Widowhood

Financial Advice for Widows: 6 Tips The loss of a spouse can be crippling—emotionally, physically, spiritually, socially, and equally important, financially. A recent survey found that 78% of widows said that losing their spouse was the single hardest thing that they have been through and the top financial challenges included adjusting to a loss in…

As a widow, there was always something about Valentine’s Day that made me feel unloved.  Of course, this is the complete opposite feeling that this holiday is meant to evoke, but this day can be exceptionally painful for the many women who are experiencing widowhood.  Fortunately, I have found over the years that I began…

Losing a spouse is tough both emotionally, as well as financially. You might be wondering how to plan for your future without your partner, or what will happen to their assets and yours. Well, that’s why the team from Merit Financial Advisors is here to help ensure you’re financially prepared for the future. As our…

Reinvention: It’s Not Easy When your spouse dies, so does the future that the two of you planned together. You’re overwhelmed by the grief, newfound responsibilities, tangle of emotions, and resulting exhaustion that so often accompany widowhood. And now you’re also tasked with reinventing yourself and reimagining a future that no longer includes your partner…

A Story of Loss and What You Can Learn from It. “We never truly get over a loss, but we can move forward and evolve from it.”  – Elizabeth Berrien When I first began to work with financial planning clients, I met a woman whose story has stayed with me, and will undoubtedly be a…

Decisions, Decisions… If you have traveled, or are traveling, the widowhood road, you probably know how overwhelming its myriad changes and choices can be. Making even one good decision, let alone many can be an especially tall order at a time when just putting one foot in front of the other may seem like more than you can muster.…

Becoming a Widow Since recently becoming a widow, Deborah often feels as if she’s trapped on a renegade roller coaster of stress, fear, confusion, exhaustion and loneliness. As if her grief and loss don’t seem debilitating enough, she is deluged with responsibilities, tasks and decisions – decisions that could permanently affect not just her finances,…

Saying Goodbye Many estimates suggest that after their spouses die, a whopping 70% of widows fire their financial advisors. Anecdotal evidence suggests this often happens because the advisor (who supposedly worked for both halves of the couple) somehow never really cultivated a relationship with the woman. Perhaps the advisor made the old-school mistake of seeing her not…

First Things First For centuries, some of the world’s greatest thinkers have contended that helping others is the key to happiness. So you might think that volunteering your time, talent and treasure is a surefire and instant way to get through the grief that widowhood brings. I have found that simply isn’t true. Or at…