Saving up for transition expenses

Saving up for transition expenses is one of the actions that a nonbinary person may take early during their transition. Depending on the individual's gender dysphoria and other feelings about their body and appearance, some nonbinary people seek a physical transition. A transition may be very expensive, particularly if it includes surgery. Worldwide, health insurance often doesn't cover surgeries that are just for transgender people. As a result, the person has to save up to pay for it out of pocket. This page is written to be helpful for such people, even if they are youth who haven't had much experience with or education about personal finance.

Personal finance basics

Schools could do a better job at making sure that people have a solid grasp of how to take care of their own money (personal finance) by their teens. Young adults tend to learn about it mostly by making costly mistakes. For this reason, this article talks about the basics that make the foundation of good money sense, as well as those that are specifically relevant to transition expenses.

Attitude

You need money sense in order to survive. Understanding your finances needs to be something that you do for yourself because nobody else cares as much about your financial well-being. Never take for granted that any other person or institution will take care of this for you. Taking responsibility for your own finances is part of being empowered, independent, and capable of dealing with your problems. Much of good money sense is founded upon having a healthy attitude about money, rather than being fearful or ignorant about it.

A lot of people see money as a taboo topic, not appropriate for conversation over a meal. It is true that some parts of it are private matters, such as how much you paid for things, and especially how much money you make. Your friends aren't allowed to pressure you into talking about the specifics, because that's rude. It's okay to just say "That's private" and change the subject. However, you can talk to others about other aspects of money, and it's important that you do, in order to learn about it and to help one another. Interview your friends and family about things like tips for saving money. Write it down. You might also arrange a club in which you and your friends meet once a month to each talk about your progress toward savings goals. Telling other people about your goal can help you stick to it.

Some people see money as a taboo topic because of spiritual reasons. The Biblical saying that "the love of money is the root of all evil" (Timothy 6:10) means that if a person cares more about money than other things, their greed can lead them to do things that are heartless. Money itself is neither good nor bad, just a tool meant to be less cumbersome than a barter system. (Imagine having to trade your cow for some medicine.) If you're concerned that it could make you heartless, work on developing your moral compass along with your money sense. Think about your financial decisions in terms of ethical choices. Wise money sense can keep you on an ethical path by preventing the money mistakes that drive someone to do wicked things out of greed or desperation.

It's possible for a person to have lots of money and expensive things, and still feel unhappy, sick, or lonely. In that sense, money doesn't buy happiness. Meanwhile, poverty is stressful because it makes it difficult to take any kind of action, so one feels helpless about every problem. Any of the bad things that can happen to a rich person are worse when they happen to a poor person because poverty means having fewer resources to deal with problems. It's easier to be happy if you can afford your survival needs, pay off your debts to others, and save up for your big goals in life.

Don't see your financial situation as hopeless, as there's no such thing, even when it's as bad as it can get. First, get out of denial, and face the problem in all its detail. Next, talk about it to people you trust instead of keeping it a secret. Find out what actions you can take to address your financial challenges, and start doing something about them, rather than giving up.

Money mistakes

One of the worst mistakes you can make with your money is to be inattentive about it or to be ignorant or in denial about it. Here are some of the different forms this inattentiveness can take:

• Having little piles of spare change and gift cards in different places in your home. You don't know exactly how much, or where. Even if you did know, it's the worst way to store it. This makes it so you don't have a sense of control over your money.
• Using a credit card just because you don't know how much money you have left to spend. Or using cash, but finding out you spent it all without even realizing it. You don't know what's going on.
• When you get change from a cashier, you casually stuff it into the mysterious depth of your bag or pockets, without putting it away neatly. You often find your change after it had a trip in your washing machine.
• Relying on somebody else to completely control your money. This is the opposite of financial independence. It's an unhealthy kind of dependence called "financial infancy." It can be part of an abusive relationship. The victim lacks the resources they would use to escape it, and the abuser holds total power over their decisions, telling them that they're not smart enough to live on their own.
• Relying on someone else to bail you out when you make money mistakes... and you keep on making those mistakes. It's good to have someone you can count on to help you in a crisis, but it's bad to treat that as plan A rather than plan B.
• You're only aware that you don't know anything about your financial situation, and this either makes you feel afraid and unsafe or unreasonably comfortable and dreamy since you're dissociating yourself from it.
• Feeling like your financial situation is hopeless, so you can't bear to look at it in detail. You think there's no use in taking action to make it better, so you do nothing. You intentionally try not to think about your money