April is financial literacy month. Numerous financial-planning Web sites and groups have sprung up to cater to higher-income women but advisers and advocates for lower-income women’s retirement planning say they have the field to themselves.

Money Advice Runs Low for Minority Women
By Sandra Guy 

Vickie Elisa vividly recalls living in her car for a week and a half after she lost her apartment 25 years ago to overwhelming credit-card debt. A friend took her in, and Elisa got back on her feet in a big way.

Elisa, 48, is now the board president of Mothers’ Voices of Georgia, a nonprofit organization in Atlanta that helps low-income women become financially empowered to better deal with health and lifestyle issues. A single mother, she owns property in Florida and South Carolina, a house in Georgia worth $350,000, and has accumulated $65,000 in retirement funds and an annuity. But she knows she is an exception.

“Half of minority women older than 65 in the United States are living in poverty,” Elisa said. “Those are my aunts, who at age 75 had to go to work at Wal-Mart because they didn’t have enough money in retirement to live in dignity.”

Elisa and her ex-husband accumulated $30,000 in debt after a year and a half of marriage. Even though he generated most of the debt he refused to pay it off. After the couple divorced, Elisa, a public health consultant, worked one full-time and two part-time jobs for five years to repay the debt and restore her credit rating.

At the time, she had no idea that she could have split the debt with her husband during the divorce proceedings.

“That was huge mistake No. 1,” she said.

Around nine years ago, Elisa attended a workshop about retirement and economic issues led by Cindy Hounsell, president of WISER, the Women’s Institute for a Secure Retirement, based in Washington, D.C. (Hounsell was named a Women’s eNews 21 Leader for the 21st Century in 2006.)

For the rest of the story, click here.