A message from a woman...

This is a guest post by Shivani Desai, who is a trainer at the Money Mantra workshops

I wish to share with the gist of a message shared by a woman, a home-maker who attended one of our workshops.  She was asked to speak and share her thoughts and shared this wonderful message, worth recording here.

All my dear lady friends, no one will take care of you or for your money as much as you do.

Managing money has been seen to be clearly a man’s domain. We women conveniently pass the responsibility and the right to manage money to our husbands and shift our focus to managing day to day family affairs apart from the little job that we may have. We get lost in the rut of daily chores and are too tired to know, understand and to learn about matters beyond family budget.

An unexplained fear surfaces in us when we hear about anything untoward happening to our lady friends, or any acquaintance. We dread imagining ourselves in such a situation where we lose a loved one and shrug off the thought by reassuring ourselves of our strong belief in GOD. We think that by not thinking of such a situation, it will not happen.

BUT remember GOD helps them who help themselves.

So friends, please resolve to take few steps in this direction and even if you do not get involved in day to day decisions, make sure that you know

1. List of bank accounts both joint and individual.
2. List of properties in your name and your husband's name
3. Do you have life insurance policies and who are the beneficiaries.
4. List of investments made in your name your husband's and in the name of your children. This should include the investments made from your savings
5. Where are important financial papers such as insurance policies, property papers, bank statements, kept
6. How much exactly are we as a family  spending, saving each year?
7. How much debt do we have to be paid off?
8. Are we on track to meet our goal be it children’s education, marriage, retirement
9. Who can I go to for help if I need it  in case of an emergency?

Some of the ways women can become more confident is by first accessing their own bank accounts, paying their own credit card bills, instead of their husbands doing the same  for them.

Learning  and helping in few simple tasks that your husbands have to do regularly for eg. depositing cheques, keeping track of bill payment dates electricity,credit cards ,telephone will give you a lot of confidence.

As you gain more confidence, you can make a little effort in learning more about investments and handle the same yourself. It is no rocket science. Haven’t many surveys shown that women turn out to be better money managers :)

 

I thank the Money Mantras team for giving me this opportunity which has opened my eyes.