One of my favorite people, Ruth Hayden, finally got around to doing what she should have done years ago: She wrote a book, putting into print the eminently sensible advice she's been giving people for 11 years as a budgeting and family cash flow management counselor. Ruth has a well-honed ability to cut through the emotional clutter around people's attitudes about money.

Star Tribune, Business Section,
Tony Carideo, July 21, 1992

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How To Turn Your Money Life Around: The Money Book for Women, by Ruth Hayden, is a congenial visit with a sage and trusted friend we've turned to for help. "I'm always in debt," we tell her, admitting for the first time that we're scared. While Hayden does focus on the money training women receive, fear doesn't recognize gender, and men will find Hayden's advice valuable as well.

Without condescension, she helps us see we're managing our money exactly as we learned from our family and culture by absorbing what we saw, heard, and felt. "Money beliefs are an emotional response to childhood learned money experiences." And behavior, Hayden points out, always follows our beliefs.

We can't force ourselves to think differently, but once our money beliefs are lured into the light, we empower ourselves to change them. Then we learn healthy money boundaries, skills and consequences by entering into five Self-Contract Agreements with ourselves. "It's your life, and you get to decide," Hayden says.

By the end of the book, we discover, to our enormous delight, that we can make and work a budget, we can save and we can survive. IT WORKS! Hayden has given us a priceless tool to fiscal health.

The Phoenix, "Books & Cassettes" section,
Audrey Delamartre, December 1992

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Then, too, women who regard the future as a hazily foreboding prospect also have financial habits that are likely to land them in trouble one day--in effect, fulfilling their prophecy. Only 21 percent of women who are pessimistic about the future set specific savings goals, compared with 40 percent of optimists. They are less likely to make regular monthly contributions to an investment account, less inclined to educate themselves about financial planning and less likely to intend to start or add to an investment portfolio over the next year. "Pessimistic women see the risks of investing writ large and are often paralyzed by these fears," explains Ruth Hayden, author of How to Turn Your Money Life Around: The Money Book for Women. "When it comes to your finances, paralyzed is one of the worst things to be."--Clint Willis - Exclusive Investment Survey - "Mind Over Money: A landmark study shows how your personality influences your financial decisions--for better or for worse"

Working Woman, February 1995

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Ruth Hayden can talk with equal ease about childrearing ("you can't vote on whether you're a good parent 'til your youngest child is 30"), the importance of athletics in developing self-esteem, and why divorce, like bankruptcy, sometimes is necessary.

But it is on the subject of money, particularly how women handle money, that the gregarious, articulate and decidedly outspoken Hayden turns steely, uncommonly serious. She sounds angry at the world.

St. Paul Pioneer Press, "Helping Women Discover, Maintain Economic Safety",
Amy Gage, 1995.

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Colleen and her husband were enjoying a romantic candlelight dinner one evening when he took her hand, ever so gently, and told her to get an IRA.

Colleen's husband had mentioned the need for financial planning before, but she always denied it, brushed it away. This time was even worse. "I see money as hard," she says, revealing what financial experts say is one of women's myths about money. This was a soft moment.

Colleen, 48, isn't the only woman of her generation to have emotional reactions toward money, to feel she was never trained to invest, to know she should save but not know where to start. Statistical and anecdotal evidence shows that even women who have achieved great success in their fields may retain fears about money, a lack of confidence that often stems from a dearth of information and experience.

"We really did get taught that this is not our job," says Ruth Hayden, a St. Paul-based personal financial consultant who teaches classes on women and money. In her 1992 book, How to Turn Your Money Life Around, Hayden said that women approach money management from three basic beliefs: I shouldn't have to. I don't want to. And, I can't.

That last belief can be especially self-destructive, she says. It leads women to think they lack fiscal capability, that they're incapable of crunching numbers. In reality, they simply lack the facts.

St. Paul Pioneer Press, "Women In Business: Taking Control of Your Finances" - Business Section,
Amy Gage, Aug. 28, 1994.

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The [investment] clubs also can help women gain the confidence to make financial decisions. "The wonderful thing about these clubs is that they allow women to feel more comfortable with their money," says Ruth Hayden, a financial consultant in St. Paul, Minnesota, and author of How To Turn Your Money Life Around: The Money Book for Women. "Women can build the knowledge base and experience they'll need to manage their personal finances better--which will allow them to manage their lives better."

Ladies' Home Journal, "The Moneymakers: Thousands of women are making big profits by investing their money together. Here's how you can join the club",
Clint Willis, May 1995

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"Women are in trouble with money," Hayden said in her talk before the NCJW and in a follow-up interview. The poverty class in this country is almost entirely women and children. What's more, 80 percent of women in retirement don't have pension plans in their own name.

"Women still are not accumulating money for retirement the way we're supposed to," she said.

It's not much better at the other end of the age spectrum, Hayden said. She recently agreed to an interview with Mademoiselle magazine, only after it was explained to her that the 18- to 30-year old readers of that magazine don't have a better handle on their finances than their mothers and grandmothers.

Women typically recognize they are in financial trouble at some pivotal point in their lives, Hayden said. A child has left home. She's lost her job. She's turned 40 and thought she'd own a house by now, or have her own business. She's recently divorced or widowed.

"I call it the marker," Hayden said. "There's some kind of marker where she says, 'This isn't working. I need to do money differently.'"

Minnesota Women's Press, "Ruth Hayden to Women: Take Charge of Your Money Life", Money and Finance,
Miriam K. Feldman, March/April 1995

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Ruth talks about the common thread that connects those who have money problems, understanding our money life, fear, simple belief patterns that "manage" us. These early learned patterns begin interfering with other parts of our lives. Ruth says, "Grab your life! Today is a great day to do something where you feel like you're in charge."

The Edge, In an interview of Ruth Hayden by
Tim Miejan, editor

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Money. That's a fightin' word for most American couples, according to Ruth Hayden, author of the new book For Richer, Not Poorer: The Money Book for Couples.

Hayden offers help for ending household battles over money--something she says most couples experience. A recent Harris poll, she notes, found financial disagreements are at the root of most conflicts in American marriages, and the main reason for divorce.

"And it doesn't matter how much money a couple has," Hayden says. Financial expectations rise along with incomes.

The Star-Ledger of Newark, Steps Toward Truce in Household Budget Battles,
Lisa Irizarry, staff writer, N.J., 1999 Newhouse News Service (November).

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Tips From Ruth. Questions: How does this economic downturn differ from others? Why is consumer debt so high? How can consumers reduce their debt? Should consumers save money while paying off debt? What can people do if they think they might lose their job? Do you support the personal bankruptcy bill?

St. Paul Pioneer Press, On Debt, Interview Article, March 3, 2001

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How can women realize the importance of financial planning? Typically, women experience a turning point where they are forced to realize that something in their life "just isn't working" and they need to do things differently. A woman may wake up one day and realize that she's 38 years old and still not married. Or, she thought that by age 40 she would own a home. Or, she just got a divorce and must now live independently.

Men and women alike must take responsibility for the financial statistics concerning women. I include men, because they should be concerned for the financial future of their mothers, aunts, wives and sisters. As a culture, we have not taken responsibility for poor elderly women. Although there are more and more women in the work force, they are still not saving money. While a lot of women are afraid of making an investment mistake and losing money, they need to learn that it's a mistake to not plan ahead for the future.

IAI Adviser, A Newsletter of the IAI Family of No-Load Mutual Funds, Special Feature: "Women, One of the 90's most formidable investment groups", Summer 1995

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A committed relationship requires commitment on many levels, and paramount among them is handling money, an issue that can cause enormous stress if you're both trying to paddle the same canoe, but in opposite directions. Hayden, author of the ever-popular lifesaver, How to Turn Your Money Life Around: The Money Book for Women, here applies her wisdom to couples' money-handling, and provides a step-by-step plan to work together and thrive financially.

Understanding, communication and cooperation are the keys that individuals will carry into agreed-on-weekly meetings with each other for the purpose of building a money agenda that will secure a harmonious future. The process is to determine how much money is coming in, how much is going out and for what, and what money-management tools we can learn to use to keep us solvent and move together toward security in harmony.

It sounds like a big responsibility for a little book, but financial consultant and planner Hayden gets right to the point and stays on target until we readers are equipped and capable to make it on our own. She's written a marriage saver here.

The PHOENIX, Books, Etc.,
Audrey DeLaMartre, June 2000

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Ruth Hayden claims that if her new book was available 30 years ago, she and her husband Don would have used their money more wisely and avoided a lot of hurt and anger in their relationship.

Highland Villager, An Interview of Ruth Hayden by Bob Gilbert, Nov. 3, 1999

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"All change starts with a decision to change," financial educator Ruth Hayden likes to say.

When it comes to how you spend money, however, changing old habits can be as hard as losing 30 pounds or starting a daily exercise program. It takes work. It takes discipline. And it takes practice, especially for two people in a committed relationship, who may have different beliefs about the role money should play in their lives.

St. Paul Pioneer Press, "Talk about 'money life",
Amy Gage, September 26, 1999. (A book review/interview)

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Take any couple, young or old, married or unmarried, and they will more likely than not confirm that money caused conflict in their relationship. It is true that these financial conflicts often develop into problems serious enough to lead to divorce. Throughout For Richer, Not Poorer, Hayden shares the stories of couples who have come to her seeking advice in solving their money woes. Through her work as a couples' financial counselor, Hayden has developed a step-by-step process to help duos change their way of relating about money, and it is that process she documents in this book.

Foreword, Reviewed by Vicki Gervickes