Retirement Planning

As hard to believe as this is, as little as a hundred years ago, people didn’t plan for any sort of  retirement, they just worked until they died.  Or if they couldn’t work, family usually stepped in the gap with care and support of the older family member or members.
 

In those days, life expectancy was shorter than today, there wasn’t any need for financial planners.  And as recently as the 1960’s, if you saved money for your retirement, you were lucky if you lived five years into it, to enjoy it.
 

Not so anymore, life expectancy has almost grown to the highest ever seen in the history of mankind (except perhaps in Biblical times).  Also add to that fact, the amount of transient family members today. No longer does the family unit stay together til death.  I know one family; their two sons and their wives live in the vicinity, but one daughter lives in British Columbia, Canada and the other lives in Texas.  Children up and marry and move out of town or even the country and cannot necessarily be around to care for you as you age.
 

So what to do?  In the long run, women are living longer than men and need to make more provisions for themselves than men do.  Also, about 50% of marriages are ending in divorce these days, again, making the women responsible for their own financial future.
 

Women need to start early in their financial planning for their future/retirement because of these four reasons:

- women do not make as much as men (despite financial gains in the 25 years, for every dollar a man makes, women only make 75 – 80 cents.
 

- family responsibilities.  Because of the period spent at home raising children, most women have lost that number of years in which to contribute to their retirement.
 

- life expectancy.  Women live longer than men do. In 2004, a baby girls’ life expectancy outweighed a baby boys by 5 years.
 

- widowhood.  Out of many of the marriages that take place today (that survive divorce) a good 80% will end up in widowhood. Yet, sadly some women leave the task of planning their retirement to their husbands even if they will be outliving them.
 

So, if you haven’t started saving, or have very little saved, now is the time to kick it into high gear.  Tallk to a financial advisers and find out what plan of attack is best for you. Find a local female advisor in DivaDirectories.