Money Advice For Women

Encompassing Money Advice for Women Is Our Gift

What Holds Us Back?

Other Myths and Misconceptions

The White Knight hasn’t been the only obstacle to women gaining their financial freedom. It’s perhaps more pervasive because it is an emotional or psychological deterrent. But for generations, a fistful of other myths and misconceptions has worked against women taking this very important next step in their liberation.

Here’s a sampling of some of the most common investment falsehoods. See how many of them you’ve believed.

• The Market Savvy Myth: Smart investing requires that you become an expert in the stock market, that you follow individual companies and develop a clear sense of what and when to buy and sell.
• The Myth of the Big Bundle: You need a lot of money in order to invest productively.
• The Credit Card Myth: You need to pay off your credit cards before you can invest.
• The Social Security/Pension Myth: You don’t have to worry about your future because Social Security, a company pension, or some other program will always be there.
• The Tax Myth: Your taxes will be lower when you stop working.
• The Femininity Myth: Competent investing isn’t very feminine; it draws on qualities and skills that don’t come naturally to women.

I frequently hear this thinking from women when they are justifying their financial inactivity to me. But how did we come to believe these falsehoods? Actually, it was easy, because we haven’t really stopped to consider what went into the development of these myths.

But if you continue to wallow in the investment-myth swamp, you’re going to sink. Government statistics tell us that more than 90 percent of the women in the United States will either remain single or be widowed or divorced at some point in their lives. Unlike our parents or grandparents, you can no longer rely on your employer to take care of you because fewer and fewer companies have huge pension plans for their workers. The reality is that you’re going to have to be the caretaker of your financial future, and for the first time in history, what you have is what you’re going to have to secure your future.

Yet with this responsibility of caring for your financial future comes great opportunity. Never before in history have women been able to take control of their money lives. This moment is inspirational, not fearful; joyful, not filled with regrets, because it represents newfound freedom and a deepening sense of who we are. But in order to take your place in history and to be part of a financial revolution for women, you’ll want to discard the myths that are still in place, despite the changes that have occurred for women in our society.

The Market Savvy Myth

Many women have expressed feeling guilty and apologetic for not having mastered investing. I can almost rattle off the gibberish before I hear it: “This is too complicated for me to understand.” “I don’t do numbers.” “I just mastered my checkbook, and now you want me to do this?” “I majored in English and never expected to do financial stuff.” “You know, I get all these millions and millions of pieces of paper from brokerage people, and I can’t sort it all out. I get confused.”

Face it, we aren’t talking about quantum physics here, and you don’t need an advanced degree in mathematics or economics in order to understand your investments. Instead, start simple. I often say, “Start by opening a savings or money market account and put your money in.” Once you’ve accumulated some money, then you will be ready to consider an investment. As time passes, compare the purchase price of your first investment to its current price, and each quarter, keep track of how it’s grown. And when you understand this first investment and get really good at keeping up with this choice to grow your money, you might want to add some more. It’s really that simple.

If you have a bunch of investments that are all over the map, pare them down to four or six—a small number you can handle and easily track. I’ll be discussing the mechanics of investing in future articles. This is to get you started. Right now, the basic lesson is straightforward: Investing doesn’t have to be complicated.

Certainly, knowledge and a little study can’t hurt and could prove to be very helpful. It’s always good to inform yourself before taking on any situation, whether it’s a trip to the doctor, a job interview, or an appearance in traffic court. But it isn’t necessary to go back to school to learn how to invest. I am encouraging you to make your own choices, be guided by your knowledge, and trust in yourself. This way, you can have a long-term conviction as you plan investments for your future.

The Myth of the Big Bundle

I can’t begin to tell you how many people ask me, “Do I have to have a minimum amount of money to invest?” I tell them no, and I emphasize also that it doesn’t matter how rich you are or even how old. The point is to develop momentum from wherever you are. It’s better to start young, but having some money when you’re older is better than having none at all.

How young is young? Let me tell you about my friend’s son, Sam. When he was eleven years old, he set up a lemonade stand in our driveway during our town’s annual summer art fairs, which take place on our street in the downtown area—called Old Town—of Los Gatos. Easily more than a thousand people attend, and many found their way to Sam’s stand. Sam used his own money to purchase cases of lemons—at wholesale prices—at the farmer’s market, and my friend took Sam to Costco to buy paper cups and sugar. And because the art fairs are hot, thirsty events, Sam could charge $1.50 a glass for the cold drinks.

Sam found that he could earn nearly $500 for each of the three weekends he was in business during four summers of street festivals. Sam’s family showed him that 50 percent of Sam’s earnings will go to his savings account; he can spend the other 50 percent. Sam chose an index fund to invest his money and it has flourished to about $3,500 from his investment and its growth. Two years from now, when Sam turns sixteen, he’ll have enough in his account to buy a used car. He’s learning the investing steps and will surely take good care of a car he has purchased with his own money.

Sam is so proud of his investments that he spread the gospel to my two little nieces, aged nine and eleven. The girls came to my home some years ago, and I took them shopping at F.A.O. Schwarz in San Francisco. I gave them each $100 to spend. Well, the older one, Katie, announced in the toy store that she was going to spend only half of her money and that she didn’t want to go a penny over because she wanted me to take the other half and start an account just like Sam’s. My other niece, whose name is Molly, quickly piped up and said, “Me, too.”

Last summer, two little girls down the street started their own weekend lemonade stand during the neighborhood festival. They, too, charged $1.50 a glass. A few days later, I ran into the girls on the street, and I paused to ask the older of the two, who looked to be about nine years old, whether they had had fun selling lemonade. She said they did. I asked if they’d made money, and she told me that she and her cousin had earned $200 for the weekend.

I said, “That’s great. That’s a lot of money. Did you save some of it?”

“Oh, no. We wouldn’t know how to do that. We don’t do that in my family,” she responded candidly with big, blue, wide eyes. “We just put the money in our pockets and buy whatever we want.”

“Well, maybe you could try saving some and maybe turn that into a lot more,” I said, trying to encourage a little financial education in the young.

Once again she replied, “We just don’t do that in our family, and besides, my cousin’s already spent her $100. I have mine in my pocket to buy whatever I want.”

Unfortunately, here’s a girl whose family remains mired in old beliefs, and she’s unlikely to begin saving and investing at a really young age, as Sam and my nieces did. But she has years yet before her investing time becomes critical. Let’s hope she’ll one day tuck at least half of that hundred bucks into a savings or money market account instead of her pocket.

Wall Street put out the myth that you need thousands of dollars in order to dabble with investments. It’s in its own interest because large investments generate large commissions. But as you can see from Sam and my nieces, anyone can get in the game—and with any amount of money. The same principles apply whether you have a big bundle or a small stash.

Lisa, Maggie O’Neal’s twenty-four-year-old roommate, was also adrift in the credit card bog, literally living from paycheck to paycheck. She had been working for about two years for a software company since graduating from college and knew her money was slipping away. Maggie told her about my talk after she returned from the Ranch, and Lisa called me.

As we spoke, she felt she could hold on to $100 from her paycheck. A hundred dollars, though, wasn’t even enough to get a piggy bank excited, she thought. But it is. With that money, she can open a brokerage account and put it into a money market fund. With a little patience, she can watch her fund grow until she has enough money to move into other investments. Or, I suggested to her, she can join an investment club, an increasingly popular option for women who want to get started in investing. Many such clubs have monthly dues of just $50. With the support of other women in the club, she could learn more about investing, and they can help her make decisions about money matters.

Lisa decided to do both. She started a money market account and found an investment club to join. Now Lisa is on her way to sound investment strategies, and perhaps she will be a solid influence on Maggie spending habits.

The Credit Card Myth

Credit cards, the Dracula of the financial world, drain assets out of our lives at an alarming rate. Put another way, a credit card is like a cheeseburger: It’s full of fat (interest), clogs your arteries (debt), and makes you feel sluggish, and it adds nothing to your general health.

And like fast-food burgers, credit cards are slickly marketed. As soon as women entered the workforce in large numbers, banks launched massive campaigns to target these wonderful new consumers and offered credit cards—sometimes free of charge. With plastic in hand, women took shopping to new and glorious heights. Credit card companies taught us lessons about spending, such as the notion that “if something isn’t new, it isn’t good.” Do you want to know just how much we’ve been spending with our credit cards?

According to the Federal Reserve Statistical Release, we charged more than $3.5 trillion in September of 2015 alone.  (November 2015 Fed Release).  US revolving debt mostly made up of credit card balances (98%) — increased by about $2 billion in Sept to $925.2 billion. Some people have more racked up on their credit card balances than they earn in a year or even two years, and credit cards have been a primary factor in the alarming increase of personal bankruptcies. It’s time to rethink our spending habits and begin to evaluate what we buy and what we choose to do in life based on lasting values—the joy or peace we derive from a possession or an activity— and not just on the momentary thrill of spending. For example, instead of spending a lot of money to go skiing, why not take out your bike and go for a long ride with a friend, your husband, or your family? Think of the stress you’ll avoid: You won’t have to worry about packing and rushing to an airport or driving long hours to the nearest slope.

Similarly, maybe you’d choose not to go to a stadium to watch a football game and have to deal with traffic, crowds, and possibly bad weather—to say nothing of exorbitant prices for tickets, food, drinks, parking, and souvenirs—when you can watch the same game in the comfort of your home with a bunch of friends.

In short, forget what credit card companies—and a million consumer-oriented television commercials—have taught you. Vote to simplify your life and make “fun” and “inexpensive” virtues, and avoid “costly” and “stressful.”

And consider this: While credit card companies were encouraging us to spend, how many women were saving or investing? Not too many. Women today are earning more than they’ve ever earned, and some are catching up with men. But women buy more than men and save half as much. When they do save, it’s usually for major purchases: a vacation, a home-remodeling job, jewelry, or a child’s education. In the meantime, they take the plastic and slide into debt.

The worst credit cards are the high-interest bankcards, such as MasterCard and Visa. Unless you pay off the balance each month, you’re stuck with excessive interest as well as the principal from your charges. And now some credit cards are opting to charge you a fee if you pay off your balance each month!

Many banks are now offering lower interest rates for their MasterCards and Visas and are encouraging cardholders to consolidate charges from old cards onto a new one. This can help as long as you take two crucial steps: (1) Never again use the higher-rate card, and (2) make a commitment not to run up a large balance on the lower-rate card.

But that seldom works for credit card junkies. Here’s what happens: You leave home with a virgin card—no charges. You feel invincible, full of power. With a card in hand, you can go anywhere in the world and buy anything you want (within your limit if you have one). After all, that’s what all the glamour ads on television tell you.

The only problem is, you start to lose track of what you’ve been racking up because a credit card is like play money. All of a sudden, you’re in debt and all your other financial responsibilities take a tumble as well as you try to deflate the credit card balloon.

Soon you think it’s hopeless, that you’ll never emerge from credit card hell, and investing is the last thing on your mind. That’s how Maggie feels.

I suggest not using bankcards unless you pay in full each month. Instead, use American Express—a card whose balance you must pay in full with each statement—and pay with cash as much as possible. It is a myth that you need a credit card. When yours is full, you can go for months without using one, and by paying cash, you can more easily keep track of your spending. And, yes, it’s possible to avoid credit cards altogether. You can rent a car and stay in the best hotels by paying cash—you’ll just be required to put down a hefty deposit, which will be returned to you when you pay your bill.

The twenty-first-century thing to do, though, is to use a debit card. A debit card looks and feels like a credit card, and companies like Citibank and your local bank are issuing them. You can rent a car, stay in a hotel, eat in your favorite restaurant, buy airline tickets, shop in any store. But with the debit card, you can spend only as much money as you have in the bank because the cost of your purchase is immediately deducted from your checking account.

With a debit card, you won’t be paying off credit card bills— you’ll be spending your own money. You’ll also have a better sense of reality about your financial life because what you spend is yours and not plastic “play money.” Just remember, though, that while you’re out shopping, the money you’re spending from your account also has to be used to meet other obligations, such as rent or mortgage, transportation, utilities, and whatnot. You can’t falsely assume you have a credit line because you don’t. What you have is a checking balance. Use your debit card to spend within, not beyond, your means, as so many people fail to do with credit cards.

Used the right way, a debit card can lead you down the path of “spend less than you earn and invest the difference”—the first of the financial jewels. Plus, you may also find extra cash in your pocket because you won’t be paying those exorbitant interest charges of 20 percent plus that come with credit cards. If you don’t like to carry around large sums of cash, and if you don’t have a debit card, sign up for one.

But if you stick with credit cards, I suggest that you not wait until you’ve paid off your card debts before you begin saving money and planning investing. Why? Because it’s easy to stay stuck in the cycle of never being able to pay off your credit cards, and so you put off investing forever. Besides, for many women, it doesn’t “feel good” to pay off credit cards—it’s an obligation, not a joy. But it does feel good to invest because you know you’re building your future, and that’s sweet. My wish is for you to have the psychic reward of seeing your savings and brokerage account balances grow each month as soon as possible. I think that once you’ve experienced this, you’ll be hooked for life.

The Social Security/Pension Myth

In my parents’ generation, when people retired, most employers provided them with some lifetime income. My father is an example.  He worked as a hospital administrator. He had a pension plan plus substantial savings from the income he earned during his career. So he knew that he and my mother would be able to live comfortably once he retired. Similarly, my father-in-law worked for Sears, Roebuck, and his company assisted employees with financial planning and pension plans. He also enjoyed a comfortable retirement.

Unfortunately, this practice has gone the way of vinyl records and black-and-white TV sets. Just look at Silicon Valley, the mammoth computer, and electronics industrial center. It is one of the hottest areas of economic growth in America. Virtually none of these companies in Silicon Valley have traditional pension plans. They mostly offer 401(k) plans, in which employees actively participate in making investments and managing their invested dollars, and they have no guarantee of future income.

Other workplace trends are diminishing our financial security, too. Back in my years in graduate school, I worked for the state treasurer’s office in Nashville, Tennessee. One employee came to work each day, sat at his empty desk, and read The Wall Street Journal for the whole of his days. He had been appointed to his position by a political friend. He had absolutely no job responsibilities and could not be fired. And I’ve heard similar stories from people in private business—tales of “Old Bill,” who never did any work but coasted toward retirement thanks to a lenient or friendly boss. Back then, even less-than-hardworking employees could usually expect their employers to be there for them.

Well, kiss those sweet days goodbye. Today, there is no place in the United States where you can go sit and have long-term job security; foreign competition and the heightened scramble for profits in every industry have made sure of that.

Furthermore, even for those who have steady jobs, corporations are no longer in the business of guaranteeing your job and long-term financial security. There are several reasons for this. To begin with, the federal government has made pension and qualified plan rules so complicated and the administration of these plans so costly that many employers no longer want to offer them. To make matters worse, some firms have badly mismanaged pension funds and have been hit with lawsuits from angry employees who lost their life savings. In one such instance, an executive used the company’s pension funds, purchased numerous paintings by LeRoy Neiman, and hung them in his house. So cash was not available in the plan as employees needed it. 

The most famous example is the company, Enron.  The company lined up grief counselors who helped employees when the company 401(K) plan was more than half invested in Enron stock and the stock plummeted to worthless.  The company employees lost nearly a billion dollars.

According to the National Association of Plan Advisors, in the 12 months ending Oct. 1, 2012, more than 300 investigations resulting in $1.27 billion in fines were levied by the United States Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA).  EBSA reports as many as 75 percents of 401(k) plans that it audits are out of compliance. Last year, EBSA’s enforcement efforts resulted in more than 3,500 civil investigations.

Just as employer pension plans have slowly evaporated, Social Security has become beleaguered. Initiated as a ray of hope for Americans who would otherwise starve in their old age, Social Security has mutated into an almost unmanageable monolith. In 2014, over 59 million Americans receive d almost $863 billion in Social Security payments. Nine out of ten individuals age 65 and older receive Social Security benefits.  But with the first crop of baby boomers—the largest aging population in the history of this country—reaching retirement, it is greatly feared that the Social Security trust fund will be empty. All the money you contributed during your working years— easily more than $50,000 for the average person—is cash you might never see. Many baby boomers realize that they won’t be able to depend on Social Security to survive and that they will need to continue working well into their seventies and even eighties in order to maintain their current lifestyles and financially support themselves.

When you combine pension woes with the fact that few people actually save money, the enormity of the problem is evident.

The United States has the lowest savings rate of all the industrialized nations; only half of those who work actually save, according to a study by Merrill Lynch. Women are especially lax in this area. The Merrill Lynch study showed that only 26 percent of the women questioned were saving for their future, while 29 percent were saving for their children’s education, 27 percent were buying cars or making home improvements, and 9 percent were saving for a vacation.

When those wage earners grow older, their lack of savings, coupled with less job security and a lost income, will push some into poverty. Eighty percent of the population retires below the poverty level, and 70 percent of the elderly poor in America are women. Sadly, many of these women were once part of the middle class and led affluent or comfortable lives.

Our parents worked hard, saved, and built as good a life as they could for their children, and if they were fortunate and planned carefully, they left work on good pensions, Social Security benefits, and whatever investments they had made along the way. Many baby boomers have yet to think about their nonworking years, and because we live longer than men, women, in particular, are at a critical juncture in addressing their financial concerns. And with so many women today deferring childbearing or not having children at all, the issue of who will care for us if we can’t care for ourselves is a real concern.

This all means that we’re going to have to be solely responsible for our financial futures. The state of your financial health is up to you.

And you know what? That’s a wonderful prospect because it means that women finally have claimed their seat in economic America! Let me repeat, women are finally staking their own claim in their own future.

The Tax Myth

Many retirement plans are based on the assumption that your financial needs will drastically diminish when you ease out of working. One of the major reasons for this assumption is the belief that income tax becomes negligible when your working days are over.

If you believe that when you stop working, you won’t have to pay taxes because you won’t be earning a salary, don’t count on it. If you’ve managed to accumulate, say, $100,000 in an IRA over the years, you’ll be paying ordinary taxes on that cash when you withdraw it. Depending on where you live, you’ll probably end up with only about half of your $100,000 once you factor in state and federal taxes. This is true whether you have an IRA, a Keogh, or a 401(k) plan. I’ll show you exactly how these qualified plans work. Social Security benefits are also taxed, and the rate and level of these taxes will likely increase over the next decade as lawmakers scramble to find ways to protect the solvency of the U.S. Treasury against the unprecedented demands of baby boomers and federally mandated programs.

Therefore, if you want to keep the same lifestyle that you now have, and if you don’t want to cut back on any of the things that give you joy or simply make life a little easier, you’ll need to receive the same income that you now have—and then some. Thus, you’ll be in the same tax bracket that you are in now—or perhaps you’ll be in an even higher one if taxes go up in the future.

The Femininity Myth

Some women—and some men, too, of course—believe that investing is a man’s game; they believe it is not very “feminine.” Of course, the way we are brought up is a major reason for such myths. As we’ve already seen, most girls aren’t taught much about money by their parents. And what they do learn at home is often oriented more toward spending than toward saving and investing. Although men’s financial education is far from ideal, it tends to be far better than women’s.

If a woman received any sound financial advice at all when she was young, it probably was to start a savings account when she began working and to add a little to it from each paycheck. Nothing wrong there. Except for today, with interest rates so low, a savings account is not a good way to grow cash. A simple alternative might be a money market fund. But that sounds too complicated to some women, and so they stay with the lower-interest bearing savings account. I mean, how many people actually go out and say, “I’m going to open a brokerage account with a money market fund and start doing some serious saving here”? Very few. Unless you know how to open a brokerage account—an investment account that is similar to a checking account—it’s easier to blow it off.

Other stereotypes feed the problem. For example, schools historically tended to shortchange girls, especially when it comes to math. Gender bias in schools has been well documented by both educational and governmental agencies and widely reported over the years in the media. In a hundred subtle and not-so-subtle ways, most schools discourage girls from pursuing high achievement in mathematics or economics. We have seen documentation that accounts for counselors steering girls to “easier” subjects, like English literature or home economics (translation: cooking tuna casserole), and teachers who have often failed to call on girls for answers or encourage girls to participate actively in math classes. Math scores for the Scholastic Achievement Test (SAT) mirror the imbalance.. 2015 SAT test results confirm pattern that’s persisted for 40+ years — high school boys are better at math than girls, an uninterrupted trend that dates back to at least 1972. High school boys outperformed girls on the 2015 SAT math test with an average score of 527 points compared to the average score of 496 for females.  The statistically significant 31-point male advantage this year on the SAT math test confirms the pattern, and and persists the 35-point average SAT math score gender gap favoring boys over the last 25 years.  Even Mattel, the toy company, unthinkingly reinforced the problem by creating a talking Barbie doll programmed to complain, “Math class is hard!” Do you remember that?(Fortunately, protests by women scientists and mathematicians forced Mattel to alter Barbie’s message.)

Why does all this matter? Let’s face it—investing is, in part, a numbers game. You don’t need trigonometry or calculus to manage your personal finances, but if you become anxious at the very sight of a column of figures, you’re likely to transfer some of that anxiety to investing. So when a young woman who has been discouraged from learning math grows up, she sometimes grouses about balancing her checkbook and often turns to her father, husband, or companion for help with her financial decisions. This is even borne out by statistics. A  survey by Oppenheimer Funds found that 66 percent of the women questioned said that investing was “too complicated.”

Of course, the stereotypical belief that investing isn’t feminine is completely false—a relic of the tainted old days. It’s like saying that a woman who plays sports is not feminine, or that a female who practices law or flies in a space shuttle is less of a woman. As role models like Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Sandra Day O’Connor, and Sally Ride have shown us, just the opposite is true. Each is more of a woman because she’s expressing herself more fully.

I found myself attending a seminar in Michigan a few months after my trip to the Ranch. There was a cocktail party for the participants, and June Mendoza, who had shown little interest in financial matters when we met at the Ranch, was there with her husband, Steve. We were happy to see one another and began chatting.

I could sense that June was a little on edge. I thought perhaps her daughter Ellie, who had been battling an eating disorder, was in trouble again. But this was not the case. It seemed that our encounter at the Ranch had had a greater influence on June’s thinking than I’d imagined. She was percolating with change—or at least the idea of change—but was frustrated because part of herself remained trapped in old thinking. June steered me away from the group we were in; we huddled close to a wall so we could talk more privately.

“Look,” she began somewhat tentatively, “I don’t know if I should be talking to you about our family business. Deep down, I guess it isn’t something a woman needs to be involved in.”

My eyebrows rose. “Why is that, June?”

“Well, you know,” she said, peeking over her shoulder to make sure no one was listening. “It’s so . . . so . . . well, I just think investing is something I shouldn’t have to do.”

I knew it would take time to convince June otherwise, so I invited her to lunch the next day so that we could speak at length. But she declined.

“What are you so concerned about?” I asked gently.

After a long silence, June replied, “Frankly, I’m not so sure I like the way my husband is handling our money. I’ve thought maybe I could do it, but then I’d have to do all these things by myself. I don’t know.”

“Why do you think this is something you can’t handle? It isn’t brain surgery, you know.” I laughed a little to lighten things up, but June remained solemn.

“It just is,” she said, shaking her head. “Investment choices—mutual funds— interest rates—dividends—it’s too complicated. I can’t do it.”

“No,” I replied, “what I hear you saying is that you don’t want to do it.”

Oh, poor June! It was easy to see how torn she was. She wanted it all to work out but without taking the initiative to make it happen. She wanted the bread to get baked, but she didn’t want to put her hands in the dough.

But at least June was beginning to ask questions and to entertain the idea that she had other choices. I invited her to call me if she wanted to talk further.

There are many more Junes in the world—women who have lived most of their lives strongly believing that a brush with that old male bastion of finance might diminish their femininity. The wiser approach is for women to stop thinking of investing as task-oriented, focused on “getting things done” and “making final decisions”—and they’d better be the right decisions! Instead, create a more fluid vision of investing as a potentially pleasurable process, an act of love. After all, if you think about it, looking after your financial health is a way to express your self-love, your belief that you are special and worthy of a rewarding and comfortable future.

In reality, investing is one of the most feminine things you can do. Smart investing draws on the skills and strengths considered to be classically “womanly.” It requires a combination of insight and intuition, observation and feeling, concern and conviction. Some in the financial community would have us believe that investing is just too complex and mysterious for a woman to handle. Baloney! If you can run a household, organize a closet, run a Parent-Teacher Association meeting, or shop shrewdly, you can be a successful investor. If you can tough out the bad times in a relationship and have the wisdom, patience, and understanding to make a love affair or a marriage work, then you’ve got what it takes to generate cash for life.

Beyond the Myths

So much for these myths.
In the end, you and you alone are responsible for your financial security. You and you alone have the power to decide how to govern your money matters. Yes, there is a tremendous amount of hope for your future, but it’s in your hands—it won’t be realized by waiting for the White Knight to arrive or wishing that he will magically appear. You’re well on the path to learning more about managing your financial future.

Having altered your thinking about the myths and misconceptions of investing – what’s holding you back – you’re now more open to choosing a strategy and getting really excited about nurturing yourself with your money. No matter your circumstances, you’re in a position to fix whatever hasn’t been working and improve whatever has. Financial security is within your reach.

The real joy comes from knowing that you’ve taken charge of your destiny and that you’ve begun to understand the power of money and your power as a woman in these times. Everything else is a bonus.