While International Women’s Day is always a time to reflect on how far we have come and to celebrate our successes and achievements, it is also the perfect opportunity to look at how we can keep pushing for gender equality with a focus on education and financial literacy.
Here is where we need to be taking our daughters, sisters, mothers and aunts aside and having some heartfelt conversations around how we can continue to strive to be financially independent. This should be the goal no matter whether we are single or partnered. When we are financially independent we are better equipped to make decisions around our health, career path, relationships and other lifestyle pursuits. Put simply, we have choice as to what we do with our lives.
You see, many believe that in order to achieve financial independence we need to have at least equal pay to our male counterparts. This has not been proven, in fact, women can achieve a higher net worth starting on a lower income by investing in strong income producing assets. Here’s where to start:
- Educate yourself on what are great income producing assets and the purchase costs involved.
- Have a Strategy around what you are trying to achieve by investing in those assets.
- Make sure that you are gaining your financial insight / education/ mentoring from those who have achieved what you are seeking for yourself.
- Help one another to achieve those individual goals.
- Know how to manage your money well by firstly knowing how much you earn, spend and save.
- Know how much money you have in your Superannuation account and ask questions around ways to maximize that money (your future self will thank you for this)
- Seek expert advice to get you started and then stay on track to building your financial independence.
- Together we can achieve so much more that individually.
Investing is about taking hold of the opportunities that come before us and when we embrace those opportunities and make a commitment to ourselves to have financial independence, that’s when we see changes in ourselves, our families and our communities.
It’s time to start having those honest conversations around how to be financially independent and lifting one another up to get there.
Gender equality may take a while yet but we can certainly be proactive in the meantime and start to invest.
