Handy Tips For Women’s Money Life

The view that money makes the mare go is unanimous. The view that women have specific financial needs that arise from specific situations may raise many eyebrows.

The fact is that various events such as relocation after marriage, break from work during pregnancy and subsequent child birth, larger life spans, unfortunate events such as divorce, death of spouse make women more vulnerable making their financial needs different from the other gender.

Unfortunately, many women believe that wealth management, financial planning are time –consuming activities and are the domain of males. This sentiment is more predominant in the under-developed and developing countries. While majority of the women do know of and take part in the household expenses, few take saving and investment decisions and file their own returns.

The first piece of advice for women is that even if they do not want to take complete charge of their financial future, they need to understand where the money comes from and where it goes. Financial planning and wealth management is a learning process and there is no rocket science to it.

Some other basics need to be remembered.

Money needs time to grow. The early bird catches the worm, so start investing early. For small amounts of savings, invest in recurring deposits. Consider systematic investment plans of equity funds for exposure to equities. Buy insurance to protect your health and physical assets.

Don’t keep all your eggs in one basket. A healthy portfolio should include investments in stocks, equity mutual funds and real estate. Invest in gold coins rather than gold jewellery as the returns on the former are bound to be higher than the latter. Avoid loans, especially the expensive and unproductive ones.

Finally, since women are expected to outlive their husbands, they need more wealth to protect their living standards and be self-reliant in their sunset years. To cater to these needs, women should consider enhancing PF contributions; invest in a market –linked retirement plan and also in life insurance pension plans.