Ginger is a fashionista in her late 20s—a wife and graduate student striving to have it all. She wrote this article for Consumerism Commentary, but Ginger also publishes the blog Girls Just Wanna Have Funds, and you can subscribe to the blog’s RSS feed here.

Let me preface this by stating that I am not suggesting that women marry solely for money, I am after all a believer in love and commitment as a solid foundation for marriage. However, I am suggesting that women who marry partners that are financially savvy, motivated by money and have aligned views about their attitudes to money, are indeed smarter than their counterparts who don’t when choosing a life partner. I will detail the benefits of choosing a partner that has a solid financial plan in place and uses money as a tool and not a crutch.

Financially Savvy

Women who choose financially savvy partners fare better than their counterparts who don’t. Why? These women know that in order to have a marriage built to last that finances play a huge role in the viability of the marriage. I know it sounds like we’re discussing a corporate merger but bear with me; after all, marriage in some respects is like a business.

1969 Inc., said it best when asked for her insights to marriage,

It’s like running a corporation. A business venture. You have to go into it knowing that it could fail or it could succeed beyond your wildest dreams and make you rich… If the employees don’t share the vision, believe in the vision and work together, the endeavor will fail. Some businesses will get rich. Some will barely make ends meet. Some will never make a dime. The money does not measure success. The sense of accomplishment will come from the daily struggle… the love of what you do, working together day in and day out.

The reality is that personal finance issues are the leading cause of divorce and in order to live happily ever after, you must be on the same page as far as your finances are concerned. No, if, ands or buts about it. Capisce?

So what makes these women smarter?

Aligned Financial Values

When smart women meet a partner, they aren’t wooed by good looks and the smooth talk, after all those come a dime a dozen. These women are looking at how their potential partners spend money. Does he have an emergency fund? Is he current on their monthly bills such as the car payment and rent/mortgage? Does he spend more than he earns? They’re listening keenly to understand how their potential mates relate to money. Is it a tool? Is it a crutch? They know the difference and conduct business accordingly. Should the potential mate fall into the category of the above mentioned then it’s time to say good-bye. After all, who wants a man who isn’t interested in learning how to manage his money effectively? They are in it for the long haul, not a few cheap dates.

Motivated by Money to Create the Life They Want

Smart women are up to date on the latest issues in personal finance. They understand rate chasing, investing for the long haul and understand that while they may have substantial savings, practice and embrace frugality. They look for similar if not the same qualities in their potential mates. Smart women want to be able to relate not only on a romantic level, but also on issues regarding personal finance.

A Man with a Plan

Who wants a man with no financial plan in place? I certainly don’t. Where does he see himself in 2 years? 5 years? 10 years? Is he thinking long or short term? That answer will determine the course of the relationship. Ideally he should be able to think past next month’s car payment and project how much he will have in his savings account by year’s end. This an expectation for smart women, not a hope or a dream, but something they demand and require in a potential mate.

Take a few minutes to let it all sink in. Gone are the days when gold diggers were secretly envied because they were able to go for the gusto and stifle high pitched screams during musty sex with a shriveled up oil tycoon. Move over and make way for women who are in control of their financial destinies and not afraid to say it. They are armed with a positive net worth and not afraid to flaunt it.

Are you a smart woman?

If you liked this article, read more from Ginger at Girls Just Wanna Have Funds.

This is a guest post from J.D. Roth, who writes about personal finance and related topics at Get Rich Slowly.

Back in our young and foolish days, my wife and I bought a set of encyclopedias from a door-to-door salesman. This was in 1995, at the very cusp of the digital age. We had been on the internet for about a year, but we had no way to know that one day very soon the World Wide Web might make printed encyclopedias obsolete.

So we bought an encyclopedia set. Naturally I charged the $500 to my credit card.

We used the encyclopedia for several years. Then in 1999 we discovered Google. The encyclopedias began to gather dust.

Even so, when we moved to a new house in 2004, we took the books with us. We installed them prominently in the living room, but we never used them. Eventually we moved them to storage. For the past two years, we’ve tried to sell them at our neighborhood garage sale. The first year, we priced them at $50. This year we priced them at $20. Nobody wanted them.

On the last day of this year’s sale, a man stopped by and sorted through our book collection. He was rather particular about his selections, so I struck up a conversation with him. (Bibliophiles are happy to meet kindred souls.) He told me he owned a used book store. “You’ve got some good stuff here,” he said, patting his stack of books.

“Thanks,” I said.

He turned to leave, but then paused. “You know,” he said. “These encyclopedias are worthless. I have a dozen sets in my store. They used to sell pretty regularly, but nowadays I can’t even give them away.” He waved good-bye and left.

It hurt to think that our $500 set of encyclopedias was worthless, but I had to admit it was true. I put them up for free on Craigslist.

The next day a man stopped by to pick them up. He was ecstatic to find them. “We don’t have a computer,” he said. “And my daughter is in the fifth grade. She loves to learn. She’ll use these all the time. Thank you.”

I helped him load the books into his car, a mid-80s Honda Accord. The rear of the vehicle sagged beneath the weight. Before he left, he fished out his wallet. “Do you have a Blockbuster Video around here?” he asked. I said that we did. “Here,” he said, handing me a Blockbuster gift card. “Take this. I mean it. You don’t know how much I appreciate this.” I thanked him and took the card, which I tucked in my wallet and then forgot.

A few weeks ago, I found the Blockbuster gift card. “I wonder how much credit is on this?” I said to myself, scanning the fine print. I tried to call the toll-free number, and to check the web site, but neither would give me the balance. To obtain the balance on a Blockbuster card, you have to actually go to the store. So I did.

The card had $16.50 on it. I thought maybe I could pay for part of a game for my Nintendo Wii, but nothing looked appealing. I scoured the DVDs, but couldn’t find anything I wanted. At last I spied The Godfather. Aha! Hadn’t I been wanting to purchase that for a long time? It’s been three or four years since I last watched it. I bought The Godfather and a pack of Red Vines and headed home.

But when I went to put the DVD away, I was dismayed to find that I already owned a copy. When did I buy it? Why hadn’t I remembered purchasing it? I considered giving the new copy as a gift to somebody, but then I recalled Cady’s guest entry at Get Rich Slowly about how to use the Amazon Marketplace for fun and profit. Taking inspiration, I listed the movie for sale.

The Godfather sold last night for $7.02. After fees are settled, I will have netted $7.16.

And that, my friends, is how I managed to turn $500 worth of encyclopedias into $7.16 in Amazon credit. That is personal finance at its finest.

There’s no real moral to this story. Each of us makes the best financial choices we can. But sometimes our information is imperfect. Sometimes we don’t know what the future holds, and sometimes what we think is smart (charging encyclopedias to a credit card) is actually pretty darn stupid.

Image credit: –Mandie–

You can find more of J.D. Roth’s writing about personal finance and related topics at Get Rich Slowly.

This is a guest post from Mrs. Micah, who maintains the blog Mrs. Micah: Finance and Life, in which the author is starting to deal responsibly with her $100,000+ debt.

Every purchase you make is an investment.

Too often we think of our purchases as consumables. Some are, like food, but even those should be adding to your quality of life. Food, for instance, is an investment in your health and gives you energy for doing better stuff.

We may not think of it that way, but it’s like buying stock. Not that the purchase increases in value, but that it proves valuable to us over a long period of time or it loses all its value because we don’t use it and don’t (or can’t) resell it.

If you see your consumption as an investment, then it takes on a purpose—the purpose of improving your current and future situation for as long as possible. That allows you to ask whether you could have gotten more value by consuming something different that would have lasted longer, been more practical, more helpful, etc.

One good investment I made recently was a winter coat. My old one, bought cheap at a thrift-store (well-used), lasted me for 4 years. Now, it’s beat-up from some hard Pennsylvania winters and some rough treatment. It wasn’t in great condition to start with, but just fine for college.

I spent $83 on the new coat but don’t regret a penny. On the way to work, I no longer feel frozen (my old coat was not workplace appropriate anymore, so I was braving the cold with a light suitcoat) nor do I get wet in the rain (umbrella helps too). In fact, I feel comfortable as I slog up the hill. Plus it looks appropriate at work and good on me.

The style is pretty classic (and I’m not very fashion conscious anyway), the material seems good, and I’ll take care of it, so I expect it to last for years.

A smaller but excellent investment was an oversize latte mug Mr. Micah bought. He uses it every morning to make his oatmeal and every night for his tea. It cost about $10 (more than I’d normally spend on a mug) but he’s had it for years and uses it so much that it was a great choice.

As investments go, it’d be like buying stock at $10 and having its value shoot up to $100 and hold. Great ROI!

On the other hand, my friend Katie likes to buy electronic gadgets but doesn’t end up using them, making her purchases a very bad investment. For example, she spent a couple hundred dollars on a PlayStation 2, thinking it’d be a lot of fun in the evenings. The PS2 never made it out of the packaging. Instead, it remained in her closet until recently, several years later, when her now-husband discovered it and was thrilled.

In the end, he got some value out of it. But if she and her husband had bought it now (even unused) they could have had it for half the price or less.

It was as though she bought stock for $250 and it immediately dropped to $0 (not counting resale value, since she didn’t think about that). Then it rose to about $100 and now it’s worth something to her again because she can use it with her husband. Not a total loss, but not a good choice either.

She had an unused digital camera (for which I offered her $20) but she ended up giving it to her dad for nothing. Again, over a hundred dollars spent with practically no return.

Fortunately, Katie learned from this. She’s decided not to buy an iPod yet (or if she does, to buy a refurbished one for less) because she might use it for a week and then put it in a drawer. Now that she’s identified which purchases she shouldn’t make, she’ll have much more money to either save or put towards things she’ll actually use.

What you’re consuming (buying) isn’t simply being used up. It’s an investment. Your job is to make sure that it’s a good one!

Read more from Mrs. Micah on her blog, Mrs. Micah: Finance and Life.

In my review of Cash, Cars & College by Janine Bolon, I didn’t mention the author’s thoughts on the nature of money, which she included in the book. To expand on this section, Janine has offered the following guest post.

Why Become Wealthy? Believe it or not, I’ve actually been asked this question by a student of mine! She totally did not get why anyone would want to be wealthy. After asking her to define what it was to be wealthy for the class I quickly became aware that she had a mental block to becoming wealthy. To her, “Rich” people acquired their secure financial state by abusing and crushing those around them to gain more and more money.

With that sort of paradigm floating around in her head, is it any wonder that this woman had problems saving money? She was in continual battle with herself! She knew she needed money, but anytime she had too high a savings account she would “splurge” on some item and blow out her stash of cash so that she was back to living paycheck to paycheck. Ouch! How painful is that?

To my sadness, this student is not alone in her assessment of “rich” people. Throughout my travels, classes and seminars I find that roughly 45% of the people who are having problems with money have to deal with this issue first before anything else can happen! No, it is not your credit card debt that is the problem, at least that isn’t the core issue with your financial scarcity.

The issue is much more basic then credit card debt. You have not given yourself permission to become wealthy because you haven’t answered these questions for yourself:

1. Do you see money as good or evil?
2. Do you want to have more cash because you can use it to buy things that you or people in your life need or want?
3. Are you afraid of having too much money because the only people who seem to have lots of it are the folks who have done something bad to get it?

These are some of the first questions you need to ask yourself. If you see money as a necessary “evil,” your ability to find and save money, let alone use it wisely, will be colored by your negative view of what it can do. Money is not evil. Money is only a tool, like a hammer. You can use that hammer the right way, to build a house for someone who needs one. Or you can use it the wrong way, to smack someone on the head. Either way, the hammer has no choice in how it is used. Good or bad, right or wrong, the choice along with credit or blame, belongs solely to the person who wields it.

The same is true for money. Money is a useful tool, a medium of exchange that allows you to buy stuff you want. Money spends, regardless of how you get it. The bucks from your paycheck buy just as much as the cash you get from part-time employment, or the coins you picked up in the parking lot. The sales clerk and the shop owner don’t care where you got the money; it spends. The only “good” or “bad” in money is what you bring to it.

If you think that money is “evil,” take a minute to ask yourself some questions.

1. “Why do I believe that money is evil?”
2. “Is my view colored by how my parents handled cash?”
3. “Do my friends have money, and do they use it well?”

Write your answers down on a piece of paper, and then read them aloud to yourself. Why? Because as long as you believe that money is “bad” you will not be able to make or keep much of it. It is very important that you understand the battle in your brain as you go about changing your thoughts on money. If you want to keep money flowing in your life and working for you, then define for yourself what type of wealthy person you want to be.

Once you have a clear picture of the type of person you envision yourself to be and how you will handle money, then you can move toward creating it in your personal life. All it takes is a bit of introspection and reworking your internal definitions on what it means to be wealthy.

Janine Bolon is the author of Money…It’s Not Just for Rich People! and Cash, Cars and College. She is also a radio talk show host and financial coach. Check out her web site, Smart Cents, Inc., for more tips on wealth accumulation and frugal living. Janine invites you to subscribe to her free newsletter, My 2Cents, which can be found on her website.

While I was away on “vacation” this past week, a number of guest bloggers filled in for me and certainly kept this place busy. The articles were fantastic as well. Please help me thank everyone who volunteered to offer some of their best writing by reading the articles, participating in the discussions, and especially, visiting their home websites and subscribing to their RSS feeds.

• Stop, Drop, Roll, by NCN of No Credit Needed [rss]
• The Real Estate Bust Around the Block, by SVB from The Digerati Life [rss]
• The Case Against Gold, by Lazy Man of Lazy Man and Money [rss]
• Gradual Frugality, by Leo from Zen Habits [rss]
• How Not to Buy a Car, by KMC from Advanced Personal Finance [rss]
• Quality Clothes for Less Than a Buck, by Sharon Harvey Rosenberg from The Frugal Duchess [rss] and The Miami Herald
• Cutting Down the Cost of Razor Blades, by Matthew Paulson from Getting Green [rss]
• Thoughts on Raising Money-Smart Kids, by Golbguru from Money, Matter, and More Musings [rss]
• 10 Questions With a Professional Real Estate Investor, by Jon from Real Estate Mega Book [rss]
• Ditch the Car and Save a Bundle, by Ryan Waggoner from ryanwaggoner.com [rss]

• Eight Ways to Support Yourself While Starting as an Entrepreneur, by Bri M from Trailblogging [rss]

  Three of the above posts are featured as “Top Stories” in the header of of this website.

  Also, for an inside look at the process of guest blogging, Sharon Harvey Rosenberg shared five lessons learned through the experience.