Women and Money—From childhood to retirement, women face a unique set of financial challenges. Here’s the story of several women who have conquered the unknown and become more fiscally fit in the process.

By Amy Gage

At 46, business owner Diane Hill is at the forefront of a generation of women who have renegotiated the old rules about gender roles. Raised by parents who knew how to manage money, she learned early the value of saving, living within her means, planning for the future and, perhaps most important, being prepared to care for herself financially, whether married or single.

Her father was an agent with Lutheran Brotherhood. Not only did he exemplify a strong work ethic and self-reliance, he taught her that life can be harsh and uncertain, and that a financial cushion softens the blows.

Today, as the owner of Hill Masonry Inc. in Billings, Montana, Hill works closely with Vicki Seedhouse, her Thrivent Financial representative, both to protect her employees and to ensure her own family’s financial future. “Last year we stepped up our life insurance,” says Hill, who has one son, Mason, 21.

Seedhouse also is helping Hill set up a retirement plan for her employees. Hill wants them to benefit from what she has learned. “It’s not how much you make,” says Hill. “It’s how much you spend and how much you save. If you can discipline yourself to save, even if it’s a dollar a day, you have a little nest egg, so you don’t have to worry. It’s security.”

While more women today are acting on that advice than ever before, the experts say there’s still reason for concern. Despite three decades of greater workforce participation and more access to high-paying professions such as medicine and law, statistics show that women as a whole remain more poorly prepared to deal with life’s financial realities than men.

Life circumstances play a major role in this disparity. Childbirth and child rearing often take women out of the workforce during the prime career-building years, reducing their earning power and their potential for strong pensions and other retirement savings. Women also live an average of six years longer than men do, which leaves them financially vulnerable during what should be the golden years.

For years the media have issued dire warnings about women falling into poverty in old age, and for good reason. The future of Social Security is precarious. Despite many gains in society, U.S. women on average earn only 80 percent of men’s income, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, and only 47 percent of women in the workforce participate in a qualified retirement plan, such as a 401(k) plan. “Women tend to invest more conservatively than men, receiving lower rates of return from their investments over time and thus reducing the amount of savings they have at retirement,” says the department’s Web-based report on women and retirement savings.

And yet there’s reason for optimism. For starters, an increasing number of younger women are working. Sherryl Adair, a Thrivent Financial representative, says women are increasingly hungry for information about learning how to invest and prepare for their future. She brings a Thrivent Financial booklet called “Smart Women, Smart Money, Smart Choices” to the seminars she holds for women. “When we’re younger, we tend to think that these life changes won’t affect us,” says Adair, who is based in Bellevue, Washington, a prosperous area where the average home value is more than $500,000. “We think we won’t lose our husbands and everything will be fine. But as we get older, we realize how fragile life is.” Adair’s message to women: You have to learn money skills.

Adair recently conducted a workshop for women at a Lutheran church, where the ages of participants ranged from 23 to 80. One woman had lost her husband when she was 35; another was widowed at 45. The youngest woman in the room held her baby on her lap while she described how insecure she felt with no life insurance or retirement plan—and a husband who lives only for the moment.

Scary? To be sure, but that is precisely why Adair likes to work with women in small groups. “Many women like the intimate environment,” she says. “In a larger group, some women won’t share their fears.”

Your money and your life

“Till death do us part” is a noble goal, but these days marriage doesn’t guarantee a woman’s financial future. For one thing, the average age of widowhood for women is a surprisingly young 55 years old, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Just as surprising, only one-third of women over age 65 are married, according to the Women’s Institute for Financial Education, not to mention the unhappy reality that nearly half of all first marriages end in separation or divorce within 15 years.

Jane Stringer, 47, a former computer programmer from Woodinville, Washington, was a happy wife, volunteer and stay-at-home mother, until her husband of 22 years asked her for a divorce last year. An energetic, articulate woman, Stringer has tried to maintain an upbeat attitude around her children, ages 20, 17 and 14—but she is scared. Most frightening of all is the realization that she lost a lifestyle along with a life partner.

“Back then I didn’t have a strict budget,” says Stringer, who handled the household checkbook but left the investments to her husband, who earned an above-median-income paycheck. “If we needed to paint the house, we usually had money to paint the house. If my washer or dryer broke, I wouldn’t have blinked. Now I go, ‘Wait a minute. How broke is it?’”

Thanks to Adair at Thrivent Financial, Stringer has begun to learn the language of finance. “She is so patient,” Stringer says. “I feel like God put Sherryl in my life to help me.” Among the initial steps they’ve taken: creating a strict monthly budget for Stringer and shoring up insurance coverage.

Educating Thrivent Financial clients is a mission shared by Seedhouse, whose office is in Billings, Montana. She tells younger women, whether married or single, to think of saving as a core expense, like their church giving, mortgages, groceries and car payments. “The core expenses are what you have to plan for first. Those are the big rocks,” she explains. “The sand pebbles, if you will—or what I like to call the latté factor—are the things that you can readily give up if you want to have money to invest.”

Nationally known financial educator Ruth Hayden, who is based in St. Paul, Minnesota, wrote a groundbreaking book in 1992 called How to Turn Your Money Life Around: The Money Book for Women. Based on her popular classes, the book urges women to examine their beliefs about money and the attitudes with which they were raised.

“This society has taught you much about how you as a woman should behave with money,” wrote Hayden, who has since written books about retirement and about couples and money. “Since money is what we exchange in this society to get what we want and need, this childhood training affects us deeply.”

Learning to talk about money

Andrea Stein, 31, an at-home mother of two girls in Snohomish, Washington, knew almost nothing about money while she was growing up, including whether her parents were savers or spendthrifts. “My family didn’t talk about it,” she says. Her mother returned to school and then went to work as a dental hygienist when Andrea entered elementary school. Her dad was a U.S. Coast Guard pilot who moved the family around the country, from Alaska to Alabama.

“My mom always said that her happiest times were while she was raising us,” Stein recalls. “I always felt it was OK for the husband to go out and make the money while the woman raised children.”

Stein, like her mother, is happy with her chosen role—but like many young women, she worries, too, about career. “I definitely want to go back into the workforce,” says Stein, who has a bachelor’s degree in human development and is halfway through a master’s program in family therapy. Her concern is less that her husband, Casey, will die or desert her but that professionally, she’ll get left behind.

A year since Stein and her husband began working with Adair, Andrea is breathing easier. Money automatically gets withdrawn from her husband’s paycheck for life insurance and the girls’ college fund. Stein believes taking the financial and professional risk of staying home was the best choice for her family.

With so much investment information available these days—on the Internet, in books and on the radio—Thrivent Financial representatives agree that young women today, whether working or at home, are more financially literate than previous generations of women. But all of those statistics can lead to overload as well. Seedhouse likes to tell her clients that there are no right or wrong answers. A sound investment strategy is tailored to the individuals involved, whether male or female, rich or poor, young or old.

First and foremost, Seedhouse aims to empower her female clients, many of whom are referred by other women. “As women, we need to take charge,” she says. “We need to say, ‘Hey, I’m not content to let someone else do it for me.’”

That means taking action, starting today.

Northfield, Minnesota-based Amy Gage is a former newspaper columnist on issues of women and work.

Take Action

Simple steps every woman can take to improve her finances:

Pare back discretionary expenses. Eat fewer restaurant meals, for example, check out books from the library, and ask yourself if you really need something before heading to the store.

Find a financial professional who will help answer basic questions: At what age do I want to retire? How much income will I need then? What assets do I have so far?

If you’re married, review your joint assets with your husband.

Diversify your investments. Having mutual funds with three different companies can be less effective than consolidating your investments with one provider, in a variety of short- and long-term vehicles.

Sources: Sherryl Adair, Kevin Foreman and Vicki Seedhouse, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans financial representatives.