This week’s theme is: smart women retire rich. Here’s the reality: Women tend to outlive their husbands and they are already inheriting money at staggering rates. Women who are single later in life, through choice, divorce, or widowhood have a lot of important decisions to make about money. 

So this week, I’m focusing on some core principles for women when it comes to managing money. 

Today, I want to talk about something that can sometimes happen when married couples work with a financial advisor - and that is that the relationship can seem unbalanced. 

Let’s assume that you’re married and your husband is the primary financial decision maker. Your advisor very quickly gets used to the relationship he or she has with your spouse - calling them, emailing them, coordinating meetings with them, etc.. And occasionally, unless the advisor is hyper-aware to pay attention to you, you may end up feeling ignored. 

First of all, unless your advisor is a total jerk and doesn’t even recognize that you’re in the room, this behavior is normal. Speaking from the advisor’s side of the table, keeping the relationship balanced for the advisor is really quite challenging when most of my contact is with one of the spouses. When I call to review the portfolio or discuss harvesting tax losses at the end of the year, I will usually just talk to the same spouse each time. 

But when an advisor meets with you, make sure that they’re considering the needs of you as a couple and treating you both equally. If you’re not being heard or considered in the conversation, it’s important that you bring it up. It’s also important that you make a concerted effort to build a relationship with your advisor. Make sure that you know, like, and trust your advisor just as much as your spouse does. 

Considering there’s a good chance you’ll be working with this advisor on your own, you’ll want to establish a trusting relationship with them. 

The last thing you want to have happen if your spouse dies, is to be dealing with an advisor who doesn’t really know you or hasn’t taken the time to establish any kind of relationship with you. You may go looking for a new advisor when that happens, but it’s a bad idea. Most new widows are prone to make emotional and foggy decisions that could later come back to bite them, so you want to make sure that your advisor in that situation is someone you know well, like, respect, and trust. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening. Tomorrow, we’re going to recap the week and I’m going to give you a little preview of next week’s theme. 

My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the One Minute Retirement Tip.

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