Smart Women Finish Rich: 9 Steps to Achieving Financial Security and Funding Your Dreams

Money is not an end in itself. It is merely a tool to help us achieve some particular goal. If the way we handle our money conflicts with our personal values, we are not going to wind up living happy and fulfilled lives.

It’s hard to be depressed when you are excited about your future, and that’s what dreams do: They make us believe that tomorrow is going to be better than today.

what determines your wealth is not how much you make but how much you keep of what you make.

Without values, goals rarely get accomplished . . . Values are the key. When you understand them correctly, they will pull you toward to your dreams -- which is a lot wetter than having to push yourself!

Warren Buffett once put it: “The most important thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging.

Whenever someone tells me she is a procrastinator, I respond by asking them, "Did you eat this week?" Of course, the person will always answer yes. The fact is, no one procrastinates all the time. What you may be is a selective procrastinator -- which means that if something is important enough (like eating), you are perfectly capable of taking care of it right away.

In fact, studies show that less than 1 percent of Americans write down specific goals for themselves each year. That's a shame, because writing down your goals is powerful.

... keep your nest egg growing faster than inflation isn't all that hard.

It's neither safe nor practical to assume that man in your life can be counted on to take care of your finances.

In fact, what determines your wealth is not how much you make but how much you keep of what you make.

The fact is, you deserve every dollar you can get your hands on. There is nothing greedy about it. You deserve a raise, and you're capable of getting one. You just have to believe in yourself and start asking for it.

What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?

Albert Einstein once said that the most miraculous phenomenon he knew was the miracle of compound interest.

If the way we handle our money conflicts with our personal values, we are not going to wind up living happy and fulfilled lives.

Social security was never intended to be a retirement plan. At most, it was designed to provide an income supplement.

Don't ever put your entire financial fate in someone else's hands.

Why is it that some people can be so successful

So no excuses. When you finish this book

If you think you are being underpaid, underappreciated, and underdeveloped in your current job, then you are being hurt as a human being--and that is unacceptable.

One of the most disappointing things about our schools and the way we raise our kids is that we don't spend more time teaching kids to take more risks. Instead, we teach them to play it safe. Be good, get good grades, get a good job, and eventually you can have a good retirement. That's the lesson society endorses. But what if that lesson is totally out of date? What if the idea that getting good grades and then going to a good college and then getting a good job represents an outmoded plan? In fact, most of our schools today are based on a model created over a hundred years ago for an industrial society in a world totally different from the one into which most of us were born. Back then, you went to work, punched a clock, did what you were told, and eventually were handed a gold watch (maybe). There was hierarchy and a well-defined system within which to work. Not anymore. Today, ideas created out of thin air can become billion-dollar enterprises. The people who get ahead are the ones who know how to communicate, how to think outside the box and persuade others. Unfortunately, many of our schools are still preparing our kids for the old system. Sit still. Be quiet. Do what you are told and we will give you good grades. Get good grades, get a good job and lifelong security. I'm not suggesting that kids shouldn't get good grades and go to college. Of course they should. But it seems to me that our schools are creating worker bees at a time when society is rewarding entrepreneurs. We need to raise our children to think bigger and more creatively than we did. So ask yourself right now, "What am I teaching my kids about life's challenges?" Are you raising your children to go for their dreams or simply to avoid failure?

There is nothing that will "fix" a bad credit report except the passage of time and a consistent record of responsible bill-paying, and you contacting the credit-report companies and working with them to get your credit record clean.

If you have $10,000 sitting in a savings or checking account earning only 1.0 percent annually when it could be earning 4.5 percent, you are cheating yourself out of $450 a year in interest. The way I see it, that's a plane ticket to Hawaii or a fancy dream night out on the town or more money in your retirement account! In other words, that so-called free checking account at the bank really isn't. Quite the contrary, it's costing you a fortune.

three baskets into which you should put your eggs. I call them the security basket, the retirement basket, and the dream basket.

We Americans are being “low monthly payment-ed” to death. People underestimate how these little things add up.

There is no denying the lesson these numbers teach us. The future is going to be expensive.

women are less likely to have a steady income stream over the course of their lifetimes. In some cases, that’s due to discrimination, but it’s also due to the fact that responsibilities such as child rearing and caring for elderly parents cause women to move in and out of the workforce a lot more than men do. In all, over their working lifetimes, women spend a total of 11½ years off the job on average, versus only 16 months for men.

The fact is, none of us really has a choice: We are all playing the money game whether we want to or not. The only question is: Are we winning?

In all, working women currently earn more than $1 trillion a year and account for upwards of 52 percent of all earned household income in this country. There are currently over 9 million female-owned businesses in America, generating more than $3.6 trillion in annual revenues.