Self Advocacy in Finance: Take Care of Yourself AND Your Money

Let me get a story of annoyance out of the way first. I had some free time this week so I went to my doctor’s office about a charge I have gotten when I shouldn’t have. Specifically, this charge was for an appointment I made to get assessed for ADHD. That charge was there… along with a “follow up” charge for over $300. When I hadn’t seen or spoken with my doctor for ALL of 2021.

At first I called the billing department and got a code review. When I called back a second time, they told me they completed the review and the bill still stands. Unsatisfied, I called my doctor’s office and spoke with the front desk, who similarly did nothing. Finally, I went in person to speak with the office manager. Going this route should only be done if you’ve already exhausted all other avenues to resolution. (Hence why it’s the height of entitlement for Karens to treat this as the default.) While there I spoke with a nice practice manager and said the following:

I wasn't informed that my doctor voluntarily asking me questions about things in my chart would be charged as a separate evaluation. I would like to know if this extra charge can be waived as a misunderstanding. Going forward, I'll know not to discuss anything unrelated to what I scheduled an appointment for. How can I follow up with you on this bill?

He was really great, said he understood the issue, and that he’d reach out to me the next day for further steps. That was the most progress I’d made yet. After I thanked him and wandered back to the parking lot, I found myself saying aloud “This self-advocacy is for the birds”.

What is Self Advocacy?

Advocacy itself is the term for when a group of people come together to champion a specific cause. The civil rights movement involved advocating for equal treatment regardless of race. The suffragette movement involved advocating for giving women the right to vote. Both movements required a lot of advocates and a drawn-out strategy to earn their wins.

Self-advocacy, then, means advocating for yourself. Like the above movements, self-advocacy is especially rooted in another one: the disability rights movement. I note this movement as being the most impactful, yet underrated, movement for making change in recent history. Disability rights activists are responsible for several of the mobility aids you also have access to and benefit from. These include working elevators, ramps, and widespread health initiatives (including vaccines).

As it turns out, mobility aids and expanded access does not limit helpfulness to those with disabilities. Curb cuts are my go-to example here, which are these things that let the sidewalk meet the road:

You can see a curb cut in this article’s cover image as well (this image is from Wikipedia). They sure do help people in wheelchair or with other mobility tools, like walkers and canes. Know who else they massively help?

• Caregivers pushing strollers
• Travelers with a rolling suitcase
• Movers hauling bulky items
• Delivery workers who have their hands full
• Toddlers still getting the hang of walking
• Kids riding bikes and skateboards on the sidewalk
• Me, when I’m using a dolly to get curbside finds into my apartment

Disability rights initiatives help out society as a whole, as the curb cut effect demonstrates. Especially those in society who will become disabled in the future, as disability can happen to anyone. Knowing this, then, makes it all the more important to become skillful in self-advocacy.

Self-Advocacy in Finance

Honestly, advocacy in any form inherently sucks. Whether it’s my advocating against an unjust medical bill or thousands advocating against an unjust Congress bill, it’s an uphill battle to receive what you believe is fair and just. It takes energy and strategy to accomplish. It also (unfortunately) normally takes much longer than it freaking should to get changes made, often only occurring once you’ve escalated it to the point of nausea.

Advocacy is also, at the end of the day, absolutely essential to your financial well-being. In the disability rights movement, self-advocacy centers on participating in civil processes and being clear about what accommodations they require. Self-advocacy in finance centers on being clear about your financial well-being and looking out for your best interests. If it helps, consider your financial well-being as your own required accommodations. A high salary is part of my required accommodations to work for a company (no trying to scam me out of my labor). For companies I do business with, I require honest and straightforward financial transactions (no trying to scam me out of my hard-earned dollars).

You NEED to advocate for yourself in the world we live in. Having this skill in your wheelhouse makes your professional life, relationships, one-off errands, and budget management run smoother than warm butter.

How to Practice Self-Advocacy in Finance

When it comes down to it, self-advocacy in finance means getting your point across in an undeniable manner. Self-advocacy goes a lot better if you maintain your cool at all times; that means minding your manners and treating everyone else with the respect they’re due. Look, people are empathetic. People also like to be at peace and happy. This is why they like calm and peaceful interactions, and why they get nervous and jumpy when dealing with someone who’s nervous and jumpy. Make it easier for everyone involved by maintaining awareness of your actions and how they’re perceived.

Nobody can read your mind or intentions. They can, however, read your body language, tone of voice, and exact verbal communication pretty damn well. You won’t help your cause if your form of self-advocacy involves storming in with guns blazing, demanding the poor entry-level clerk fix some issue they had nothing to do with. Be nice until it’s impossible to be nice, which is a conclusion that almost never happens.

As a self-advocate, you’re also going to come with research on top of being nice. Be pleasantly persistent about how you’ve read signed forms/contracts/market data/historical records that tell you what you’re advocating for is doable. When killing them with kindness isn’t enough, killing them with hard facts and figures will.

When does self-advocacy work financially?

Negotiating your pay

Salary negotiations are the biggest one. Negotiating sucks, yeah. Us Americans aren’t used to bartering anything; doing so with our pay feels awkward and scary. It’s also the easiest way to put literal thousands of dollars in your pocket. My own salary negotiations gave me a 7.5% “raise” right off the bat when I first joined my current company; this was thanks to me negotiating an extra $6,000 on the proposed $80,000 base salary.

Disputing incorrect charges

The process for disputing charges at most companies is deliberately difficult. At best, it requires either an email chain about the issue or a phone call with long hold times. Pro tip: as long as you’re kind to the customer service people, they will bend over backwards for you because everyone else is so irate at the difficulty they take it out on them. Don’t abuse strangers and you get rewards. Simple.

Building a complete LinkedIn profile

Self-advocacy in finance also involves getting the high-paying jobs you want in the first place. My reaching six-figure pay in my 20s wasn’t an accident, but it also wasn’t impossibly difficult to reach. That pay was literally me taking a MODICUM of control in my career.

That modicum comes with a name: LinkedIn.

If you want more money, you should be on LinkedIn more often, frankly. It’s worth it. Yes, even with the weird corporate feel-good posts all the time. Even with the initial discomfort at putting your career path out there. If you don’t have connections, there is nothing better than to have an up-to-date and active LinkedIn profile.

Securing Flexible Working Arrangements and Sabbaticals

Sometimes shit happens, and you realize you need to either have more flexibility at work to deal with this or temporarily step away entirely. Other times, you still want that flexibility or sabbatical because you want to go enjoy life already. Doing both or either requires a happy, polyamorous relationship between self-advocacy, your work obligations, and your financial picture. And once again, negotiation rears its ugly head. In this scenario it’s very much doable, even while in your 20s and “early on” in your career.

Self-Advocacy Leads to Helping Others, Too

American culture comes in all flavors, but with some commonalities connecting them; self-advocacy is one of those things, like speaking about finance at all, as something distasteful. Credit goes to Puritan/fundie insistence on “putting thy neighbor above thyself” for all that damage. The best way to help others is if you’re helping from the best position you possibly can yourself. That means, in the context of self-advocacy in finance, to make helping yourself a priority. You deserve to thrive, friend.

It’s your will, or lack thereof, that determines your fate. “If it’s meant to be, it’s up to me,” and all that jazz.

You see play out in everything from fairy tales to larger-than-life biopics. Think of any story in which the protagonist faces incredible odds to triumph in the end. Do you really think they would have triumphed if Fate had to physically drag them, kicking and screaming? No, their own desire to see it through was an integral part of their success. They didn’t have to have that desire at the start, either. Plenty of heroes refuse the call or don’t otherwise feel up to it until later on. What matters is that they do, eventually, have that desire.

I bring this up as an assurance to you, if you haven’t ever prioritized self-advocacy before. It’s not too late to prioritize this and implement it in your life. There is always going to be room for improvement and boosting yourself closer to your goals and dreams.

Cover image credit: Tezzarah via Unsplash