As Americans, we can have fun obsessing over the British royal family—especially now that California’s own Meghan Markle has joined. We shop the fashions of Markle and her sister-in-law, Kate Middleton, ogle their adorable children, and lament that we don’t have more opportunities to wear fascinators and tiaras. Or is that last one just me?
Of course, royal watching is even more intense in the U.K., but it also has real financial implications for Brits as the royal family is supported by, in part, their tax dollars. Because of that fact, they release an annual report called the Sovereign Grant that details spending for the year, from April 1, 2018 through March 31, 2019. That’s how we learned that the renovations to Markle and Prince Harry’s new home, Frogmore Cottage, cost over $3 million (2.4 million pounds). Members of the family also have massive amounts of private wealth, the spending of which they do not have to report.
According to the report, Queen Elizabeth II and the royal family received $104 million dollars (82.2 million pounds) from British taxpayers.
Geoff Pugh/Getty Images
Let’s break down some of the most interesting details we learned about House Windsor’s spending from the report.
They spent $42 million on renovations to royal palaces and properties.
Along with the upgrades to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and Master Archie‘s home, a number of other home design projects took up a big chunk of the budget, including Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace, and Windsor Castle.
Travel does cost a thing.
The royal family serve as ambassadors for the U.K. across the country, commonwealth, and the world. Hence, they’re out and about a lot. According to the report, members of the family undertook over 3200 engagements during the year, with the 93-year-old queen doing 140, and the total travel costs were around $5.8 million (4.6 million pounds.)
There are two types of people in this world: those who swear by face mists and others who brush them off as overpriced bottles of water. Ask anyone in the first group and they’ll swear by the healing powers of a good thermal water or the therapeutic effects of a spritz infused with essential oils. And don’t even get them started on rose water. Most people probably fit into the second group, though—many even within the halls of Glamour. Our hypothesis? They just haven’t found their perfect match. So we gathered dozens of face sprays and put them in the hands of our staffers to get their honest opinions on which they deem to be the most worthy of their money. Because while there are plenty of options out there that probably are a scam, these face mists are so much more than that.
To learn more about how the water crisis is impacting women in Peru, I traveled to Lima with Water.org and Stella Artois as part of their #PourItForward campaign. After visiting women in the suburbs, I learned that the water crisis doesn’t always look the way you might think.
Imagine living in the suburbs of a major metropolitan city: You have a nice two bedroom house on a tree-lined street, just up the hill from a lush green park with views of the ocean. You have a sunny, covered courtyard—the kind of place you might have a barbecue, filled with a few potted plants and a spacious picnic table. You have a cozy kitchen with bright blue cabinets stacked high with sparkling dishes. You have all this, but you’re missing one vital thing: running water.
When we talk about the water crisis, it’s often in the context of polluted rivers or remote villages that force women to walk for hours each day just to find clean water. Those are major issues but the full picture of the water crisis is a lot slipperier. In the suburbs of developing countries like Peru, the problem isn’t as simple as digging wells or installing water filters. Here, the water crisis has more to do with money and infrastructure—the actual pipes that bring clean water from the city’s water source into showers and sinks throughout the area—and money.
Lima’s water infrastructure is so overburdened that you can’t flush toilet paper—a fact I learned when faced with this sign in the airport bathroom.
“The water system is here but the challenge is that it’s tilted towards the affluent and middle class,” says Gary White, co-founder and CEO of Water.org, a social good organization that pioneers financial solutions to the global water crisis. That means residents in towns outside of the city limits often don’t have access to running water in their homes, either because they can’t afford to install a sink or toilet, or because the water pipes simply aren’t there. (Or both.)
In the peri-urban areas of Peru, three million people lack access to clean water and five million lack access to sanitation like a bathroom in their home. These are the suburbs we’re talking about—imagine driving to a neighborhood two hours outside of New York City and finding that hand-dug toilets and bucket showers are the norm. Even in the most low-income neighborhoods, that would be unfathomable but in developing nations, it’s not uncommon.
Women often face the biggest burden of the water crisis. Globally, women and girls spend 200 million hours every day collecting water and another 266 million hours finding a place to go to the bathroom, according to Water.org. In areas like the neighborhoods outside of Lima, they might live on a nice block with a park around the corner and still not have access to a bathroom in their home. “It doesn’t always have the face of total desperation you’ll see in rural areas where people are walking six hours [to find clean water] or drinking out of a hand dug well,” says Matt Damon, co-founder of Water.org. “It’s the day-to-day grind and what that does in people’s lives.”
Without running water, women often have to haul heavy buckets from large communal water tanks (which can cost 10-15 times more to fill than it would cost for direct water access from a water utility) and find safe places to use the bathroom. Sanitation is a major issue. “The lives of girls are totally changed because they’re spending their time in this daily grind. It completely robs them of their potential,” Damon says. And it’s not just time-consuming, it’s often a safety issue: Imagine having to walk around your neighborhood alone in the middle of the night trying to find a place to pee, or having to bathe without any privacy.
Even in nicer suburbs with tree-lined streets and green parks, access to running water is still out of reach for many families outside of Lima.
Giovanna, 47, and her family live in a nice house. But until they were able to get financing for a proper bathroom, they had to use an open hole out back—a safety and sanitation risk.
A loan through the WaterCredit program helped Giovanna and her family put in two bathrooms, an improvement that’s helped make their home safer and cleaner—and afforded Giovanna the opportunity to grow her business selling cosmetics.
The solution isn’t about digging wells or trucking in more clean water. To truly fix the problem and remove that chronic daily grind from the shoulders of women, Water.org argues financial empowerment is the key. In 2013, they launched the WaterCredit program, which works with banks in places like Lima to help women and their families get micro loans—the average size of which are just $1,200—to make home improvements. In areas that do have access to water pipes, it’s as simple as getting the few hundred dollars it takes to tap into the main line and install a faucet or toilet in their home. In more rural areas, a loan can help women pay for a water tank that will provide running water for luxuries like showers and toilets.
What the Water Crisis Looks Like
If you stand directly in front of Grecia’s house, it looks like the kind of cute starter bungalow you might find outside of San Francisco: the angular facade looks like it’s been freshly painted and the sunny front porch has a verdant shade tree. Grecia, 26, lives in the airy white house with her husband and their two-year-old son and one day, she hopes to run a pharmacy for the neighborhood out of her home.
Grecia’s home outside of Lima.
Turn to the left, and it’s clear Grecia’s home is the outlier on the block. The streets in her neighborhood aren’t paved and the majority of the homes on the block have tin roofs and wooden slats for siding. Everything surrounding Grecia’s house is brown and lopsided. Until recently, she didn’t have so much as a water tap let alone a shower or toilet.
Women invest 40 percent less money than men do, according to a recent Wealthsimple survey. And it’s not just because we don’t have access to the funds (hello, pay gap) to invest: In another report, people were asked what they’d do with an extra $1,000. Women who responded were 35 percent less likely to invest it than men.
But when women actually do get in on the stock market game, they consistently earn higher returns than men, according to research from Fidelity. Yet many women still believe the stereotype that they aren’t great at investing—only 9 percent of women believed they were better investors than the guys. So at Glamour we’re issuing a challenge. Stop viewing the investment world as an old boy’s club, and go get that coin. Here are a few tips to help get you on your way.
Get in the habit
Just because you don’t have thousands of dollars to play with doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start investing your hard-earned money. “When you first start investing, establishing the habit is more important than the amount you actually invest,” says Stefanie O’Connell, a millennial personal finance author. “If you set a small amount of money aside on a consistent basis, you’ll be better able to scale your investment contributions when you’re able—when you get a raise for example. Investing as little as 1 percent of every paycheck can help you get started and learn more about investing while you do, without feeling like you have to give up a ton of money for your essential needs and short-term goals in the meantime.”
One of the best ways to start investing is with the options provided by your company. Maybe you can contribute to your corporate-sponsored 401K, or an alternative retirement plan. “You can elect to have a small percentage of your salary automatically set aside from each paycheck,” says O’Connell. “Even if you don’t have this option through an employer, you can set up regular, automated contributions on your own into accounts like a ROTH IRA. Automating is helpful because you don’t have to think about it. And when the money is automatically invested, you’re less likely to think of that money as available for spending.”
Find the right plan for you
There are a huge number of investment options to choose from. Whether you decide to chart a retirement plan, join a full-service brokerage firm—where they’ll guide you on how to invest money and advise you on stock options—or take a more DIY approach, the options are (almost) endless. But for first-time investors, Nicole Lapin, founder of The Money School, recommends working with a discount brokerage, which is a firm that buys and sells for you at a lower commission rate, but cannot give investment advice. “I’d go with a firm like E*Trade, TD Ameritrade, or Fidelity,” says Lapin. “These are typically do-it-yourself operations, and are much less expensive. For each trade you make, it’s only around a $4 to $5 fee. They’re a good way for investors seeking a low-cost, self-directed approach to investing to get in the door.”
And when you’re on the hunt for your brokerage firm, investing platform, or savings plan make sure you’re not biting off more than you can chew. “Most funds require an initial minimum investment that can vary between $500 to $5,000, which often discourages women from participating as it creates a barrier of entry,” says Kassandra Dasent, a financial consultant and owner of Minding Your Money, LLC. You don’t want to invest all of the money you’ve set aside during your first time out—this is a habit you’re getting into, remember!—so don’t go with a plan that will make you invest $2,000 to get started, if that’s all you have saved up. Consider your options. “Research online brokerage firms that will waive account minimums, if the individual is willing to set up automatic monthly investments, which can be as low as $25 per month,” says Dasent. “The latter option allows their money to be put to work immediately in the markets and encourages them to invest consistently.”
Stay on top of your portfolio
Once you pick a plan and enroll in automatic monthly investments it doesn’t mean your work is over. The financial landscape is constantly changing, and the stock market can be a volatile place. One day Snapchat is one of the highest stocks on the market, the next it’s plummeting. If you take your eyes off the prize, you could feel some serious consequences. That doesn’t mean you should buy and sell every time your investments rise and fall—riding out those swings can sometimes be the best course of action. But you shouldn’t ignore things completely. “Every year, if not more often, you should rebalance your overall investment portfolio to get your portfolio back in balance with the original allocation you determined fit for your goal and risk tolerance,” says Brittney Castro, founder and CEO of Financially Wise Inc. “When market volatility picks up, your portfolio can get unbalanced, which means you may be taking more or less risk than you think, hence more regular rebalancing may be needed. Work on determining the best rebalance strategy for your financial situation.”
While the last isn’t something we can attain without her obviously incredible genes, we can try our best to mimic her skin care routine in hopes of achieving just an ounce of her glow. Luckily it’s a known fact that she loves Tatcha, which is also coincidentally a favorite amongst skin care pros too. Key products like the brand’s Vitamin-C Mask and Luminous Dewy Skin Mist frequently sell out many times over and it’s no secret why: everyone claims Tatcha‘s stuff really is as good as Meghan Markle’s skin would lead you to believe.
Sophie Turner and Kit Harington have been co-stars for, it’s safe to say, a while now: Game of Thrones‘ eighth and final season is premiering on April 14, and although we have so many questions about what’s to come on the hit show, there’s a 0% chance we’re going to be getting any satisfactory answers until each episode unfolds. (However, you can bet that this hasn’t stopped fans from coming up with plenty of theories about what’s going to happen.) There’s one thing that can be cleared up, though, and that’s the matter of why Turner, who plays Sansa Stark, and Harington, who plays Jon Snow, aren’t getting paid the same for the work they do on the show.
In an industry where there are headline-making gender pay gaps—remember when Michelle Williams reportedly got paid less than $1,000 while Mark Wahlberg got $1.5 million for a movie reshoot?—discrepancies like this are beginning to receive extra scrutiny. Turner was recently asked by Harper’s Bazaar UK about her views on the difference between her and Harington’s paychecks for the show. Asking for equal pay on set, she told the magazine, is “a little tricky. Kit got more money than me, but he had a bigger storyline. And for the last series, he had something crazy like 70 night shoots, and I didn’t have that many. I was like, ‘You know what… you keep that money.'”
As The Hollywood Reporter wrote in 2014 about negotiations for the show’s seventh season, the cast—among the highest-paid on cable TV—is divided into tiers to determine compensation: Tier A includes the main roles, played by actors including Harington, Lena Headey (Cersei Lannister), and Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen). Tier B includes Turner and Maisie Williams (Arya Stark); and there’s another tier beyond that’s filled by actors with smaller roles.
But Turner’s still been able to wield her influence to advance equality behind the scenes: As she told Harper’s Bazaar UK, she has an inclusion rider in her contract, which stipulates that the male/female ratio of a project’s workforce is an even 50-50. And when there’s so much work to be done in the industry, every step forward counts.
