Unlearn the Bullsh*t: The Money Advice That Fails Women (and What to Do Instead)
- Davina Jackson
- Nov 17
- 14 min read
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This space is crafted just for you: to take control of your money, shift your mindset, and build a financial life that matches the reality you’re living and the future you’re creating.
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We’ve Been Following the Wrong Playbook
At some point, every woman has wondered why she’s doing everything right and still feels behind.
You budget, save, invest when you can and yet somehow… somehow, it never adds up the way the books, podcasts, and expert advice promised it would.
That’s because most financial advice is built for a male-centered world where you're expected to earn more, work longer in one job, and have someone else holding the household together in the background.
Women are told to also follow the playbook: save more, spend less, invest early and often - without anyone asking if those rules even fit our lives.
→ How do you “just save 20%” when your paycheck is stretched across rent, childcare, debt, and helping your parents?
→ How do you “stay consistent” when your income isn’t?
→ How do you “take the emotion out of money” when every financial decision you make is tied to survival, care, or someone else’s needs?
The old playbook doesn’t account for any of that.
So, the problem isn’t your lack of discipline. It’s the outdated, disconnected and tone-deaf advice.
Women’s financial lives are not a smaller versions of men’s. They’re more layered, more cyclical, and more interdependent.
It’s time we have a talk about the money advice that fails women, how it keeps us behind, and what it looks like to build a financial strategy that’s woman-centered: grounded in real life, real limitations, and the way we actually live and earn in 2025.
We’ve spent enough time trying to squeeze ourselves into systems that were never built for us and following rules that were never written with us in mind.
Now it’s time to build our own financial path. One that moves with our rhythm, not against it.
Let’s chat.
TL;DR — What You’ll Get From This Post
Most money advice wasn’t made for women and it shows.
This post unpacks why so much of what we’ve been told doesn’t fit the way we actually live, earn, or spend.
Inside, we talk about:
Spotting the money advice that keeps women stuck and why it still shapes so much of what we’re told to do.
Seeing the hidden bias baked into traditional financial “rules.”
Rebuilding with a woman-centered financial strategy that fits your reality (how you actually live and earn)
Unlearning the outdated rules that punish more than they protect.
Replacing perfection-based financial habits with systems that flex with you instead of against you.
If traditional advice has left you exhausted, this is your sign to rethink the entire playbook.
Instant Gratification Zone: Skip to the Good Stuff
The Hidden Bias in Traditional Money Advice
Most financial advice still carries the fingerprints of the people it was originally built for: men with stable salaries, uninterrupted careers, and someone else handling the unseen labor that kept their lives running.
For decades, we were told those same rules would work for us too. Just negotiate. Save 20% of your income. Don’t mix emotion and money. Invest early and often.
It all sounds reasonable until you realize those rules were written for a life most women don’t actually live: a life without pay gaps, caregiving breaks, or emotional labor that never clocks out.
Here's what those rules actually look like when they meet our real life:
“Just negotiate.”
The research is very clear: Women negotiate all the time. They’re just penalized for it.
This “advice” assumes that confidence alone closes the pay gap, when in reality, the system punishes the same assertiveness it rewards in men.
“Save 20% and you’ll be fine.”
This formula works when you earn a predictable paycheck, have benefits, and don’t take career breaks to care for anyone else.
For millions of women, that math collapses the moment life happens.
“Don’t let emotions guide your money.”
(This one is my personal favorite *insert sarcasm and eye roll*)
It sounds logical until you realize that rule was written for detachment - i.e. for people who were never socialized to carry everyone else’s emotional weight.
Newsflash, women’s emotional intelligence isn’t a liability. It’s data. It tells us what matters, what feels unsafe, what feels aligned.
It’s one of our super powers.
None of these biases are meant to be small oversights. In fact, when you look closely, most of the so-called “expert” advice is full of blind spots that shape how financial guidance is written, delivered, and internalized by women.
What do you do when the advice ignores your reality and following it doesn’t create freedom?
You realize it creates unnecessary friction.
And yet, that somehow doesn’t make us stop trying to follow the rules.
Hell, most of us double down.
We work harder thinking it’s an “us” problem.
We get more discipline, more controlled, more self-critical… all while trying to make the old playbook work. (One that was never designed for us in the first place.)
That’s how the cycle continues: when the advice doesn’t work, we don’t question the rules. We question ourselves, HARD.
We call it inconsistency, lack of willpower, poor discipline, or whatever else we can think of.
But what we’re really experiencing isn’t failure. It’s disconnection. The kind that happens when discipline becomes a performance instead of a practice and the rules start feeling more like pressure than guidance.
That means discipline isn’t the problem. It’s the disconnection between advice and your reality.
Let’s talk about that.
When “Discipline” Becomes Disconnection
Discipline was supposed to help us build security, not anxiety.
It was meant to create structure, not shame. But somewhere between the budgeting apps, the “no-spend” challenges, and the financial gurus preaching consistency, discipline stopped being a form of support and became a full-time performance.
We’ve been sold the idea that self-control is the highest financial virtue.
That the more we restrict, the more we’ll prove we’re responsible.
That “staying on track” matters more than understanding the terrain we’re on.
So we tighten up, cut more, push harder, and when we still can’t seem to “get ahead,” we assume the flaw is us.
That’s how outdated money rules get internalized: when the system doesn’t deliver results, women don’t rebel. We double down.
We try to budget our way out of being underpaid.
We try to out-discipline income instability.
We try to earn our way to rest in an economy that keeps moving the goalpost.
And when that doesn’t work, we don’t question the framework. We question our worth.
The result then becomes a life of financial self-surveillance: tracking every purchase, feeling guilty for every convenience, and apologizing for needing relief.
We’re taught to call it responsibility and/or resilience, but what it really is, is cultural conditioning of over-extension being mislabeled as something noble.
Or simply stated, women are praised for doing too much but are (cruelly) penalized for needing to pause.
Nowhere is that clearer than in the advice we’re given about money because “cutting lattes” was never (ever) the issue.
The issue is that most advice assumes women have margin: the space to save, the cushion to plan, and the energy to keep recalculating when life happens.
Most of us don’t have that margin. We’re trying to build stability from the middle of chaos, and yet we’re told the answer is more control, not more care.
That’s where the disconnection begins: when the rules ask you to ignore your reality just to prove you’re disciplined.
When “doing better” means erasing the parts of your life that don’t fit someone else’s model of success.
When your financial identity becomes one long apology for not being consistent enough.
The reality is the longer you live like that, the smaller your self-trust becomes.
You stop listening to the part of you that knows when you need a break, a breath, or a damned boundary.
You start confusing guilt with accountability and exhaustion with effort.
Discipline itself isn’t the villain, but when it ignores your reality, it stops being structure and starts feeling like punishment.
It disconnects you from your capacity.
It severs your intuition from your planning.
It teaches you to chase stability through punishment instead of protection.
The financial confidence you need doesn’t come from stricter rules. It comes from self-trust.
The kind that says, “I can take a day off and still be on track.”
The kind that understands that consistency isn’t about doing it perfectly. It’s about coming back to it, again and again, while giving yourself grace.
Once you start to see how discipline can turn into disconnection, a new question surfaces: If the old rules don’t fit, what does?
That’s where woman-centered strategy begins.
Not with pressure but with systems that honor your rhythm, your reality, and your capacity instead of punishing them.
How to Start Unlearning the Bullsh*t Money Advice
Unlearning bullsh*t money advice starts with noticing what no longer fits: the guidance that leaves you feeling guilty, drained, or disconnected every time you try to follow it.
That discomfort is data. It’s your cue that the financial “guidance” isn’t built for your reality.
Instead of asking “Why can’t I make this work?” start asking “Who was this advice written for?” and “What would it look like if I built my own version?”
This is where financial growth starts to feel lighter, not because you’re doing less, but because you’re finally doing what aligns with your life, capacity, and your values.
It’s about releasing what was never yours to carry and rebuilding a relationship with money that reflects the season of life you’re actually living.
Here’s where to start:
Identify the Money Advice That Shrinks You
Pay attention to what advice makes you feel smaller, guilty, or behind. That’s your first clue it wasn’t made for you.
If following the “rules” make you feel like you’re constantly failing, not because you’re careless, but because the math doesn’t match your reality, it’s time to let them go.
Real money guidance won’t shame you into silence or self-blame isn’t wisdom. It should expand your options.
When weighing financial advice, ask yourself these 2 key questions:
Does this advice create peace or pressure?
Does it make my next step clearer or just make me feel wrong for being human?
If it’s the latter, it’s time to move on.
Replace Guilt with Curiosity
Most women carry some level of financial guilt for not saving sooner, earning more, or “doing better” with the money they have.
We replay old decisions like cautionary tales, thinking that shame will somehow make us more disciplined. But guilt only keeps you stuck.
Curiosity, on the other hand, opens doors.
It shifts the conversation from “I should’ve known better” to “What do I need to know now?”
From “I messed up” to “What is this trying to show me?”
Instead of judging your past choices, start examining the conditions that shaped them.
→ Were you exhausted?
→ Underpaid?
→ Carrying more than one person’s worth of responsibility?
None of these are excuses. They’re simply explanations that help you see the full picture instead of blaming yourself for it.
Use it as a prompt to start asking better questions:
Who benefits when I follow this advice?
Who loses when I don’t?
What would this look like if it actually worked for my life, not against it?
These questions reveal something guilt never will: what you actually need.
Maybe you need a plan that moves slower.
Maybe you need more breathing room in your budget.
Maybe you need to rest before you rebuild.
Any financial advice that disconnects you from peace, rest, or capacity isn’t guidance, it’s gaslighting.
Rebuild Your Financial Life Around Your Reality
Once you’ve cleared out the noise, it’s time to start rebuilding from where you actually are: your season, your bandwidth, your values.
This is where most women get stuck. We try to rebuild our financial lives using the same rigid formulas that broke us in the first place.
Your plan isn’t supposed to look like anyone else’s. It’s supposed to reflect the season you’re in, the responsibilities you carry, and the reality you’re managing right now.
That may look like a slower debt plan that doesn’t suffocate your budget or kill your joy.
Maybe it’s redefining “savings” as restocking your energy before you restock your accounts.
Or maybe it’s choosing investing tools that meet you where you are, not where you’re “supposed to be.”
This part of the process is less about perfection and more about creating harmony between your money and your reality.
Stop Apologizing for Building Differently
This is the hardest part because it means giving yourself permission to stop striving for perfection.
For most us, money hasn’t just been about numbers. It’s been about validation.
We were raised to show our effort. To prove we’re responsible, disciplined, and deserving even when the effort itself is what’s burning us out.
When you start building differently by slowing your pace, redefining “success,” or choosing peace over pressure, it can feel like rebellion. But it’s not. It’s recovery.
You don’t owe anyone proof that your strategy fits their expectations.
You owe yourself a life that fits your reality.
You’re allowed to build a financial plan that doesn’t look like anyone else’s.
You’re allowed to decide that progress doesn’t have to mean pushing to the edge every month.
You’re allowed to choose ease, automation, delegation, or simplicity. Not because you’re lazy, but because you understand your capacity.
Stop apologizing for not wanting to “do it all.”
You’ve already proven you can survive chaos. Now it’s time to design something sustainable.
Once you stop apologizing for building differently, everything else shifts.
You start seeing that the goal was never to master their rules. It was to write your own.
That’s where the real work begins: not fixing yourself, but redefining what “doing it right” even means.
What a Real, Woman-Centered Money Strategy Actually Looks Like
If the old rules were built for stability that never included us, then the new ones have to start with reality.
A real, woman-centered money strategy can’t begin with numbers.
It has to start with the real circumstances shaping your financial decisions. You know… the things most advice skips over because they’re not tidy enough for a spreadsheet.
That means starting with your season of life, your responsibilities, and your bandwidth because financial strategy means something totally different when you’re trying to build (or rebuild) while paying off debt, caring for aging parents, or getting back on track after a season of burnout.
Let's look at 4 ways you can start building a grounded, real-life money strategy that works for you right now. (Because life is fluid and your money plan should be too.)
#1 Look at Your Real Life Before Calculating Anything
Before you make a single plan, look at the life your money is actually funding:
What season are you in? What realities are shaping your choices?
Are you juggling caregiving costs?
Are you paying off student loans while covering household expenses?
What about navigating a career shift that’s reshaping your cash flow?
Those questions matter just as much as your savings rate because, too often, women try to apply blanket advice to layered lives and then wonder why it doesn’t fit.
Your plan has to reflect your real capacity, not the internet’s version of “discipline.”
Before you set another goal, ask yourself:
What can I truly sustain right now?
What support exists and what doesn’t?
What would actually make this easier?
This way, your strategy will start with context instead of comparison. And it will last longer (as well as give you peace.)
#2 Take Flexibility Over Perfection
Rigid money plans fall apart the minute real life shows up. And let’s be honest, life always shows up.
Budgets get derailed by timing, exhaustion, or the cost of simply keeping things together. That doesn’t mean you’re irresponsible. It means you’re human.
Traditional advice trains us to treat every adjustment like a setback.
→ Overspend once and guilt kicks in.
→ Move a goalpost and suddenly you’re “off track.”
But that mindset keeps women stuck in a cycle of punishment instead of progress.
A woman-centered financial plan is flexible and accommodates the unexpected: the paycheck hits late, your car needs new tires, or you finally take a damn break and suddenly the numbers don’t add up.
Flexibility doesn’t mean you don’t have discipline. It’s what makes discipline sustainable.
It means you plan for the unexpected instead of pretending it won’t happen.
It means giving your money room to breathe, and yourself permission to adjust.
Learn to automate what you can and build margins where you can’t.
If a category runs over one month, don’t panic. Study it and look at the why, not as judgment but as data.
Understand that your goal isn’t perfection. It’s sustainability, the kind that knows how to deal with chaos, caregiving, and curveballs.
#3 Use Your Emotional Intelligence as Data
Women are often told to “take the emotion out of money,” but that advice erases one of our biggest strategic advantages: emotional intelligence.
Our emotions aren’t weaknesses, they’re signals.
They’re data that reveals where our energy leaks and what feels unsafe.
That pit in your stomach when you open your banking app? That’s data.
That spending binge after a brutal week? More data.
The hesitation to raise your rates even when you’ve earned it? Data again.
These aren’t flaws to fix. They’re messages meant to be heard.
The problem is, most financial spaces teach us to shame those responses instead of studying them. But that only silences the part of us that’s trying to tell the truth.
Emotional cues are our roadmaps. They show us the exact places where our financial life feels unstable or unsafe. When you stop judging them and start listening, you’ll gain access to the kind of clarity no spreadsheet can give you.
#4 Community as Leverage
We were taught that independence is the goal.
But no strategy can thrive in isolation, not when life keeps changing and (definitely) not when systems were never built for your reality.
Community isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s leverage.
Interdependence within community - the kind built on trust, shared knowledge, and transparency - is what actually keeps you going.
That’s because money grows faster in conversation.
When women share what we earn, what we invest in, and what we struggle with, we close the gap between confusion and clarity.
We create collective accountability, normalize growth, and dismantle the shame that keeps us isolated.
So, find your financial people (whether that’s a friend, a coach, or a group) that talks about money without judgment because wealth grows faster when it’s shared, not hidden.
When you start learning, growing, and building alongside other women, your progress compounds in a way no algorithm or spreadsheet ever could.
It's Time to Be Done with Money Advice That Fails Women
Every generation of woman has been told to adapt: to make it work, to make it stretch, to make it look effortless.
All of that adapting came at a cost.
We’ve spent too many years trying to play by rules that were never written with us in mind. Rules that reward endurance over ease and perfection over peace.
Constantly reshaping ourselves to fit systems that never accounted for us isn’t resilience or “smart financial strategy”. It’s self-erasure and always costs more than it gives back.
We’re not broken. The framework is. And we’re finally unlearning the bullsh*t.
The next chapter of financial wellness won’t be about trying harder.
It’ll be about unlearning the pressure to perform “discipline” and learning what “doing it right” actually means.
It’ll be about building from truth: the truth that context, care, and capacity are just as valuable as confidence and consistency.
That peace and profit are not opposites.
That sustainability is success.
When women stop apologizing for doing it our way, things will finally start to make sense.
→ Money stops being a test and starts being a tool.
→ Strategy becomes structure, not stress.
→ Success starts to look like stability, not speed.
Life feels less rushed.
Money feels less heavy.
Your choices finally start reflecting the version of you you’ve been working toward all along.
What we’re committing to do from here on out - in our budgets, our boundaries, our decisions - is to create a financial life that actually feels like ours.
Not versions that shrink us to fit, but ones that make room for who we actually are.
Are you with me?
We don't do financial advice that ignores real life.
You don’t need more rules. You need a rhythm that works for who you are and where you are.
It's time to build financial strategies for real life. The kind with bills, bandwidth limits, and ambition that refuses to burn out.
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