financial planning - Surviving and Thriving

This just in: In the 21st century, plenty of women are still leaving the long-term financial planning decisions to their husbands.

According to a study from UBS Global Wealth Management, 58 percent of women let their spouses handle the big-picture finances.

Here’s what really startled me, though: In the United States, 56 percent of millennial women (ages 20 to 34) were okay with letting their husbands handle the big money choices.

Have we learned nothing from the past few decades?

As a very young woman experiencing poverty, sexism, harassment and exploitation, I used to think, “Things will be better for our daughters.” Surely they would have more. More education. More redress. More lifelong options. More financial security.

Yet we’re still raising our girls to think they’re not good with money, or maybe that men are somehow better at it.

(This post is part of the “Life Insurance Movement,” created by Jeff Rose of Good Financial Cents. Just as with his “Roth IRA Movement,” more than 100 PF bloggers committed to write about a single issue on the same day to raise awareness.)

About six years ago I was a midlife college student and in debt after a divorce that had dragged on for two years. During that time I’d been helping my daughter as much as I could as she waited for her disability claim to be approved. (That took two years as well.)

After the divorce I figured to finish my degree on $12,084 per year – a mix of short-term alimony and leftovers from scholarships and grants. I was also determined to keep helping my daughter, since her disability payment covered rent and utilities but not much else.

One evening I had the radio on while I studied. An insurance commercial came on, one that I’d heard before. This time, it clicked: What would happen to Abby if I got hit by a bus tomorrow? I have no savings to leave her.

Financial planning: Too many women don’t care.

Why I have life insurance.