can’t just continue to rely solely on what we have relied on before, because it doesn’t work,” remarks Lynn Robinson, a Massachusetts- based “business intuitive” who advises executives on how to use their intuition to make better business decisions. “We are all looking for a deeper knowledge base, and that means looking within.”
Setting the Stage
The shift comes at a time when, according to national statistics,
women are facing unprecedented fi nancial responsibility. According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, January 2010 marked the fi rst time in U. S. history that women comprised more than half (50.3 percent) of the workforce. Fifty-seven percent of all current college students are women, according to the American Council on Education. Thirty-eight percent of all working wives earn as much or more than their husbands, as of the 2009 Shriver Report. Nearly 16 percent of wives are the sole family breadwinners. Meanwhile, women
continue to do the bulk of the housework (97 minutes per day for married women, versus 29 minutes per day for married men, according to a 2009 study by Vanderbilt University).
Despite these employment trends,
women still make roughly 80 percent of what men do for the same work. Complicating the situation, when it comes to making fi nancial decisions, many females still tend to be fearful, naïve and disempowered, according to fi nancial health guru Suze Orman. “Women have been thrust into an entirely new relationship with money that is profoundly different than anything we have ever encountered before… Yet when it comes to navigating the fi nancial ramifi cations of this new world, they are using old maps that don’t get them where they want to go,” writes Orman, in Women
and Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny.
Orman notes that only 12 percent
of women feel confi dent about retirement and many continue to either leave their fi nancial decisions in the hands of a male or ignore them
altogether. This may be due to feeling embarrassed about their lack of knowledge or to a sheer lack of time. New female graduates are facing a brutal job market; many laid-off women fi nd themselves in a mid- career job search and widows and divorceés are facing retirement with a smaller-than-expected nest egg. All these women want to know: “How can I confi dently embrace my new role in the evolving economy in a way that leads to fi nancial independence?”
First Steps to Solvency
Understand the Underlying Emotions
Few heard in high school economics class that our relationship with money is intricately intertwined with emotion, comments Julie Murphy Casserly, a Chicago-based certifi ed fi nancial planner. Some of us are spenders, whipping out the credit card at the mall to ease some inner pain. Some are givers, picking up the
30 Central Florida
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56