Financial Planner Says Women Need To Learn More About Managing Money

(CBS) -- 51 percent of women are living alone and those who are married are outliving their spouses by up to ten years, reports WBBM's Veronica Carter. For that reason, financial planners say they need to learn more about managing their money.

Dan Fisher, the head of Fisher Financial Group in Northbrook, has created a special money program called Financially Fit Women. Fisher says the majority of his clients are women and he found some of them don't know as much about money as they should.

"Women have often made the mistake of handing control of the money to the men in their lives," Fisher said. "When they end up single later in life as a result of either divorce or death, they are not in a good position to take control of their finances."

Fisher is holding workshops this month to teach some tricks about managing money and while he doesn't want to say stop shopping, "There has to be a voice in the back of your head, 'Do I really need this?'"

Statistics show in the U.S. alone nearly 20 percent of unmarried women 65 and older live below the poverty line.