She's On The Money - Secret Money Lives of Mormon Wives

Episode Date: October 4, 2024

You don’t need to have seen The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives to get hooked on this episode. We’re uncovering the surprising ways these women are flipping traditional roles and becoming financial bosses. Even if you’re not caught up on the drama, you’ll learn some serious lessons about financial freedom, power dynamics, and how money changes everything. We'd LOVE you to vote for us for the listeners' choice awards at the Australian Podcast Awards.  Vote here (Voting closes on Oct 10.) Acknowledgement of Country By Natarsha Bamblett aka Queen Acknowledgements. The advice shared on She's On The Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She's On The Money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. If you do choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs.  Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of Money Sherpa PTY LTD ABN - 321649 27708,  AFSL - 451289.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello, my name is Natasha Nabanunga-Bamblett. I'm a proud Yorta Yorta, Kernai, Wolperi and Awadjeri woman. And before we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land of which this podcast is recorded on Awadjeri country, acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming through. As this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing and the storytelling of you to make a difference for today and lasting impact for tomorrow. Let's get into it. She's on the money. She's on the money.

Hello and welcome to She's on the Money, the podcast for millennials who are ready to own their financial future. I'm your host, Victoria Devine, and I want you to put your hand up. who else has been binge watching The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives? I feel like our entire team is absolutely hooked and my husband as well. And while the drama is very juicy, I decided to do a little solo Saturday episode because there's actually something a little bit deeper happening here. Beneath literally all the drama and chaos, what they're really talking about is financial independence, the shifting gender roles, and I guess this wild collision of faith and money, which I cannot seem to look away from. To understand the dynamic, I suppose, at play

in the secret lives of Mormon wives, we need to actually first look at Mormon culture's deep rooted gender roles, which to me are wild given I got the privilege of growing up in Australia. But in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, more often than not referred to as the Mormon church, family life is very central to religious teachings, which sounds nice, right? men, they're the providers. This is where it starts to slip downhill. They're the ones who work outside of the home to support their families. And it is expected that women manage the household, they raise the children, and they support their husbands spiritually and emotionally when I looked it up. Now, this whole structure actually comes from deeply ingrained religious

teachings that really prioritize these people having mass amounts of children. The idea in the Mormon church is actually that the husband and the wife are complementary, but totally different. Their jobs aren't the same. Women are seen to be nurturous. They are focused on raising the children and creating this stable, faith-filled home, while men, their job is to take on the financial responsibility and provide through work outside of the home. This division allows women to just focus entirely, in their minds, entirely on the family, and then their husbands are expected to just make sure that the financial well-being of their family is tip-top, right? So, in Mormon culture, it's really normal for young women to be encouraged to marry young,

which, I mean, we might think that that is not that normal, but for them, it is very normal. And some even actually get married before they even finish school or they even think about starting a career. And on the show, Demi, she's one of, I guess, the more progressive voices on the show, she said, it's a theme within our church and kind of a problem. Everyone's getting married before their brain even develops. And that really resonated with me. The expectation for them is to actually become full-time mothers with some even homeschooling their kids. And while I guess many women, and me too, appreciate the foundation of love and family and service, Michaela cuts in and she said, for a lot of us, following the rules of the Mormon religion is just impossible. So enter

the conversation around Mum Talk, which is where the Secret Lives of the Mormon Wives has actually come from. So it's a community that started out as what they call a supportive sisterhood of Mormon mums that are sharing their lives online, bonding over their faith and family and all of the chaos that is motherhood, which sounds really wholesome. But as the group's popularity really exploded, so did the drama. And I mean, that's why I like watching. And then after their soft swinging scandal, which happened all over TikTok, their very close bonds were completely fractured. And I mean, I was definitely watching on. Personal choices of each person in this mum-talk club were clashing and the sisterhood was completely crumbling under this pressure. And then behind

the glossy Instagram feeds that they all post, these women were actually doing some really cool stuff. They were building their own financial independence because they'd basically become influencers. They were getting these massive influencer deals. And while they externally projected being perfect homemakers, that's how they were making money because they were making bank through influencer deals, people reaching out to them and saying, hey, your platform is really great. We'd love to send you this product to feature and we'll pay you a nice amount of money to do it. And that essentially started flipping the script on this traditional Mormon reliance on the husband for financial support, which is what I started to see and go, hold on,

this is kind of cool. This is probably making the Mormon men a little bit uncomfortable, which as you know, I love to make men uncomfortable, but who knew that dancing on TikTok could challenge, I guess, centuries of tradition. These women, they were turning their stay-at-home mum roles into stay-at-home mogul roles. And I thought that was really cool. And I guess what started as a hobby of sharing their really cute family moments online and doing some dances and having some fun and supporting each other as women because that's what they needed actually turned into a very serious business. And the influence and I guess the income that these women were able to pull in from their videos and their brand deals and being influencers wasn't just having

some extra play money or some extra cash. It actually, if you look at these families, became their primary source of income, which is kind of scary if you think about it. In one scene, when they were all together in a group, one of the women asked, who here is the breadwinner in their family? And obviously, he recalled then. And surprisingly, they all raised their hands. So, they were out earning their husbands. And for me, it was a powerful moment because it showed how much that dynamic had shifted. These women aren't just managing households, they're managing businesses and households. What's wild, I guess, is that what has traditionally been expected of them, which is being the stay-at-home mums and being the homemaker, has now become the biggest

key factor in them building their own financial freedom, which I guess nobody saw coming. I guess my emphasis here right now is on that freedom topic. I'm going to go to a really quick break. On the flip side, we're going to get into some juicy information about a few of the people from The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. So don't go anywhere. All right, we are back and I want to dive into talking about a few of the, what would we call them, the characters on the show. So in one episode, they talk about Layla's divorce. I'm strapped in, right? Like anybody mentions divorce, I need to know who did what, why, when, where, how. Like I'm just pervy at my core, right? It's why we do money diaries. But within the Mormon

and faith, there's always the pressure to stay in the marriage and just make it work. There's so much shame often around getting a divorce. And now imagine being a stay-at-home mom who has no income. Leaving would actually feel impossible. And we see lots of people in our community going through this where they might reach out to She's On The Money and they say, I would love to leave my husband, but I just don't have the means to do so. And we can create a plan if you're in that situation. We can absolutely create a plan and make that work for you, but it can feel absolutely unachievable and impossible. But the big takeaway here is that for these women and all women, financial freedom changes everything. It gives you options. It gives

you the ability to choose. It gives you the ability to decide. And most importantly, it gives you control over your life. It's one of the reasons why I'm so wildly passionate about having an emergency fund, irrespective of whether you are the breadwinner or not. I want you to have access to your own money so that if you're ever in a situation that you don't want to be in, you can get out. Whether that's just getting a cab home after a late night because you don't feel safe getting the bus or if it means leaving a relationship. I want women to have access to their own financial freedom. But on the show, these women are no longer financially dependent on their husbands and that independence shift actually changes the entire power dynamic in

their relationships, which can be a little bit scary. And one of the most fascinating or fascinating to me dynamics on the show is between Jen and her husband, Zach. So at first, it really looks like Jen has married into money and she's doing really well for herself. And Jen said, like, my mom was the cleaner at the hospital where Zach's dad was the surgeon. And you just like listen to that and go, okay, this feels relatively stereotypical, right? But as the series goes on, we learned what Zach's family did and Zach's family gave him some money to help him get through the period that he was at medical school, which is a privilege in itself. But Zach gambled all of that money away. And now that Jen is working her butt off on mum talk

and getting all these influencer deals, she's actually become the primary breadwinner in her family. And it's actually this power shift that Zach cannot seem to handle. And on the show, Jen said, and I quote, the male typically being the sole provider within our religion makes our situation a little bit tricky. So it's not like they don't know this is a thing and it causes so much tension in their friend group, so much tension in their marriage. Like Zach, he just can't deal with this. But I mean, whose fault is it? Is it Zach's? Yeah. I mean, you gambled all your money away. That is not responsible. And there's this moment in the show which really stuck with me. And it's when he begs Jen to bankroll his poker game. And she tells him

that, okay, I'll give you like $2,500 and you better not lose it. And I think it's a really powerful reminder of how financial independence doesn't just empower women. It actually challenges the traditional expectations within their marriage specifically now that Jen is kind of like leading the household financially. And you can just tell he's not comfortable having to ask his wife for money, which obviously we all want to be able to stand on our own two feet. But like, there's obviously some gender stuff going on there that we could look a much deeper into, but things on the show absolutely blew up, right? The girls go to Vegas or they all go to Vegas and Jen ends up at a Chippendales show, right? The other girls decide that that's a really fun thing to do.

And what happens is Jen calls her husband to be like, by the way, I'm at Chippendales, just being transparent. We're meant to be having a bit of fun. And Zach starts literally questioning her character he says he doesn't want a wife who would do that I mean at the end of the day one it wasn't her choice and two like your wife is literally telling you why don't you trust her anyway that aside the irony here is that he actually was out gambling until 1 30 a.m which is also a massive no-no in their faith like they're not meant to gamble but for me as an outsider to see him have such a reaction when he just wheezed his way onto a girl's trip and then spent all of his time in Vegas gambling away his money when she was literally out doing her job. Like she was at

Chippendales, yes, which is kind of like, I don't know, like a magic men style show, right? She's at Chippendales, but there's a whole camera crew there. Like he would have known that a camera crew was there filming her to make this show. Like what's she going to do on TV? Anyway, I've just got lots of thoughts. But for him, it's not enough that she was fully providing for his family. She seems to have to also placate his ego as well and put up with the disrespect that he has for not only her, but mum talk, which is their sole income at the moment for his family. It's as though his sinning's okay, but not hers, even though she wasn't. The tension between, I guess, the mum talk personas, if we zoom out a little bit, and their real lives, as I said before, adds so much

drama to the show and I love it. But while they uphold the values and faith and family online, they're also navigating some pretty spicy personal scandals like the swinging controversy. I don't know if you guys on TikTok, I'm chronically online. So like I was all across the swinging controversy and I'm sure you can do a little bit of a deep dive if you're interested, but they were also dealing with, I guess, contradictions of promoting products that don't necessarily align with their religious values, right? So, this was particularly poignant when Whitney was actually, and Whitney's a whole different story, if we want to talk about her, she deserves her own show, but Whitney was offered, I think it was $20,000 to post a single photo promoting a sex toy on

Instagram, which for some people, they'd be like, great, no worries, that really aligns with my brand. But while that deal sounds quite straightforward, all she had to do was post, I guess, a photo and a caption. It stirred up a really big internal conflict for her because she was like, well, this is kind of against my faith. Like, I grew up in a really conservative Mormon family where topics like sex are very taboo. It's not something that we're going to talk to. And you can see like this internal and external struggle where Whitney is grappling with the potential backlash from her community and her family. And she even asks them like, what should I do? And ultimately they're like, oh, that just feels like it's a little bit against

your values and what you do. But I mean, she takes the cash, but it raises for me a deeper question. how does she balance her faith with the financial opportunities that are coming from her influencer career like how is she going to stay true to herself when she's never actually managed finances before on the show she sought advice from her mum and her sister and I guess while Whitney was trying to justify it in a way you could just tell right she's justifying it she's like it could be like so empowering like it's a huge financial opportunity but she's trying to frame it in a way that like convinces her mum and her sister her mum and her sister are not convinced her sister actually questions if it matches her platform and then points out that Whitney usually promotes

really family-friendly content, so you do really want that. I guess this conversation opens up a much wider issue where Whitney reflects on how her mum didn't teach her anything about these topics growing up and how she actually wants to use her platform to break down these taboos, which is obviously not going to make her mum very happy, which adds another layer of what I would call internal conflict about blending business with faith and how to stay authentic to who you are. But the real empowerment here, and I guess everything put aside, I find Whitney relatively problematic, but I guess the real empowerment here is that Whitney in this moment has the ability to choose. So whether she says yes or no to this opportunity or other

opportunities like that, the power is entirely in her hands and financial independence is what is giving her that freedom. And it's just, it's kind of sexy. So I guess what's the takeaway? why did I want to talk about this today? Well, I think the biggest lesson when it comes to financial independence is financial independence opens doors for you, whether you are navigating faith or family or personal relationships. Having control over your money means that you are able to control your own life. The women on The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, they're redefining their roles at the moment. I mean, they've already done it, but we get to go along for the ride and it is proof that you can too. So whether it is leaving a really difficult situation like a

business or maybe simply having the power to say no to someone, money is going to give you the flexibility to live life on your own terms. And I guess in Australia, we are not quite mum talk and do what I don't want to be. I'm not very good at dancing. I think you would pay not to see that. We don't have dancing, but we do have a very beautiful community of our own supportive, financially savvy women. And you can join us if you haven't already. Search She's On The Money on Facebook. We share tips and we share tricks and all of the good stuff to help you crush your own money goals, to create your own level of financial independence, irrespective of where you're starting from. And we are your own squad cheering on for you. And I wanted to talk about

that because I don't think that when we have been watching The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, you really dig deep into the money side of things. Obviously, you're like, fire out, $20,000 to post about a sex toy? Absolutely, I would do that. But these money conversations run so deep. Money controls the entire world. You could probably break down so many Netflix series or so many Apple series on how money controls the narrative of everything. And I think that that's the learning here so i'm gonna go i hope you have the best week ever and i will see you bright and early on monday for a money diary have a good weekend my loves the advice shared on she's on the money is general in nature and does not consider your

individual circumstances she's on the money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision if you do choose to buy financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs. Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of Money Sherpa PTY LTD ABN 321 649 27708 AFSL 451 289.