Vidya Krishnamoorthy, one of the top planners at the Northward Financial Planners, talks about how women can seize the throne when it comes to finances.
Meet Vidya Krishnamoorthy. She is one of the best financial planners in Bangalore. Vidya’s keen understanding of finance comes from over 13 years of experience in the financial planning industry. These years have brought an immensely rich exposure that has evolved from client servicing to financial planning, training and leadership roles.
An MBA and a Certified Financial Planner, Vidya is a self-motivated and passionate professional. Her dint of hard work shows through in her intuitive understanding of business operations, client requirements and the financial world – all gleaned from successfully handling numerous financial plans. Here’s what Vidya has to say to all you women out there!
Additional Reading: A Financial Planning Guide For Women
“No one can deny that women’s roles have dramatically changed in the last 50 years. Today men and women are considered economically and socially at par in the urban setting. As women get equal opportunities at home, work and society, it calls for a fresh perspective when dealing with their finances as well.
Here are some of the key changes that we have seen over the last few years:
- Women have become significant household earners and more often are the key decision makers.
- Cultural changes are more common. Being single, getting a divorce or choosing to get married at a later age is the norm. So women inevitably are taking money decisions on their own.
- Women today are dealing with life events with potential financial hardships like losing a job, dealing with ageing parents or grown children returning to the household.
- With both spouses working and increasing job responsibilities and longer working hours, there is a lack of time to devote to financial decisions.
- Women are more willing to be educated today and are more attuned to financial decisions as compared to their mothers.
- They are embracing technology – Websites, podcasts and financial apps are also being utilized by women.
- There is a strong emotional component to money decisions and women are more attuned to this than men. Drastic life changes can affect our money decisions and women are better able to recognize these emotions.
Additional Reading: 5 Ways Women Can Build Wealth
Here are 5 tips to become more financially adept:
- Communicate with your spouse and/or hire a financial planner to develop a clearer picture of your financial situation. Get involved in the day to day management of your family’s finances. Be aware of all the financial records of the family i.e. where your money is lying and how important documents are recorded. The more you communicate, the more confident you will become in managing your money.
- Set and prioritize financial goals in order to get a perspective on the direction that you need to take. Women are inherently better at seeing the bigger picture. Buying a house or buying a new car? Saving for your daughter’s education or taking that international holiday? Write down everything you want to achieve and then go from there by prioritizing and eliminating or postponing the less important ones.
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- Take care of eventualities by ensuring that you have adequate Health Insurance. This way you don’t end up dipping into your savings when faced with unforeseen hospital bills. More importantly, having a personal health cover in place when you are in good health would ensure that there are no medical exclusions. It also gives you sufficient cover even after you retire. It makes sense to build an emergency corpus which you can fall back on in case of a job loss or a medical emergency.
- Focus on your retirement by making sure that you set aside a portion of your savings towards yourself. To start early and to set aside as much as possible is the key to building a substantial corpus. Also, take into account how much you are accumulating through the retirement benefits offered by your employer. With shorter careers due to the number of breaks we take, longer life spans and the pay gap bias, there is a lot of catching up to do with our male counterparts.
- Don’t be risk-averse; with longer life-spans and smaller retirement funds, it is important that you don’t invest too conservatively. Invest a portion of your money in assets with potential for growth like equity. The best way to get started? Understand your tolerance for risk and find an appropriate allocation that allows you to be at peace. It may be prudent to take the help of a financial planner who can guide you based on your unique financial needs.
To summarize, women must take charge of managing finances as they have a more focused and practical approach as compared to men. With our instinct for managing expenses, we are better money managers who can visualize and plan the family’s goals. Considering all of this, start getting more involved and manage your finances better.”
So, don’t wait! Plunge into that pool of money, bills, investments, et al! Need help with a financial product? Check us out!