Welcome to another instalment of #MoneyMoments. If you’re wondering what Money Moments is, as this is the first one to be published on our blog, it’s a Q&A style interview asking those money questions you want answers to. We interview some of our favourite accounts and this week it’s the turn of Investing For Girls! Be sure to check out Investing For Girls and the great work they are doing to reduce the investment gap between men and women over on Instagram and their website.
1. What does financial freedom mean to you?
Financial freedom is the ability to wake up every morning and spend your day doing something because you want to and not because you have to. That doesn’t necessarily mean sipping margaritas on a beach all day every day (I’m sure that would get pretty boring after a while anyway!) but whatever it is you want to do. If that’s going to work at a job you love even though the salary is crap, then so be it. Or volunteering and not receiving any salary at all, then so be it. Or even sipping margaritas on a beach all day! Then so be it.
2 . What piece of money advice do you wish you knew 2 years ago?
Sometimes less is more.
When I first started investing, I tried too hard. I was so excited, and as a result I tried to do too much too soon, which quite frankly, caused me to flop a little bit. As with anything new, it’s best to start out small and simple.
3 . What’s the biggest money/challenge or learning you currently face?
One of the things I’m learning to do at the moment is spending money on the things that I appreciate most.I hate spending money on miscellaneous things and then having nothing to show for my hard earned cash at the end of the month! So I am trying to make sure that when I do spend money, it’s on things I will be grateful for. A lot of that involves spending money on memories and my goals instead of spending money on ‘stuff’.
4 . What’s your first money memory?
When I was a child, for birthdays my relatives would give me £10 in a birthday card as a gift. One year (I was around the age of 8) I remember holding up the four £10 notes I had received from aunties and uncles, and asking my mom ‘do rich people have £40?’
She was kind to me and told me yes, and being 8 years old, I believed her! I remember feeling ridiculously smug and emphatic that I was rich! I truly believed it. At that age, £40 was a ridiculous amount of money that I could buy a ridiculous amount of sweets with, and I was completely over the moon about the whole situation!
5 . What money did your parents practice? How do you feel about those habits?
This is such a funny question for me because when it comes to money, my parents are on very different ends of the spectrum! My mom is a very sensible, frugal and cautious spender and saver and my dad takes more of a yolo approach to finances.
And to be honest, I am actually very grateful because as a result, I am very much in the middle which I like to think of as being balanced (whether other people would agree is a different story!)
6 . What drives your financial decisions?
The future me. I think about her a lot. Whether it’s a big financial decision like my pension arrangements or smaller things like, if I buy this new dress today, will I be able to go to that football game next weekend or go to that dinner with my friends next week? I try and think about the future as well as the now.
7 . What area of money do you wish you knew more about?
This isn’t a particular ‘money thing’ per se but at the moment I’m researching a lot into formal financial education programmes delivered in schools, colleges and even universities. I think this is an area that really needs to improve and blue sky thinking, something I would love to get involved with in the future.
8. What is your favourite money tip?
Always think of the opportunity cost! I wrote a blog post on this last year and re-share it on a regular basis because I honestly think it’s one of the most important lessons you can learn when it comes to spending, saving and investing money.
9 . What is the mission of Investing for Girls?
Ultimately, I just want equality between the genders in all respects and for investing for girls that specifically relates to the wealth inequality. There is currently a massive gap between men and women. There is an investment gap. Men invest more than women and sooner than women (despite the fact that research shows that women are actually better at it, just saying!) and that needs to change. In my eyes, a person’s gender should have no impact on that person’s ability and willingness to build wealth, but unfortunately, at the moment it does. I want to help change that.
Watch our for the next instalment soon!
Fempire Finance
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