EoR No. 24: Do you feel out-of-sync with male-driven expectations for productivity at work?

Plus, lots of debt stories, faking corporate indoctrination, my latest book rec and astrology for skeptics

I’m experimenting with the timing of Embarrassment of Riches round ups. At least for the summer, a lot of us seem to have less time and tolerance for reading newsletters (as evidenced by both analytics and anecdotes). So I won’t pester you every week with a round up. How do you feel about once a month? If folks seem to like this cadence better, I’ll keep it going in the fall, too.

News and upcoming events:

• WISCONSIN! Save the date — I’ll be hosting a session on money and YDNAB at the Central Wisconsin Book Festival in Wausau on Sep. 27. I’d love to meet you if you’re in the area (or you want to take a trip…).

• There’s still time to enter to win a free copy of You Don’t Need a Budget from NerdWallet’s book club! I’ll be a guest on their book club podcast, and you can enter anytime until July 31. Learn more and enter here.

Here’s what you might have missed at Healthy Rich and other places online this week!

🥑 ICYMI at Healthy Rich

Some advice from me:

• One question to help new grads have a better relationship with money

• Using debt is not ‘living beyond your means’

• How to create a money map to manage your money without a budget

From our summer series sharing your debt stories:

• Debt gave me freedom from toxic deprivation culture by Gemma Hartley

• I filed for bankruptcy twice — and it was the right choice both times by Sarah Elizabeth Graves

• We believed the lie that we could bootstrap our way out by Heather Bursch

• A middle-class Black family’s story of debt, dreams and determination by BlackExpat25

Behind-the-scenes money dates:

• Money date No. 26: No more striving

• Money date No. 27: Boring and peaceful

• Money date No. 28: One year of money dates!

🔗 Things to catch

• I was on “money month” of the Forever35 podcast to talk about resisting budget culture with Doree Shafrir and Elise Hu — catch it wherever you get your podcasts!

• Gabrielle Judge at Anti Work Girlboss shared five ways to pretend to be indoctrinated by corporate culture so you can get a job without raising anti-capitalist red flags (and get a paycheck while saving your sanity).

• Let's Talk Money with Martha on her advanced investment strategy that pays weekly dividends. (I’m still generally anti-stock market, but I know that’s not for everyone, and Martha’s advice is smart and gentle and useful, so I love passing it on!)

• Anyone else feel like you’re forced to focus on Slack messages while fascism crumbles the world around you?

• I inhaled Cait Flanders’ Adventures in Opting Out last weekend and highly recommend! I adore Cait’s writing (and can’t wait to see what she’s working on next).

• Immediately made this image my wallpaper for the summer ✨

• Rachel Lawlan on why estrogen-driven folks shouldn’t strive to live up to a system built around testosterone-driven biology.

• If you’re an astrology skeptic — but also kinda want to know what all the fuss is about — my friends Cristy De La Cruz and Patrick Geary✨ have started the Substack Loving Astrology to get up to speed and connecting beyond your star sign.

💬 Let’s discuss

Do you feel out-of-sync with male-driven expectations for productivity at work?

Reflecting on Rachel Lawlan’s piece (linked above), an estrogen cycle changes your energy and focus week to week (and perimenopause throws you into yet another set of fluctuations), while a testosterone cycle resets your energy daily. Have you ever made changes to the way you work so you can show up according to your own energy fluctuations? Do you talk with coworkers about your energy cycles or deal with them on your own? Do you find certain seasons or phases more productive and creative than others? How do you harness those?

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