Personal Money Snapshot: Corporette Edition

I know everyone (including me) likes to read money diaries on: refinery29and I was thinking of creating a “personal money snapshot” series to accommodate readers who want to share a summary of their finances. We now have a Google form (similar format We’ve got it for CorporetteMoms Week in the Life of a Working Mom posts) and a) open for contributors, b) get your feedback (is it too long?) and c) note that anything is possible for change. (The nice thing about Google forms is that we can edit questions, which isn’t always the case with surveys and stuff.)

Click here if you want to see the form and/or submit a response! Also a PDF of questions if you want to review them in advance. see others Personal Money Snapshot series Here.

Notes on Personal Money Snapshot Form:

1. The reason we ask for your email address: It would be much, much better if we could get your email address so Kate or I can ask follow-up questions for clarity – sometimes not everything is obvious from the outside. THIS DIET has a lot of personal questions on the form so I understand if you don’t want to share your address. Still, I don’t quite understand how to make this question optional, so put something obviously fake and we’ll get along. (If you trust us with your email address, thank you very much! Corporette Privacy Policy – and I promise never to lend you money if you have a load.)

2. The general structure of the questions (and why they seem longer than they are): I’ve been observing reader comments and discussions about money for a long time, and I find the usual “what I spend a week” summary is not necessarily enlightening or educational. As such, the questions on the form are quite broad – and may seem long at first glance, but that’s because I don’t expect EVERYONE to have anything to say in EVERY category. (I’m assuming readers will have a lot to say in one or two of the chapters and less in the others.)

I also believe that when it comes to personal finance, people have ‘quadric knowledge’. Maybe you know all about country club fees, which markets are great for second homes, and which ostrich bag is REALLY worth $10,000. That’s great and we want to hear from you! We also want to hear from people who have six-figure debt, flirt with bankruptcy, and/or move from paycheck to paycheck (yes, even if you have a high income and live paycheck to paycheck). We also want to hear FIRE People spending $100,000 of their $120,000 income and people whose lives have changed wildly (for better or worse) with something like inheritance (hopefully good) or crazy medical bills (probably bad).

3. Big Picture questions: There are a few questions I would like everyone to answer because I think they inform the reading of answers in general. One question specifically asks what your net worth is when you start working, because I think there is a big difference in what your personal finance journey will look like. He asks another question, “IRegarding your net worth, expenses or debt, is there anything else we should know about you from a “Big Picture” perspective beforehand for context? I included this to investigate situations we wouldn’t know to ask but would certainly affect your finances, for example “I had to be hospitalized in my life and had $100,000 in medical bills” or “private schools are not optional for my family because I don’t believe my kids will get a fair shake in public school” ” or “Our entire household finances are very high because my mother-in-law lives with us and we pay for everything.”

Like I said, it has a pretty wide range and I hope it’s not TOO…asky. If there are specific questions that make people uncomfortable or are otherwise problematic, I’d like to know which ones in particular. If people think that certain questions should be added to any of their sections, we’d love to hear them, too.

A quick question to discuss today though: What are your favorite resources for learning about money? What are your favorite podcasts, books, blogs or other resources?

Psst: here is our last discussion The best personal finance books for beginnersalso mymoney roadmap” or what my own personal finance journey looks like.