Time is a witness to how women have evolved in managing money . To once being the homemaker who managed household budgets to today , being a major contributor to household earnings . It feels accomplishing to see increasing women in the workforce day by day . Not only contributing to home but also to the economy.
I recollect having this conversation with my dad .He told me how my mom would manage the budget efficiently and always have some amount set away for a rainy day , and thus he never felt the crunch during his earning years ( Of course, demonetization proved that all the women were more or less similar in India 😊). Women those days used to flock to Gold as the only reliable investment . We need to peep through their mind to know why. Again, it was for family. Worst case scenario, they could sell it back to protect the family in emergencies. Such has been the nature of women, keeping family first always, in everything they do .
Fast forward to 2020 , nothing much changed . Women have remained protective , conservative, calculative, family-centric. I wouldn’t say men don’t have these qualities , but the women have exhibited these qualities more often.
Earlier, women restricted themselves only to budgeting and saving the surplus . But the world is fast changing . Women are taking an active role in financial decision making in the house. By financial decision making , I mean major decisions related to financial expenses ( there is still a long road ahead in terms of taking decisions on Financial investments 😊). Whether it is choosing the school the child would go to ( and the fees thereby incurred) , to buying a house / car /furnishing . Can you even imagine yourself , or your mother, or sister or daughter not being a party to this decision?
Now, there is a slight difference in the way men and women look at money. Men are often presumed to be high risk takers and aggressive . Downside of it being, falling into debt trap and losses. The anchor used by men for gauging the investments is the return performance, underestimating the viability of such investments in short term and also underplaying the risks associated with them . Result, burning fingers and totally discard the financial investments, and look towards comforting the mind and heart with tangible assets like Real estate.
Women on the other hand are calculative risk takers , conservative , tend to be over cautious . So over cautious , that they are happy to see the cash sitting in account , or sometimes even in their handbags . “I will not do it , unless I know it, unless I know the risk associated with it “. That’s how it goes. Downside, most of them end up doing nothing since they didn’t get a chance to get financially aware, or learn about it.The fear of unknown haunts them .
One at this extreme and one at the other extreme. One pulling in one direction, the other opposite. How do they maintain the family balance? Imagine a car running only on front wheels or only on back wheels. Can we say it’s the ideal situation??
Of course not! So, what could bring the ideal financial balance in the family When men and women use the same compass , and walk towards each other not against each other . What is this compass that can bring the family together? “It’s the family’s financial plan”.
When the family sits together, understands its cash inflows and outflows, identify their surpluses and the assets they have created, and treat them as the resources to fulfil their dreams and aspirations together . The women’s budgeting estimates come handy in this exercise . Then, they together define their goals, the events which require a sum of money during their lifetime, and estimate the time remaining to accumulate for each such event or goal, the women of the house bring in their family centric focus on needs, dreams and aspirations of family .
Be it their children’s higher education in a top notch institution, or be it holiday planning in dream destination, or be it a comfortable, self-sufficient retirement not depending on anybody; In this process , once they get to know how much they are supposed to set aside to meet all such goals, they go all out in their capacity to meet the target SIP’s and investments and also remind their husbands on goals and not to forget the plan reviews time to time.... Such are today’s women! They tweak their variable expenses, shopping expenses or demands when they know every rupee such saved will help in fulfilling family goals. The men also contribute with their strengths, to the investment strategy and surplus distribution and together they form a successful partnership.
In my experience, every such family , where the women have participated in the planning exercise and execution , have ensured goals are met much ahead of target time . Then they are ready with a new, revised, upgraded set of goals for the family 😉. Not sure of how ambitious they are anywhere else, but no compromises here. I cherish every moment of my work as a financial planner, only to see families planning and making their every penny work. Together !!
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