Page 45 - AAA Magazine – AAA Ohio Auto Club – September 2018

In the past 60-odd years, the number of women in the workforce has grown to unprecedented levels: from 32 percent in 1948 to 57 percent in 2016, according to the United States Department of
Labor. And nearly half of those women are the primary breadwinners in their households, according to a 2014 Prudential Financial report.
With today’s longer life expectancies, particularly for women, it’s essential to be prepared for a longer retirement. Careful planning today can yield good results in the future — and help ensure you can spend your golden years the way you want.
Find an expert
If you don’t already work with one, finding a financial professional is a good first step — particularly an adviser who understands the challenges many women face in saving for retirement, like time out
of the workforce because of childcare or eldercare, maintaining finances in the wake of a spouse’s death, and so on.
“A good financial advisor will help individuals crystallize the end goals of investing and create an appropriate investment model that matches goals and, more importantly, a defined risk tolerance,” said Jeremy Swank, chartered financial consultant with The Strategic Wealth Management Group.
Don’t feel like you’re a financial whiz? No matter:
A 2014 TIAA-CREF survey found that 81 percent of women who had obtained knowledge from a financial professional reported feeling informed about retirement
Women &
Retirement: Setting a Game Plan
By Jessica Barga
A good financial advisor will help individuals crystallize the end goals of investing and create an appropriate investment model that matches goals.
planning and retirement saving, and 63 percent felt confident about their retirement saving progress.
Plan your investment strategy
The older you are, the less time you have to make back any investment losses, so protecting what you have is a priority. At the same time, the possibility of a longer retirement means some kind of growth investing is essential.
In a CNN Money interview, Sallie Krawcheck, former president of the investment management division of Bank of America and CEO of Ellevest, estimates a woman making $85,000 annually who puts 20 percent of her yearly pay into a bank account rather than an investment account could effectively forfeit more than $1 million after four decades.
Explore your savings options
If your employer offers a retirement plan, don’t miss out on the benefits of participating.
“It’s imperative that individuals formulate some plan to pay themselves first through a systematic and automatic investment program,” said Swank. “This is incredibly easy and usually most accessible through an employer-sponsored retirement plan. As an added bonus, many employers offer some form of match, or in essence, free money.”
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