-“Women’s Worth is a great resource for women who aren’t sure if they’re making the most of what they have financially. As an experienced and respected financial planner, Eleanor speaks to women on their own terms, taking their unique issues seriously, and helping them gain much needed confidence around money.”
- Olivia Mellan Co-author, Money Shy to Money Sure: A Woman’s Road Map to Financial Well-Being
“Put away your suspicions: This is not another ‘just stop buying lattes, girls, and you, too, can become a millionaire’ book. Instead, it is a carefully considered, deeply researched guide by a financial planning luminary.”
- Marion Asnes, Editor-in-Chief of Financial Planning magazine
“Women’s Worth is a must-read for women of all ages and income levels who want to take control of their financial lives.”
- Alexandra Armstrong, CFP® Chairman, Armstrong, Fleming & Moore, Inc. Past Chairman, International Association of Financial Planning
“Eleanor combines two areas that can change the fiscal well-being of America and America’s families: women becoming financially competent, and creating women’s circle gatherings as a way to talk, learn, and share about money. Women’s Worth stands out because of Eleanor’s passion about women’s financial well-being, her empathy, and her professional mastery of financial planning. The journey to financial maturity is a worthy path and this book will serve as a compassionate guide, inspiration, and map.”
- Elizabeth Jetton, CFP® – Partner, RTD Financial Advisors; Past President, The Financial Planning Association
“In her very readable and engaging book, Eleanor Blayney connects all the dots between how women are unique from men in our orientation to money, and how we need to reorient ourselves to assure our financial futures and our ability to exercise our full power as women.”
- Dianne Chasen Lipsey President, Sewall Belmont House and Museum
“While there have been many books written to help women with their investing and financial needs, not one of them, in my opinion, comes close to cutting through the BS and saying it like it really is for us girls. I’ve been in the investment advisory business for 20 years and always knew there was a better way to work with women, but didn’t have the time or clear thinking until now to focus on how to articulate it. Eleanor articulates this “better way” as well as anyone could, and I’m so glad it’s been done. I am quite sure women investors and advisors will get a ton out of this book.”
- Margie Carpenter, CFP®, CIMA® President, Bell Tower Advisors
“With Women’s Worth, Eleanor gives readers an extraordinarily helpful guide. She combines the soft and hard sides of making important financial decisions into a practical reference that should have a long and useful life.”
- Mark Tibergien CEO, Pershing Advisor Solutions
“Eleanor Blayney is a wonderful thinker and a great writer. With Women’s Worth, she shows she understands the new financial realities for women.”
- Deborah Nixon, Ph.D. Founder, Trust Learning Solutions
Book-Women’s Worth
We are different.
Who said that personal finance for women should be the same as it is for men?
At Direction$, we take seriously the differences between the genders when it comes to the financial decisions we must make.
Women live longer and are more likely to live alone for significant periods of time. Our workplace participation is often intermittent, and the care of dependents usually falls to us . Though we are better educated, hold more managerial, executive, and professional positions than ever before, and now have serious money to show for it, we often lack confidence when it comes to personal finance. Women want to be educated before we make decisions. And we want to be advised in a way that recognizes our values, our lifestyles, and our unique learning styles. We don’t want to compete. We want to collaborate.
In Women’s Worth, President of Direction$ and Certified Financial Planner™ Eleanor Blayney breaks through the traditionally male-dominated field of financial advice to offer information you—as a woman— can really use. Her frank approach intersperses practical advice with easy-to-do exercises that will help you understand your beliefs about money, learn the fundamentals of financial planning, and gain confidence in your financial know-how.
You don’t need to become one of the boys to get smart about money. It’s time we started talking about personal finance for women, as women.
After all, you’re worth it.
Click here to listen to Eleanor’s 10-minute audio blog introducing Women’s Worth.
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Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction: Women Ask for Direction$
Chapter 1: Women Discuss—How and Why Our Conversation about Personal Finance Needs to Be Different
Chapter 2: Women Have Beliefs about Money
Chapter 3: Women Have Worth
Chapter 4: Women Work—Maximizing Your Human Capital
Chapter 5: Women Spend
Chapter 6: Women Invest
Chapter 7: Women Plan—Retirement and the New Reality
Chapter 8: Women Have Wills
Chapter 9: Women Inspire
Women’s Words: A Female-friendly Glossary of Financial Terms
Works Cited
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Some Highlights from Women’s Worth:
“Because women as a demographic are becoming wealthier, the major financial service firms—brokerages, insurance companies, and banks—are beginning to target women as a promising market. But while they pay a lot of (red) lip service to the idea that women are a distinct market, the advice offered and the way it is offered are seldom specific to women. In reality, women face financial risks distinct from those faced by men. Their attitudes toward risk are also different. More importantly, women’s styles of communication and ways of learning are different.” (Page 4)
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“What does money mean to you? Two extreme answers come to mind: Money means nothing to me. Money means everything to me. You may find yourself simultaneously attracted to and repelled by each of these two answers, not quite certain what you think, or what you should think. In addition to the previous answers, nothing and everything, I propose another:
It’s just grease.
The new option—the idea that money is just grease—is the one I encourage you to consider as we go forward on this journey of financial discovery. Thinking of money as just grease is a great way to put it in its proper perspective. It does not do anything on its own, but properly used with foresight and reason, it makes things happen, makes things go. By itself, it is a toxic substance and can be very messy. Applied sensibly on a routine basis, it can make life run more smoothly. (Pages 22-23)
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“Managing your finances, however, is like managing your health. You cannot not be involved. While you can delegate some decision-making, you cannot abdicate your responsibility to ensure those decisions are right for you. The only way to break the cycle is to gain knowledge.” (Page 34)
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“The realization that markets are efficient keeps us realistic and grounded: trying to beat the market is a loser’s game. Our loss is not just in sub-market returns, but also in what we spend in time and money on products, strategies, and advice that has us thinking we can do significantly better than someone else. Getting the average market return is the best we can do over the long term (and surprisingly, according to one study, a significantly better result than that achieved by most investors). The realization that human emotion often leads to market inefficiency alerts us to our own subjective foibles as investors, and to the fact that market trends are at times the product of the irrational forces of greed and fear. The severe market downturn of 2008 may be a case in point. ” (Page 117)
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“But while many women may start the race toward retirement security at a significant disadvantage, once there they maybe better suited to deal with the new, rapidly evolving retirement reality than their male counterparts. Thriving in retirement can be less about what we have and more about what we do. In many ways, this plays to women’s strengths: their ability to take on and balance different and simultaneous roles, their penchant for planning, and, yes, their propensity to worry.” (Page 146)
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Click here to read about Eleanor Blayney in the news.
Click here to view Eleanor Blayney’s educational videos.
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More Reader Comments
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“Each chapter could be discussed for an hour…”
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“Incredible. Illuminating.”
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“I literally did not put Women’s Worth down, and read it cover to cover in one sitting. I found it to be one of the better references in understanding the psychology of women and the various financial challenges they face. Additionally, I found it to be a very effective reference for identifying their key concerns.”
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“For as many years as I have [been a financial advisor] I’m amazed to have learned so much about the differences between men and women.”