Women and Money : A bond, less evolved
“Women don’t talk about money”, my aunt proclaimed when I confessed to my mom about the lack of financial education I had(still working on it). I started wondering why did money fall into an ‘enemy’ territory for women? What exactly has gender to do with understanding basics of money? Growing up, I never learned anything about money except “save your pocket money!” and “don’t demand too much!” I would feel proud of myself just because I threw lesser tantrums than my friends for my wish list of childhood fantasies. Even in school, they never taught about money for livelihood, how to do taxes, investment opportunities, etc. And to add to this, the men in my family dutifully discussed family financial matters among themselves without consulting or involving the women(an average Indian household). As a result, when I started earning after graduating, I got anxious. For the first time in my life, I was responsible of independently handling all the money that I was making but I didn’t know how. I am not a spendthrift but I also didn’t want all those bucks to just sit in my bank account. I knew I had to start planning and organizing but this has been a territory unexplored and made me quite nervous.
I started with drawing a goal, the most simplified version of it being, I want my money to grow. Now I had heard the word ‘investment’ but I never really knew the whats, hows and whens about it. Over time, I learned and built a process. The learning goes on forever but its important to start. Here are some basic steps to begin with, that can help with money anxiety.
- Pay yourself first
The first thing to do as soon as you receive salary/payments is to pay yourself. You work hard all year round to bring home the bucks and hence you deserve to be paid for it. Open a savings or an investment account and transfer at least 10–15% of your salary to it immediately. Now that’s not so hard, is it? By doing so, you will ensure that you are creating a cushion that you can use later for building more assets. Living month to month is not worth it. With the unpredictable world we live in, its important that we have savings for future and unforeseen circumstances.
2. Create Emergency Fund
Now, after you have gathered and built a savings account step by step, put aside 6 months savings as an emergency fund and invest the rest. The emergency fund will be available as liquid money for immediate use. For the rest, start planning towards short to long term investing so you don’t just have money sitting in your bank account but compound it using various investment strategies.
3. Invest your money
According to the first ever S&P Global FinLit Survey by the World Bank, Gallup, and George Washington University, just one-third of the world’s population is financially literate. If you start learning about investment and actually use those strategies to invest your money, you’ll already be better off than two-third of the world’s population!
There are ways to invest money. Research various strategies. Talk to a financial advisor. Create a plan and just begin. I know I have procrastinated a lot before investing my money and I only wish now that I started earlier. There are stocks, index funds, mutual funds, real estate and a lot different ways to invest money. I have another article where I delve deeper into how to explore these sectors and build a portfolio.
4. Invest in yourself
Investing in yourself is the biggest favor that you can do to yourself. Self development is on a roll for a few years now and for a reason, honey! Financial gurus of the world like Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch, Dave Ramsey and so on, invest in themselves as voraciously as they invest in other businesses. Warren Buffet says, “Go to bed a little smarter each day. That’s how knowledge builds up, like compound interest.” To begin with, start reading books on topics that interest you. Now, you should still read Harry Potter for the 9th time all over, but make a list of books that will improve your personalities and hone your skills. Identify your interests and pursue knowledge to become an expert in them. Watch videos, reach out to people and interview them, take classes and build an edge to your personality by investing a little time in yourself each day.
There you go! That’s not so hard, is it? It can be a lot to begin with, so start slow, BUT START. Take baby steps and over time, compound your efforts, oh and also, YOUR MONEY ;)!!
