Financial Feminist - 291. Why Every SAHM Needs a Financial Safety Net

Episode Date: July 7, 2026

A video I posted about the tradwife movement blew up, and the comments made one thing clear: most people are using "tradwife" and "stay-at-home mom" interchangeably. They are not the same thing, and the difference matters. In this episode, I'm breaking down what a tradwife actually is versus what Tiffany Dufu calls a "non-compensated working mom," why romanticizing financial dependence is dangerous no matter how happy your marriage is right now, and the seven concrete moves every woman; married, partnered, or neither; needs to make to protect herself financially. This isn't anti-marriage or anti-stay-at-home mom. It's pro protecting you from financial ruin. Not sure what to do with your money? Visit ⁠https://herfirst100k.com/ffpod⁠  and take our FREE Money Plan Quiz to get your personalized money plan, and find any resources mentioned on our show. 00:00 Intro: The 15-word post that broke the internet 00:37 Meet Tori + episode overview 01:46 What is a tradwife, actually? 02:32 Why the tradwife aesthetic is so appealing 04:21 The Ballerina Farm irony 05:01 Tradwife vs. stay-at-home mom: not the same thing 06:39 Tori's parents: how to stay home without losing financial power 07:52 Why women hand over financial control 11:09 "Your boss can starve you too" — debunked 12:10 "Just marry the right man" — what the data says 15:28 Tradwife trend = burnout in a sundress 15:44 The real villain: the system, not the woman 18:28 The 7-step financial protection plan 18:48 1. Put your name on everything 19:13 2. Have your own money 19:51 3. Keep your credit alive 20:08 4. Know every number 21:08 5. Keep your skills and network warm 21:38 6. Know your legal protections 23:00 7. Have the "what if" conversation 23:37 Closing: bet on yourself Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I posted a video last week. Fifteen whole words on a screen. And my phone has not stopped blowing up since. In this video, I said, we're not envious that you're a trad wife. The hand that feeds you can also starve you. The comments split into three camps. Camp one.

Just say you're traumatized and leave people in healthy relationships alone. Camp two. Nobody plans to marry a narcissist. There are reasons our grandmas told us to keep a stash of money hidden. And camp three, no one's starving me. I have a law degree and my name is. is on every goddamn thing. Here's the thing.

All three of these women are making my point, and I don't think they realize it yet. So let's talk about it. But first, a word from our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together

to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result, less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. One of the things that so many business owners believe they need is a custom bespoke website that they have like hired somebody to code for them.

And I'm here to tell you that, yeah, you need a website that's functional and beautiful, but you don't need to pay somebody to code. This is where Squarespace comes in. When I first started her first 100K, I turned to Squarespace. They were the first investment I ever made in our business to start and grow, and they had so many incredible tools baked in. You can buy domains on Squarespace. They have SEO tools that you can use to get seen. And they have cutting-edge design tools that don't require you to know anything about code.

Head on over to Squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code FFPod to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Hi, I'm Tori. I'm a money expert. I'm a multimillionaire. And I've helped over 5 million women be better with money. And today on Financial Feminist, we are talking, yes, about the trad wife movement. But more specifically, are trad wives and stay-at-home moms the same thing? And more broadly, how do we think about women who earn a living but don't

actually make money for the work that they do? So first, we need to define what a trad wife actually is. If you are unfamiliar with the phrase, which, by the way, fun fact to my producer, Kristen, and anybody listening, I have brought up Tradwives multiple times in my life recently because like so many other people, I have recently read an absolutely devoured yesteryear, which is an incredible book if you have not read it, about Tradwives. And I brought up this book multiple times to people and they went, I have never heard that term. So first of all, tell me you're not. come, like chronically online without telling me you're not chronically online. But I think it's important that we all have a working definition before we continue with this episode. Tradwives, as the internet has come to understand them, are women who end up living a very traditional relationship with their husband. And I say husband because it's never with another woman. It is always with a husband. And this lifestyle is not only a lifestyle that they live, but also a lifestyle they promote. And this looks in practicality, like maybe living on a farm, having seven

children, and being subservient to your husband. At the end of the day, tradwives are out here telling you that you should live a soft, feminine life and that the greatest gift you've been given is being a doting wife and mother. In our society where capitalism has weaponized absolutely everything and we are all exhausted and the cost of absolutely everything is more expensive. It is very easy to look at the tradwife movement as something that feels idyllic, that's something that feels like your shoulders dropping and you breathing a big sigh of relief because maybe you won't have to worry so much anymore. Maybe if you can give someone else the responsibility of earning an income, of managing the finances, of worrying about a lot of the stuff that you're

worried about, because capitalism makes you worry about it, you can focus on what truly matters. Being a good partner, specifically being a good wife, but also being a good mother. The issue that we start having with tradwives is not the demonization of motherhood or partnership, which are two incredible roles that women can play. But it's in this larger movement of giving away your power, of saying that above all else, you should sacrifice your own needs and definitely your own wants for everyone else other than yourself.

And that not only should you sacrifice all of those needs and wants, putting you in a very precarious position, but you should also promote that kind of lifestyle to women everywhere. We're thinking about ballerina farm, right? That is the token tradwife that we are discussing. But the irony of tradwives on the internet is that they haven't given up any money or power at all. The very women that are promoting a tradwife lifestyle who have millions of followers and a whole product suite and a whole content team,

they're actually the breadwinners. They are the ones making the majority of their family's money. They have turned this lifestyle into a product. So when we talk about tradwives and the promotion of the tradwife movement, we are talking actively about women giving their power away. To patriarchy and specifically over two patriarchy, and specifically over to their husbands. So when I went online,

and I talked about how we're not envious of tradwives, because the hand that feeds you can also starve you, the internet decided that when I said trad wife, I meant stay-at-home mom. Ultimately, trad-wives are an ideology. This is submission. This is a rejection of women's financial independence. It is often religiously rooted.

Fun fact, Cambridge even added the word tradwife to the dictionary in 2025. But a stay-at-home mom, or as Tiffany Dufu, who is a previous guest on this podcast, call stay-at-home moms, non-compensated, working moms, this is a logistical arrangement. You are home with the kids, but it says nothing about your values or whether or not she has her own financial plan. And what social media has done is they have merged these into one aesthetic. They have collapsed these into one thing.

This is sourdough. This is sundresses. This is submission. And that's dangerous because it romanticizes dependence as aspirational. Now, in no way am I anti-Stay-at-home mom. My mom was a stay-at-home mom. Like, in no way am I saying that tradwives and stay-at-home moms are the same, and in no way am I vilifying the very necessary and, frankly,

continually undervalued and under-compensated work that stay-at-home moms do. Stay-in-home can be an incredible choice. choice, working from your home to raise your children can be an incredible choice if you have built the financial infrastructure to do it safely. And that if is what this episode is about. One of the things that my parents are very conscious of is the fact that my dad has made all of the money for the last 30-something-odd years. But in no way is my mom powerless in our financial decisions. Every big financial decision is made collaboratively with my parents. My mom has what's called a spousal IRA, which basically exists for this point where he is contributing to her retirement,

even though she is doing uncompensated labor. And they very much know what's going on together with the money. Like my mom has full logins to things. She makes financial decisions as much, if not sometimes more than my dad does, they are going to meetings with their accountant together. They are having so many conversations about money where they are both active participants. Ultimately, where this gets to be potentially harmful, is that if you are a stay-at-home mom, and especially if you're married to a man, and he is not involving you in anything in regards to financial decision-making or in regards to where the accounts are kept, this is where it becomes a problem. Now, I originally talked with my friend Liz Moody on her show about this theory that I'm throwing around,

and I think it's really, really important to talk about here. I think in heteronormative relationships, in fact, I know in heteronormative relationships. Women are exhausted. Women get the brunt of the emotional labor. You have to know when tea ball practices and you know exactly when you're to pick your kids up from school and what their allergies are and when laundry needs to be done. and your mother-in-law's birthday. You know all of these things.

And you're carrying all of these responsibilities. Because in the vast majority of heteronormative relationships, even in progressive ones, women still carry the brunt of the emotional and unpaid labor. So I think what starts to happen is that we feel so exhausted by everything we're tasked to do all day long that if we can give one thing away, it feels like a relief.

if we can say, oh my gosh, he's going to handle finances, he's going to handle our money. Oh, thank God. That is one less thing I have to worry about. And by the way, he's better at it anyway. He's better at math than me. I don't know what's going on. He knows how to manage our money. He knows how to invest in the stock market.

He can just handle it because thank God that isn't something additional that gets added to my plate. It's a totally understandable feeling. It's totally understandable because you've got a million things already. And you've also been told actively by society that men are better with money, men are better at math, they can manage it. In fact, they'll probably do a better job, right? But what happens is you're giving away, not only your financial power, but your consciousness of what's going on with money. This is one of those things that you cannot give up. Now, I'm not asking you to add another thing to your plate,

But I am asking, in fact, I'm requiring you to be in a relationship with your partner where you can actively manage money together, where you can talk openly about money, where you have access to the accounts, and where you, especially if you're a non-compensated working mom, are being compensated in some tangible way. Because we never think that we are going to be the statistic. we never think we're going to be the statistic. But I have to tell you a really, really honest truth. I wish you could see how many emails and DMs and comments we get from women all across the world who never thought it would happen to them, but who are in relationships that they cannot get out of, or are still in love with their partner, but their partners making really stupid financial choices. And they had no idea. In fact, if you have not listened to an incredible

episode with Jen Hatmaker on this very show, this was her reality. She was married to her husband for 25 years, had multiple children with him, had built a whole life and a company and a religious network with him. And their relationship fell apart. She had no idea what was going on with the money. And he was mismanaging it. We never think it's going to happen to us. But this is why I need you to be an active participant. So I know you listening. You're overwhelmed with money. You probably wouldn't be listening to this show if you didn't feel a little bit of stress about what's going on with inflation and how expensive things are, but also just managing the money you do have. And this is where I have used and recommended Rocket Money for years now. One of my favorite things about Rocket Money is that

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Join at RocketMoney.com slash FFPod. That's RocketMoney.com slash FFPod. RocketMoney.com slash FF pod. I am so excited to restock my summer pieces from Quince. I'm literally looking at their website tonight to decide what I need because I have their tank tops and I absolutely love those. I've kind of like worn them into the ground. I'm thinking jeans. I'm thinking some more like tank topy type shirts that are really cute.

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Now available in Canada too. That's QI, nCE.com slash ff pod for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash ff pod. There was a comment that I found really, really interesting. that came up repeatedly, which was in defense of the tradwife movement, which is, well, your boss can starve you too. So why not me just marry somebody that I've picked, who I think is really great, who would never ever do this to me? We got a lot of engagement on this comment, which is like, okay, hand that feeds you can also starve you, well, your boss can starve you too. Well, yeah,

she's right, but she's incomplete here. If you lose a job, if you get laid off, if you get fired, if something happens. You have a resume. You have work history. You have a network. You have unemployment insurance. You have unemployment benefits, potentially. You can find a new work opportunity.

If you lose your marriage after 10 years out of the workforce with no income, no credit, no retirement, you are starting from below zero. These are not the same starting lines. These are not the same thing. Some of the other most liked comments, this one in particular, grinded my gears, which was some version of, well, you're not going to be in this position if you just marry the correct man. Let's see what the data has to say about this. Women's household income drops 41% after divorce, men's drops 23%.

Let's go back even further. Divorce right now, all-time high. It's over 50%. Over half of marriage has ended divorce. And ultimately, that gap in income, that's not really a gap. That's a cliff. It's a motherfucking cliff. The math does not care how much he loves you.

The math does not care. If I was getting in a car, okay? And I was starting to drive that car. And I'm going 70 down the freeway, which is the speed limit, by the way. Okay? And I am making really smart choices. I'm like putting my blinker on. I've got my seatbelt on.

I am a really great driver. I have no control over anybody else around me. And in fact, yeah, I might know the person who is driving next to me. They could make some sort of crazy decision. Right? In the car, I still have car insurance. I still have car insurance. And it's not because I think I'm going to fuck up or anybody around me is going to

fuck up. It's because I have no idea what the future holds. If you got in an accident and the person who has, you didn't have car insurance. You're thinking, why? Why don't you have car insurance? Yes, it's probably an economic thing. That's a whole other episode, right? The fact, the car insurance is more expected, bob and blah. That's a whole other thing. Nobody gets in a car expecting to get in an accident that day. This is why we have car insurance. This is why we have business insurance. This is why we have home insurance. No one expects to light a candle and have your entire house burned down. Sometimes

that's what happens. This is why it is so naive to just say, well, just marry the right man. And also so insulting to people that just implies, well, I have good taste, but you don't. The grandma comment is so relevant here. The top comment on this post was, quote, our grandparents weren't together 60 years because they were madly in love. Before no-fault divorce, before a woman could open bank accounts without a husband or father's approval, that's 1974, not that long ago, staying was not a choice.

In fact, it was the only option. And the tried-wife aesthetic romanticizes an era where women could literally not leave. Women could literally not leave. And ultimately, 99% of abusive relationships are somehow financially abusive as well. Women who are financially dependent on partners are more likely to stay in abusive relationships. And this might not be about your marriage. But it's about what happens to women as a population when we realize. romanticize dependence.

This commenter, I think, nailed it. Quote, it's not all men, but knowing it some of them is enough to build a safety net. And only 10% of men and women statistically agree a man should earn money while a woman stays home.

60% say that they both should contribute. So the tradwife trend isn't nostalgia. It's burnout wearing a sundress. It's sourdough, sundresses, and submission. and women aren't dreaming of the 1950s. We are exhausted in 2026.

The real villain is not the woman who stays home. It's not my mother. It's not Janice Dunlap. It is a system that makes childcare so expensive so that one person, one parent, is forced to stay at home and then punishes the parent if the marriage ends. It is a system that is so expensive that it's actually cheaper for statistically

a woman because she's not earning as much as her male partner to actually leave the workforce to stop her resume building and to stay home. That's the villain here. It's a system that exists where a woman might not even get to have a choice on whether she stays home or not, but forces her to stay home because it's the more fruitful economic decision. And I get why this makes women defensive. Protect yourself financially and don't be dependent on a man. Sounds like your marriage is going to fail. I am not saying that. I'm not saying that. This is where the car insurance comes in. You don't have it because you're planning on crashing your car. A financial safety net is car insurance for your marriage. It is not a bet against your partner. It's a bet on yourself.

And ultimately, this is why we spend so much time on the show and in my work talking about things like pre-ups and talking about money. Because ultimately, marriage should be about love. It should be about two people choosing to be together, not having one forced to be with the other because they can't financially leave. There was one comment on the post that said, quote, no one is saying to break up with your partner, but we have to build a life we can be proud of regardless of who is in it. And that's what we're talking about here. If you're thinking that having a plan B means you expect your partner to fail or you expect your marriage to fail, no, having a plan B and being fully transparent about you and your partner's plan B means that you're investing in yourself.

That is not disloyalty, that is not sabotaging your marriage. That is actually protecting the sanctity of the partnership. Because the hardest truth is that a woman who could leave but chooses to stay is in a fundamentally different marriage than a woman who stays because she cannot afford to. Okay, before we keep going, I want you to. have a free resource to get started with your money. Over a million people have taken this quiz that delivers a customized free financial plan to their inbox. Head on over to Herfirst100k.com slash FFPod to take our six question quiz. It is the easiest resource we've built for you to

immediately start on your financial journey. Herfirsthundredk.com slash FFFPod. Okay, the internet fights over. Okay. We have agreed that trad wives are different from stay-at-home moms. And we've also agreed that if you are a non-compensated working mom or in any relationship whatsoever, you need to make sure that you're protecting yourself financially, even if you're not earning an income. So here's what you're going to do. Number one, your name goes on everything. Bank accounts, mortgage, car title, investments. If your name is not on it, it is not yours. And it doesn't have to just be your name, but it should be you and your partner's name. And this is especially something I see all the time. You should not just be an authorized

user on your partner's credit card, you need to have your own credit card with your own credit. Number two, you need your own money. This is a bank account that is yours alone. It is not secret. It doesn't have to be shameful. It is necessary. This should be at least a three-month emergency fund in a high-yield savings account, okay? Even if it's just $50 a month that's getting squirled away, this can be that emergency fund, a freedom fund, whatever you want to call it. our grandmothers hid money under our mattresses. Okay? You can do better than the mattress.

You need some of your own money. And again, you don't have to hide this from your partner. Your partner should actively know, yeah, I got some of my own savings in case something happens, okay? Number three, speaking of credit, you need to keep your credit alive. You need to have one credit card in your name, but you also need to use it and pay it regularly. If you've been out of the workforce 10 years and your marriage ends,

you will need a credit score that didn't die in 2016. Number four, you need to know every number, your monthly expenses, the total debt you and your partner have, your retirement balances, your insurance, you need to set up beneficiary information so that if one of you passes away, the other one can easily access the accounts. If your partner handles the money and you don't know the numbers, you're just in the dark. Okay? So if you have no idea what's going on, you're going to schedule a money

date with your partner. If you're unsure how to do this, listen to episode 11 of this show, or you can read chapter 7 of my book. It guides you step by step how to go through and have a great productive money date with your partner. If this conversation feels scary, that's totally understandable. You're doing this for the first time. And again, if you don't know your numbers, I need you to go to her first hundredk.com slash ffpod. Take that quiz. It'll give you a customized financial plan to get you started so you can ask informed questions when you're meeting your partner. Number five, I need you to keep your skills and network warm. This doesn't mean going out every other day for a networking event or like scouring LinkedIn

at all hours of the day, but it does mean continuing to talk to people. Maybe you're freelancing, maybe you're volunteering in your field. Maybe you're just taking a course or keeping your LinkedIn profile alive, okay? You do not need a full-time job, but we just need. need you to not disappear. We need you to keep that network active. Number six, understand your legal protections. Do you have a pre-nup? Can you get a post-nup if you don't have a pre-nup? Postnups are a thing, pre-nups are a thing, and they're not just for rich people. Fun fact, if you got married in the United States, at any state in the country, you already have a pre-up. Yes, really. If you got married,

you already have a pre-up. It's what the state decided for you. In Washington State, where I live, it's 50-50, unless you dictate otherwise. I don't like the government in my business. I don't like the government deciding what's going to happen in my relationship or my marriage. So therefore, when I get married, I'm definitely getting a pre-up. And it's not just because I'm a millionaire. It's because we need to be talking about money with our partners. And we need to be deciding on what is actually equitable should this marriage dissolve.

And fun fact, a pre-up by discussing it. actually prevents you from having to use it. Because you're already having hard conversations about money. You are already cementing a plan that says, actually, this marriage, we just want it to be about love because the money's already handled. The money's already figured out. A pre-up is not planning to fail.

It's financial planning, period. And I need you to know your state's laws on marital property, spousal support, and retirement division. And finally, number seven. I need you to have a what-if conversation. This is a conversation with your partner about some really hard topics. What if one of us dies? What if one of us gets sick?

And yes, what if we end up separating? This is uncomfortable, but this is not optional. If you cannot have hard conversations in your relationship, if you cannot have hard conversations in your marriage, that tells you a lot. A marriage that cannot survive a what-if conversation has a much bigger problem than the conversation itself. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.

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I'm not anti-Stay-at-home mom. I'm not anti-love. But I am anti, love will protect me from financial ruin. It won't. You protect you from financial ruin. The hand that feeds you can also love you and cherish you and be your best friend. And you should still be able to feed yourself. Those two things were never in conflict.

Thank you so much for listening, financial. Feminists. Make sure you have your own damn money. We'll see you back here next week. Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, produced by Her First 100K. If you love this show and want to keep supporting feminist media, please subscribe or follow us on your preferred podcasting platform or on YouTube. Your support helps us continue to bring this content to you for free. If you're looking for resources, tools, and education, including all of the resources mentioned to this episode, head to herfirst00K.com slash sfpod.