Last Updated on April 9, 2025 at 8:12 pm
Nine years ago, I resigned from my job at a private bank to pursue my MBA. During this time, I came across an online content and community forum called Women’s Web. I started writing content for them to make some pocket money during those two years.
About the author: Ayushi Mona Singh is a marketing leader who has worked on several brands across banking, logistics, pharma and venture capital. She also co-led the Broke Bibliophiles Bombay Chapter, India’s first offline reader-driven community. Recognized by Business World in their 30 Under 30 list, Ayushi also teaches several marketing programs and writes on various topics online.
Ayushi’s previous articles at freefincal:
- A Guide to Succeed as a Freelancer in India
- Want to become better at Financial Planning? Start with this first!
- How I learned new skills with side hustles and advanced my career
- Education Loan 101: All you need to Know
Soon, their editor realized that I had an interest in financial planning and it was a niche around which they did not easily find too many writers. Soon, the collaboration developed into a half-decade journey where I wrote both public and paid articles on topics ranging from gift deeds to setting up small businesses to understanding how to make an emergency fund. Soon, I was also doing a few workshops for women who wanted to know how to manage their money and replying to hundreds of them online.
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The website shut down a few months ago but spending so much time close to women’s financial lives as an impartial observer (not an influencer, agent or mutual fund distributor with vested interests) motivated me to reach out to Pattu Sir to share this article.
Women’s Sources and Patterns of Income are Different
Do you know home bakers? Ladies who do Dabba service? A friend’s sister runs a bakery from her 3 BHK in North Bangalore whose monthly revenue is her husband’s annual salary. However, the same lady who sells wonderful cookies from Instagram was unemployed for 7+ years while her children were growing up and spent 8 more years teaching in a nearby school for a few thousand rupees!
Men earn uninterrupted income for years because society expects them to be constant providers. Most women simply can’t. Women’s careers are more non-linear and unpredictable than men.
Some women receive direct income (salary or entrepreneurship), some have assets like jewelry from supportive parents, some receive pin money or an asset from their husband and as they grow older, some also receive gifts or cash transfers from their children.
Hence, women have to learn to save every chance they get. They may need to make two emergency funds – one for personal use and another for family emergencies. The former is important if the spouse or in-laws are not supportive.
Women’s Wealth is Perceived as Optional
Several wealthy business families encourage their daughters to quit salaried jobs because they feel insulted that they are ‘working 9-10 hours a day for such a small amount.’ It is also conventional for women to stop working if the husband lands a plum promotion.
Unfortunately, work is not just income but also a source of identity and many women develop low self-esteem if they feel pushed into decisions.
Secondly, when wives of salaried men stop working – they are unable to support husbands in times of layoffs (a modern reality) and when they try to go back to the workforce, either their skills are dusty or they take 50%-80% paycut by comparison!
Women reach Financial Freedom at a slower pace
It has been established that women earn less than men despite equal capability in most corporate jobs. Government jobs can be a wonderful exception to this due to fixed payscale!
Women rarely unlock senior leadership roles where true wealth generation happens unlike their male counterparts. Hence the earlier women get serious about investing to compound wealth, the better it is for them. A man who starts investing in his 30’s can catch up with his investing goals but for an average woman, 75% of her earning potential or career may be over by then due to relocation, marital responsibility and childbirth.
Similarly, while many women run small businesses (tailoring, tuition, content writing) but aren’t able to unlock family’s support (financial and otherwise) to grow it further.
Women must remember – lower income, smaller corpus, slower compounding. Similarly, Interrupted income, limited corpus, slower compounding.
You’ve to combat this by either earning consistently high income, starting early, earning higher interest or staying longer.
Women Consume More and Pay More for what they Consume
Women spend more on grooming, apparel and discretionary expenses. They also spend more on ‘female’ versions of utility products like razors. Such spending often gets out of hand and can cause financial conflicts in marriages or destroy savings. A Doctor I met, who worked in a Pharma Company used to earn fixed gross salary upwards of 4 lakh a month but her only SIP was for 10,000 because she splurged everything on shoes, dresses, expensive vacations and so on! She regularly bought things like lab-grown diamonds and home furnishings trusting that her high-paying job and partner can be blindly trusted!
Also previously pension was handed to wives but with pensions disappearing and women living longer than men, they will need more money after retirement for their expenses!
Women exercise Limited Control over Financial decisions for self and family
Financial decisions (what to do with your first pay check) often start with fathers and often end with husbands (how to buy land).
Many women (especially not from a commerce background) are intimated just hearing about the ‘notion of financial planning.’ They blindly follow guidance from family members believing it is ‘risky’ to share financial data with professionals and ‘complicated to invest.’
Last year, a woman who runs an event management firm told me her brother had invested substantial money only in equity, applied for multiple IPO allotments and did ‘trading on her behalf.’ She thought the complexity made him a financial whiz and FDs were for her parents generation!
Similarly, a friend’s dad passed away while she was in her final year at college and neither she nor her mother knew how to claim insurance and liquidate her late father’s investments!
Women have great potential for financial success that they don’t tap
Most barriers for women to attain financial wisdom are not their own but imposed socially. Many women have told me they can’t do DIY planning ‘because they are bad at math.’ In reality, most personal financial decisions are primarily psychological and only require basic spreadsheet software.
When women invest, they can achieve disproportionate success. In bear markets, more women than men stay the course.
However, women think of themselves as ‘Savers’ of income not ‘investors or growers’ of wealth. This manifests in recycling projects, putting money into FDs and bargaining for deals.
Research has found female investors are less benchmark-driven, willing to do more research and are open to changing their minds. Imagine how much our families, societies and countries could grow if women fearlessly took charge of their financial lives!
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About The Author
Dr M. Pattabiraman(PhD) is the founder, managing editor and primary author of freefincal. He is an associate professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. He has over ten years of experience publishing news analysis, research and financial product development. Connect with him via Twitter(X), Linkedin, or YouTube. Pattabiraman has co-authored three print books: (1) You can be rich too with goal-based investing (CNBC TV18) for DIY investors. (2) Gamechanger for young earners. (3) Chinchu Gets a Superpower! for kids. He has also written seven other free e-books on various money management topics. He is a patron and co-founder of “Fee-only India,” an organisation promoting unbiased, commission-free investment advice.Our flagship course! Learn to manage your portfolio like a pro to achieve your goals regardless of market conditions! ⇐ More than 3,000 investors and advisors are part of our exclusive community! Get clarity on how to plan for your goals and achieve the necessary corpus no matter the market condition is!! Watch the first lecture for free! One-time payment! No recurring fees! Life-long access to videos! Reduce fear, uncertainty and doubt while investing! Learn how to plan for your goals before and after retirement with confidence.
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