Why An Financial Advisor Belongs On Your Menopause Team
38 and 24. Hold on to those two numbers for a minute.
Beacon Pointe’s new HerWorth study surveyed more than 10,000 women investors and found that 38% of women who work with a financial advisor feel highly confident managing their money.
Among women going it alone, that number falls to 24%. Put another way, women with an advisor are roughly 60% more likely to report real confidence in their finances. Same intelligence. Same accomplishments. The difference is somebody in their corner.
Across the whole study, only 31% of women said they feel highly confident managing their finances at all. Sit with that. Seven in ten accomplished women, managing real wealth, second-guessing themselves.
Now, if you are a woman in your forties or fifties, I want to talk with you about why that gap matters more for you than for anyone else who read that study.
THE DECADE THAT ASKS EVERYTHING OF YOU AT ONCE
And why carrying it alone costs real money
Let me describe what this stretch of life actually looks like, because so few people say it out loud. Your body is changing in ways nobody prepared you for. Hot flashes in the middle of a presentation you spent weeks building. Nights where sleep never quite arrives. A fog that makes you second-guess yourself in rooms you used to run.
And while all of that is happening, life hands you the heaviest financial decisions you will ever face. A child heading to college. A mother who needs more help every month. Catch-up contributions. A career you may need to reshape on your own terms. Retirement money that needs positioning now, while there is still time for it to grow.
I see this pattern every day with my patients. The most capable woman in the room, quietly holding all of it, telling herself she will deal with the money once things calm down.
Things do not calm down in this decade. The decade simply ends, and the decisions you deferred come due with interest.
WHAT WAITING ACTUALLY COSTS
Here is the finding that stopped me. Nearly two out of three women with half a million dollars or more to invest are keeping over $100,000 of it in cash. Sitting still. Earning close to nothing.
Maybe that sounds safe to you. So let me show you what “safe” actually costs.
Picture $100,000 in a checking account. Now picture that same $100,000 invested and growing at a modest 6% a year. Ten years later, the parked money is still $100,000. The invested money is about $179,000.
That gap is $79,000. Gone quietly, without a single bad decision, just from waiting.
And you will need that money. AARP found that families caring for an aging parent spend about $7,242 a year out of their own pockets. The cash you park in this decade is the cushion you will reach for in the next one.
And I want you to hear the clinical piece clearly. That money sits because confidence drops, and confidence drops because your brain and body are under real physiological strain. Estrogen affects sleep. Sleep affects executive function, the mental horsepower you use to decide. This is the Menopause Tax™ at work. Your symptoms and your finances are already in the same conversation, whether or not you sent them an invitation.
WHY AN ADVISOR BELONGS ON YOUR MIDLIFE TEAM
You would never walk through this season without a doctor who takes your symptoms seriously. A financial advisor earns a seat at that same table. And the HerWorth data shows women already know where the help is needed most:
41% want help with retirement
38% with investment management
35% with estate planning.
Look at that list again. Those are the exact three decisions this decade puts on your desk.
Three reasons the seat matters now:
They carry decisions when your capacity is stretched thin. An advisor functions as borrowed executive function. When brain fog and a full caregiving load collide with a Roth conversion window, you want a professional whose job is to keep that window open while you handle everything else.
They position you before a career change, instead of cleaning up after one. Many women downshift, take leave, or walk away during untreated perimenopause. With planning, that becomes a managed transition with liquidity, benefits bridging, and a tax strategy behind it. Without planning, it becomes a wealth event you absorb alone.
They connect the professionals who each see one piece of you. In that same study, 25% of women said the top reason an advisor relationship fell short was poor coordination with their other professionals. Your health costs, your tax picture, and your career decisions are tangled together right now. You deserve a team that talks to each other.
The study also tells you how to choose well. When women recommended their advisor, 34% pointed to demonstrated results and 21% to an advisor who understood their goals. So interview for both. Ask for the track record, and ask whether they understand what this decade is actually asking of you.
Your free move this week: open your accounts and write down every dollar earning under 1%. That single number tells you whether you need this conversation.
We raise our daughters to ask for help without shame. Somewhere along the way, we stopped extending ourselves the same grace. So here is my question for you: who is sitting at your financial table right now, and who is missing?
If the answer unsettles you, start at menoandmoney.com. Bring your idle cash number with you.