted her.

In other words--this uncomfortably reminded me about advice to women on how to avoid sexual assault. Sometimes the advice is genuinely good practice, but it becomes another way to blame women if it's not followed, and it also places additional burdens on women as a class. I feel better about such advice being shared in environments where I know people are aware of what victim-blaming is, and will not engage in it, and less comfortable when it is a general audience whose prejudices will be revealed through their reactions to it.

But perhaps that's the audience's fault and not the author's. I don't know.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 9:24 AM on January 20, 2016 [36 favorites]


Omitted my own story b/c not in my best interest. Suffice it to say that I'm good at building FU funds of various kinds.

I am more than willing to contribute to anyone's FU fund. That being said: Throwing money at the problem is exactly that. It doesn't ADDRESS the problem and in fact feeds right into the system that creates the shit in the first place.

Also feeds into "if you had only been more PRUDENT, dear."
posted by Sheydem-tants at 9:26 AM on January 20, 2016 [14 favorites]


Don't women already statistically save more than men? While it's good to encourage saving, it does once again put the burden on something women have to do. Instead of a number of things that should be changed structurally with labor and economy and with the men.
posted by FJT at 9:28 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


Six month emergency funds are different than FU money or personal money. I've friends who keep varying amounts of cash money within quick reach, usually enough to get to a safe haven. While the voiced intent is "you know, in case the ATMs are down during a hurricane," at least one has said it's money in case she needs to leave in a hurry for other reasons.
posted by beaning at 9:30 AM on January 20, 2016 [6 favorites]


If someone can repackage the standard dry advice of personal finance (have an emergency fund, save for retirement) into a more relatable form, I say more power to them.
posted by indubitable at 9:32 AM on January 20, 2016 [18 favorites]


As a middle-aged white man, I found it a fairly moving story. My takeaways:

1. The option to not put up with sexual harassment at work is deeply related to ones ability to live without a job for a while.
2. Many people, not just women, get stuck in shitty situations because of money. "Why don't you just leave/change/do something else?" is not an option

and, most importantly,

3. The only way to get out of a shitty situation brought on by money is to build a time machine and make different choices in the past.
posted by gregvr at 9:38 AM on January 20, 2016 [11 favorites]


"Actually, being a bourgeois individualist is the most feminist thing you can do"
posted by RogerB at 9:48 AM on January 20, 2016 [3 favorites]


We had a saying in the bar business, notorious for high turnover: "I was looking for a job when I found this one." Still, it's always good to have a bit of a bankroll to back up the bravado...
posted by jim in austin at 9:48 AM on January 20, 2016


I never had an FU fund, but in the past have built up a "get the fuck out of dodge" fund that let me escape. I never had enough money when I was younger to save more than a little; I squandered it all on rent and food.

Better than FU money were friends. Friends who were there when the shit hit the fan, with open arms, empathetic ears, safe places to crash, calls to the police, and in one case, a 24 hour straight drive to Wisconsin. Friends that surprised me with their generosity their warmth, and their ferocious loyalty. They saved my life. I would do the same for mine.

In conclusion, friends will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no friends.
posted by louche mustachio at 9:48 AM on January 20, 2016 [46 favorites]


"I don't have to listen to you," seems like a nice thing at first, but in the current form, it goes headlong into having a small elite (not in the illuminati way, in the economic access kind of way) dictate the ways of the world and genuinely feeling like they don't have to listen to any of the rest of us.

Right, but this article is not advising people to make fuck you money, it's advising people to save fuck off money. There's a crucial difference between fuck you money and fuck off money. Fuck off money is a defense against fuck you money. The boss and the boyfriend in the story both make fuck you money. Fuck you money is offensive. The protagonist in the story makes bitch money. If she had fuck off money, and everybody up there saying that's not as easy as the article implies is really really right, she'd have some defense against the fuckers who are abusing her.

3. The only way to get out of a shitty situation brought on by money is to build a time machine and make different choices in the past.

Yeah? Like choose to have been born into a different caste?
posted by Don Pepino at 9:50 AM on January 20, 2016 [6 favorites]


Yeah? Like choose to have been born into a different caste?

Or male?
posted by louche mustachio at 9:51 AM on January 20, 2016 [6 favorites]


Between the fuck off fund and the fuck budget, the fuck economy sure is getting complicated.

I am pretty close to the narrator in that I'm a young professional woman (although I'm gay, so I stopped having boy troubles over ten years ago). I am working towards a fuck-off fund now and have a pretty sizeable chunk in there, but I feel fortunate to be able to do so, not like it was some great idea.

Like I assume most people would certainly love to have fuck-off dollars, but it's not a matter of never having thought of it or a failure of frugality. It's a matter of never having the opportunity to create such a fund to begin, given the cyclical and churning reality of poverty.
posted by one of these days at 10:02 AM on January 20, 2016 [8 favorites]


I think the advice given in this article is pure gold.
posted by pjsky at 10:02 AM on January 20, 2016


fwiw, growing up in a toxic and abusive household, something like this philosophy has guided my financial approach from the point of when I got my first college job to now. I haven't been always succcessful at it, and I've had less proud struggles with it -- but essentially "Never EVER be in a situation where I have to ask my family for help" is my personal equivalent of a "Fuck Off Fund" and I am sympathetic to anyone who has to have that goal in their mind, whether its protection from family or from toxic people that you encounter in society. But it's an important aspect of power that everyone should be aware of regardless of how happy your childhood may have been.
posted by bl1nk at 10:03 AM on January 20, 2016 [13 favorites]


Jesus, this is heartbreaking. It fills me with a combination of impotent rage and a strong wish to help that I can't channel into anything productive. I usually have a few hundred extra dollars at my disposal; there are people for whom that amount is the difference between being able to flee abuse and being groped at work or hurled through an Ikea coffee table. We live in a brave new world of software-mediated exchanges; why can't I make this happen?
posted by Mayor West at 10:19 AM on January 20, 2016


but in a world where wages are largely stagnant and housing, education, and health care take up a greater share of expenses, that strategy will only go so far.

So there are people who make enough money to save without trying very hard. There are people who live in or very close to poverty who simply don't have any excess income to save. But there are a lot of people in the middle who could save but don't for a lot of reasons.

For some women this view is probably good motivation to save when they might not otherwise. Which is a good thing on balance even if we acknowledge that yes, some women are really, truly stuck.
posted by GuyZero at 10:25 AM on January 20, 2016 [9 favorites]


On one hand, I recognize the economic realities that prevent building a "fuck you fund," or the "contingency savings" for anyone, regardless of gender.

That said, I saved the link in a folder of articles to share with my daughter when she's the right age. It's easy to say "save for a contingency." Envisioning a real-world contingency can be hard.

/That, and letting her know her mom and I have her back.
posted by MrGuilt at 10:27 AM on January 20, 2016 [3 favorites]


But it presents the financial dilemma as the result of decisions about things like clothes, eating out--things that are easily seen as frivolous and unnecessary and unwise in hindsight. Things that she will be judged negatively for by readers who are not sympathetic.

This struck me as being not just like sexual assault warnings, but also like environmental matters like recycling and conservation (water, power, etc.) where the choices of individuals are held up as the source of a serious problem that's mostly industrial/capital based (who uses all the power? industry! who uses all the water? farmers, industry, and water bottlers! etc.) It's a lot easier to blame the little people, male or female, than to fix the problem.

And while I know the point of the article is to tell women to save, and present them good reasons to, there's also something to be said about presenting the abusive boyfriend and harassing boss as forces of nature where your choices as a woman are to submit meekly or tell them to fuck off and quit/leave. Fixing the system so the boyfriend who knocks you around goes to jail and the boss who gets handsy is fired, or where those dudes are either educated or intimidated into not acting like assholes, is never an option.
posted by immlass at 10:45 AM on January 20, 2016 [15 favorites]


I think one thing this article does a pretty good job at is showing that it's not just frivolity that causes people not to save. In isolation, a lot of the choices in the story seem pretty reasonable (buying one fabulous black leather skirt to celebrate your internship, buying an Ikea coffee table to christen the new place, going to dinner to bond with your new coworkers). Meanwhile, the storyline where she saves the fuck-you fund is portrayed as pretty difficult, although glossed over a bit (she mentions waitressing on Saturdays, ugh). There's a lot of consumerist messaging that makes the choices in the first version seem reasonable, unremarkable, normal.

I agree with all the criticisms presented here, but there's still a grain of something there that speaks to me.
posted by sunset in snow country at 10:47 AM on January 20, 2016 [7 favorites]


Fixing the system so the boyfriend who knocks you around goes to jail and the boss who gets handsy is fired, or where those dudes are either educated or intimidated into not acting like assholes, is never an option.
When your boss attempts to grope you, you say, “Fuck off, you creep!” You wave two middle fingers in the air, and march over to HR. Whether the system protects you or fails you, you will be able to take care of yourself.
posted by Etrigan at 10:51 AM on January 20, 2016 [10 favorites]


I like this a lot. When I was young, my mom (and my grandma, and her mom, this goes way back) always taught me to keep my Mad Money. Mad Money was for when you when on a date and the guy turned out to be a creep, or when your new man-friend just wasn't the man you thought he was. You always needed to have a store of cash, no exceptions. This was drilled into me from a young age, even though I was blessed to have men in my family where the concept of needing Mad Money was one I had trouble imagining. I like this new updated name for the idea.
posted by backwards compatible at 10:56 AM on January 20, 2016 [10 favorites]


@Don Pepino: I guess my point about a time machine is that it doesn't give any advice to someone who is already in a bad situation other than, "Man, if only you had saved up some money earlier."
posted by gregvr at 10:58 AM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]


Most of the things she spent money on were required for her job and lifestyle. Her boyfriend doesn't sound like the type who'd be happy for too long with a coffee table made from some milk crates and an old door. Plus, you start a new job, everybody goes out to Quiznos or whatever, you're really going to order a free water and eat sunflower seeds from a re-used ziploc in your purse? That might work for some jobs, but this does not sound like that kind of job. You dress and "lifestyle" for the job you want, as we learned on Orange Is the New Black. It is possible to thrift up a wardrobe that looks fantastic, but you have to be lucky and good at it. I know a guy who lives in a shed but who dresses immaculately and always looks like he has a genius valet. He gets it all from thrift stores, but he also knows what he's doing, loves doing it, and has the time to do it--being as how he's chronically underemployed--and he has interested and invested friends and family. (And... he's male. Not many men shop for vintage Brooks Bros. at Habitat for Humanity. Women? Different story entirely.)
posted by Don Pepino at 10:59 AM on January 20, 2016 [5 favorites]


This article is in many ways a best-case scenario, and as such, incredibly depressing. Most young people are simply chewed up and spat out by the system and its bosses, and the ones who aren't have usually forced themselves to hew ruthlessly to a professional line, which transforms them into despicable shells of themselves who victimize others in turn.
posted by gorgor_balabala at 11:01 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


Another thought: We usually think of women who lack economic power as being some kind of housewife stereotype. The lifestyle depicted in the story, on the other hand, is a Career Woman. It's a whole identity, and I think it's easy to think that because you fit into a certain type, some things will never happen to you. This article corrects that by saying: it's about the cash.
posted by sunset in snow country at 11:08 AM on January 20, 2016 [9 favorites]


Wait. This story sucks. If it were one of those Choose Your Own Adventures, here’s where you’d want to flip back, start over, rewrite what happens to you.
You graduated college and you’re a grown-ass woman now. Tina Fey is your spirit animal. Beyoncé, your preacher.


Well, at least the story makes clear who gets to say "Fuck Off" right at the outset. Couldn't afford college? Sorry about that.
posted by layceepee at 11:15 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


In other words--this uncomfortably reminded me about advice to women on how to avoid sexual assault. Sometimes the advice is genuinely good practice, but it becomes another way to blame women if it's not followed, and it also places additional burdens on women as a class.

Agreed. I think the message is important, but I find the framing of this piece to be simplistic, sneering, and unnecessarily victim-blaming. It reads like "Your boyfriend hit you? Well, maybe if you weren't so shallow and dumb with money you could leave, too bad!" This story does suck, but not for the reasons the author thinks.
posted by Metroid Baby at 11:19 AM on January 20, 2016 [6 favorites]


It reads like "Your boyfriend hit you? Well, maybe if you weren't so shallow and dumb with money you could leave, too bad!" This story does suck, but not for the reasons the author thinks.

Having cash money means you won't be a victim twice?

It would be better not be to a victim at all but I'm not sure whether it's shitty or simply realpolitik that the author assumes women are going to be victimized.
posted by GuyZero at 11:23 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


After a few bad years I'm finally feeling like I'm getting back on track. I was left financially high and totally dry so part of that has been repaying debt and making a concerted effort to have some savings. I like the idea of a fuck off fund. It would be good to be in the position that if things got super bad at work to just say fuck it, leave and have a several months cushion.

I could do that now but it would have to be very, very bad because even though I could survive for a two to three months right now the chances of finding another job at the same rate of pay in my small town area are tiny. Having the time to look is useless if jobs don't exist.

This is one of the reasons that part of my long term is to move into an industry with more job options and physically move to an area with more job options. I could probably stay at my current job for the rest of my life but the pay is shitty even though in comparison to what else is readily available around here it's less shitty.
posted by Jalliah at 11:24 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


Well, at least the story makes clear who gets to say "Fuck Off" right at the outset. Couldn't afford college? Sorry about that.


You know what happens when everyone who can put together a "fuck off fund" does it?
The number of people who don't have such a fund shrinks.
And the more it shrinks, the more leverage THEY have as well.
posted by ocschwar at 11:24 AM on January 20, 2016 [5 favorites]


It would be better not be to a victim at all but I'm not sure whether it's shitty or simply realpolitik that the author assumes women are going to be victimized.

Having a fire extinguisher in your house isn't assuming that it will burn down some day, it's being prepared for the worst.
posted by Etrigan at 11:33 AM on January 20, 2016 [6 favorites]


Having a fire extinguisher in your house isn't assuming that it will burn down some day, it's being prepared for the worst.

Yeah, but we also acknowledge that shit happens and not everyone has the ability to be constantly vigilant or be prepared to put out their own fire. That's what the fire department is for.
posted by FJT at 11:36 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


Yeah, but we also acknowledge that shit happens and not everyone has the ability to be constantly vigilant or be prepared to put out their own fire.

Nor do we say things like "It would be better not to be a victim at all but I'm not sure whether it's shitty or simply realpolitik that the author assumes people are going to burn down their houses."
posted by Etrigan at 11:38 AM on January 20, 2016 [7 favorites]


Surely it's possible to save up in your fuck-you fund even as you recognize and wage war against systematic oppression?

I began my dating life with "mad money" -- enough cash to pay for my share of a date, plus cab fare -- so that I never, ever had to deal with the nasty repercussions of "owing" someone a good time.

True, the mad money did not address why my people-picker was broken enough to accept a date in the first place. But it did buy me an exit from a date so my addressing of the question "Why did I think I had to say yes to the jerk?" was something I pondered without any additional trauma to process. And because the money bought my stress-free exit, I had more mental and emotional resources to turn to the question "What the fuck about this culture says I owe anyone any good time?" and begin to work against it.

Throwing money at a problem is only a first step, but that first step can make the next thousand that much easier. It's the difference between starting the walk in comfortable shoes or starting it with heels already rubbed raw.
posted by sobell at 11:58 AM on January 20, 2016 [23 favorites]


Surely it's possible to save up in your fuck-you fund even as you recognize and wage war against systematic oppression?
Right, exactly. The same way how if your bacon pan catches fire it's superneat to be able to reach for the kitchen fire extinguisher you put in place, or the box of baking soda you put in place, because your mom or somebody told you to or you read about it somewhere and figured it was a good idea, instead of simply having to drop everything and run outside and dial the fire department and watch and hope and potentially see your whole life burn down before your eyes. If your fire extinguisher blows up in your face like on Fawlty Towers, or you just moved in a day ago and haven't got to it, yet, then you can't be kicking yourself and anybody who kicks you should be put under the jail, obviously, but if you can spot a lifewrecking problem and put yourself in a position to catch it and get rid of it while it's small, why not?
posted by Don Pepino at 12:14 PM on January 20, 2016 [3 favorites]


There’s a good point to be made here: being in economic dire straits is coercive in a way that you don’t always think about when you’re young. When you’re beholden to put up with awful things just for a paycheck, it grinds you down; you end up shouting down your better angels on a thrice-weekly basis, and it changes you for the worse. If you don’t have the freedom to walk out the first time your boss makes a pass, or the first time your boyfriend grabs your arm, then all that first incident does is groom you for compliance.

I do get how people see this as simplistically Goofus/Gallant, and I wish she hadn’t made scrimping sound easy. But, like corb mentioned, it is the sort of advice that could resonate with someone exiting high school or entering college. Lord knows at that age I wasn’t thinking about the compromises I might need to make in adulthood.

And, of course, none of this should really be true for anyone, much less for a vast majority of the population. But I’m not convinced that this essay ends up endorsing the status quo, implicitly or explicitly. The world is imperfect and it’s good to have coping strategies for the present while you work to improve the future.
posted by savetheclocktower at 12:51 PM on January 20, 2016 [8 favorites]


My fault for being broke then? Too bad I never considered being financially solvent.

(Like there's anyone who doesn't know that money buys you options)
posted by Space Kitty at 1:18 PM on January 20, 2016 [8 favorites]


There are people out there who don't plan, who do have the money to save and choose not to save it. (Guilty!)

Clearly the situations portrayed are in the victim category, perhaps if the author had written:

"You meet a friend from work and you get along really well. She suggests getting a place together and it seems like a great idea so you do. Suddenly she changes. No longer is she content to stay up late drinking coffee and chatting. Instead, she's got guys over all hours, making ALL THE NOISE and keeping you from sleeping. You ask her to cut down on the late night parties. When you go home for Thanksgiving, she moves out, sticking you with the lease."

Thank goodness I had a little Fuck You Fund at the time, otherwise it would have been TERRIBLE for me.

The point of the piece is not to raise your level of living before saving money should it all goes tits up. And yes, I worked two jobs for longer than I care to admit. I still wish I had been better with my money when I was younger.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 1:59 PM on January 20, 2016 [4 favorites]


Right, exactly. The same way how if your bacon pan catches fire it's superneat to be able to reach for the kitchen fire extinguisher you put in place, or the box of baking soda you put in place,

The thousand dollar box of baking soda that you were able to set aside for things going wrong? I think all these glib analogies about how easy it is to save enough money to live on for six months with zero assistance are missing the point about the opportunity costs that they're talking about. For the record, my salary is about $2000 per month, so that $1000 is half a month's pay. How fast do you save half a month's pay? A whole month's? Three months?

I mean, for me, rent's $900, it costs $200/month to feed me, so that's $6600 right there. I could let that money sit in a savings account, assuming I have it... or I could, say, put it into a down payment on a house that won't make my housing costs increase by $50-100 per month every year. I have a reliable, solid car, but if I didn't... well, that's new car money. That's enough money to pay off some of my friends' college loans. (I went to a cheap state school.)

I am a twenty-five year old. I grew up hearing this shit. It is not that simple and it drives me absolutely nuts that it is presented as if it is, over and over and over again. Because what that does--that focus on latte economy--is it just makes you blame yourself, over and over, for circumstances that are honestly beyond your control. It makes you doubt yourself and go "fuck, well, if I'm never going to reach that goal, the one everyone is pushing for, why bother reaching at all?"

If you're telling people constantly to set goals that are, at base, completely unrealistic--and then telling them that unrealistic goal is supposed to be their bulwark against disaster--well, at best all you're going to do is make them constantly beat themselves up, and at worst you just wind up making them disengage in your fucked-up system. Which means, basically, really hopeless shit like maxing out all the lines of credit you can because fuck it, it's not like you'll ever get ahead anyway, might as well wring some enjoyment out of the fucking thing.
posted by sciatrix at 2:01 PM on January 20, 2016 [22 favorites]


Whether the system protects you or fails you, you will be able to take care of yourself., quoted from TFA from Etrigan.

Yeah, and the expectation there is that the system is likely to fail you, and you should be self-sufficient enough to expect the system to fail you, to chew you up and spit you out because you're a woman. Sorry, but the fact that dudes feel entitled to do this (cf the astronomy thread going down right now) is a systemic problem, and as much as the advice here is good for an individual woman, it's just discouraging that shit so it runs downhill to women who can't build that fuck-off fund. It's not stopping the shit.
posted by immlass at 2:22 PM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]


It's just discouraging that shit so it runs downhill to women who can't build that fuck-off fund. It's not stopping the shit.

It could be stopping the shit. Some of the time the aggressor finds another target, some of the time they find something better to do with their life.

Some of the time people do have the choice of whether to buy something or save money and some of the time (far too often, as pointed out frequently upthread) there's very little breathing space.

But when there is the choice of whether to spend or not to spend, and the idea of not spending the money feels like it's cramping your style, what you need is to have a little thing to look to which says "no, that's for the fuck off fund" and gives as much joy as spending the money.
posted by ambrosen at 2:57 PM on January 20, 2016


Yes, you're right, sciatrix, the housefire analogy is silly and doesn't work. You're only 25?!?!? How is that possible? You are the wisest person on metafilter, or one of. Wow... If you're you at 25, it is my opinion that you will be fine. At 25 I was a ridiculous trainwreck of bad decision, and nevertheless I am now pretty much fine. My massive gradschool debt (thanks, 25-yr-old me!)--which I didn't begin paying off until 30 and it took me fifteen years living in a $400/month hovel--saved my life because it saved me from buying a house during the bubble. I'd be living in a hollow tree right now. Achieving relative financial security was all luck. ALL. No latte denial, no wise scrimping. Luck. May you get all the luck, too; you very much deserve it.
posted by Don Pepino at 3:01 PM on January 20, 2016


FWIW, sciatrix, it took me YEARS to build up the Eff You Fund.

I found my 20s to be a time of tremendous financial pressure because in addition to the Eff You Fund, I was also supposed to be socking away money for retirement, paying off my students, avoiding any sort of consumer debts and managing to meet my basic living expenses.

It took a hell of a lot of work -- and a string of second jobs from my 20s into my late 30s -- before I finally, finally had a decent Eff You Fund.

And I couldn't start saving for retirement until I a) found a job that offered any retirement benefits to supplement my own savings and b) paid off my student loans and had a small Eff You Fund (enough to cover airfare for a funeral). I was 31 when that happened, so I lost a decade's worth of compound interest. (And oh, the irony of the loans I took out to ensure a brighter future preventing me from saving for a safer future ...)

Money is all about opportunity cost and feelings, and I remember navigating it all taking up a huge amount of energy in my 20s for sure.
posted by sobell at 3:17 PM on January 20, 2016 [4 favorites]


How fast do you save half a month's pay? A whole month's? Three months?

It takes forever on a low salary, for all the reasons you list and more. When your salary is low enough that it is barely covering things in a good month, and you are in the red every time there is a small emergency, the idea of a six month savings buffer is a joke.

On a higher salary it's not nearly as hard, because a lot of costs are the same but your income is so much higher. I read this as being written for people who are in a very early stage of that upward track, where the progression might go from college to internship to entry level job that leads into the professional track. Doing what the author suggests, just keeping your internship level lifestyle for some years after, is going to create that buffer.

But as people have noted, this doesn't work nearly as well (or at all) if you aren't on that professional track where your margins get better every year (or you are on that professional track, but the rug has been yanked out from under you for structural reasons and your salary keeps getting cut, you get laid off every nine months, and yet your student loan payments are still due).
posted by Dip Flash at 6:29 PM on January 20, 2016 [5 favorites]


> I began my dating life with "mad money" -- enough cash to pay for my share of a date, plus cab fare -- so that I never, ever had to deal with the nasty repercussions of "owing" someone a good time.

Right. THIS is a great example of an attainable level of "Fuck Off Fund." Keep a means of financial control over the small things, the day to day compromises, the grind of small insults and tolerances that wear you down.

I had a problem with the latte fallacy of this piece too.

Frankly, for the major egregious crises like needing to quit your job with a rapey boss, or getting out of an abusive living situation, etc., I think understanding your potential safety net of friends/family is often more valuable than the face-value of your saved cash. Knowing who will open their door to you at all hours, who can put you up for a month on their couch, and who can help you make a plan (often this would be three different people). Worth noting that there's often an assumption that family is an obvious and semi-obligatory safety net, but if you have a difficult relationship with your immediate family, also think ahead to identify--and not underestimate--alternatives to family and your own personal tolerances/preferences over family as "default."
posted by desuetude at 8:44 PM on January 20, 2016 [5 favorites]


maybe the reason I don't have a better job is that I've always lived cheap enough to have several months living expenses stocked away - including wearing almost entirely thrift store clothing.

even though I am a professional woman of just the right age that every one says I must have expensive clothes.

But I do have (well-over) $400 for an emergency, even though my SO and I lived off of $20k last year. It's not my f-off fund, it's my "pay the rent between jobs" fund.
posted by jb at 8:46 PM on January 20, 2016


Looking at this thread, I see people talking past each other.

"It sucks that the boss gets grabby," or "It sucks that the boyfriend is a jerk."

"Yes, but it'll suck a lot more if you don't have some money put away so you have to endure it."

Having built up, and used a FOF more than once in my younger years, I now realize that the confidence that comes from having a FOF was probably more important than actually having the fund. Yes, having the fund is good. Having friends who can help bail you out is good. But having the confidence to say "No. This shall not stand," when faced with a bad situation, that's the real deal-changer.

Starting small is fine, too. During my college years, my FOF was just a $20 tucked into my wallet behind my copy of my birth certificate. At the time, $20 was cab fare home from pretty much anywhere I would find myself. That was enough to get me out of a couple situations I shouldn't have been in in the first place.
posted by DaveP at 3:50 AM on January 21, 2016 [6 favorites]


There have been plenty of threads in the past discussing the difference between being for-real poor and being a situationally or temporarily poor middle class person ("starving college student," say), and while I liked this article, it would have been better by considering that distinction.

A person with a middle class family that they get along with has a lot of this support built in, with no savings plan needed. "Hi mom, it's me. I'm going to need to stay in your basement for a little while." Add even some very modest savings to that, and that person can leave a bad situation at any time.

Without those family resources, you have what you can save on your own, period. That's when you most need the kind of fund the article describes, but it is also when there are the greatest barriers to actually creating it. It's like the difference between buying a house on your own, or with an interest free loan for the downpayment from your family -- one of those is a lot easier than the other, but those details seem to get left out of a lot of the up-by-your-bootstraps advice.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:14 AM on January 21, 2016 [9 favorites]


You don't have to be middle class to have family support. My mom is by no means middle class, but I would always have a bed there, even if it is the couch in the living room. When I was little and we lived on welfare in subsidised housing, she still took in my aunt for a time, to help her get away from an abusive situation.

I've know many working class or poorer families who just expect that you will take care of friends and family. There is much less stigma among them for moving back in with your parents than there is among middle class people. And your parents expect that they will move in with you, when they need to.

This is - of course - a kind of social capital, and you do have to be blessed with a loving family who are not the source of abuse. Or, in the case of another aunt, you have to hope that your kids are not themselves abusive/willing to take advantage of you. But you still let them stay even if they are, because family.
posted by jb at 6:55 AM on January 21, 2016 [1 favorite]


For 60+ years of relatively happy marriage, my grandma always had a checking account of her own. Her mother, my great-grandmother, told her that women should always try to have some money that is just their own saved up. I remember my mom, who'd been taught by them, telling my sister.
posted by Area Man at 9:22 AM on January 21, 2016 [1 favorite]


I like this approach for motivating people to save towards an emergency fund. I think it helps to focus on whatever is most important to you, whether it’s a “fuck off bad relationship” fund, a “fuck off job” fund, a “fuck off family” fund, a “fuck off society, I’m gonna go be a hermit in the woods” fund, doesn’t really matter, whatever motivates you to save for it. The beauty of an emergency fund is that it can be aimed at any unexpected situation that you want to fuck off. It can’t fix them all, but it can smooth over many of them, which gives you more energy to solve the rest. And it’s an excellent point that a strong fund is very empowering, giving you more confidence to stand up for yourself and leave abusive situations.

I’m not so thrilled about the strong implication that if you didn’t have a fund saved up, too bad, you’re screwed, should have made better choices. I realize that the whole point was to have highly contrasting situations, but it goes pretty overboard with the blaming and hopelessness - really, there aren’t any other options for people who don’t have an emergency fund, they’re just stuck getting abused forever?

On a more meta note, it’s a little frustrating how often personal-finance-related topics here seem to get derailed into a discussion of how impossible it is for very-low-earning people in the US to do anything to improve their situation. Which is often true, and urgently requires systemic solutions…but most of us aren’t totally helpless. I want to be clear that I’m not a bootstrapper, I’m a huge socialist, but many people could still improve their financial situation for whatever hand they’ve been dealt. On a low income, building savings requires careful choices of tradeoffs in housing, clothing, food, entertainment, etc...but it can often still be done, often without feeling all that deprived once you’re used to it. Even a huge emergency fund won’t guarantee financial stability, particularly in the US, but it goes a long way towards weathering the smaller storms and preventing the snowballing effects of being broke all the time.
posted by randomnity at 11:32 AM on January 21, 2016 [9 favorites]


Did the love child of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher write this?
posted by SassHat at 9:55 PM on January 21, 2016 [1 favorite]


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