Betty Ford died at age 93 yesterday, leaving behind an incredible legacy for women.

For me, as I wrote on my women and money blog last night - 

I know of few American women who have shared their wealth of experience, bravery and gutsiness, more vividly and powerfully than former First Lady, Betty Ford.  Her 1942 first marriage to William Warren finally ended in a divorce in 1947, due to “excessive, repeated cruelty”.  What most people may not know is that Mr. Warren was an alcoholic and slipped into a coma just after Betty had filed for divorce, yet she unswervingly cared for him another 2 whole years!

I especially honor Betty Ford for thinking independently from her husband, Gerald Ford, taking opposite stands on matters that pertained particularly to women, most notably, her support of reproductive choice, stating, “having babies is a blessing, not a duty.”

An excellent overview of her life is in this morning’s Sacramento Bee.

Isn’t it funny how often things sync up! Especially online.  This morning I submitted an article I just finished called – “7 Tips to Grow Your Savings Account Without Depriving Yourself” – and low and behold this article appears on MSN about eating on $4 a day. 

In this article, Donna Freedman beautifully demonstrates how to do my point #7 which is to reduce daily expenses. 

Use her tips to

• Shop the sales,
• Plan Out Menus in advance so that you can use ALL that you buy in bulk
• Reusing “assets” in cooking that others might not consider assets

Your family has to be pretty flexible about flavors, but her plan is completely doable and I applaud her all the way to the bank!!

And you can find more on my own savings tips on my women and money blog.

Leaving the Oprah Show yesterday, Suze Orman urged folks to retire later to have more income in retirement.  She also calls for us all to “love saving as much as we love spending”  That savings will turn your turn your life around.  Haven’t I been beating that drum for a while now?

http://abcnews.go.com/assets/player/walt2.6/flash/SFP_Walt_2_65.swf

More on my take at Ms Morrison Speaks!

I’m often asked if people in lucrative careers really need to start focussing on retirement income at the beginning of their careers. We are a culture of short-term gain at the moment and in some cases, when the pay is really good, surely retirement is something that’s way down the list after paying off student loans, buying a house, getting married, saving up for the kids’ college and THEN retirement!  Recently, this question came up for doctors.  Specifically ~  What are the advantages physicians gain by planning for their retirements early in their careers?

Not to state the obvious, yet the power of compounding will work well by planning early.  In fact, the longer you can leave the money, the less you have to put aside for the maximum gain.  The scramble begins at age 50 when you realize you have only 15 years left! In order to have income in retirement, you need to put a bit aside from a few good years.

Nowadays, however, physicians of all professionals, face an uncertain future.  It’s not just billing practices, there’s also the potential for increased regulation, and perhaps nationalized health care.  This is why putting monies away now, and perhaps utilizing defined benefit pension plans or blended plans may be wisest rather than the usual default into something pedestrian, like a defined contribution plan.  Yet that said, I know many physicians who aren’t even maxing out their defined contribution plans. 

Aspects like hiring spouses and/or children to perform legitimate office functions, etc. abound which lend tax favors.

If you serve your fellow man by being a doctor, you deserve a decent retirment, no question.  But income in retirement takes a little planning.  For more about income in retirement planning, please visit my website, Ms Morrison Speaks.

This week, Good Morning America introducted their new legal analyst Dan Abrams, who has just published a new book:-

Man Down: Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt That Women Are Better Cops, Drivers, Gamblers, Spies, World Leaders, Beer Tasters, Hedge Fund Managers, and Just About Everything Else

For the book Abrams has culled through various scientifically measured “real studies”,and of course, much discusssion has ensued, Naturally I wanted to weigh in too!!

Dan states that it is absolutely clear that women are better investors than men, as women are satisfied with hitting proverbial singles or doubles to use a baseball analogy, whereas many men tend to swing for the fences with their investments.

 He states further that the delta between women’s and men’s investment returns are 3-4%; i.e., women receive much higher returns than do men.

Studies that I am familiar with tout women besting men’s investment returns by at least 1%, yet we do agree on the general tenet, that women are GREAT investors.  The problem is, there aren’t more women investors.  So, that’s part of my passion, to engage women with their money, to empower women to be WISE investors—Watchful, Inquisitive, Strategic and Empowered.  Mr. Abrams’ research surprised even him, and he states that the findings in his book will be taken much more seriously, since the author is a man.  Again, I couldn’t agree more!

 Dan details much of a woman’s approach to investing as I’ve incorporated into my WISE acronym, we women are inherently watchful….we don’t miss much of what goes on around us.  We are then inquisitive to discover how investments work fundamentally, and then how they work together, so that we can be strategic, not just in how we’ll create a portfolio, yet also in how we’ll manage it along the way.  Ultimately then, we women are empowered with our knowledge and wisdom and better able to achieve our dreams. 

 Thank you, Mr. Abrams, for your inquisitiveness and your courage to publish what some of us have known all along, specifically that women make great investors, among many other things. 

 We Can Do It Women!  

Be Your Own Money Manager… now, while “he” is still there to teach you!

It may sound harsh, but the reality is that most women outlive their husbands by about 15 years.  In fact, the avareage ave of widowhood is now 56 years old!  And then there’s divorce.

Did you know ~

• 50% percent of first marriages,
• 67% of second and
• 74% of third marriages end indivorce,

according to Jennifer Baker of the Forest Institute of Professional Psychology in Springfield, Missouri.

Said Linda Descano of Citigroup’s Women and Co.,

“My own financial wakeup call came after my divorce.  Before then, I’d outsrouced my finances to my husband.  I realized you can’t delegate.  Women have to step into the role of household CFO.”

So, you know you have to do it, where do you start to learn about money and Investing ?  I have been working through a 4 step mindset and strategy session on Investing for Beginners that I’ve entitled “A WISE Woman’s Approach To Financial Investing.”

We’d like to know.  

Click the arrow to the left (or above depending upon your screen) to trigger the survey, or join us on our Ms Morrison Speaks blog, where you’ll find lots of good stuff on women and money!

How well adjusted you are when it comes to the topic of money and your personal finances.  Please spare us a few mintues to let us know where you are, with respect to your money!

We’d like to know.  

How well adjusted you are when it comes to the topic of money and your personal finances.  Please spare us a few mintues to let us know where you are, with respect to your money!

While the 2001 study, Boys Will Be Boys indeed indicated that men’s (and particularly single men’s) trading activity lowered their returns by approximately 1% over those of the female investors, we could reasonably conclude that women are better investors. 

My 32 years of experience has shown me that women gather and process information differently than men, such that the incubation period for a female investor is far longer than that of men.  Women often prefer to do their research and homework before they begin investing, such that their plan often rewards that research and intentionality with higher returns.  With women’s inherent need to understand their investments and how each investment relates to the others and her overall plan, she will often make a buying decision and stick to it, which often bodes well with her return.

Most male investors on the other hand, tend to act more quickly, investing in the stocks their friends and/or the daily news “tips” them off to.  Consequently, when the next “tip” comes along, some men would sell their first choice, and invest those proceeds into the second “tip” stock, not allowing their monies to remain invested anywhere near a full market cycle. 

Remember, anyone can buy stocks, bonds or mutual funds; the real question is when to sell them.  My experience is that women investors are more buy-and-hold investors than their male counterparts.  When looking at women and money….(you can read the rest of my rationale here on Ms Morrison Speaks Money)

So should women be given step-by-step investment instruction, cautioned about intertwining their emotions with their investments, and informed about the historic long-term returns of various types of investments so they can stretch their nest eggs out for their (longer) lifetimes? 

Yes, absolutely. 

Should it be pinked up, watered down or sugar coated? 

Absolutely not!