I believe it is extremely important for women to become financially independent and take action to look after their financial future.

With the number of women employed in full-time and part-time positions increasing it is understandable why women are becoming more and more interested in managing their long term finances.

In 2008 the Australian Government completed a report on the findings of Financial Literacy – Australians understanding money [1], examining the findings for women in greater detail.

When it comes to finances, typically women are highly confident in their day-to-day money management ability and very good at making the household money stretch to assist with their children’s expenses, but not as good at taking action towards their own long term financial security.

What concerns me most in the Australians understanding money survey, is women are not as confident as men in their ability to plan for their long term financial future, and reported low levels of ability with ensuring enough money for retirement.

To ensure sufficient funds in retirement, I believe it is crucially important for women to understand, participate in and be confident in investing.  The reasons I feel this is important are:

• Women on average live longer than men, therefore women may be left to look after their investments later in life;
• Women tend to have breaks in their careers due to family commitments.  Planning for these periods in life is important as well as planning for returning to the workforce;
• To achieve long term ambitions, it is important for women to understand how to make their money work hard for them; and
• Divorce and relationship breakdowns – according to the Australia Bureau of Statistics (A.B.S) the number of divorces granted in 2007 was 47,963 [2].   In these circumstances, both men and women need to individually look after their short and long term finances to ensure they remain on track to achieving their goals.

From the report 78% of the women surveyed are interested in learning more about planning for their long term financial future, and 72% are interested in learning more about ensuring they have enough money for retirement.

I want to assist women in becoming more empowered in securing their financial future.  With women being interested in gaining more knowledge around long term financial planning and learning how to secure their financial future, I thought now would be a great time to launch focus sessions on Planning for Women.

If you are interested in attending a Planning for Women session, or know someone who should attend, please register here and we look forward to meeting you.

By Jess Hall, Financial Planner

Please note: The advice in this article is of a general nature only and has not been tailored to your personal circumstances.  Please seek personal advice prior to acting on this information.