One woman she writes about told her:

When she could, she'd even pay her phone bill and mortgage for an entire year. "So if everything goes wrong, I'd at least have a phone and a place to live!"

I think there are tons of women with some version of the "bag lady" fear--many of my friends also have it. I had it in my 30's. It may be one reason more women than men seem to be packrats, rarely throwing things away.

But I wonder if it's really a fear of ending up penniless as opposed to a fear of ending up alone late in life, because that would mean growing old and getting sick alone. If it's a fear of all of these things, I wonder which predominates with most women?

My advice: Downsize. The more you give away, the more you realize how little you really need. It's very liberating --especially from those kind of fears. As Don Henley once sang, "Hearses don't have luggage racks." Put another way, as Bob Dylan sang, "If you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose", and also, "She never stumbles, she's got no place to fall." And then of course there's Janis, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."

For those who want different solutions, Money Magazine has this advice for those with "bag lady syndrome."