Registration


2015 SUMMER SEMINARS

Money Matters for Women invites you to join us at our small, interactive educational seminars on financial literacy. They will educate, inform, and empower you as you learn the tools, techniques, and strategies you need to protect and preserve your financial health and well-being.

Each seminar focuses on solving specific problems that many of us have about particular areas of personal money management. You'll be given easy to understand, actionable information, as well as worksheets and take-away materials that will help you develop and maintain sound habits of saving, spending, and investing long after you leave the seminar.

Our seminars meet in private areas of the libraries and churches in our local communities, most often in Washington and Kent, Connecticut. They begin at 6:15 in the evening and end at 7:45; light refreshments are served.

Participation in each seminar is limited to 18 attendees to ensure relaxed, informal conversation and time to answer all your questions. Choose the seminar(s) that meet your financial education needs and take an important step toward finding financial peace of mind. Descriptions of seminar topics are listed below. Click on the Register link at the bottom of this page, check the appropriate seminar(s) and date, and you're on your way!

A Convenient Alternative Just for You: Personal and Private Individual Meetings

Many of our clients prefer meeting privately with our president, Joan Kaplan, without the distraction of being in a group where discussing their personal issues in depth may be uncomfortable or feel inappropriate. You can schedule a personal and private meeting in the comfort of your home or in our office in Washington, Connecticut at a time that is most convenient for you. You may decide to meet again after your first private meeting, but there is no requirement to do so. Every situation is unique: schedule meetings as often or infrequently as is best for you.

If a private meeting best meets your needs, call Ms. Kaplan at 860.619.0099 to schedule a convenient time to meet. All information you discuss is absolutely confidential.

I heard Joan Kaplan speak at the Kent Library when she introduced Money Matters for Women to the community. Afterward I scheduled a private one-on-one meeting in my home. I immediately felt that she really cared about our financial situation and had a passion for guiding us to financial security.  Her intuitiveness and direct approach helped me get a clear, positive view of our financial future. My husband and I continue to meet with her periodically. Personal money management is one of the most complicated and overwhelming challenges. To find someone so knowledgeable, clear and understanding is truly a blessing.

Deborah O., Kent, CT

For your information:

Mrs. Kaplan is the founder and president of Money Matters for Women, formerly a division of then New York City-based Kaplan Communications Company. With more than fifteen years as a professional communications and education specialist in the financial services industry, she has seen time and again the tremendous gap in many adults' understanding of financial concepts and tools, and recognized the need for actionable education that would help them develop basic knowledge and sound habits of savings, spending, and investing wisely.

To answer the question asked by so many women, especially, "Why didn't someone teach me these things when I was in school?" Ms. Kaplan developed the content of Money Matters for Women seminars. Drawing on effective, time-tested teaching techniques that emphasize participant participation and conversational informality, Money Matters for Women seminars are tailored specifically to the unique needs of women of all ages and circumstances.

Formerly Executive Vice President and Director of Communications for Investors Press, Inc., Ms. Kaplan has written extensively on personal money management, retirement planning, risk and pension management, investment strategies, fiduciary and compliance responsibility. She has authored and edited more than a dozen financial education books, as well as numerous newsletters, industry White Papers and briefing reports.

Before joining Investors Press, Ms. Kaplan headed Joan Kaplan Fine Art, a well-known advisory and curatorial consulting company that advised global financial institutions on the acquisition of museum-quality fine art collections. In addition, she developed related educational programs, hosted tours and panel discussions featuring leading artists and other art world luminaries.

An accomplished public speaker, Ms. Kaplan has moderated numerous educational conferences and special group meetings, and has developed the agenda for dozens of industry-wide conferences on retirement planning, risk and pension management. To meet the financial literacy needs of young adults, she founded Money Matters for Kids in 2006 and has delivered educational seminars to high school juniors and seniors n both public and private schools throughout the greater New York area.

She received her B.A. degree with honors from Connecticut College after three years, and has completed graduate course work at Yale University. Now a full-time resident of Washington, Connecticut, she serves on the Board of Directors of the Washington Scholarship Fund, the Washington Democratic Town Committee, and is an elected member of the Washington Zoning Board of Appeals.

SEMINAR DESCRIPTIONS

HOW CAN I PAY ALL MY BILLS AND STILL HAVE MONEY TO SAVE OR INVEST?

Do you dread the end of the month and the mountain of bills you'll have to pay? Do you worry that that you aren't saving enough, or any money, for emergencies or investing for the future? Will you use your credit card(s) to buy what you want when you want it, knowing that you will pay only the minimum due in each billing cycle and that over time the interest that is charged to your account will grow into a seemingly insurmountable burden of debt?

In this seminar you will learn how to understand how much money you actually have coming in and going out. Once you understand the relationship between income and expenses (the different kinds we all have: fixed, variable, discretionary), you'll be able to readjust what you spend and where you spend it, and learn how to avoid credit card debt ' the single most compelling reason that many people can't, or don't, save any money.

If you think 'budget' is a bad word, you'll learn that it is really a gift to yourself. Creating a realistic budget does not mean 'doing without'! It means you are taking control of your finances responsibly: giving yourself a guide to your personal money management so you can live comfortably within your means. Doing that requires knowing the difference between 'needs and wants,' developing the discipline to resist the lure of immediate gratification and keep you debt free. You'll also learn about the real cost of credit, hidden fees, and your rights as a card-holder, how to pick the right credit card for you from the very many that are available, how to increase your credit worthiness (score), and the strategies you can use to pay down any credit card balances you may have.

You'll learn all this and more - and leave our seminar confident that you can manage your personal finances with ease and success.


INVESTING BASICS: BUILDING BLOCKS FOR YOUR FUTURE

What are your short- and long-term investment goals? What is the difference between a stock and a bond? What else can you invest in? Do all investment vehicles behave in the same way? Should all your investments be the same type thing, or should you diversify among asset classes? What are asset classes? What are mutual funds and why do so many people invest in them? Have you ever read a fund's prospectus? If you have, can you understand it? Why is that so important? Do you know what fees are associated with investing in a mutual fund or in any other investment vehicle?

When does 'profit' not mean real profit? Did you forget about fees, taxes, and the impact of inflation on investment returns? Do you know your life expectancy and your long-term investment time horizon? Do you know your investment risk profile, what types of risk exist, and how to manage them? How does the magic of compounding work to your benefit, and why should you start saving as soon as you can for as long as you can? Do you know how to build an investment portfolio, how, and how often, to re-balance it? How do you find a financial adviser who is right for you? What will he or she do for you and how much will it cost?

This seminar answers all these questions and many more. Investing wisely requires having a solid foundation of broad-based basic knowledge not nearly as difficult to learn and understand as many women think. No one expects you to be a financial expert: when you got your driver's license you were expected to know the rules of the road and how to operate your vehicle safely; you were not expected to know how to fix your engine! But you should know the basic concepts associated with investing in order to ask your financial advisers the right questions.

Join this seminar and you'll leave it a smarter, safer, and more successful investor.


  RETIREMENT? IT'S NEVER TOO SOON OR TOO LATE TO START PLANNING FOR IT!

Thinking about planning for your retirement? Gosh, no! I'm only in my twenties! I' m worrying about paying down my student loans, having the rent for my apartment every month, buying a car, pretty clothes for work, going out with my friends and having some fun. I've got lots of time for planning retirement is so far away!

Me? Thinking about planning for retirement? No way! I'm only in my thirties and got married a few years ago. Now we want to buy a house and start a family. We want to buy a new car and take at least one more vacation before the kids start coming. And I still have college loans to pay off! There is lots of time left to save for when we are old.

I'm in my forties and I think about planning and saving for my retirement all the time. It scares me! We haven't saved much, what with the kids, the house, child care costs, health, house, and car insurance, endless stuff and I still have my student loans to pay off! We need the money we have now. How much could we save anyway? It's probably just too late to start.

I'm in my fifties. If I don't lose my job, I'll just have to keep working as long as I can, longer than I ever expected to. What if I do lose it and can't find another at my age? Hopefully, Social Security and Medicare will still be there when I need it, but I'm not sure. And I'm not sure what I'll do if it isn't.

Sound familiar? No matter how old you are, or what stage of life you're in, there are a million and one excuses we can think of to convince ourselves that planning and saving for retirement can wait. The truth is that it's never too early to plan, or too late to start saving for those years that seem so far way.

This seminar gives you a set of solutions for every age and circumstance. It will show you how to increase the benefits you'll get from making the maximum contributions to your 401(k) or 403(b), and help you understand how to choose where your money is being invested through those plans. It will teach you how you can actually save less money over a longer period of time and end up with more money than someone who starts a decade later and has to save more in total than you did.

Register as soon as possible: Space is limited!

Click this link to go to Registration Form

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