Why Can’t a Woman be More Like a Man?

Personal Ability
– A long phone conversation lasts 30 seconds.
– One mood can fit his entire life.
– He expects astonished approval for the smallest act of consideration, such as tidying the fridge…

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Six Money Survival Tips

Jane Austin and money - on the face of the £10 note

1. a) From now on, take ALL responsibility for your financial future. Don’t let anyone talk you out of it, especially someone you love. This is simple, but it takes time.

1. b) Don’t rely on ANYONE ELSE in financial matters. Not your mum, dad, boyfriend, girlfriend, accountant. NO-ONE.

2. Allocate a specific time, say two hours on the first Saturday morning each month. Your money and your peace of mind will depend on this adult habit.

3. Always check – by email if possible – that what someone says they will do is actually done ON TIME. Monitor anything that is to be done by someone else. Monitoring is polite nagging and you will quickly find out that it is ESSENTIAL.

Nagging is the repetition of a question that someone doesn’t want to answer.

a) Together, fix a day for the job to be completed.

b) Send an email before the due date as a reminder.

c) Send an email the day after the due date, to ask if they’ve done it.

d) If the answer is anything but YES, repeat this procedure until the job is done.

4. Keep a scribbled note of any financial meetings. Don’t rely on the person who is supposed to be taking notes.

5. Years ago, I asked a Texan oil zillionaire what was the most useful financial tip he had ever been given. This is what he told me and I’m grateful.

Date notes. Date everything you write – top right-hand corner – and always include the year.

6. Always check your bank balance. Banks make errors.

I wrote this for the financial literacy course for 1st year university students in Newcastle.

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Why do girls fear maths?

She’s championed women in the boardroom and the bedroom, and now, at the age of 85, Shirley Conran – author, entrepreneur, all-round ‘Superwoman – has turned her focus on the classroom. She tells Peter Stanford why girls’ numeracy struggles don’t add up…

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The Last Taboo

It is the last taboo..

Talking about it is not something a nice girl does in mixed company, it is indelicate, unfeminine.

Many women have been raised to think that men are “naturally good” at money matters and women are “naturally bad”. It’s not said directly, little girls pick up this idea by osmosis.

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The national debt and the budget overspend

Shirley Conran

Political smokescreen-speak may well confuse two items that are vital to this election, the national debt and the budget overspend.

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Mother Stuff

Baby

A naughty tabloid newspaper has linked two ideas of mine that were unrelated in the interview I gave.

The newspaper suggests that I regretted having given birth to my sons.

This is not true.

This is roughly what I said…

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Any more waves?

Fashionable ladies on the phone

Why do I feel that this time it’s going to be different? That the Fourth Wave of Feminism will actually achieve equality?

Because the men are different

Compared to the unafraid, more serious, individualist men of today, the macho but fearful, grey flannel Suits of the 70s were waxworks…

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