Why are women so hopeless with money?



We're more independent than ever - yet STILL rely on men to sort out our finances. And the consequences could be dire

There's an episode of Sex And The City that I find painful to watch. It's the one in which Carrie Bradshaw tries to buy the apartment she rents, only to be turned down for a mortgage by every bank because she is a financial liability.



Despite earning stacks of cash as a newspaper columnist and author, the successful singleton is practically penniless - with a grand total of $200 in the bank.



To ease her pain, she goes shopping (naturally) and moans to her friend, Miranda, that she simply does not know where all her money has gone. To which Miranda responds by picking up a pair of Manolo Blahnik shoes and asks Carrie how many pairs of similar $400 shoes she owns.



Save now or pay later: Only 47 per cent of women are saving enough for retirement, compared with 59 per cent of men, according to a recent survey

Carrie replies '100' and then gasps as she calculates she has spent $4,000 on shoes. No, corrects Miranda, she has spent $40,000. I have not spent $40,000 on shoes - my shoddy, falling-apart M&S boots are testament to that - but, like Carrie, I have a propensity to spend money. I, too, will say 'I don't know where it all goes!' while buying a £150 pair of jeans or a £100 top (it was on sale! Down from £300, I'll wear it for ever, and it's silk!).



I will avoid thinking about my bank balance by getting tipsy at dinner - 'Another bottle of prosecco? Let's celebrate... it's Tuesday after all' - and hope the over-priced bubbles will stop me waking at 3am in a blind panic about money. They never do.



As a result of this irresponsible behaviour, after nearly 15 years of working I have little savings to speak of, I do not own a property and I lurch from overdraft to overdraft each month. As for a pension? Ha! No need to worry about that now, it's decades away, and besides, Prince Charming with his American Express platinum card is just around the corner...



Last week I discovered there's a name for people like me: Cinderella Singletons. The term describes women who are on the road to becoming modern-day Cinderellas because they opt out of financial planning, in the hope that some man, some day, will arrive and bail them out.



The problem is that new research shows Prince Charming is not on his way - and it's time to grow up. According to statistics, 70 per cent of women will end up being solely responsible for their financial security when they are older, due to staying single, getting divorced or being bereaved, and yet according to research, from Scottish Widows, only 47 per cent of women are saving enough for retirement, compared with 59 per cent of men, while fewer than a third of women aged 20 to 40 have a pension.



Costly: Sarah Jessica Parker's character Carrie in Sex and the City was stunned when she realised how much she'd spent on shoes

Forty per cent of women admit they leave pension provision to their husbands husbands to sort out. 'The outlook for women's finances in the future is dire. It's really worrying,' says Professor Karen Pine, of the University of Hertfordshire, the co-author of Sheconomics.



While she points out that not all women fall into this group - indeed, I have friends who own their own houses, have savings and took out pensions when they were 25 - there can be a specific mindset when it comes to women and their money.



'A lot of women think that somebody else is going take care of things, yet women have a 70 per cent chance of becoming responsible for their own financial wellbeing when they get older - either because they remain single, live longer than their husbands, or get divorced,' says Professor Pine. 'Women marrying a man on his second marriage might find themselves with nothing if assets get passed down to step-children, just as women who take long career breaks to look after their family might not have enough National Insurance contributions to get a full state pension.'



These same women might then find themselves stripped of financial security when their partner dies if he unwittingly signed up for a 'single-life annuity', a pension that stops payment on the death of the holder.



The message is clear for women like me and those who let their husbands take care of their savings - women have to start taking responsibility for their own finances. But why do some of us find it so excruciatingly hard?



There are several reasons that mean women find it hard to save, says Sarah Pennells of savvywoman.co.uk: 'Even though the gap is closing, women still earn less than men on average, which makes it harder for them to put money away,' she says.



There is also the fact fewer women in the private sector have access to decent pension schemes because the kinds of industries they work in are less likely to offer them.



Spend, spend, spend: Too many women are not considering their financial futures (posed by model)

Also, says Sarah Pennells, women need to save a much bigger pension pot than men to get the equivalent annual incomes because they live a lot longer, and annuity rates currently pay men more than women.



But there are other non-practical reasons why women are not putting money away. 'Women get bewildered by the array of choices,' says Professor Pine. 'Many of us find money issues boring. Financial literature is written by men for men, it's full of jargon and women are put off by it.



'They look at all the choices and perhaps think "I don't understand these, I don't know what is the right thing to do, I'm so scared of doing the wrong thing", so they end up doing nothing.'



Sarah Pennells agrees: 'Research has found that more women are put off by the jargon and complexity of pensions than men are. And on a practical note, when you are single you have nobody to have that conversation with, it's just up to you, which makes it harder. We don't tend to talk to our friends about our pensions.'



But there is a deeper psychological force at play. Women's attitudes to money are more complex than the relationship most men have with their finances, which makes money a huge source of fear and stress.



'A lot of women think that somebody else is going to take care of things because perhaps they've been raised in that mindset, in a household where mum didn't have to worry about money because dad took care of it,' says Professor Pine.

'They have been raised in the belief that money and pensions are not their domain. In my research I found that seven out of ten women worry about money and I don't mean women who haven't got any money - these are women in high-earning jobs.



'It's a real source of anxiety, which I think comes back to having being socialised to feel that money is not our domain. To be thought of as frugal or financially ruthless are the kinds of traits that are valued in males, not women.'



But being reckless and broke aren't attractive traits in a woman, either. So what should I be doing right now to get my finances in order?



'There are two issues,' says the director-general of Saga, Ros Altmann.



'Do you save at all? Do you save in a pension? Some people may already be saving in an ISA - that's still tax-incentivised savings, but not in the form of a pension.



'If you know what the future holds and you want to make sure there's money for when you are in your 60s, the pension is more likely to deliver that. If you think you might need the money to buy a house, then a pension might not be the answer. In this country there's an attitude that when it comes to long-term savings, it's pensions or nothing. But there is probably a cohort of women who it doesn't suit.'



Dependent: Women are relying on men to sort out their finances when they should be taking control themselves (posed by models)

As a first port of call we should all find out if our company offers a pension scheme, says Sarah Pennells. 'Some people don't join their workplace scheme and they don't realise they are missing out on their employer's contributions - that has to be your starting point,' she says.

'The biggest question to ask yourself is if you don't start saving in a pension or an ISA now, what will happen when you retire? It's the question that we don't really want to think about, but for most of us the state pension is £102 a week.



'There is talk of this going up to £150 a week, but £20 a day is not what I want to live on when I retire.'



And whether you opt for savings or a pension, the most important thing is that you start now, says Professor Pine. 'The earlier you do something the better it is in the long term.'

And we need to think about it not just for our financial health but our mental health, too. 'Our financial well-being is tied to our overall sense of well-being so we shouldn't be frightened of dealing with it,' says Professor Pine.



'If we don't we are neglecting an important part of life, almost as important as our health.'



And deep down I know that while I have conquered many fears, I've been neglecting this big part of life for too long, which is why I wake up with a feeling of dread and panic in the middle of the night. It's finally time that I wake up not just at three in the morning, but to reality.



My friend has recommended her financial adviser and I'm seeing him next week. I'm told he is 60-something, married with four adult children - but he could be as close to Prince Charming as I'm going to get. With his help, perhaps I can rescue myself.



