Health & Heels - Winter 2021-2022

healthy finances
WOMEN&
FINANCES
When I sat down to write this article
I was going to start with “reasons
why women should get involved in
their personal finances,” but then it
hit me: Why are women in 2021 not
getting involved and self-educating?
The answer obviously differs from
one person to the next. Here are
some first-hand responses I got from
women over the past few years.
By Etty Surkis
Ignorance is bliss: “Let someone else deal
with the financial burden.” Often this is
said by women who have some embedded
childhood trauma where money was poorly
handled. For many, this “ignorance is bliss”
approach works. A lot of the time it works
well for many years. I have met some
wonderful men/husbands who want to take
care of their families and offer the ones they
love complete financial peace of mind. Yet
I have heard too many stories from women
where it ultimately backfired.
Serious illnesses, such as a stroke, can wreak
havoc. Women have been in situations where
they needed to make decisions due to a
spouse being ill, yet they were ill-prepared
and therefore couldn’t find important
documents.
This reminds me of a story my friend
experienced. Her husband suffered a stroke,
and she was going to spend Shabbos in
the hospital with him. Since he could not
communicate with her she went to the
Finkelstein Memorial Library in Monsey to
get some reading material. They asked her
for a legal document/utility bill with her
name and address on it in order to open an
account. She had none. She was devastated.
She left empty-handed but fully aware that
she needed to make changes.
I’ve had multiple widows call me in total
shock after their husband’s sudden death.
Clueless as to which bank they banked with,
clueless as to which car insurance carrier
they were using, and clueless as to the login
info of their deceased spouse’s emails to
retrieve information on bills being paid by
autopay. One particular such scenario was
a woman who was the breadwinner and her
husband was a tremendous talmid chacham
and was learning full time. While this woman
was working very hard to make money, she
had never been involved in managing the
state of their finances.
There are divorced women who reached
out to me. Their world and dreams had just
shattered, and they don’t know where
and how to pick up the pieces.
Then there’s this average young family
that has a hard working, responsible
household leader who made a business
investment that didn’t go as planned and
would wish to discuss it with their spouse/
wife without judgment. What comes to
mind here is a very sweet couple I met with.
The wife politely asked to excuse herself to
give her husband space so he can honestly
share their amount of debt without him
being humiliated by her presence. I was in
shock and said, “NO! He needs you here,
specifically now! To gain your support! You
are in this together and you will get out of
this situation together!”
My financial approach to every home is that
it should be a shared experience. A wife can
and should give financial encouragement,
and couples should dream, build, and
prosper together.
Winter Issue
46
Not my role: It’s true that years ago,
with lower standards of living, women
were busier with everyday tasks that
needed to be done at home. It was
enough for there to be a single-income
earner per family. It was usually the man
of the house who went out to work and
covered the household expenses and
completed the financial transactions.
At age 24 I experienced something
that really made me think. I was in a
bungalow colony that was collecting
money for Chai Lifeline. A young
child went knocking door to door for
small donations. I, the last bungalow
in the circle, saw the envelope was
practically empty. Later that day when
many ladies got together I shared my
observation and was wondering why. I
got a resounding response of “I need to
ask my husband,” to which I then asked,
“Did you ask your husband about buying
Danishes in the morning when the
bakery truck came by?”
Raising a healthy family does not
involve lines drawn in the sand; there are
bridges that must be crossed if you are
to have a balanced home. This includes
not only chinuch but should also include
critical life decisions like your finances.
Today, with two-working-parent
households and so many women in the
workforce, I ask why should we stop
there? For many it doesn’t stop there,
but there’s still a long way to go to get
every family aligned with their finances
and values.
There are times that I hear “it was my
mother who set some money aside and
secured a healthy retirement for herself,
myself, and even for my children.” This
is a great example for the future and
should be the norm.
Just not financially savvy:
“I’m very capable and I work.
As a matter of fact, I specialize
in my line of work, but finances
intimidate me.”
This boggles my mind. The
thought is that people spend
thousands of hours a year
earning money, but they won’t
spend a tenth of those hours
learning to maximize their
financial potential or becoming
money smart so their money
should work for them as
opposed to them working for
money! Let’s get educated so
we can be proactive planners
and smart savers.