Welcome To The YWCA of Tucson's Women & Money Home Page!

Welcome to the YWCA of Tucson’s Women & Money web page!
“Controlling your money, rather than having your money control you” is key to every woman’s quality of life, whether she’s 17 or 70. The YWCA’s Women & Money program is a long-term initiative designed to advance financial literacy among women of all ages, backgrounds and income levels. The program is supported by HSBC - North America.

Women & Money includes an annual one-day conference for 500+ participants as well as a variety of workshops and electronic communications throughout the year. The 4th Annual Women & Money Conference was held at the JW Marriot Star Pass Resort and Spa Saturday March 1, 2008.

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Did you know that...

	9 out of 10 women will be solely responsible for their finances at some point in their life.
	The pay gap between male and female workers has remained static for 20 years, with women's annual earnings in 2003 averaging 77 cents for every dollar earned by men -- a lifetime loss of over $300,000. African American women make 66 cents for every dollar a white male earns and Latinas make 53 cents.
	As a result of lower earnings and lower participation in pension plans, women retirees receive only half the average pension benefits that men receive, yet women live longer and must stretch their earnings and savings longer than men.
	Although women 16 to 24 years old earn 93% as much as men, a 2004 Oppenheimer Funds report showed that 54% of single women between the ages of 21 and 34 surveyed said they would be more likely to acquire 30 pairs of shoes before they saved $30,000 for retirement.

25 Behavior-Change Strategies for Health & Wealth by Linda Block, Associate Agent Family and Consumer Health Sciences

The beginning of a new year is the time when many people resolve to make behavior changes to improve their health and personal finances. Typically, these resolutions are made separately, such as "lose 10 pounds" and "save $1,000."

Cooperative Extension Agent Linda Block believes that there is a better way to set New Year's resolutions: work on health and financial behavior changes together and use the same methods to improve both aspects of life. The Small Steps to Health and Wealth^TM (SSHW) program has been developed to assist consumers in doing just that. This program highlights twenty similarities between health and financial issues with the premise that the same behavior-change strategies can be used to improve one’s health, personal finances, or both. The workbook, Small Steps to Health and Wealth^TM was written by Rutgers Cooperative Extension faculty members Dr. Barbara O'Neill, CFP, and Dr. Karen Ensle, RD.

Small Steps to Health and Wealth™ was developed to motivate participants to simultaneously improve their health and personal finances. The program includes 25 behavioral change strategies that can be adopted to simultaneously improve one's health and personal finances. All of the strategies are based upon empirical research and expert recommendations.

25 Behavior-Change Strategies for Health & Wealth

Some example strategies include:

Tracking current behavior
Unloading childhood baggage
Committing to making a change
Automating good habits and creating templates
Using easy frames of reference
Taking calculated risks and conquering fears
Expecting obstacles and preparing for relapse
Setting a date and getting started

Individuals interested in making goals for 2007 are encouraged to select 3 or 4 strategies to implement as part of a personal action plan by logging on to the University of Arizona Take Charge America Institute web-site at: http://tcainstitute.org/sshw . These small goals might include walking 2,000 more steps or cutting out 100 calories from the diet each day. On the financial side, a small goal might be to start saving $5.00 each week or cutting $5.00 of lattes or miscellaneous spending each week. There is no cost to participate with the on-line program. Program participants will receive a monthly newsletter and a six-month check-up for enrolling.

Make 2007 the year you achieve your health and wealth goals by joining the Small Steps to Health and Wealth Program and taking a few small steps toward better health and more wealth!

The SSHW workbook is available for purchase for $16 from Cooperative Extension. Consisting of 35 short, user-friendly chapters, the book includes a discussion of similarities between health and personal finances and behavior change strategies. It concludes with a planning worksheet for readers to use to set personal goals and action plans and a list of online health and personal finance resources.

Contact: Linda Block
Associate Agent Family and Consumer Health Sciences
University of Arizona Cooperative Extension
(520) 626-5161 x105
lblock@cals.arizona.edu

Resources & Links

Sponsored By

The world wide web provides a wealth of information on financial topics, including many sites focused on issues and education for women. Rather than overwhelm you with too many options, we're providing an in-depth view of one site, a summary of several others, and regular updates to add new resources. Come back soon to learn more!

FEATURED SITE:

HSBC's Your Money Counts Looking for answers to specific questions or want to improve your financial education? This site will help!

U.S. Department of Labor Women’s Bureau’s Wi$e Up Women - is sponsored by the Department of Labor Women's Bureau. Highlights of this outstanding resource include the following:

Wi$eUp Curriculum is a complete on-line curriculum dealing with a variety of financial topics, including Money Basics, Savings, Becoming an Investor, Insurance and Risk Management, Money Math, and more.

Wi$eUp Conference Calls are FREE one-hour telephone conference calls that occur on the last business day of each month. Every call features a presentation by a panel of nationally known experts and an opportunity for live Q&A from the audience. Replays and text from previous calls are available here as well as registration for the current month's call.

Glossary gives a handy alphabetical list of common financial terms.

Recommended resources includes a wide variety of government and private sector sites dealing with financial issues for women for those who have additional time for surfing the web.

OTHER EXCELLENT RESOURCES
MsMoney.com features lots of valuable free information, including a money quiz, online seminars on financial health and financial security, e-books, and tools and articles on careers and life.

Social Security Online for Women provides specific information for women regarding social security, including a Retirement Planner which calculates retirement benefits using different scenarios, and information about life events, such as marriage, divorce, childbirth, widowhood, care giving, and more.

Besides being a great place for girls to hang out online, Girls Inc’s Girls Club features an online game, “Show me the money” where girls can play the stock market as well as an economic literacy program for girls.

The National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE), a nonprofit dedicated to helping Americans develop skills to take control of their personal finances, sponsors a Teen Resource Bureau where teenagers can learn about getting a job, budgeting, buying a car, financing college, using credit cards. Although not specifically aimed at teenage girls, the site is very engaging and "gender inclusive" with excellent information for all teens.

We'd like to hear from you. If you have questions or comments about this web page or the YWCA of Tucson’s Women & Money program, click here to send us an email today! If you would like to be added to the Women & Money mailing list click this subscribe button:

Disclaimer
The YWCA of Tucson does not endorse, take responsibility for or exercise control over any external organizations and websites or their views or contacts, nor does it vouch for the accuracy of the information contained on the destination server.