Editor's note (Summer 2007): Since this article first appeared in Bay Area Summit's Fall 2004 issue, Helga Hayse's
book "Don't Worry About a Thing, Dear: Why Women Need Financial Intimacy" has become available.
The paperback book was published in 2006 by Prime Life Publishing.
Teaching Wives About Marital Finances
According to the US Census Bureau:
- 85 of 100 women will be alone at some time in their life
- The average age at which women are widowed is 56
- 80 percent of life insurance money is used during the first year of widowhood
- Widows are poorer than married women of the same age
For many women, the prospect of ending up alone and poor is a sobering reality. This is particularly true in community
property states like California, where assets and liabilities acquired during marriage are the joint responsibility of both spouses.
"Once a woman is widowed, it's too late to protect her financial interests," says Helga Hayse, a journalist and
writer who teaches women to talk with their husbands about money, mortality and planning for the future.
"Too many wives just let their husband handle all the financial matters in the marriage,"
Hayse says. "If a wife doesn't participate in the finances, she will lack the skills she needs to cope on her own
if her husband dies. I teach women what they need to know about their marital finances."
Money and death can be awkward subjects to talk about. So couples often don't do it, and that puts many
wives at risk, Hayse says. Statistics show a wife will outlive her husband, often by 10 or more years. "Ignorance
of the law will not protect a widow against creditors, taxes or any financial decisions her husband makes, with or without
her knowledge," she adds.
Hayse's seminar "A Wife's Guide to Financial Intimacy" combines her investigative research
into the subject with her own real life experience. In the late 1990s, just as she was launching the seminar, her
husband died suddenly in an accident. Hayse says the financial information she had researched to help other married
women helped save her own life.
"The practical information I had gathered and the financial planning we had done before my
husband died eased the financial burden on me," Hayse explains. "Without it, I would never have recovered
from the debts we had accrued in my husband's business."
Hayse has presented "A Wife's Guide to Financial Intimacy" for a wide range of financial
organizations and community groups, including New York Life, Allstate Life, Merrill Lynch, Borel Bank & Trust
Company and Peninsula Temple Beth El in San Mateo.
A sampling of seminar topics include:
- legal and financial information about marriage
- insights into your security needs
- financial mistakes wives and widows make
- documents you must have
- how to discuss financial matters and engage in planning with your husband
- how to evaluate financial and legal advisors
- how to protect what the law says is yours
For more information, and to register for "A Wife's Guide to Financial
Intimacy" (cost: $120, which includes workbook), see www.financialintimacy.com. Helga Hayse can
be contacted at (650) 345-9294 or helga@financialintimacy.com.
(This article originally appeared in the Fall 2004 issue of Bay Area Summit)
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