Kiplinger’s Money Problems vs. Queer Money Problems
In their December 2007 issue, Kiplinger’s attempts to solve your 19 most vexing money problems. That made me wonder how different queer money problems are from those covered in a mainstream money magazine.
Here’s a list of Kiplinger’s money problems, in no particular order. What would you say is missing from the list or different for the queer community?
1. Should we save or pay off debt?
2. How can I reduce my investment risk?
3. Should I take a pension or lump sum?
4. Should I buy my teens their own car insurance?
5. Is it a good idea to borrow from my 401(K)?
6. Do I have to use my social security number as ID?
7. I have lousy 401(K) choices in my plan.
8. Help! My drug is no longer covered.
9. Can I get insurance if I’m sick?
10. Will I qualify for a mortgage if I’m self-employed?
11. Should I buy a second home now?
12. How can my child get a scholarship?
13. I don’t have extra money to invest.
14. Should I buy or cash in savings bonds?
15. How can I cut my tax bill in retirement?
16. Does it make sense to pay off my mortgage early?
17. Should I save for college or retirement?
18. I’ve maxed out my 401(K). Now what?
19. My property taxes are too high.
I can relate to problems #’s 1, 2, 5-7, 10, 13 and 14. I guess my unique concerns are:
Since married men make more money, how can I make more money if I can’t legally marry?
How can a same sex couple cut their tax bill?
And eventually:
How can my partner and I minimize estate taxes and loss of surviving partner benefits?
Those are just ideas off the top of my head. Zac and I aren’t planning to have kids anytime soon (or ever), so finances related to child rearing aren’t an immediate concern, but I’m sure they are for queer families, and very different from straight families.
What are your unique money problems that you think we should discuss on Queercents? After all, we’re pretty much the only game in town for queers. So let us help you out.
I like in the UK, where it is now illegal to offer inferior service to homosexuals than heterosexuals, but the following still apply:
How do I choose investments that will pay out to my same-sex partner as if we were married?
How can I be sure my investments are not supporting companies with homophobic policies?
Also most (but not all) gay couples are child-free so it would be interesting to see what the differences are in retirement planning when you know that you are not going to be able to rely on children to sort out your affairs when you need some help.
Perhaps greater odds that the couple will be asking “How can we manage adoption fees or artificial insemination fees or surrogate fees” too. Those can all be concerns for straight couples but they’re probably proportionately bigger money problems for the glbtq community.
I read recently that there was a study in California that showed households led by same-sex parents are making a 17% lower average income than those with straight parents. Much of that gap is likely because a majority of queer parents there are lesbian couples (and the gender wage gap is still large) and are also more racially diverse (and the race wage gap is still very large). This is certainly true for my household (2 lesbian social workers), so questions about how to increase our income are very important to us.
I don’t think the wage gaps are the only factor there, though, because many queer couples have to make major adjustments/concessions/plans about how to afford adoption/conception costs, second parent adoptions and other legal services later, health insurance for their partners who may stop work for a while or go part-time, etc. And I would have to respectfully disagree with the first comment in the idea that most gay couples are child-free. Maybe that’s the case in the UK, but I wouldn’t think it would be that different from the US. For example, in Massachusetts, at least a quarter of queer couples in general, and over 30% of lesbian couples are raising children. Those are pretty significant numbers, so I think financial questions about kids would be very relevant. Of course, I am biased there!
One other thing- I think that probably a large number of queer people incur debt when they come out to family, especially if they have to suddenly move out and start paying all their living expenses, and if they must take on more student loans to make up for what used to be paid for by parents or other family. In my case, I’m past question 1 (I know that debt paying is my priority), but largely due to those two extra costs I think I have more debt than average, and so am lightyears away from any of the other 18 questions. Getting more specific about debt paying strategy would be great for addressing those “coming out costs.”