Your money for your life?

You dress your age and act your age but are you as 'with it' when it comes to handling your cash? Money is money is money. The more you earn and the more you save, the better, right? Not really, money is more like a toolbox and if you don't use the right tool at the right time, you can be sure all kinds of expensive breakdowns, accidents and leaks will happen along your journey through life and when you least expect it. Well recession is here.

The only thing that's constant in life is change. So with the different situations that arise at every stage in our life, how then can we prepare for these. How do we handle our money smartly so that we might be able to fulfill that dream of retiring at the grand young age of 45 and able to spend lazy days at cafes, working on the first novel and sipping lattes.

No matter what your age, you should be prepared to take the proverbial stock market 'Bull' by its horns and 'Bear' in mind what you need to do whether you're in your 20s, 30s, 40s and beyond. Society's development has a lot of do with the necessity for money smarts. Recent statistics show that more females than males were widowed due to women's longer life expectancy rates. While divorce rates have doubled, women are less likely than men to get re-married and more likely to be single parents (imagine running a household on your own income and bringing up kids at the same time). What's more, one in five females above age 30 is single, so don't wait for Prince Charming to come waving his Platinum card.

The trick lies in learning how to plug the holes that could drain the contents of your wallet, so to speak. Or as they say (about things unrelated to finance, but which, funnily enough, also applies to money), "It's not the size or age that matters, it's how you use it".