When was the last time you learned something new? (Are you learning about money right now, and that’s why you’re here? High heckin’ fives.)
If it’s not literally happening right now, it’s easy to forget how scary and intimidating it can feel to step into something as a total beginner, especially when you feel like you’re the only person who doesn’t know The Thing (you’re not, but it’s easy to feel that way).
I know this all too well, because I am in the middle of learning a new thing. It’s not money, but it did come up (indirectly) at stnce’s launch event last week.
If you weren’t there, or I haven’t gushed enough about stnce, a financial literacy initiative to empower women to take ownership of their finances. The goal is to help women build confidence around money by making it more approachable, which I am so here for. In fact, at the launch event, I even spoke about this on a panel with Jessica Moorhouse, Kristen Wood, and Rubina Ahmed-Haq.
One of the questions we discussed was:
“What makes you feel confident with money?”
There’s a lot I could say about it, including that building knowledge over time has been helpful, as has seeking out both expert opinions and people “in real life” who are willing to be open with me about it.
But I did that over ten years, at different paces based on where I was in my life. “Start ten years ago,” isn’t exactly the most actionable advice out there, ya know?
Luckily, there’s a much more useful way for me to frame why I feel confident with my money. All I have to do is think about it in terms of makeup.
See, I am new to capital-M Makeup.
How new?
I first heard about the Urban Decay Naked palettes this fall, I didn’t own a Beauty Blender until Christmas, and I still think most makeup brushes are totally unnecessary. Feel free to argue with me in the comments and convince me otherwise, but my hands are really heckin’ good at putting things on my face and they’re free.
However, it is a Thing I Want To Learn.
I’d like to have it as a skill, even if I only trot it out for special occasions and the odd day I actually work in an office, not from the comfort of my home. I also just think it’s fun! It feels like socially-sanctioned dress-up for your face and I think it’s delightful.
But…
Learning about makeup is heckin’ terrifying
…and it’s for a lot of the same reasons that learning about money is terrifying.
It feels like everyone already knows this stuff. When you’re a beginner with makeup or with money, it’s easy to assume that everyone already knows the things you don’t—and a natural part of learning is that you are literally discovering facts you did not know, underscoring that you did not know them.
It’s so technical I feel like there is no end to what you need to know and learn. Um, this morning I put a thing called hyaluronic acid on my face, and if you had asked me to tell you what that was two weeks ago, I would have said “maybe a thing that dissolves bodies on a crime show on TV, or a cleaning product?” It’s for moisturizing, kind of.
There are so many choices and a lot of them seem the same but maybe they are different? Even the drugstore makeup aisle has more products and choices than you could feasibly learn all about in a lifetime. Add in Sephora, and online stores, and I think that’s a pretty good mirror of how it feels when you know you need to invest your money and you’re immediately drowning in acronyms and accounts and techniques and terminology.
But since the stakes when it comes to makeup are way lower than the stakes with money, and the worst that can happen is that I buy the wrong shade of foundation AGAIN, I’ve actually been able to put one thing in perspective.
The whole reason this feels so intimidating is that I feel like I should know this already.
Which is so easy to feel about money, and it’s a lot harder to raise your hand and admit it on the internet. But whether it’s makeup, money, or anything else you’re just starting to explore, consider how bananas this all sounds.
“I’ve never learned about makeup, but I feel like I should know this already.”
“I’ve never learned to speak Italian, but I feel like I should know this already.”
“I’ve never learned how to code, but I feel like I should know this already.”
“I’ve never learned how to manage my money, but I feel like I should know this already.”
It’s easy to write that out and be like “Wow, how silly is that?” but I do still feel it while I’m learning something new. That’s why it’s so important to talk about.
The more we acknowledge there’s no reason you should know something if you’ve never learned it, the easier it’ll be to take steps to actually learn it. Click To TweetAnd speaking of, here are three great steps to learn about money or makeup (and probably a lot of other things too).
Step 1. Start with the basics
You’re not going to put on fake eyelashes perfectly on your first try (I really wish I had photos of my first attempt) and you don’t need to start investing by reading fifteen financial books and going over the financial statements for every company you look at.
Whenever you’re new to something, start small. That’s exactly what I did with money, by opening an online bank account. Seems tiny, right? But it made me feel like “I Was A Person Who Was Good At Money”, and that confidence was what helped me do the next thing, and the thing after that.
Step 2. Do your own research
When you’re facing the overwhelm in either situation, my favourite first step is to do a bit of learning on your own. You can Google “What does primer do?” or “What even is an RRSP?” in the comfort of your sweats. Google doesn’t judge, pals.
I’m also a big fan of asking people you know IRL to have a casual chat about money, but a very good word of caution came up in the Q&A session at stnce’s launch event: Be careful who you turn to for advice. Asking your friend who always complains that he’s broke for money advice maybe isn’t the best strategy—so make sure you’re being intentional about who you ask.
Step 3. Ask people who know the products for help
Here’s the thing. People who are selling you things are actually pretty heckin’ knowledgeable about the things they’re selling. You need to go into the transaction understanding how the salesperson makes money but asking for free advice in exchange for buying a thing is something you can do in both the money world and the makeup world.
When it comes to makeup, you can ask for advice figuring out which shade of Nars concealer works on your face, because Bridget totally convinced you on her Instagram Stories that it’s the best… but it’s also $40 and you want to buy the right one the first time.
When it comes to money, you can go to a bank and ask for help figuring out financial products like insurance, mortgages, and RRSPs. The same goes for seeing a commission-based insurance agent or mortgage broker! Yes, they are selling you something and getting paid for their work based on what you buy, but that doesn’t mean they can’t also help you figure out the products you need—you just need to understand the relationship.
And maybe go into it with all that solo research you did earlier so you’ve got a baseline amount of knowledge.
Step 4. Pay for advice when the stakes are high
Last but not least, the gold standard of learning about either makeup or money is to pay an expert, especially when the stakes are high.
I know my makeup game is getting better and all, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to pressure myself to nail it on my wedding day for photos that I hope to have around forever. Nope, I’m calling it and handing my face over to a professional (and after the wedding, I’m probably booking a makeup education session with her too, because yes, you can pay people to teach you how to makeup).
The same very much goes for money.
If you’re nervous about how to handle “A Big Money Thing”, like having kids, buying a house, or planning for retirement, your best bet is to pay a professional for their advice and their help. Paying for money advice isn’t just for rich people, and it can be the difference between feeling truly confident in your choices and living with that unsettling “But am I really doing it right?” feeling.
For more tools and resources to help you become more financially confident, please visit stnce.ca.
Do you have any other tips on how you’ve approached learning something new? I’d love to hear them in the comments!
For most of this post, heck yes. I love this XKCD comic, and it’s referenced as one of the first modules in the investing course — for everything you “should” know, you have to learn it at some point, and there’s no shame if that point hasn’t come yet for you.
I’ll disagree on the third point though. Many people selling financial products don’t actually know much about those financial products (particularly bank branch salescritters pushing mutual funds). And financial products are unlike a lot of the rest of our daily experiences: we don’t start out with as much background knowledge without an effort to educate ourselves, and we don’t rapidly find out by trial-and-error that the salesperson wasn’t a good one and sold us the wrong shade of foundation. You can go to a car dealer and they can help you pick a car for your needs and budget, and may even have new vs used options. And, you’d intuitively know not to go to a car dealer for a bicycle or bus pass. But if all you know is that you have to “solve your transportation needs”, without that background knowledge you may find yourself at a car dealer to get a bus pass and walking out the door with a used Chevy Cobalt.
For #2 — this is a good place to also reference your sadly-deficient-in-Value-of-Simple-recommendations-but-otherwise-good Resources page. You don’t have to put your fate in Google’s hands when the very person writing the inspiring article you’re reading has already done some curating!
I love that analogy, and you’re absolutely right—I may have let my own experience with awesome mortgage and insurance people skew this a bit too much towards the “people know things” since I, too, have experienced the exact opposite of people knowing things at a bank branch, lmao.
On the other hand, I’ve also had really great service at banks. I think it really does come down to the person. My main point is that the sales angle doesn’t always mean you won’t get what you need. Plus, a lot of people do still use these models to handle everything in their financial lives, so I think knowing how to approach them, and being prepared to do your own research, is valuable advice since people aren’t going to stop using them anytime soon!
I will also say that I meant that section in terms of general guidance and information, and I think that even if you are paying for unbiased advice (which I go on to recommend for any major decisions in Step 4!) the onus is still and always on the consumer to understand who is giving them advice, and what the advice means. There’s really no getting around needing more than one source of information when it comes to money.
Also, OH MY GOD I DIDN’T LINK TO YOUR BOOK?! That page and list clearly needs some updating and I’m going to update it tonight, lol.
You are not alone; I learned about makeup at the end of 2016. My tip is to find a friend with similar coloring as you who has a makeup look you like and ask them for advice. What they use / don’t use / why. It’s a great starting point then after you build a bit of confidence, you can explore from there.
There are other ways of learning, of course, but that approach helped me a lot. And I used to use my fingers too; the beauty blender has changed that. Have fun learning!
Thank you so much Daisy! And yes, the beauty blender wins my grudging love and approval, even though it’s a makeup tool, lol. I’ve also started trying out eyeshadow brushes by ordering a few from ELF – they’re affordable enough that I don’t feel rage about it! (But with precision stuff like that, there are some cases where even I have to admit there’s some value in a brush – just not like, $40 per brush.)
If you’re still in the market for brushes, I recommend Sephora’s under their own Sephora Collection line for bang for your buck. Not all of them – generally the ones labeled PRO are too high-priced – but the double-ended ones or the brush sets are affordable. Also, NYX brushes are cheap and pretty good quality.
Desirae, if you are interested in both makeup *and* saving money, you are going to want to look into Deciem/The Ordinary for skin care. They do not do makeup (other than foundation) yet, but anyone who knows about makeup knows that THE most important part is good skin! Having read you for some time, I suspect that you will love the origin and model of this business: the owner saw how elevated the prices were for products that use rather inexpensive, scientifically proven ingredients, and pared everything down to essentials for a low price. Have been on this for 2 weeks and paid a fraction what I used to for products and my skin has never been better! (No, I do not work for them…. :))
Where to splurge: nothing beats Dior AirFlash for foundation. It is pricey, but SO good and lasts a very long time and is worth it!
Good luck!
Oooooh this is so helpful, thank you Basia – and sorry for the delayed reply! I JUST found out about The Ordinary and grabbed a few things to try out. I haven’t noticed a huge difference, but I’m committed to trying it out long term! (And their sales team was SO helpful, I must have looked like a deer in the headlights when I went in, lol.)
I am just learning all the makeup lingo too! I think a makeup budget is in order especially on those YouTube videos where the dump a drawer of blushes!
Hahaha totally! I’ve definitely found myself allocating more of my fun spending towards this stuff – I also recently sat down to Youtube-learn how to paint my own nails, which is something I NEVER was able to do. Seriously, it looked like a drunken toddler tried to do them. My first attempt after actually watching some technique videos wasn’t too bad, so now some of my budget is also dedicating to playing around with that stuff too 🙂