Quincey Reese, Editor in Chief
One of the challenges young adults face when moving on to college and a career is managing money. Penn-Trafford graduate Alicia McElhaney found this to be true but responded by co-founding an online blog and newsletter that has received national recognition.
McElhaney, a 2012 P-T grad who is now employed as a finance and business journalist, said she used to struggle with financing her own life. Graduating early from the University of Maryland as a journalism major, she took a job at The Deal, a company with whom she had previously interned.
There, she covered healthcare in Brooklyn, NY. Although she said that this was a “pretty niche and boring” topic to be writing about, it was still a good fit for her.
However, McElhaney said she was struggling financially. She began to talk with friends and co-workers about this to see if they could offer any words of advice, but found that they were facing similar difficulties.
“After having some conversations online with friends, I realized that there wasn’t any sort of publication out there that talked to smart women about money,” McElhaney said. “There are quite a few that are super basic, including lots of listicles on things to buy or not to buy, but there was this huge hole where actionable financial advice should have been.”
Over time, McElhaney said she learned how to manage her money in a more effective manner, but she still wanted to do something to help people who were in the position she once was in herself. As a result, she pulled together with two others to do just this in 2017, a year and half after starting her first job.
With the help of co-founders Amanda Eisenberg and Jemma Frost, McElhaney created an online blog and newsletter called She Spends with the mission “to tackle the wage, investing, and board seat gaps,” according to their website. She added that they have a focus on helping women with money in a way that they feel respected, as well as encouraging them to take on leadership roles at major companies.
In addition to the website, She Spends has an active Facebook group (@shespends) where they answer viewers’ questions. They also hold occasional events, such as panels with women talking about finances and more casual get-togethers. McElhaney explained that these events help with networking and creating a community surrounding their newsletter.
McElhaney said that She Spends has received a mostly positive response since its creation, as she said there is a definite need for this type of resource. Their work has been cited and profiled in a variety of news outlets, including Adweek, Bustle, CNBC, Talking BizNews and Well & Good. McElhaney herself has been selected as one of Empower’s Top 50 Women in Personal Finance for her work with this newsletter.
She added that she has heard personal stories from women who have succeeded with negotiating raises and wages based on tips provided by She Spends.
“People are actually using our advice to get raises or start investing,” McElhaney elaborated. “It is so cool that based on reading our website and being in our Facebook group, women and non-binary folks are making major forward steps with their finances.”
She continued that “in journalism, you don’t always get this opportunity, but it’s the best part of the job.”
Each week, She Spends releases a new issue with four main components: [What] Is Happening This Week, She Represents, She Saves, and She Spends.
In the first section, finance news from the past week is detailed, while She Represents puts a spotlight on women in the business world. Fulfilling the main goal of She Spends, the She Saves section shares financial tips and advice in a way that makes sense and does not come across as overwhelming. The final section is similar to a “money diary” where viewers of the newsletter anonymously submit information on their finances and how they manage them.
Along with the upkeep of She Spends, McElhaney’s job at the company Institutional Investor involves writing daily stories on how big institutions invest money, also referred to as asset management, and how stock pickers can mindfully invest in the market.
McElhaney said she is also completing a certificate program online to gain more credentials in the background of business, a beat that she became interested in covering after having internships at USA Today and The Deal during her college years. Although the workload of each of these responsibilities adds up, she said that she is able to handle it as a quick writer.
McElhaney said she hopes to see She Spends extend to an even larger age range as it continues. In addition to Facebook, they can be contacted on Twitter @she_spends and Instagram @shespends. The newsletter can be found at https://shespends.org.