The ‘Soft Side’ of Financial and Estate Planning

Helga's New Book

Why parents and adult children need to have the sometimes difficult, but always crucial conversations, about the issues and emotions that shape a family's legacy before it's too late. Get more information HERE.

This is one of the most important books any woman, married or single, should read if being financially independent is important. And how could it not be? The title says it all: Don't Worry About a Thing, Dear. How often have we heard that? According to Helga Hayse, when a woman hears that phrase, she needs to pay attention and ask for more information. In Hayse s case, after her husband died unexpectedly, she became the test case for what she teaches women in this book. In an article in the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine in 2004, it praised Hayse s seminar A Wife s Guide to Financial Intimacy, which covers topics as basic as how to tally one s net worth and as delicate as financial spousal abuse. It also described the seminar as an eye-opener for women and a jumping-off point for couples discussion and planning. I found that Chapter ten, Five Financial Mistakes Wives Make, was an encapsulation of what has occurred in most marriages or partnerships. With an appropriate opening quote from Tina Turner What s love got to do with it? Hayse explains and titles each mistake as follows: Mistake 1: Sign Here Honey. Mistake 2: Putting separate funds into joint ventures. Mistake 3: Avoiding Money Talk. Mistake 4: Letting your husband keep the records, and Mistake 5, Paying an equal share when your financial situation changes. Although the author is neither a financial planner nor a marriage counselor, her background as an award winning journalist enables her to write about her personal experience and wider research in easy to understand terms that women can relate to. Whether through her seminars or books, Hayse is worth reading and paying attention to what she recommends. Anita Finley, Editor --Boomer Times & Senior Life