Financial Literacy for Women

 

Financial literacy empowers an individual to make independent racial financial decisions. With adequate financial awareness, one can tackle unforeseen situations in life. In today’s unprecedented times such as the global pandemic, it is essential for both men and women to become financially literate so that they are able to make important financial decisions for themselves and their families. But it is often seen that women have scarce access to financial products and lesser exposure to financial literacy than men; making it an important direction of focus. 

 

Women play a vital role in the primary responsibilities of child-rearing, running the households, and ensuring a happy life for herself and her family. This makes financial literacy for women an indispensable part of their lives today. 

 

What are the barriers to a woman’s financial freedom?

In a family, a woman doesn’t actively participate in financial planning like a man. This is usually due to less confidence, lower financial awareness, and existing socio-economic differences. Furthermore, it is also seen that women choose safer options like debt investments in FDs, RDs, and Savings. Their apprehensions towards strategic investment planning with the market trends are deeply rooted in their limited financial knowledge. 

 

How can a woman be the epicenter of economic importance and keep her family happy?

There are some other statistical backing to the fact that women’s participation is very vital to our nation’s economic progress.

There may be differences in income but the population ratio (urban- 1000/949 and rural-1000/929) and the average life expectancy( men-64.16 and women- 68.48) make women’s contribution to economic progress very crucial.

To inculcate a habit of strategic financial planning even with minimum wages, small steps at a time can make a big difference.

 

What are the products that women can look at to create financial planning?

There are a number of investment options for a woman to cater to all her financial needs and accomplish the financial goals for her family’s greater future.

Term Plans: It protects your family’s future from uncertainties. Every earning woman should have a term insurance plan as per their financial capabilities. It offers the highest risk cover with a minimum premium. Ideal risk cover of minimum 10 times of annual income. It also helps in availing  the tax benefit U/S 80C

Mediclaim: A sound mediclaim policy protects your loved ones during any medical emergencies. Having an adequate mediclaim insurance policy will secure your investments to break in a medical emergency. To Keep investments intact one must have a mediclaim policy. Mediclam policies will also help to save taxes u/s 80D. 

Contingency funds: Every woman protects her family at all times. A contingency fund is merely a catalyst to do so hassle-free. It is always better to build a contingency fund up to 6 months’ expense in a liquid fund.

These are only a few of the numerous investment options available for a woman to be ready to take on any unforeseen financial emergencies and keep her family burden-free. Investing without setting clear goals, is just like playing a football ball without having a goalpost. You shall run and kick a lot but shall not score anything. Financial goal setting is a crucial step to strategic planning and achieving one’s goals.

 

And to inculcate the financial discipline that aligns with Market trends and one’s financial goals –

Mutual Funds SIP (Systematic Investment Planning)

is the mantra. Mutual fund SIP can be helpful in many ways. Like RD’s Mutual fund sip has debt fund sip, if you are planning to invest for the long term say more than 5 years then you should invest in equity-oriented schemes if you have any specific goals in mind like child education fund creation or retirement-oriented goal then there is an option of thematic mutual fund schemes like child gift funds, retirement saving funds, etc, which will help to achieve financial goals. 

 

Benefits of SIP

• Brings financial Discipline
• Rupee cost averaging
• Market timing risk minimized
• Power of compounding
• Can start with a small amount
• Helps to achieve financial goals.

 

Estate planning

Estate planning is about wealth structuring so that one could enjoy it and then pass it to the next generation in a smooth manner, avoiding any kind of family disputes on inheritance.

It is seen that and as per data, Women generally live longer than men and are increasingly finding themselves divorced, never married, or widowed. All these circumstances further make estate planning for women a must. 

 

At Khasnis Prime Wealth we handhold you at every phase of your life so that you as a woman can truly accomplish your financial goals well within your financial capabilities.