“This post is sponsored by Wealthramp, and FabOverFifty may receive compensation from Wealthramp if readers use their services.  Regardless, we think Wealthramp is an important service and as always we only recommend products or services that we believe will be helpful for our readers, as we’ve been doing for 11 years! The article contains affiliate links for Wealthramp, which can be accessed directly at https://wealthramp.com” – Geri Brin

Married at 19 years old, Sarah rarely stressed about money during the next 50 years. “My husband Rob was in charge of the finances from day one,” she said. A mid-level administrator at a printing company in New York, he was sensible and competent at everything he did. Sarah always turned her modest salary as a nutritionist over to him. 

But when Rob died at 74 after a short illness, Sarah’s money worries began. 

She had no earthly idea whether their mortgage was paid off, or if Rob kept his life insurance when their sons moved out on their own. She didn’t know a thing about their investments. And, she didn’t have a clue about their monthly expenses. Rob prepared their income taxes. He paid all the bills.

Sarah was beside herself with anxiety as she waded through mountains of files trying to get a handle on money matters. 

Halfway across the country in Chicago, Barbara had another type of distress when her ex died suddenly. Assuming their 17-year-old twins were still beneficiaries of his life insurance policy, Barbara was shocked to learn he left the money to his new – and much younger – wife. “I was counting on the inheritance to help pay the steep tuition bills when the kids went off to college in a year,” Barbara fretted.

Barbara is still kicking herself that she didn’t confirm the beneficiaries of her former husband’s insurance policy since their divorce. “I would have paid the premiums just as long as the money went to our children, but I had no one to advise me,” she groaned.

DON’T WAIT FOR DEATH OR DIVORCE

Stop right here. Are you like Sarah or Barbara? If your husband died or you and he split up, would you know if your and your family’s financial future were secure?

Or maybe you’re single and make a decent living, but haven’t done a thing to ensure you’d be in decent shape if you lost your job or could no longer work.  And what are your retirement plans?

You see a doctor about medical issues. Rely on a plumber when a pipe leaks. And make a mad dash to a mechanic when a warning light pops up on the car dashboard.

Isn’t it high time you met another expert – a financial expert – who can advise you about one of the most crucial components in your life: Your Money?

You may feel more comfortable letting your partner deal with the family finances. Or perhaps you’re embarrassed that you know next to nothing about investing and would feel like a jerk talking to an expert. Or maybe you think your “future” is too far away, so why start planning for it now!  But you should stop making excuses. If you start learning about your finances today you’ll help give yourself a secure tomorrow. 

“SHOW ME THE MONEY, HONEY”

“Even if you don’t control the money, a lot of ‘what ifs’ can happen, so at least learn where the money is and where it’s going,” said Joyce Streithorst, director of financial planning with Frisch Financial Group. “It’s a lot easier to gather this information over time than to be forced into it by a divorce or a death. 

“You’re not looking to take over control, but to educate yourself and be involved,” Joyce added. Get copies of your tax returns, investment statements, credit card statements, bank statements. Discuss where your money is invested. Go through the estate plan and the beneficiaries. Find out if your husband bought disability and long-term care policies. And make sure your home isn’t in his name only.

“Tell your husband that you want to be on the call when he next talks to the accountant or financial advisor so you can try to understand what’s happening. If the advisor talks over your head, ask him to go slower. If you think commissions, not your interests, are his priorities,  suggest to your husband that it might be a good idea to get a second opinion from another advisor,” Joyce recommended.  After all, you want to make sure you have the right person working for you. 

Frisch Financial is part of Wealthramp, a free online referral service that connects consumers with top independent, fee-only financial advisors who best fit their needs. After all, each woman’s financial requirements are as unique as her health or beauty essentials, stressed Pam Krueger, Wealthramp founder. 

Also co-host of Friends Talk Money podcast and creator and co-host of MoneyTrack on PBS, Pam spent three years personally vetting every advisor for her smart Wealthramp service. She had heard one too many tales of woe from women who suffered financially because they were horribly mismatched with advisors. Or they accepted the advisors their husbands chose, not meeting them even once.

THE WEALTHRAMP DIFFERENCE 

Sixty-something Carol discovered Wealthramp after she sold a building she owned for almost 30 years, and was searching for an investment advisor. Single and a construction management professional, Carol had always been frugal and lived modestly, putting most of  the money she earned from her job and tenants’ rents back into her house.  When she decided  it was time “to start enjoying life instead of fixing toilets,” she put the building up for sale. Her modest down payment had turned into a handsome profit, and she knew it was time “to grow up and have an investment portfolio.”

Discouraged by meetings with women from a Forbes list of top advisors, “who’d blab on and on about themselves without asking me a single question,” Carol was encouraged to hear about Wealthramp on Pam Krueger’s podcast.  “Pam was personable and seemed to care about her clients,” Carol remembered.

After submitting a two-minute Wealthramp survey, Carol had a 45-minute call with Pam, who recommended two advisors. Carol interviewed both of them at length and chose Joyce. “She created a detailed document explaining how she’d invest my money, what the businesses did and why she chose them,” Carol said.

Carol speaks to Joyce whenever she has questions or gets nervous if she sees the value of her investments dropping and needs reassurance. “Joyce gets back to me right away,” Carol said. “I’ve never felt that she put me on the back burner or pushed me off. She doesn’t talk mumbo jumbo and say things I don’t understand.”    

Working with Joyce for the last five months, Carol has seen a good return on her investments. “I never had my life so stress-free, EVER! I know my money is in good hands. And so am I.”  

The advisors in the Wealthramp network don’t require that you invest millions like Carol. As a matter of fact, you don’t need to invest at all; you can simply get a sound analysis from an expert about the state of your financial affairs.

FOR FINANCIAL SECURITY TOMORROW

You probably know Bombas as the brand that donates one pair of its socks to a homeless shelter for each pair purchased. This became the company’s social mission when the two founders learned that socks are the most requested item of clothing in shelters. 

Now the brand is carrying its social consciousness to its new underwear collection.  What’s more, the Bombas marketing mavens are conscious of another important fact: Women who wear underwear aren’t all Victoria’s Secret models. When I opened up one of the Bombas emails the other day, and started looking through its online shop, I was intrigued to see the panties on the bodies of ‘real’ women. Real women with thighs, hips, buttocks, tummies and legs that don’t resemble washboards, beanstalks, and pencils.

When I launched Figure magazine for plus-size women around 2004, the bodies of the larger models we used still didn’t have a bit of hanging or bulging skin. But younger women today champion body acceptance, not body shaming.

I’m not advocating that women should accept bodies that can wreak havoc on their health. “Obesity is a complex disease involving an excessive amount of body fat. Obesity isn’t just a cosmetic concern. It is a medical problem that increases your risk of other diseases and health problems, such as heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and certain cancers,” reports the Mayo Clinic website. 

But not all bodies with excess skin (let’s say after dramatic weight loss or pregnancy) or more heft are unhealthy or unsightly. We may not be used to seeing them on the pages of magazines and catalogs, but millions of women see bodies like this when they look in their mirrors.

I remember to this day heading to the “Chubbette” department with my parents when we went shopping for new school clothes around the end of August every year during my childhood.  I don’t think I read the copy in ads like this one in 1957, when I was 10, but reading it now makes me realize why I grew up thinking myself unsexy (I wasn’t, by the way, but it took years of therapy to discover that).

“If your favorite little girl is on the plump side, dress her in Chubbettes and see her blossom into a lovely lass – as happy and self-assured as her slimmer schoolmates. Chubbettes are created for the chubby-size young figure – a perfect combination of fit, comfort and slenderizing design.” 

The ad also offers parents “POUNDS AND PERSONALITY”,  a free booklet that will help them understand their child’s “problems, talent development, shyness, tactless remarks, the ‘game’ of dieting, etc.” And, it was written by a woman from New York University’s School of Education.

Those 1950s were quite a decade!

 

At 5 am on a Friday in mid January a New York man in his 80s tragically took his own life.

I remember reading about this but learned a few days ago that the man was the husband of Barbara Tober, who I met many years ago when we were both editors. Editor in chief at the time of  phenomenally successful Brides Magazine, Barbara’s poise and elegance stood out in the heady and hectic world of magazine publishing.

I met Donald Tober only briefly when I dropped something off with Barbara at their stately Park Avenue co-op apartment. The handsome couple was getting ready to leave for one of the many events it attended throughout the year.

A Harvard law school graduate and successful businessman, Donald had taken over his father’s food distribution company, which helped make the Sweet ‘N Lo brand a household name.

Both previously married, Donald and Barbara, now 86 years old, had no children. Besides enjoying their active social and professional lives, the Tobers loved skiing, horses (they owned a horse farm), dancing, music, and entertaining. And, they were very philanthropic.

Married 48 years when her husband took his own life, Barbara talks about her shock in a moving tribute on a website she created to honor the love of her life.

A victim of mentally and physically debilitating Parkinson’s Disease, Donald had grown increasingly depressed being confined at home when Covid upturned our lives.

Without the constant stimulation of work and play, he began to talk often about ending his life, Barbara said in her online tribute. But she never dreamed Donald would do it, she added, choking back tears.

My heart goes out to Barbara for her grief. It is profoundly sad when someone says goodbye to a long-time love and best friend.

But, despite losing her intense physical, emotional and intellectual connections with Donald, Barbara’s independent spirit, world of friends and admirers, and deep interests will undoubtedly help sustain her.

Barbara is not a woman who is going to wallow in her sadness. She will bear it with her trademark poise and elegance.

While many may disdain Donald’s decision to end his life, I do not. A man who successfully maintained control over his life for nine decades (he died two months shy of his 90th birthday), he couldn’t let his disease take the reins.

“Life, if well lived, is long enough,” reportedly said the Roman statesman Seneca, who died in 65 AD.

Donald Tober knew he led a life well lived. Barbara knows it, too.

 

I spent my 40s having uninhibited sex with E, a man from Mississippi (yes, Mississippi!) 14 years my senior. Thrilling sex. Sex that made me see stars – literally. Sex in all kinds of positions. Sometimes sex three times a night. Long drawn-out sex. Speedy sex. Sober sex. Inebriated sex.  No toys. No chains, whips and blindfolds. Just me and E. Up until our first sexual union I couldn’t have even imagined sex could be so intoxicating, 

E died 12 years after we met, when I was 53 years old. Although my sex life didn’t die with him, sex with new men didn’t come close to being as exciting.  I didn’t care. I had left corporate America two years before to launch my own business, an all-consuming endeavor.  

Then, year by year, sex has played a smaller and smaller role in my life. It’s not a big ticket in the lives of many of my FOFriends, either, whether or not they’re married. 

A vibrator is an acceptable stand in for E, even if it doesn’t have a southern accent. Frankly, the thought of having sex with an older man who doesn’t look like Liam Neeson isn’t especially appealing. Besides, it’s doubtful Liam would fancy my current physique. 

Enough about me. Let’s talk about you. If your interest in sex is diminishing weekly – but it distresses you – I know just the man who can help.

His name is Dr. James Simon, a prominent reproductive endocrinologist and certified sexuality counsellor in Washington, D.C. who has been called the “Menopause Whisperer” by Washingtonian Magazine. And, he’s just received the Distinguished Service Award from the International Society for the Study of Women’s Sexual Health, which recognizes an individual’s dedication and commitment to the fields of women’s sexual medicine and health.

As Dr. Simon treated women in their mid-40s who were fatalistically accepting their declining libidos, he was determined to step forward. That was 25 years ago, when he opened IntimMedicine Specialists, his Washington, D.C. practice.  

Now a preeminent authority on treating sexual, menopausal, and complicated gynecological problems, Dr. Simon explains there are “biological, sociological and psychological approaches to understanding low sexual desire and bringing couples closer together, rather than allowing them to drift apart.” 

What’s more, “women who have successful intimate relationships, including sex, are less likely to have sleep problems or other medical problems, and even live longer,” he asserts.

Since 1996, Dr. Simon has helped thousands of women, men and couples understand their waning sexual interest and take action to reverse it. “Women feel diminishing sexual desire is a fait accompli of aging, and nothing can be done about it,” he adds. “When it is exacerbated by menopausal symptoms, sexual pain, and fear of hormones, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If neglected, additional social and inter-relational issues predominate, making treatment far more complex.” 

The availability of pornography has had both positive and negative effects on sexual relationships, Dr, Simon believes. “It’s opened our eyes to new types of sexual encounters, which can help couples renew their sexual satisfaction. On the downside, explicit sexuality on the internet can raise unrealistic expectations,” he adds, “Patients ask me, ‘Why is sex so short?’ when they see it last an hour online,” he chuckles.

Dr. Simon and I have become friends, and we’re working together on an exciting initiative for mid age women – which we’ll announce later in the year. We’ve never discussed my sex life, but I’m certain that his intelligence, experience, wonderfully soothing style – teamed with his incredible ability to listen – will do wonders for yours.

You don’t have to live in Washington, D.C. or visit Dr. Simon’s office. Schedule a Zoom session and you’ll probably call him the “Menopause Whisperer,” too. You can reach Dr. Simon at 202-293-1000.