Women Can Overcome Fear of Finances

Women are naturally skilled at multitasking. It is a survival skill that most women master early in life. We are used to juggling career and family obligations because we are responsible for many aspects of our family’s daily lives.

And for many women, their long list of responsibilities inevitably includes the family finances. But money, wealth, investments and finance can all be scary topics for women. Here are two of the most common fears that women experience and advice on overcoming them.

The bag lady syndrome.

This anxiety is common for women across the economic spectrum, even women with high incomes and large fortunes. This is a fear that financial security can be gone in a heartbeat, suddenly leaving one destitute and on the street living like a bag lady.

This anxiety can be crippling for women whose families live paycheck to paycheck but can be just as harrowing for more affluent women because no one wants a decline in lifestyle. And women who have inherited tremendous wealth or married into an ultrawealthy family oftentimes experience this fear because they don’t feel any ownership of wealth that came to them as a windfall and worry that it could leave them just as capriciously.

At the root of the bag lady syndrome is a fear of losing resources and being left behind, and this fear only increases with age.

If you have a bag lady in your skeleton closet of fears, ask your financial adviser what the worst-case scenarios are for your situation and then ask him or her to help you construct a financial plan to safeguard against it. A financial plan is a like a soft pillow to rest your head on each night because it covers many of your worry issues: spending, savings, insurance and plans for your financial future. Your financial plan should be updated every few years or as the circumstances of your life change.

The best advice is to always live below your means. If you spend less than you earn and save the rest, you will watch your savings grow and gain confidence that you will be OK. Swap out those bags for a pillow and begin resting easy.

The not-smart-enough complex.

Some women say they don’t participate in the management of their family’s wealth because they just don’t understand financial matters.

Researchers have long suspected that one reason that women feel less than smart about financial matters is the fact that women don’t generally talk about financial matters in their social circles. Here in the South, women talking about money used to be considered impolite, and in some circles it still is. Moreover, historically the realm of money and finance has been considered men’s purview, and the effects of that sexist, patriarchal past still persist.

Women, more so than men, learn through conversation. Because the topics of money and investing are taboo, many women haven’t had sufficient opportunity to become comfortable and confident on the subject.

If you are one of the many women who don’t feel smart enough to take the reins of your wealth, there are lots of ways to learn and gain confidence. There are a host of finance books aimed at women, but rest assured that most good financial advice works the same for women as it does for men so there is no need to look for books with vogue titles and pink covers.

If you’d rather learn more about money with other women, consider joining a discussion group or starting one of your own. Or take a personal finance class at a local college. There are also some great online resources like LearnVest.com, a personal finance site designed for women in their 20s and 30s.

Don’t let either of these common anxieties deter you. Resilience is key to overcoming any fear, and once you push through whatever fear might be keeping you from participating in your own financial life, you will likely find yourself feeling more confident about your financial future.

Phoebe Venable, chartered financial analyst, is President & COO of CapWealth Advisors LLC. Her column on women, families and building wealth appears each Saturday in The Tennessean.