Take Control of Your Finances

RECENTLY I was stopped in my tracks by a newspaper column headlined “I Was Terrible at Money. My Daughter Should Learn From My Mistakes.” The young woman columnist went on to say her own mother had taught her that it was “vulgar to talk or even really think about money.” As a result, she laments, “I am somehow terrified of anything to do with finances.” And she “sometimes worries about passing along these extraordinarily unhelpful attitudes to my own children.”

- MONEY SMART WOMEN BY JANET BODNAR

As someone who has been writing about women and money for more than two decades, I find that both disheartening and frustrating. So is the flurry of press releases I've received telling me that women are poised to be major heirs of a massive generational transfer of wealth and wondering whether they will be up to handling it.

Yes, they will. My first book, published in 2003, was called Think Single! The title had nothing to do with a woman's state of marriage and everything to do with a state of mind in which you're confident of your ability to manage money regardless of marital status or stage of life—what one of my good friends referred to as being captain of your own ship.