Now That Hes Gone

money are legitimate, and you deserve to have them addressed—early and often. For these reasons, one of the most important people you'll need in your life is a good, trustworthy financial advisor. Later in the book, I'll give you some tips on how to find such a person.
    By the way, you're also going to need advice on a whole lot of legal matters, like probate if you're a widow, or alimony if you've just been divorced. There are many good books on these subjects, and I recommend some of them in the Appendix. Of course, I could include such advice here, but the laws are different in every part of the country and such things are constantly changing, so I'd risk giving you information that's already out of date. We'll leave the legal issues for you to deal with later.
    In the meantime, I'm going to give you some guidelines about money issues that my clients have found helpful. Then, in the chapters that follow, we'll explore what has been the biggest challenge for my clients: bouncing back and living a successful life on their own.
Your Two Biggest Concerns about Money
    When it comes to money, your two biggest concerns are today and tomorrow—the present and the future. I've discovered that my client and I can get a pretty good handle on her present financial situation simply by answering three questions:
Do you know what you have?
Where is it?
Why do you have it?
    Let's explore these questions a bit and see if they can help you get some insights into your own current financial picture.
1. Do you know what you have?
    This seems like a condescending, almost insulting question, but you'd be surprised at how many women have only the vaguest idea what their money is invested in, or even how much money they have. And answering this question can often take more time than you would think.
    In order to get the answer, here's what you have to do. Start going through all the papers and files in your home and offices, looking for bank statements, mutual fund statements, stock certificates, bonds, annuity contracts, insurance policies, deeds to real estate, titles to cars and boats—anything that might be at all related to things you own. If you look at a piece of paper and are not sure what it tells you, set it aside to show to your financial advisor later.
    At this point, don't focus on your monthly bills and other expenses. We'll deal with that later. Right now you just want to find out how much you have. On a financial statement, this is the left side of the page, the side labeled “Assets”.
    Do you have a safe deposit box? If you're not sure, call your bank and find out. If you're a widow, you might be required to wait and open it in the presence of an IRS agent. I'd advise you to talk to a lawyer about how to handle that scene.
    If you've been letting the mail pile up unopened, don't be ashamed; you've got a lot of company. Many women do this, simply because it demands attention and energy they're unable to spend right after their man is gone. I've often had women come into my office with a plastic trash bag full of unopened mail and a look on their face that says, “Help”! So we help them. But you can certainly help yourself a lot sooner.
    Whenever you feel you're emotionally ready, start opening that mail and adding financial-type items (statements, confirmations of stock or bond transactions, etc.) to your financial advisor pile. In Chapter 3, we're going to talk about “opening your front door,” which means opening yourself to the world. When you're hurting, it's easy to hide out at home so you don't have to deal with the harsh realities of your new life. That's OK for a while, but soon it becomes unhealthy, unproductive and irresponsible. By not dealing with financial reality, you could be causing yourself unnecessary hardship sooner than you think. So take a deep breath, put on your reading glasses and get to it.
    Your objective here is to give yourself and your financial advisor as accurate a picture as possible of what you own. Everything else flows from that.
2. Where is it?
    This also sounds like a question that's just too simple. But the answer might be quite complicated. For instance, in years past, most investors in stocks and bonds took physical custody of the actual certificates and kept them at home in a lock-box or in a safe deposit box at the bank. While this is almost never done any more, it's possible your man had such certificates and you don't know it. If they get lost or thrown away, you