Recently The Toronto Star interviewed me for an article that appeared in that newspaper today. During the interview we talked about my life but the reporter, Trish Crawford, was also interested in why financial literacy skills are so important for women.

I told Trish financial literacy is especially important for women who are in abusive relationships. Having bank accounts and credit cards in their own name is their safety net to be able to leave the relationship.

The abuser controls the ...

Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy is   (www.jumpstart.org) a non-profit coalition that has an interest in advancing financial literacy among students in pre-kindergarten through college. Since 1997 Jump$tart has administered surveys to high school seniors regarding financial literacy. The survey has 31 multiple choice questions. During 2008 they administered the survey and the average score was……….47.5%.

Our children are failing financial literacy. This is a disast...

Today I did an interview with Brad Davis of WDRC in Bloomfield, CT and Brad asked me why financial self-sufficiency is so important to women survivors of domestic violence.

I told Brad that when I left my ex-husband I was 39 years old and during our marriage he dominated the family finances. In spite of the fact that I was a vice president with a Wall Street insurance company and managed corporate budgets in the millions of dollars annually, I would turn over my earnings to my ex-husband wh...

I was speaking to a woman recently about different issues regarding domestic violence. During our discussion it became clear that she didn't understand why women who have left abusive relationships often return. Many people place blame on the victim for returning suggesting that they even like or thrive on the abuse. The attitude is; if they didn’t like being abused they would leave and not return, right?

The reasons why women return to abusive relationships are extremely complex and hav...

Knipple is a Yiddish word which means a “woman’s private stash”. It is a stash of money that is kept by her secretly.

I learned about the term in the book “Money, A Memoir: Women, Emotions and Cash”  by Liz Perle . Ms. Perle relates a story from her childhood about her grandmother who insisted that she always have a knipple.  

Ms. Perle’s grandmother explains that a knipple is “a just in case account” that is her’s alone so that she can do with it as she pleases and also ...

Domestic violence is a widespread epidemic and many women bear this curse in private and never tell anyone. I was one of those women who by day was a competent business executive (see www.nancysstory.com) and at home a battered wife.  Corporations that we all work for employ many women in these circumstances costing those corporations billions of dollars annually.

According to a study released in 2007 (http://caepv.org/getinfo/facts_stats.php?factsec=1) intimate partner violence costs the U...