In a few of the women’s magazines that I read recently, I found financial-based ads targeted at women. Even a pamphlet of sorts has been inserted in more than one of the titles I read.

I tore out one from Wachovia because it has a lot of valuable information in it. The ad says:

“91% of women say their most important financial goal is not outliving their savings.

So there’s a problem when only 12% of them are confident they’ll be able to do it. “

This is key — I believe women are interested in their financial future, but let their spouse take most of the control. That, or they are just overwhelmed with the task, afraid they will never be able to afford to save enough. They shut down and don’t do anything — or don’t do enough.

The Wachovia brochure that accompanies the ad, titled “A Woman’s Guide to Her Financial Future” acts as a personal questionnaire, asking women to “sum up how you feel about retirement,” and “picture yourself 10 years from now. What are you doing?” There’s also a checklist of what you’re currently doing financially toward your future. It’s broken down by age: “in your 20s and 30s, in your 40s and 50s and in your 60s and 70s,” and gives great reminders of what you should do at each stage in life.

Of course Wachovia is doing this to get your business, but I’m glad that someone is doing this for women. While we flip through photos of the latest fall fashions we can be reminded that we are in control of our financial future and need to move on it now.

If you are interested in more about the brochure of Wachovia you can contact them at: wachovia.com/women or 866-244-8698.

I’ve been seeing so many articles and tips for women regarding finances lately. This is good. We need to be constantly reminded of the importance of financial planning. Here are two sources I found within the past couple of days:

The first piece I found is a video, on iVillage.com showing a young woman and her finances. She gets a wake up call about her credit card and the interest rate she is being charged — 19.24 variable percent. Think about it this way … if you went into a store that charged 19 percent ABOVE the regular selling price, would you buy the item?

Let’s use an example, a purse. You walk into your favorite department store and eye the perfect, must-have bag for fall. It costs $100. At the counter the clerk rings it up:

$100 purse
+ $7.00 (tax, let’s say 7%)
__________________
$107.00
+ 19.24% (credit card interest rate)
_________________________
$127.58 (total price of bag)

I know my methodology is not perfect here, but think about it. Would you ever buy something if you knew you had to pay more than the sticker price? The reality of using a credit card is actually much worse than my purse example because the credit card company charges that 19.24 percent every month, not just once.

We should use this lesson to learn about our own credit and finances. I’ve talked about the importance of this before, and I want to keep finding sources to get the message across to women that we need to know more and to do more with our financial planning.

Here’s another relevant article, coming from today’s “Orlando Sentinel.” Titled, “Women not putting away enough money, experts say,” it begins by saying,

“Women of all ages think about retirement. The problem, experts say, is that most don’t do enough saving for retirement.

And nobody’s sure why.”

Read the full article here.

I have a few other links I’m collecting on this topic; I’ll share them in future posts. For now, read my finances archive.

Disclosure: Previously, I worked for both The Orlando Sentinel and NBC Universal. NBC owns iVillage. These are sites I still visit often so I’ll share relevant information from them every now and then.

Earlier this week, I went to a 6-hour financial planning seminar. I was the only woman in the room; there were 5 men, 4 of them closer than I to retirement age. The course was great, but there was so much information that it could easily be turned into a 16-week course. My biggest lesson from the course is that I need to know more, as I believe most women do.

Risk management, cash management, investment concepts, tax management, retirement planning, estate planning — serious topics. Ask yourself the tough question today: How much do you know about each of these topics? Follow that question with this one: How much do you know about these topics as they pertain to YOU and YOUR FAMILY? I have known for a while that I don’t know enough, but I am going to change that now.

Understanding your money is difficult. There can be fear associated with it, which might lead you to shut down. “I’ll do it tomorrow,” you’ll say. We must stand up and take control of our finances; know what we have coming in and going out. We must know and understand our goals for the future and start planning – now.

“If you have no goals, you have no direction and no way of knowing whether you’re on track.”

– Source: The Complete Financial Management Workshop, Emerald Publications.

I’ll be writing about this topic as I learn more. I’d love to hear your success stories too.