Women's salaries are lower, and their expenses are higher. Here's how to push back

Equal opportunities

Just as there are ways to avoid the pink tax, there are ways to narrow the gender pay gap.

Pérez recommends asking co-workers, especially white men, what they make so you know how much money is available. Meanwhile, keep a list of work achievements that you can bring to negotiations.

Depending on how long you've been at your current pay level and whether there are other problems with your workplace, you might eventually decide to find another job, a proven way to boost your salary (in Minnesota and many other states, it's illegal for a prospective employer to ask about pay history). Pérez recommended no more than a year and a half of negotiating with a current employer before deciding to work elsewhere.

But also: Do what you can.

"When we have financial wellbeing we can negotiate harder, we can say no to a job that's not going to pay us fairly. But a lot of people don't have that opportunity," Feinstein Gerstley said.

Timothy LaPean, a financial planner focused on working with women and LGBTQ people, has a range of advice for those building financial stability from the ground up. He advises not abdicating financial control to a partner, being cautious about gendered family caregiving expectations and being aware that cutting back on work can mean lost Social Security income.

LaPean also eschewed the idea of a traditional budget — which can result in feelings of failure if it doesn't work — and advocated instead for automating as many expenses as you can, including savings, and then giving yourself an allowance.

"Uncovering what's valuable to you and what you want out of your life and how to support that can make it a lot easier to work toward stuff," he said. "It's not just, 'Oh, I want to retire and play golf.' Who relates to that?"

LaPean said sometimes you have to recognize that you live in an unfair world that might be "racist and homophobic and sexist" and deny you certain opportunities or deal you more struggles than others. But you just have to keep in mind what will help you "focus on joy" and "be able to weather the slings and arrows" of everything else, all things being unequal.