Single women buying houses
4:29pm Tuesday, January 6, 2009
By Julia Anderson

Single women may be the best category of prospective homebuyers in Clark County. Here's my theory. Women who have been living on their own have to be particularly careful with their budgeting because on the whole we make less money than men. Because of that we may not actually own a house or a condo, but rent. We're good money managers, we pay our bills and we're more secure in our jobs because likely we work in health care, education and financial services. Jobs in those sectors ( more often held by women) are generally more secure, right now, than jobs in manufacturing and construction where men outnumber women.
According to national research, more than one in five home buyers is a single woman and twice as many unmarried women are buying homes as single men. Single women make up more than one-third of the growth in real estate ownership since 1994.
So knowing there are a lot of houses for sale here, knowing that mortgage loan interest rates are down to historic lows and your job may be more secure than most, maybe you ought to start looking around for a good buy. There are plenty of people out there who'd like to help you. Owning a house may be less expensive than paying rent for your average three-bedroom housing unit.
If you're interested in more on single women and homebuying, check out these Web sites:
-- "Single Women Buy Homes Too" from a New York Times site called about.com, click here.
- "Buying a Home in this Crazy Market" from More magazine writer Jean Chatzky, click here.

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A New Year's resource for setting goals
9:12am Friday, January 2, 2009
By Julia Anderson

Let's get this new year off to a good start with a Web site that appears to offer a vast amount of information on just about any topic. If you're setting financial goals for the year, the experts at www.learnandsave.com might have the help you're looking for. The site offers daily "learn and save" tips, but you also may search by topic. For instance, I entered "retirement planning" and was offered a host of tutorials from experts contributing to the site. To access LearnandSave.com click here

My goals for 2009:
- Develop a more disciplined retirement plan that includes greater savings, career transition planning and more hands-on management of my investments.
- Develop a farm management plan that includes a list of capital projects to improve the real estate value.
- Continue to build the 60 & Single brand as a resource for women interested in financial planning. Develop a "to do" list for the project.
- Take a real vacation that balances cost with lure of a warm, sandy beach.
What's on your list?
Julie

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Calendar burning is a New Year's cleansing experience
2:36pm Wednesday, December 31, 2008
By Julia Anderson

Tonight, my trusty black laborador "Coot" and I will be performing our second annual calendar-burning ceremony, this time to say goodbye to 2008 and welcome in 2009. The outdoor ceremony involves gasoline and tequila. No, we only drink the teguila. The idea is to mark the passage of time and make room for the future. As a 60 & Single working woman I could be discouraged by my financial situation, which saw my retirement plan go into the trash can, put there by the market meltdown that has taken a huge bite out of my 401k, and the separate but equally disasterous decline in residential real estate values that reduced the equity in my house and farm property by thousands of dollars. The majority of my net worth is tied up in these two holdings. So I've been working on Plan B and Plan C in case something happens to my job. Plan B involves substitute teaching. Plan C turns my 60 & Single blog into a consulting business with the mission to educate women about saving for retirement. Plan D has me turning my 20-acres into a tree farm-horse boarding enterprise. I've made a start on all these fronts and expect to make more progress in the coming year. As scary as the past year has been in becoming 60 & Single, the new year offers some truly great professional and personal growth opportunities. And if last year's calendar-burning ceremony was a rather violent attempt to rid myself of a very bad year, tonight's ceremony is more a cleansing, a making-way for the new year exercise.
This past week, I and others in my little family spent time chopping wood to fuel our only heat source during repeated power-outages at the house. Chopping wood requires focus, phyisical skill and determination. One of my favorite writers, Annie Dillard, has this to say about swinging an axe. "Aim for the chopping block. If you aim for the wood you have nothing. Aim through the wood. Aim for the chopping block. It makes all the difference."
So Happy New Year my colleagues on this journey of 60 & Single. Markets will go up, jobs will evolve, houses will start selling again, new opportunities will emerge. I believe it's a matter of seeing the possibilities, of calling on strength from beyond and just doing it one day at a time.
All the best,
Julia

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The trade offs of grown-up love
3:23pm Tuesday, December 30, 2008
By Julia Anderson

Most women 60 & Single are well beyond membership in the "I'm Waiting for Prince Charming to Make My Life Complete" Club. Been there, done that, say 20 or 30 years ago. But man-bashing isn't much fun either. So what's the right tone? What's the right balance in a "mature" relationship? In its most recent enewsletter More.com (targeting women over 40) delves into grown-up love. Experts emphasize the importance of "taking responsibility for the things you've done that have sabotaged your romantic life." This allows you to release the anger, develop a healthy self-image, and truly accept the notion that if you want a happy relationship you have to be proactive and learn from past mistakes. The trade-offs? Maybe it's less passion and a more profound connection. Then again maybe it's just more of everything. For more from more.com click here.

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Dealing with a windfall
9:37am Monday, December 29, 2008
By Julia Anderson

Many 60 & Single baby boomer women are going to some day inherit accumulated wealth from our mothers. These are the women who were born early in the 1900s, grew up during the Great Depression, married, endured World War II and made a successful life for themselves in the years since. My mother at 93 has outlived two husbands, still resides on the farm where she moved when you married my father in 1937 and enjoys income from Social Security, a state pension, stock dividends and farming. It's a comfortable life. Her accumulated assets will be shared at some point between my sister and me. So how do we prepare for that event? I've not thought about it as much as I probably should. It feels a bit awkward. I'm thinking that I need some sort of plan that will make sense financially for the long-term. I found an essay from my colleague, J.D. Roth at GetRichSlowly.org on how one might handle a windfall at any age. So to get the conversation started, CLICK HERE.

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