Financial
Planning For Women A Must
By Karen Squires
It appears that the wage gap among genders is
there from the beginning. Women's wages, retirement and pensions are less
than a man's and it starts as soon as we enter the work force as teenagers.
Results from a poll show that half of teenage girls make less that $6 per
hour and only 34.1% of teenage boys do. 33.5% of boys make more than $7.51
per hour but only 19.2% of girls do.
According to an informational card called FACTS ABOUT.
• In the year 2000, women earned only 73% of
every dollar men earned. A woman who has graduated from college will earn
$23,000 less over her lifetime than a male performing the same job.
• Two thirds of the 7.2 million elderly women living alone have an income of
less than $15,000 per year.
• In the year 2000, women who were over 65 years of age were twice as likely
as men to live below the poverty level.
• 25% of older women rely on Social Security as their sole source of income.
Women who stay at home to raise their children are often penalized for
taking care of their families. Men stay in the work force from teenage years
to retirement. Women often work as teenagers and throughout their college
years, then stay home and raise the children. It can take 5 years to make up
for lost wages and retirement for every 1 year a woman takes off work. While
both working outside of the home, and raising the children, are a necessary
part of our society and family life, raising children is often seen as "less
than", "not as important as," having a job.
While men in the workforce are building
retirement plans, there is no retirement plans for a woman who stays at home
with the children. It's sad that our country does not value the care that
mothers provide for our children, and the future of our country, more than
that. For women that do work, the situation is not much better, as retired
women only get 1/2 as much pension as men do. And even worse, 50% of working
women have jobs that provide no retirement at all.
Women who stay at home with the children often
don't give much thought to retirement. They are sometimes unaware of what the
future can and will hold for them. The may believe that their husbands
retirement will take care of them. This may or may not be true. According to
the National Center for Women & Retirement, 80 to 90% of women will be solely
responsible for their own finances at some point in their live, mostly due to
the death of a spouse or divorce. According to Sen. John Ashcroft (R-MO), 2/3
of women over 65 have no pension other than Social Security, and we all know
how much we can count on that.
Men nor women can count on Social Security, and
the stock market can be a risky way to plan for the future, especially if you
are not educated in finances, and most people aren't. According to
www.Ihatefinancialplanning.com , 56% of women are afraid to learn about financial
planning because the topic seems complicated and they don't feel confident in
making financial decisions. But to trust that your husband's employer, or
yours, is handling investment's wisely, and count on that as a comfortable
retirement, is risky. There is a saying that the reason financial advisors are
called brokers is because they are often broker than we are. They sometimes
don't understand the market very well themselves and we are all trusting our
futures on their decisions.
Regardless of your marital status, you should
take a look at your retirement seriously. Fortunately women today are better
educated and can learn how to take care of their finances. Make sure that your
future is taken care of whether your husband is working and investing or not.
Become involved in the planning, ask questions. Do you know where the money
is? Do you know how to access it if your husband were to die suddenly? It can
happen.
Become financially intelligent by reading books and taking classes in
finances. I suggest you start reading the Rich Dad, Poor Dad books by Robert
T. Kiyosaki, he's written many. Check your library for the titles available
and read them all. You are capable of finding a physician to take care of your
health, so find a financial planner that specializes in helping women, and
take care of your finances. If that idea scares you, or if you don't have any
money right now, start with reading and learning, it's free. The children grow
up and you will find yourself back in the workforce. Become educated in the
meantime and know what you are going to do with your money when you get some.
June cleaver never gave much thought to
retirement, she let Ward do it all. That wasn't as dangerous then as it is
now. Ward no doubt worked for a firm that had a DB retirement plan, or Defined
Benefit. This plan defined a set dollar amount that Ward would received after
retirement. For example, if Ward worked for 40 years he would get $1000 a
month after he retired for as long as he lived. With inflation that may or may
not be a comfortable income. Today most companies have a DC plan, or Defined
Contribution. Your company matches your contribution. If you contribute
nothing, you get nothing. If you do contribute, your contribution is often put
into the stock market by your company. You may retire with a lot of money or
you may retire broke, depending on what the market is doing and/or how well
your money is managed.
Consider your stocks as the tires on your car.
They are great and certainly necessary. But would you drive around without a
spare in case one or all of your tires went flat? No! Have other ways that you
are investing your money for retirement, like income property for example.
It's a good idea to have some of your financial
planning separate from your husbands. The divorce rate is at 50% and that
makes it imperative that you are taking care of yourself. I got married back
in 1980, and I thought that it would last forever. I was divorced 7 years
later. I was a single mother, no education past high school, and a toddler to
take care of. I spent 10 long years going to college and barely surviving. I
learned the hard way. But I was also lucky as it taught me that life can
change in a second. I went from middle class to surviving on $300 a month. I
learned that lesson as a fairly young woman so I had plenty of time to make
changes and plans for the future. I can't even begin to imagine how difficult
that lesson would have been if I had been 65. At some point in 9 out of 10
women's lives, they will be the sole income earner. I am now becoming
financially intelligent. It is a long process and I have so much to learn. But
I am taking it one step at at time.
Another reason to have some financial planning separate from your husband's is
life span. Women often live longer than men. You should consider the
possibility that you may live into your 90's. Where are you going to get the
money to survive on for that long? Scary thought, isn't it. Don't put it off
any longer. Become financially wise now.
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article and let us know where you published it. This article first appeared in
The Wise Mother magazine, published in Salt Lake City, Utah.
http://www.motherchronicle.com email karensquires1@msn.com
