Imagine What's Possible

Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny
by Suze Orman

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A book with the title Women & Money must begin with the story of how far women have come financially in the past three decades. It's not only a remarkable tale of social progress, it's a reminder for us that changes that take place on a personal level, every day, in small doses, add up to dramatic societal and cultural shifts over time.

Women today make up nearly half of the total workforce in this country. Over the past thirty years, women's income has soared a dramatic 63 percent. Forty-nine percent of all professional- and managerial-level workers are women. Women bring in half or more of the income in the majority of U.S. households - a growing trend that made the cover of Newsweek and was front-page news in many of the nation's newspapers. Women - owned businesses comprise 40 percent of all companies in the United States. There are more women than ever before who can count themselves among the country's millionaires, more women in upper management, and more women in positions of power in the government.

We have a right to be proud of our progress. I am so honored to witness this revolution in my lifetime. I only wish it told the whole truth.

Now, would you like to hear the other side of the story? Ninety percent of women who participated in a 2006 survey commissioned by Allianz Insurance rated themselves as feeling insecure when it came to their finances. Ninety percent! In the same survey, nearly half the respondents said that the prospect of ending up a bag lady has crossed their minds. A 2006 Prudential financial poll found that only 1 percent of the women surveyed gave themselves an A in rating their knowledge of financial products and services. Two-thirds of women have not talked with their husbands about such things as life insurance and preparing a will. Nearly 80 percent of women said they would depend on Social Security in their golden years. Did you know that women are nearly twice as likely as men to retire in poverty?

For years now, I have been in the privileged position of talking to thousands and thousands of women a year - from the callers to my TV show, to those who come to hear me speak, to those who write me e - mails on my website, to my very own friends and family. So I hear, see, and feel your fears, insecurities, and troubles, very often firsthand, and I have come face - to - face with this painful truth: For all the advancements women have made in the last thirty, forty years - and without a doubt they are remarkable accomplishments - I am stunned by how little has really changed in the way women deal with money. There are huge disconnects in play here - between what we know and how we act; between what we think and what we say; between our ability as achievers and our financial underachieving; between how we present ourselves to the world and how we really feel about ourselves inside; between what we deserve in our lives and what we resign ourselves to; between the power we have within reach and the powerlessness that rules our actions.

In 1980, when I was hired as a financial advisor for Merrill Lynch, I was one of the few women in the Oakland, California, office. In the eyes of my (male) boss, that made me the perfect candidate to work with all the women who walked through the door. Back then, women who came to a brokerage firm looking for financial advice had, for the most part, either inherited money, received it in a divorce, been widowed, or were suddenly thrust into a position of helping their parents handle their money. In only a few instances had women come in with money they'd made on their own. No matter the circumstances that brought them to the brokerage firm, they all had the same reason for being there: They did not want the responsibility of managing their money. I always felt they hired me simply to babysit their money for them.

More than twenty - five years later, the story is much the same. Regardless of the gains in our financial status, I know and you know that women still don't want to take responsibility when it comes to their money. Yes, women are making more money than ever before, but they are not making more of what they make. What do I mean by that? Your retirement money sits in cash because you haven't figured out how to invest it properly, so you do nothing. You've convinced yourself that you'll be working forever, so the value of each paycheck becomes meaningless - after all, there will always be another one. Your closet houses the wardrobe of a powerful and stylish woman, but the dirty secret is that your credit cards are maxed out and you don't know how you're going to pay them off. But it's not just about saving and investing. It's about not asking for a raise at work when you know you are being undervalued. It's about the fear and loathing you feel when it's time to pay the bills every month because you don't know exactly what you have, where it's going, and why there isn't more left when it's all said and done.

Copyright © 2007 by Suze Orman.

About the Author

Suze Orman is the author of four consecutive New York Times bestsellers, The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom; The Courage to Be Rich; The Road to Wealth; and The Laws of Money, The Lessons of Life; and the national bestsellers, You've Earned It, Don't Lose It and Suze Orman's Financial Guidebook. The host of her own national award-winning CNBC-TV show, which airs every Saturday night, she is a contributing editor to O: The Oprah Magazine and is the featured writer on Yahoo! Personal Finance with her bi-weekly Money Matters series. She has written, co-produced, and hosted four PBS specials based on her bestselling books, which are among the network's most successful fundraisers ever. The most recent, inspired by The Laws of Money, The Lessons of Life, earned her an Emmy award.