Women and Wealth

Have you noticed lately the buzz talk around women and their wealth (or lack of it!)? It’s certainly one of the reasons I get out of bed each day, to educate and empower women (and men!) to make smart decisions with their money. Joan Baker cleverly wrote the book A Man is Not A Financial Plan (yes I have big envy on that book title!). Many of my clients actually tell me that they are just not interested in managing the finances. 

 

Yet women tend to live longer than men. And women face a number of hurdles when it comes to retirement savings. Lower pay, time out to raise children and often again later in life to care for elderly parents, working part time or being a single parent household all make it very challenging to build a retirement nest egg. Women also typically worry about today more than tomorrow.

The stats are terrible – More than 80% of women are retiring with inadequate savings, 1 in 3 women are retiring with no super at all and on average women retire with $138,000 compared to men’s $292,000*. No wonder we have our heads in the sand.

One of the things that I know about women are that they are great at making habits. Those little rituals that make us efficient and make optimal use of our time, such as packing lunches the night before, doing a week’s worth of ironing on a Sunday night (perhaps with a glass of wine!), cooking meals in advance for those nights when people are home late from meetings or sports.

So for busy women perhaps creating a few money habits may assist to change these scary statistics. The beauty of compound Interest, the benefits of salary sacrifice, each of these money artforms just requires you to set a habit and may help to build a brighter financial future for our female population.

Education and encouragement are key. You don’t have to love finance but you should make an effort to review your position every once in a while. Encourage your friends and family to check out the government’s MoneySmart site for great finance tips. If they are time poor or really resistant to all things finance then encourage them to seek financial advice for ongoing coaching and support.

* Source: ASFA www.superguru.com.au/about-super/women-and-super

While all care has been taken in the preparation of this material, no warranty is given in respect of the information provided and accordingly neither Tanya Carlson, GPS Wealth Ltd nor its related entities, employees or agents shall be liable on any ground whatsoever with respect to decisions or actions taken as a result of you acting upon such information”.