It’s About the Money, Honey

5 min readFeb 13, 2020

Hoping for the best is not a valid financial strategy, lady

One of the biggest issues facing women as we age is MONEY. It is also one of the least talked about issues facing women, both by women themselves (61% of women would rather have a conversation about their own death than talk about money) and by society at large.

We live the longest and we have much smaller nest eggs for retirement. If you’re asking yourself “Is this such a wide-spread problem? And is it really that dire?”, read the following sentence a couple of times:

While a typical retirement costs $738,000, only 9% of American women have at least $300,000 saved.

So less than 10% of us have even HALF of what we’ll need for a comfortable retirement. If you are a gal, 50+, with your retirement costs all covered, 1) you can stop reading right here and 2) I have an investment opportunity we should talk about.

The numbers around this make for chilling reading:

Women are 3 times more likely to live in poverty in retirement than men
Women over retirement age are 80 per cent more likely than men to fall into poverty in their retirement years
Women amass retirement savings half of that of men
The net worth of the average man at retirement is $1,055,000 greater than the average woman at retirement

In 2017, median income for women age 65+ was $19,180, compared to men of the same age, whose median income was $32,654
64% of women say they’d like to live to 100, yet most fear they’d run out of money. In fact, 42% of women are afraid they’ll run out of money by age 80.
While a typical retirement costs $738,000, only 9% of American women have at least $300,000 saved.
Only 10% of women say they feel extremely financially secure, and half say they fear losing everything they have and becoming a “bag lady” living on the streets.
Women earn 80 cents for each dollar a man earns. But, much more significantly, a woman has 32 cents of net worth to a man’s dollar.

“If the difference in men and women’s pay is a “gap”, then the wealth difference can only be described as a “chasm”*.

And for those of us who would prefer to believe ‘things’ are getting better — bad news. A 2018 report found that net worth for older women, adjusted for inflation, has actually declined over the past two decades. We, women, are actually poorer than we were in the 90's!

Poverty Impacts on Women’s Health

The correlation between poverty and mental health problems is universally recognized in the psychiatric field. Research has repeatedly shown that low income and low socioeconomic status are associated with high rates of mental disorders, such as depression, PTSD, anxiety disorders, panic disorders, and agoraphobia.

In addition, studies show that living long-term with limited resources and financial challenges result in shame, isolation, and higher chronic levels of stress hormones which we now knows results in physical ailments and disease.

Your Financial Trajectory

Women need to get over their distant relationship with money

Your future depends on what you do today; if you haven’t already, take steps to bend your financial trajectory upward.

Face your fears: When you try to ignore your fear, it grows. When you face it, it shrinks. While avoidance can feel easier in the moment, do NOT think for a minute that your subconscious is not helpfully working on this. Even if it does not have the accurate data to do so, it is diligently plugging away in the background, with it’s own version of the Jaws soundtrack, brewing up a nice stew of low-lying dread.

Name it: Name the fear you have around money and your financial future. Sometimes just articulating what it is your fear is gives you the strength to deal with it. Naming it and/or writing it down can take away some of its power over you.

Get a sense of proportion. How big of a deal, really, is the thing you’re afraid of with respect to your finances? When you are already in a state of anxiety, a psychological process known as potentiation can amplify your fear response, making unexamined issues loom even larger in your mind. Do a tally of what’s going on with your finances, get a sense of proportion and take some of the fear out of it.

Have a positive-yet-realistic attitude. Positivity helps create a stronger, can-do mindset that will help you tackle whatever you’re facing. Unrealistic positivity, relying heavily on just hoping for the best and letting ‘the universe’ work it all out for you is not a strategy. The universe is probably too busy to keep you out of insolvency if you’re not going to help out.

Get informed: Women’s financial literacy trails far behind that of men. The overall investment business does not target us nearly as much as potential clients and the “women media” devotes almost no page space to the topic of investing and finances, so it might not be on your radar, but we have to educate ourselves.

Take action: action builds confidence, quells the anxiety and is moving you toward better outcomes — all good stuff! And don’t worry. It doesn’t have to be enormous, full-solution action right out of the gate; even small steps can make a difference. The key is to get started.

“Thinking will not overcome fear, but action will.” ~W. Clement Stone

Ask for help: overcome any fear or shame that you may feel around this and get the guidance and support you need. Easier said than done, but think of the alternative; a bit of temporary discomfort now to avoid a long retirement future of regret.

Resources

Women Invest In Your Financial Literacy — investing essential

(US)

The Financial Literacy Organization for Women and Girls (FLOW) is a charitable organization dedicated to (US) empowering females of all ages to achieve their financial best.

The Women’s Institute for Financial Education (hate the URL acronym, but whatever) is a non-profit