‘I admit: I am an outright money slipper’

Girls of the seventies and eighties, have you been paying attention? You know, you can become anything you want to be, you can develop fully, you can discover your own ikkepikje for decades, you can give birth to packs of children and live on an idyllic farm with a nice Harry, or you can let it go and become a Conscious Unmarried Mother Without Harry On a Farm (a so-called BOMZHOB), or just a Conscious Gruntless, sweet girls from mother earth, anything is allowed, anything is possible, you only have to meet one condition in your life: you have to keep your pants on.

On paper

Most of us have been given the above message a lot. Our youth was dominated by opportunities for development, sexual liberation, a smart girl is prepared for her future, but above all become who you want to become yourself. We could and were allowed to do anything, as long as we could earn our own money and not become sighing under the patriarchal yoke dependent on a nasty, dominant man who, after kicking us a series of kids, would leave us for a young, horny secretary after which we would be left penniless.

No, I have always remembered it well: financial independence is nice. Of course everyone is free to stop working as the ultimate act of feminism, but even then it is smart to have the opportunity to earn cash in the event of a divorce.

So I made a career, so I started my own business, so I opened a business account, really on paper I have it perfectly done and I am nothing like my own mother who usually kept her money in a wad in a clumsy wallet, got stains on her neck from words like investment mortgage and interest trap and left everything to do with money to my father.

However, I have one problem: I am a total money-grabber. It’s incredibly unemancipated, I know, but to me money is the same as my parents’ sex life: I know it exists but I’d rather not talk about it.

The Ha! Method

In my work life I manage to hide this nicely. I have learned to negotiate somewhat and this through the Ha! Method. It is very simple: if someone makes you a financial proposal, you just say slightly mockingly: “Ha! Nothing else.

Then you play the game I-can-stare-at-you-longer-than-you-at-me. Don’t talk, leave it at that one “Ha!” There is a good chance that your opponent will become very nervous about you and will soon say: “Okay, that was the lower limit, of course something can be added.” Works like crazy. I cannot complain about my earnings at all.

I think. I suspect. Seems to me. With a probability bordering on certainty. But it is not really clear to me, because I never calculate exactly how much I earn. Nor do I know exactly how much I am paying. When asked about the number of continuous insurance policies I have, I can do nothing but wave a little blurry in the air.

There are two credit cards in my wallet that I never use because I don’t know what the pin code is. And important bills tend to stick with me by default with a stack of old TV guides, Lego Nexo Knights manuals, and clinic call-up cards. Once they’ve hid there, they’ll never surface again, so I’m constantly overcome by letters of formal notice that baffle me because I’ve never seen the first bill. Or have ever seen it, but repressed that since I had to assemble a Lego Nexo Knights spaceship that afternoon.

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Begging for bank codes

For a long time I have been ashamed of my money-taking, but I have discovered that I am by no means the only one. A few years ago I started a business with a friend. She is extremely talented, well-spoken, very professional and experienced. Together we ambitiously stamped into the Chamber of Commerce, we designed sleek business cards, we had professional photos taken of us and we opened a joint business bank account. Nothing stood in the way of a great success.

And indeed, we rake in wonderful assignments for which we were paid generously. At least, we suspect. Because we kept forgetting the code for our internet banking, so we couldn’t access the numbers and our money. We have both been at the post office several times, a registered letter in hand begging for new bank codes, each time with embarrassment on our jaws.

“Will we ever be okay again?”

Our company is now defunct. I became a columnist, she got a very good job, both of us are doing well. But last week she emailed me with a lot of embarrassment a reminder from the host of our website. Neither of us realized it was still in the air for a long time. Let alone pay. “Will we ever be okay again?” she sighed. I am afraid not.

The chance that someone who is careless with pecunia will ever turn out to be a money-adept seems minimal to me. It’s like reversing into parking. I think it’s incredibly grumpy of myself that I’m always the one who puts her car diagonally into a parking space, but I can’t get it right in. And I have now accepted that that is the case. Schlikker and spatial insight are words that do not belong together. But Schlikker and insight into money do. My father is an accountant, please. How is it possible that I stare into a vacuum when the word VAT assessment is mentioned?

The balls

Am I really that stupid? Well no, I am not. I’m just being lazy to be honest. I have a rare dislike of tidying up and if something helps money awareness it is some kind of tidying up. The numbers neatly under each other, the bills together in a tray, the pin codes lined up in the head.

That head of mine is usually full of other things. With plans for a nice dinner in that nice restaurant this weekend, for example. With memories of that blissful holiday last summer. With books I just read, exhibitions I visited, conversations about the love I had with my friends. Every year, usually just before I have to submit my administration to my accountant and I cannot find anything, I resolve to do it differently.

It fails again and again. There is nothing for it but to accept this. I am a skewed dreamy money disaster. But I am also something else, namely an incredibly lucky guy. I have a good job and apparently am financially carefree enough to afford to be a bit fuzzy about finances. The feminists of the 1970s may think differently and think I should go to an administration refresher course, but I can say: the balls, I’m going to spend my time better. I can afford to be a money slicker. And that makes me sweetheart.

This article has previously appeared in Kek Mama.

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