After Brittbaker graduated from Harvard Business School in 2016, her friends returned to California to plead for souvenirs: the best investment advice she learned.
Baker, 37, began with Living Room A Finance Club in Fairfax, California, and eventually became her current financial education startup, Dow Janes. But the wisdom she drew at those early club meetings didn’t actually come from business schools, she said. It came from her parents and grandparents. He instilled the importance and dynamics of managing money wisely from an early age.
Not all Baker’s peers were that lucky, she said. In fact, research shows that many parents in the US rarely teach their children, especially their daughters, about managing more money than packing a piggy bank.
More than half of Americans said their parents didn’t discuss money with them in a 2024 fidelity survey. Furthermore, a 2021 Cardratings.com survey found that 22% of female respondents had never received such education from their parents compared to 15% of male respondents. The 2024 PNC Investment Survey found similarly that at younger ages, female respondents received less guidance on wealthy strategies than male counterparts.
These education gaps have led to lower financial literacy rates among women in the US, particularly those belonging to Gen Z.
Their involvement has skyrocketed as the global turmoil surrounding Trump’s tariffs, particularly consumers who are unfamiliar with managing their money, have surged to guide them.
On Instagram, financial education accounts like Dow Janes use everything from infographics to trend meme formats to repackage complex economics concepts for public consumption. In recent months, topics of special interest, such as Trump’s tariffs and the threat of a recession, have been gaining more attention.
The goal is to get more financial content right in front of you, Baker said.
“The more people talk about money, the more serious it becomes, so it’s better,” Baker said. “Yeah, I’ve heard of high-yield savings accounts for influencers, so I’ll look it up now.”
“That’s not scary [they’ve] I’ve heard it mentioned many times,” she said.
Dow Janes’ YouTube and social media posts are primarily made up of what Baker calls “Building Block Content,” covering the essentials of funding, from creating a budget to improving your credit score. Anyone can access these materials for free.
But for those looking for more personalized coaching and guided learning, the startup offers $1 million, a 12-month financial literacy course. Price of $4,000 – 50% off those who choose to attend the Dow Janes webinar after attending it – Baker said the program is a self-study video curriculum.
The million dollars are the Dow Janes’ major revenue streams, supplemented by occasional live events and Zoom retreats throughout the year. Baker refused to reveal financial details about the company, but she said Dow Janes is a full-time gig for both herself and co-founder Laurie Anne King.
“We really hold your hands throughout the whole process,” Baker said. In addition to completing solo homework, participants will attend weekly opening hours and coaching calls, as well as monthly “mindset calls.”
“It’s not just ‘how to save the emergency fund and how to save it,'” Baker said. Instead, Dow Janes encourages members to shift their long-term habits by healing their relationship with money.
For program participant Meg Collins (72), the psychologically informed approach was something she felt lacked from the series of financial courses she had completed before she found Dow Janes.
Collins is no longer just tracking her spending, she said, “But I understand why I’m buying things and what the trigger is for me.”
In a program exercise where Collins wrote to “Mr. Money,” she found that she accused her father of not teaching everything she knew about salvation and investment. She then accused the education system of not chasing her.
“For some reason, guys get together and talk about investment,” Collins said, but the younger women are rarely included in those conversations and they are behind.
Financial educator Bernah Anatto said the pattern of women who do not have an institution through finances is rooted in history.
Anat, a self-proclaimed “woman with financial hype” and author of “Money Out Loud: All Financial Things No One Tells,” said people, especially first generation women, can build sustainable wealth, aiming for financial content aimed at beginners.
ANAT earns between $65,000 and $125,000 a year as a “Finfluencer” or Finance Influencer through primarily speaking engagement and brand partnerships.
Bay Area-based creators do not have a finance certification or business degree. This is transparency on social media. Over the years, however, she has built over 100,000 followers on Instagram, bringing funding content to a younger demographic than most financial gurus usually reach.
As the first generation daughter of Filipino immigrants, Anat said she is familiar with the obstacles that women like her historically pursued financial freedom.
“It was like a generational age since I couldn’t even get my credit card,” she said. “So there are so many catch-ups that women have to do, not because we have worse money or our logistics and mathematics. [but] Because we have become structurally and intentionally able to understand money, access our own money, and empower ourselves. ”
However, women tend to internalize that knowledge gap, leading them to adopt the “money is bad” identity, Anat said.
“We blame not being as good at money as our male peers,” Anat said. [down] Anyone in the boys’ club, from fathers to sons to granddads. ”
ANAT has acknowledged that “Finfluencers” alone cannot and should not close the gap, given that they are not bound by the same legal and ethical standards as certified financial planners, certified public accountants, or tax lawyers.
Regulatory bodies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Investor Advisory Committee in recent years, have promoted a broader classification of “Finfluencers” as statutory sellers and investment advisors, imposing a higher code of conduct. However, many people are still protected through regulatory loopholes, such as providing only impersonal advice that is not tailored to a particular client, or issuing such advice free of charge.
Even “venfluencers,” technically subject to the Federal Trade Commission and SEC guidelines, often benefit from regulatory bodies that lack the bandwidth to fix it, Baker said.
After graduating from California State Fullerton in 2022, 25-year-old Alice Samoilovich felt she had the right handle for savings. But when “Finfluencers” like Tori Dunlap from @Herfirst100K began talking about wealth building strategies and investments, she thought, “Oh, I need to catch up.”
That sense of panic has worsened when she and her peers recently began to see a sharp drop in their 401K plan due to stock market fluctuations.
Everyone was thinking, “Why is it so much lower than before?” Samoirovich said.
As the daughter of an immigrant who grew up in Orange County, Samoirovich said she was not taught much about managing money. Even today, her friends rarely talk about finances.
However, as the current administration “stopping into an increasingly intense international situation,” Gen Z falls into debt, with little prospects for home ownership or sustainable retirement, Samoirovich fears the economic future of the United States.
In a recent Bureau of Advisors survey, 40% of Gen Z investors surveyed said they felt worried about their ability to pay their bills over the next 12 months, citing loans and debts as competing financial priorities. Additionally, 77% of Genzers report concerns about the US economic recession over the same time frame.
Anat said people began leaving comments on her longtime videos and asked her to explain what a stag is or how to prepare for a recession.
Given the widespread panic, she said it was an “all hands-on deck” for online finance educators.
Baker also sees Dow Janes’ social traffic rise, and registration for the Million Dollar Year program is younger than it was in the past. (The typical demographic for a startup is women between the ages of 30 and 50.)
Of the Dow Janes’ 8,000 current program members, Baker said anxiety is growing.
Regarding what they should do in the face of this economic uncertainty, Baker said, “What we’ve always come back is to control what you have control.”
Maybe tariffs will promote the market, but “if you’re investing on the horizon for enough time, the market is generally, historically, rising over time.”
