Women are not the only ones who need a ‘F**k Off fund’

Some months ago, I read a headline in a newspaper; a variant of “I keep secret money from my husband”. The anonymous case study had, unbeknown to her husband, siphoned around €6,000 to a secret bank account: not to spend on handbags, cocktails or girlie holidays, but as a sort of “insurance” fund in case of divorce, hardship or any other of life’s unwelcome curveballs.

Newspaper comment sections are rarely the most edifying outposts of the internet, but in this case the verdict was especially damning. “How selfish! How would she feel if her husband was doing this?” wrote one. “If you’re taking money that someone else is earning and then hiding for yourself, it’s actually called stealing,” reasoned another (in the piece, the case study had in fact earned her own money). Others couched it in nefarious speak, dubbing it “a committal of financial infidelity”.

The verdict was in: money and marriage are linked inextricably, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a woman being financially dependent on another person. What's mine is yours and yours is mine = good. Secrets and lies in a marriage = bad. Furtive financial strategising now that there’s a ring on it = whatevs.

Sounds sort of romantic, doesn’t it? This pooling of resources. The joint bank account. Except this is precisely the kind of thinking that has hobbled women – emotionally, psychologically and fiscally – for years.

In the UK, there are 4.5 million secret savers, with women more likely to keep money hidden from their partner. But it’s not the preserve of the scheming temptress, or the duplicitous lover of luxury handbags. The “F*** Off fund” is a relatively new concept, but there are reasons galore why a woman – whether single, married or otherwise – should have one. And a fondness for luxury leather goods isn’t one.

Much as its name suggests, a “F**k Off fund” is a financial cushion that allows someone to start life afresh. US writer Paulette Perhach coined the term, espousing the merits of practising financial self-defence.

Good luck to you if you never need it; if those coffers remain unstirred in the bank. But life has a way of backing us into a corner sometimes, and an eject button comes in rather handy in many scenarios: the time your boss strokes your leg inappropriately. The time your boyfriend, whose name is on the apartment lease, promises blind that he won’t slam your head into a cupboard again. Any instance in which one is caught in a bear-trap and staying is not an option. Or at least, less of an option than if you had €75 in the bank. The “F**k Off fund” allows a person to breathe and reboot without having to ask for the financial help from someone else. It isn’t “committing financial infidelity” – it’s being sensible.

In some ways, the “F**k Off fund” has always been with us. What is an engagement ring if not a financial safety cushion? Some see a talisman of unending love; others an upfront financial assurance from their man. An insurance policy. Is Perhach’s concept really that radical a leap?

Yet the bald truth is that it’s not just women who need a “F**k Off fund”. Men, too, are victims of domestic violence and abuse (1 in 25 Irish men experienced severe physical abuse, according to 2015 figures). They are also not inured from the slings and arrows of the modern-day workplace, handsy boss or otherwise. And what about that dream listing on Daft.ie turns out to be a kip covered in mildew? Or the freelance job that evaporates into thin air through no doing of your own? Or the time after nursing a sick parent or loved one and you’d give anything for a pause button?

I’m not quite sure why there’s something about a woman “committing financial infidelity” that still gives people reason to be sniffy.

But having a "F**k Off fund" or adopting a sort of every-women-for-herself approach to personal finance doesn't mean she has one eye on the door. Or that she's counting down the days until she can shrug off her existence and live like Alexis Carrington in Hawaii. The ideal scenario is one in which the fund is never deployed. Siphoning earnings into a place where no-one else can get them isn't a sneaky act of subterfuge. Rainy days are coming, one way or the other. Having an umbrella is one's own lookout.