Every fabulous woman deserves to live the lifestyle she chooses. What lifestyle do you envision for the rest of your days? Invest whatever time it takes to answer this extremely important question! How will you finance your dream lifestyle? Listed below are five sobering reasons why it’s important for every woman to put her plan in place. Don’t let these statistics scare you, just let them light fire under your savings plan!

Reason #1:

Women live longer than men by an average of 7 to 9 years. Many women spend the better part of the last decade of their lives on their own. That means our savings will need to last longer.

Reason #2:

Fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce. Forty eight percent end with the husband’s death, with the average age of widowhood being 56 years old. A widow’s income drops 44% within three years after a husband’s death, due in part to the loss of the husband’s private pension benefits.

Reason #3:

Women have more job interruptions than men do. Women spend 11.5 years out of the workforce in order to raise families and take care of aging parents. This may require us to play catch up in order to meet our long-term financial goals.

Reason #4:

One third of older single women count on social security for 90% of their monthly income. This is hardly enough to live or rely upon.

Reason #5:

One in three women owes more in credit card debt than she has in her retirement account. Seven out of ten women never retire because they can’t afford to.

How To Make Savings a Priority

• Pay yourself first! Before your paycheck reaches your checking account, make sure the appropriate amount goes into your long-term savings plan that will fully fund the lifestyle of your later years. With the amount left over, create your current lifestyle. Consider how to balance your current lifestyle needs with the plans of your later years.

  Most women tend to fund their lifestyle choices first and then place what is left in savings. Rarely is anything left over.

• Stay focused on financing your dreams! Imagine the life you want to live! Cut out pictures from magazines that speak to your dreams. Paste your pictures on a vision board. When impulsive splurges hit, refer to your vision board to help you stay focused and on task with your dreams.

• Find ways to save money with little interference to your current lifestyle. Connie tracked her expenses for one month. This helped her to visually see where she was spending money. By making some tiny shifts in her spending she was able to save $400 more a month. She began using her local library instead of buying books, $50/month savings. One less dinner out a week saved her $120/month. Three lattes a week instead of six saved her $36/month. Re-evaluating and changing coverage of her health club plan, cell phone plan and cable TV plan saved her about $200/month. She was paying for services she rarely used.

• Finance your own needs before another’s wants.In a recent workshop, one woman stated, “I’m financing my daughter’s college education by borrowing from my 401K.” Another stated, “I buy my friends lots of gifts through the month just to let them know I’m thinking of them. I don’t even have a savings account.”

  Women are notorious “givers.” We give to our life partners, our aging parents and our children. Frequently we “give” last to ourselves, especially when it comes to financing our later years. That’s one reason the “bag lady” fear is so prevalent.

So add some fuel to your savings strategy and extinguish behaviors distracting you from your long-term goals. You deserve to live the life of your dreams at every age!