She Makes Money Movesis a new podcast from Glamour and iHeartRadio. Hosted by Glamour editor in chief Samantha Barry, the podcast shares intimate, unscripted stories from women across the country along with advice from financial experts to help guide those women—and women everywhere—forward. Download a new episode every Tuesday, then visit glamour.com/money for an article like this, with more insights from that week’s expert.
More women than ever before are the breadwinners in their households. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 38% of wives out-earn their husbands. And while the aim should be to have a financial split that makes sense for each couple, research shows that this particular brand of imbalance can make some uncomfortable. So much so that some women lie about their earnings.
The New York Times has reported that in heterosexual marriages in which women earn more, wives will tell the Internal Revenue Service they earned 1.5% less than they actually do. Meanwhile their husbands will falsely claim to have earned 2.9% more than they do.
This week’s guest on She Makes Money Moves makes more than her husband. But the problem in their relationship isn’t that she has a bigger paycheck; it’s their different spending habits. Her husband is frugal, which makes her feel guilty when she spends money. She’s now expecting a baby and she’s worried she’ll feel even more reluctant to spend anything on herself once they have a child. To help her navigate her spending anxiety, Barry welcomed Shannon McLay, founder and CEO of the Financial Gym to the podcast. Here, McLay explores how to have a healthy financial relationship with your partner—no matter who’s bringing home the bacon.
Be up front about your money goals.
Have a conversation about both of your money goals. This will allow you and your partner to dream together and then plan together. You can discuss things like where do you see yourselves going in life? Do you want to own property? Do you want to have a family? Where do you want to live? Do you foresee any career pivots in the future? Is traveling a priority? All of these questions are important to answer and align on when deciding to enter (or stay in) a long-term committed relationship with someone. Especially when there’s an imbalance in income.
Get financially naked.
Couples are comfortable getting physically naked with each another, but more often than not they’re uncomfortable getting financially naked. Opening up about your finances is an important step in a relationship, and it’s one I encourage couples to do early and often. What does this mean? Each person should lay out their assets, debts, expenses, and personal financial goals they’re working on. Doing this can help ease any discomfort around deciding who pays for what, or how you plan your dates and vacations together. But more importantly it will help you understand one another’s priorities when it comes to your overall financial health.
Transition from viewing money as “mine” & “yours” to “ours.”
If you and your partner are working towards the same goals, then both of your incomes will feel like they are the tools getting you to those goals, together. Thinking about your finances as shared money going towards a shared future will make you and your partner feel less competitive and instead, more collaborative. Because if you’re constantly deciding how to split things up and the “fairness” of the division, the relationship can begin to feel more like splitting the bills with a roommate and not an intimate life partner.
According to a survey by Fidelity, the sponsor ofShe Makes Money Moves, 80% of women aren’t talking about money with the people closest to them. Today Glamour invites you to the conversation: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, in the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and join us as we help women raise their voices and make money moves.
Remember how obsessed we all were over the Case of the Game of Thrones Coffee Cup back in May? Well, rest easy, people: We finally have some answers.
If you need a refresher on the situation, here you go: In one of the episodes from Game of Thrones‘s final season, fans noticed an errant coffee cup placed next to Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke), which was an obvious anachronistic mistake.
People were outraged that a show with such a massive budget could miss something so glaring—but, hey, people are human and they need their caffeine on long shoots.
People blamed Clarke, Sophie Turner, and Kit Harington at various times. “I hear this every day of my life. This coffee-cup thing,” Turner said in an interview on Conan back in June. “It’s good to know the coffee cup got more press than the final season altogether. The coffee cup was where Kit’s chair was. At first I blamed it on Emilia, but I don’t think Emilia would do that. Kit is lazy, and I think he would’ve done that. It was in front of Kit’s chair and then, obviously, he moved so this picture was taken, and it looked like it was in my seat. But I wasn’t there, either. It was Kit. It was 100 percent Kit.”
Yet, the mystery remained unsolved. But on last night’s The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Clarke put the questions to rest for good.
“Here’s the truth: We had a party before the Emmys recently and Conleth [Hill], who plays Varys—who’s sitting next to me in that scene—he pulls me aside and he’s like, ‘Emilia, I have got to tell you something, love. The coffee cup was mine,’” she said.
“It was his! It was Conleth’s coffee cup! He said so,” she continued. “He said, ‘I think it was. I am sorry, darling. I didn’t want to say anything because it seemed the heat was very much on you.’”
Watch Clarke explain this for yourself, below:
There you have it, everyone. I’d still probably blame it on Bran, but that’s just me.
Kim Kardashian broke the Internet for the thousandth time last week when she revealed she’s studying to become a lawyer. “I had to think long and hard about this,” she told Vogue magazine about her legendary career pivot.
The reality star isn’t attending formal law school but rather completing a four-year apprenticeship at a San Francisco firm, which is actually a legitimate alternative to traditional education in California. While most people responded to this news with enthusiasm and a few lighthearted jokes, some took shots at Kardashian and told her to “stay in her lane.”
But she isn’t taking these comments lying down. Kardashian took to Instagram on Monday, April 15, and hit back at the people who are criticizing her.
“Last year I registered with the California State Bar to study law. For the next 4 years, a minimum of 18 hours a week is required, I will take written and multiple choice tests monthly. As my first year is almost coming to an end I am preparing for the baby bar, a mini version of the bar, which is required when studying law this way,” Kardashian wrote on Instagram alongside a photo of herself studying. “I’ve seen some comments from people who are saying it’s my privilege or my money that got me here, but that’s not the case. One person actually said I should ‘stay in my lane.’ I want people to understand that there is nothing that should limit your pursuit of your dreams, and the accomplishment of new goals. You can create your own lanes, just as I am.”
She continued, “The state bar doesn’t care who you are. This option is available to anyone who’s state allows it. It’s true I did not finish college. You need 60 college credits (I had 75) to take part in ‘reading the law,’ which is an office law school being apprenticed by lawyers. For anyone assuming this is the easy way out, it’s not. My weekends are spent away from my kids while I read and study. I work all day, put my kids to bed and spend my nights studying. There are times I feel overwhelmed and when I feel like I can’t do it but I get the pep talks I need from the people around me supporting me. I changed my number last year and disconnected from everyone because I have made this strict commitment to follow a dream of mine – It’s never too late to follow your dreams.”
Kardashian finished her post by writing. “I want to thank Van Jones for believing in me and introducing me to Jessica Jackson. Jessica along with Erin Haney have taken on the role of my mentors and I am forever grateful to them both putting in so much time with me, believing in me and supporting me through this journey. This week I have a big torts essay due on negligence. Wish me luck.”
After a week full of eliminations and not one, not two, but three warnings, tonight’s episode of The Bachelor was a little lower energy. Still, a lot went down so let’s get right into it, shall we? Spoilers ahead.
The episode opens with Colton filming a late-night video about his feelings. (So emo.) Long story short, he’s confused and upset because three different women warned him that some of the other dozens of women he’s dating aren’t ready for marriage. To be honest, this doesn’t feel like that groundbreaking of a reveal to me—statistically speaking, at least one woman there doesn’t want to marry a guy she’s known two weeks, right? But Colton says this is his “biggest fear.”
He has good news, though: “We’re heading to Denver!” Woo.
Once stateside, Colton meets up with former Bachelor Ben Higgins for a drink and “advice.” Colton needs it: The hometown dates are next week, so the stakes! Are! High! Oh, and he’s falling in love with multiple people and feels weird about it. Ben’s advice? “Lean in!” (My advice would be “yes, that is weird which is why you should just pick one,” but nobody’s asking me.)
When Colton joins the women later that day, he brings his dog, Sniper, along. Their first reaction upon seeing Sniper is “OMG DOG!” I don’t think they even notice that Colton’s there too, which…yeah, that feels right. Unfortunately instead of more Sniper content, Colton has to take one of the women on a date.
Josh Vertucci
Tayshia is the chosen one, and their date consists of sitting in the loudest food market of all time. Seriously, I could barely heard their conversation—so what a convenient, not-at-all annoying place and time for Tayshia to drop the “I know who isn’t ready for marriage” bomb. At first, Tayshia tells Colton she’s not going to name any names because she’s not a tattletale. Then, not two seconds later, she’s all, “It’s Cassie and Caelynn!!!”
She claims she heard through the grapevine they were talking about their Bachelorette chances and all the parties they’ll get to attend after the show ends. Again, this isn’t that big of a reveal—even the winners go to events after the show ends. Who cares? I don’t think Colton does, but he is listening when Tayshia says they’re not ready to get engaged.
This throws Colton off, but he puts it on the back burner to concentrate on enjoying the rest of the date. He takes Tayshia to his apartment, where they play games and talk about hometowns. She says her family, dad especially, might be tough because they’re still processing her divorce. This doesn’t phase Colton, and he gives her the rose. They end the night making out in his room, which he describes as the spot “where the magic doesn’t happen.”
The next day, Colton takes Caelynn snowboarding. It’s uneventful—until he tells her about the conversation with Tayshia. It’s all a lie, Caelynn insists. Once she’s away from Colton, she tells a producer, “Dude, I better get a rose because I will call that bitch out.”
When they meet up later for dinner, Colton cries because he’s so confused. Caelynn assures him that she’s there for him and ready to be engaged. She feels like she can be herself with him, she says, and it’s scary that a lie could compromise that. She was planning to tell him, before all of this happened, that she’s falling in love. This reassures Colton, and he gives her the rose and says he’s falling in love too.
The next morning, Caelynn confronts Tayshia. When asked why she would call her out, Tayshia claims everyone noticed that she and Cassie were the most nervous after Katie warned Colton. So, she says, they’re probably the guilty ones. “If I really wanted to talk smack about you,” she adds, “I would be talking smack about you every single day, but I haven’t.” That’s her evidence? Tayshia doesn’t seem like a liar to me—but those receipts are weeeeaaaak.
Being constantly on-the-go can be taxing on the body and the mind. Help frequent travelers remove some of the stress from the equation: Add any (or all) of these travel essentials to your holiday shopping list. They’ll be well-prepared the next time they hit the road, and marvel at the difference these 20 items make in their travel experience.
Rachel Brosnahan is hungry. “I usually have Nutella in my purse,” she says, after taking her seat at Boxwood, a restaurant nestled in the London West Hollywood Hotel. “I had Smarties in there too. I took all the condiments from the hotel in France when we were shooting Maisel—all the honeys and jams. I really love condiments.”
Maisel, of course, is The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, the Amazon original series for which Brosnahan, 27, took home the 2018 Golden Globe for Best Actress in a TV Series—Musical or Comedy.
“I can already see the headline of this story,” she says. “‘My Love Affair With Condiments.’”
For the past few weeks, Brosnahan—a Milwaukee native—has been in Paris shooting the second season of Maisel, a show that’s been called “a love letter to stand-up comedy, female empowerment, and New York City,” by The Hollywood Reporter and about which New York magazine asked “Can We Talk About How Charming The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Is?” The unofficial consensus among critics and fans is that the show—much like Mad Men and Good Girls Revolt—can be added to the canon of period pieces that possess an uncanny resonance.
The series, written by Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, follows Miriam ‘Midge’ Maisel, a full-skirted domestic 1958 Jewish princess from the Upper West Side for whom perfection—or at least its patina—is a nonnegotiable. Midge waits until her husband falls asleep to remove her makeup and sets her alarm for dawn to reapply before he wakes up; she uses measuring tape to meticulously track and jot down the size of her ankles, calves, and thighs; and she finally—finally—gets the rabbi to come to her Yom Kippur breakfast, a worthy accomplishment for any good Jewish housewife.
By the end of the pilot, things take a turn: Midge’s mousy husband, Joel, leaves her for his secretary, but instead of getting a desk job or finding a richer husband, Midge semi-accidentally starts to test her voice at open mics nights in East Village underground comedy clubs, a fruitless passion of her husband’s. But she is good. Really good.
It’s a testament to Brosnahan that most people who watch Maisel assume she’s done stand-up or that it’s ignited an interest in doing so—she nails the loose-canon countenance that comes with amateur open mics and, later, the all-business confidence of holding an audience captive.
“The truth is no and no,” she says when I ask if she has experience with stand-up or aspirations toward it. “It’s a slightly different technical skill set—one that I’ve never really worked on and one that doesn’t always come naturally to me.”
“I’ve lost many jobs because people would say, ‘We really liked her, but she’s just not funny.’”
Based on Brosnahan’s past roles—namely as call girl Rachel Posner in House of Cards—for which she received an Emmy nomination as Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series—and the wife of a scientist developing the atomic bomb in short-lived WGN America drama Manhattan, even Sherman-Palladino wasn’t sure she’d be the right person to play Midge, a character whose primary motivation is to prove to everyone around her that a housewife can be funny.
“I had a casting director [in Los Angeles who] called me up and said, ‘I know there’s literally nothing on this girl’s resum´e that will tell you she can do the part, but I feel like it’s Rachel,’” Sherman-Palladino says. “You look at her [work], and it’s either drama or half the time she’s being tied to a post or thrown in a box or shoved in the back of a van. All very dramatic.”
Brosnahan agrees. “I’m laughing [at the fact that] I’m now an award-winning comedic actress,” she says. “Like, that feels absurd! I spent most of my life being told I wasn’t funny. I’ve lost many jobs because people would say, ‘We really liked her, but she’s just not funny.’”
Still, Brosnahan didn’t take that feedback personally. “It happened enough times that there was a pattern,” she explains. “I thought, Maybe I should listen to it. Now I’ve realized you can continue to learn things, even when you’ve formed a really solid sense of self.”
Her Maisel costar Alex Borstein, who plays Midge’s tough-as-nails manager at the comedy club, views Brosnahan’s background in drama as an asset. “She’s honest and vulnerable, and that’s what I think it takes to be a really good comedic presence,” Borstein says. “She’s got a tough sensibility—and some darkness in her. Having sarcasm and having that dark comedic sense usually comes from being an underdog or having some pain. It’s a muscle.”
Sherman-Palladino wanted whoever played Midge to be “infinitely watchable,” someone “you weren’t going to get tired of staring at after, like, five minutes.” Plus, she had to be the kind of actress who could click with the very specific rhythm and rat-a-tat pattern of Sherman-Palladino’s dialogue—a stylistic signature of all her scripts. To that end, every woman who came in to audition was required to deliver three key scenes from the pilot: the speech Midge gives at her wedding, the breakup with her husband, and the character’s first stand-up set.
Brosnahan nailed all three. “A lot of really talented, wonderful actresses came in for it—great girls that I hope to work with someday,” Sherman-Palladino says. “But Rachel…she knew these scenes inside and out. By the time she walked out the door, we were like, ‘Well, that’s our girl.’”
Dinnertime. Brosnahan zeroes in on the cheeseburger and, instead of the restaurant’s house-made chips, asks for fries. She’s especially excited to see her favorite ketchup—Sir Kensington’s—is provided. “They had a truck where you could sample their condiments outside of the Frances Valentine offices in New York,” she says. (Frances Valentine is an accessories brand designed by Kate Spade, Brosnahan’s aunt.) “I have a love affair [with Sir Kensington’s ], if I’m being honest.”
Over the course of our meal, Brosnahan’s culinary passion comes up several times. She tells me about her trips with Michael Zegen, who plays Midge’s ex-husband Joel, to an “oyster ramen cocktail bar” in Manhattan’s Hamilton Heights and the time she learned how to make artichoke pizza with Rachael Ray. Her best friend, Karlee Fomalont, cites the Dave & Buster’s and Shake Shack in Times Square as go-to spots for them when I later ask her about Brosnahan.
But there’s one story, about an encounter earlier this year, that makes Brosnahan “infuriated.” She was at an influencer event for Maisel, held at a Los Angeles Jewish deli, and helping herself to fries and latkes when a man came up to her and asked, “Are you sure you want to eat that? Don’t you have a dress to fit into?”
“It wasn’t the first comment this guy had made,” Brosnahan says. “He kept asking about my personal life and my relationship status, but in a really aggressive way—as if that was the only thing of value about me. He said things like, ‘You must have a man.’” Brosnahan reminded him that the event was about her work on Maisel, not her private life, but he continued to push. The comment about her body was the breaking point. “I was shoveling a latke in my face—and very thrilled about it, mind you—when he made the food comment,” she explains. “I said, ‘I am sure I want to eat that. I love latkes! Do you want one?’ I was trying to keep it light, but I would have loved to have had a great Amy Sherman-Palladino—style clapback. It’s only in hindsight that you think of these things.”
Brosnahan had the man booted from the event. “The guy was a jackass. It was so gross, particularly in a room centered around this show. It’s sad that this behavior still exists.”
During the past few months, Brosnahan has become acutely aware that her life—the one before the hit show, before the awards, before burgers with reporters in hotels—is different. She doesn’t feel famous, but there are times, like the latke incident, when she knows she’s under scrutiny. People know how to say her last name now. Doors are opening with opportunities. Living in New York allows her to still have some anonymity, but even that’s changing.
“I didn’t realize how much I was used to and valued utter anonymity,” she says. “Not that I need to be polished, but now I wouldn’t probably go to the grocery store in Midtown with zit cream on my face.” She laughs, because she’s done it before. Recently, during a breakout, Brosnahan put some “pink stuff” on her acne and went to her local dog park. “I thought, I’m not going to see anyone I know,” she says. Of course, as soon as she got there somebody asked, “Are you….?” Brosnahan panicked and said no.
“I don’t know why I was embarrassed. People have zits, and they put shit on them. But I was mortified. I felt so uncomfortable being a perfectly normal human being,” she says. “Why are we embarrassed when that happens? Everyone does that, whether in private or in public. I get mad when I get embarrassed about stuff like that.”
It was Miley Cyrus, funnily enough, who shared a similar story with Brosnahan at a press event that reminded her to keep things in perspective. “I hope I don’t butcher her words, but when she had a zit and wanted to put pink cream on it, she did, regardless of where she was. She felt it was important to show her young and impressionable audience that it was OK, and there’s nothing shameful about it. I found that really inspiring.”
Brosnahan has found one way to make this whole fame thing work for her: by bringing awareness to her passion projects, organizations like Global Citizen and Covenant House. “There’s a responsibility that comes with this increased platform,” she says. “None of us should be silent right now, but we also need to listen.”
When asked how she’d describe herself, Brosnahan chooses words like curious,ambitious, and open. It’s surprising, given that questions about her romantic life are off-limits. “I like to keep my private life private,” she says, without hesitation. “Maybe that will change, I don’t know, but I am blessed with a really rich personal life, so it feels important for my sanity to keep it separate.”
She didn’t expect to be so guarded—“I never would have considered myself that way”—but the more attention she got, the more she realized she was deeply uncomfortable sharing that side of herself.
“I’ve worked really hard to get here, but I’m also really lucky. Nothing happens without some stars aligning.”
Fomalont also describes Brosnahan as open, though only with the people she’s close to. “It’s a balance I respect so much,” she says. “Because the impulse is to overshare, but then you lose the things that keep you grounded. She’s able to stay grounded and rooted because of the personal stuff she keeps tied to her heart, but she is engaged. It’s a delicate dance.”
Part of it is that Brosnahan likes disappearing into characters, and it can be hard for an audience to separate the art from the artist. “The most exciting thing that anyone ever says to me about The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is that they didn’t realize that it was the same actress from House of Cards,” she says. “To me, that’s all I want.”
When the waitress approaches, asking if we’d like to see a dessert menu, Brosnahan is ready: “Yeah, of course.” The chocolate fondue—with fruit and a macaroon and ice-cream sandwich—stands out. (“If nothing else, the presentation alone is probably amazing. These guys really know how to throw a party.”)
While we wait, conversation turns to the Golden Globes and the moment Carol Burnett and Jennifer Aniston presented Brosnahan with her Best Actress award. “Annie was one of my favorite movies ever,” she says. “So [when I saw Burnett], I died. I’m pretty sure I went blank as I approached the stage.” As for Aniston, Brosnahan hadn’t watched Friends until two years ago. Now she’s seen every episode. “I love Ross so much! And Monica. I really enjoy the Geller siblings. I feel like I related to them the most because of their anxiety.”
That anxiety, Brosnahan says, never entirely goes away—even after winning a Golden Globe. “When we were shooting Maisel in Paris, I thought, I’ve got this. Then I got up there and was just as nervous as I was during the first season, equally horrified every single second. I was like, Shit, it never goes away.”
When dessert arrives, the spread looks like something Midge herself would have prepared for a dinner party. Each piece of fruit and cake is divided into perfect squares, like a delicious chess board. Before we ruin the illusion, I ask one last thing: “Much like the presentation of our meal, have the last six months been as amazing as it looks from my perspective?”
“There’s an element of fantasy—the fantasy of what this life looks like,” Brosnahan says. “I feel like I have one foot on either side of the fence, you know? I’m in a position where things are cool, but it’s all new. I still feel like a super-normal human being. I’ve worked really hard to get here, but I’m also really lucky. Nothing happens without some stars aligning.”
Hair by Ted Gibson at the Visionaries Agency. Manicure by Yukie Miyakawa at Kate Ryan Inc. Set design by Alex Brannian at Art Department. Makeup by Lisa Aharon for Chanel.
.gif)
