What To Do Before A Catastrophe Strikes
What To Do Before A Catastrophe Strikes
Retired professor, 75, fumbled to learn her finances when her husband died.
Moneywise Vawn Himmelsbach Tue, November 18, 2025
When Alice Stone Nakhimovsky’s husband, Alexander, passed away unexpectedly last year from a brain aneurysm, she lost more than her partner. She also lost every detail of their financial life.
The 75-year-old retired professor had written 11 books, yet she didn’t understand the language of finance. Her husband had always handled that side of things.
“It’s mostly because I have no interest in learning about investing,” Nakhimovsky told The Wall Street Journal (1).
She knew they had saved more than $1 million, but she didn’t understand how it was allocated or even how much she could safely spend each month to make it last through retirement. She also knew she was “a sitting duck” if she didn’t figure it out.
It took her a year to get everything sorted, and she now regrets not doing it earlier. After all, she said, “catastrophe can strike at any time.”
What’s At Stake
Women tend to live longer than men, which means they’re more likely to be widowed and more likely to need a bigger nest egg.
Life expectancy in the U.S. is 75.8 years for males and 81.1 years for females (2). A woman also has a 7-in-10 chance of outliving her husband, either due to life expectancy or marriage age gaps (3).
Yet, while 30% of high-earning heterosexual women in the U.S. are now the primary breadwinners, “less than half prefer that role,” according to UBS’s 2023 Own Your Worth report. Only half of those breadwinners engage in short- and long-term financial decisions (4).
“Less than half, 49%, of women primary earners in heterosexual relationships say they prefer that arrangement, compared to 87% of men breadwinners,” the report found.
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