Womens Financials Blogs...

Now these words of wisdom are not going to wave a magic wand and give you a quick fix of how to avoid any student debt, in fact completely the opposite but they might make you think is university the best route a child should be following?

We are expecting our young people to physically take on a debt of a minimum of £ 27,750, which could take a substantial number of years to repay.  I have not even started on their travel cost, rent, food and general living costs.  My calculator has steam coming off it there are that may numbers going in.  So the question now is this really fair, but also is it worth it? 

If you then take the student who has decided not to go to University and get a job, working their way up the career path.  They were smart enough to go to University but chose not to.  They have no debts at all, they still lives at home and they have a large amount of money coming into their bank account each month.  It will be a low salary, as they are starting at the bottom, but from just leaving college to earning a wage it will be a substantial amount to them. 

When I was young there was no such thing as pocket money, now this is not because I am from the archaic ages but because as one of four my mum did not have the spare money to give us to spend as we liked.  The priorities in our house were paying the bills and food on the table, but this in no way meant that we went without.  I had a TV in my room, latest trainers, nice clothes (latest design albeit not in large numbers).  There were other items my siblings had, like dolls, prams, Nintendo console and games.  

What my mother did though which was very different, is that she sat the four of us down and went through the household budget of what had to be paid that week and what was left over for the extras.  This process meant we would all chose what the priorities were for that week or month.  To this day other than her mortgage she has never had any debt, credit cards, catalogue account or store cards.  When her washing machine broke she washed all our clothes in the bath for 2 months until she had enough to buy one. 

Now my mother is a very unique lady and I am not in any way suggesting that you take this extreme course of action, as even I would not go to those lengths, however, what she did teach her four children, is the value of money. We had to save to get what we wanted, we had to be patient and we most definitely did not get everything we wanted.  

Today as adults we have a good handle on money and are never disappointed with life when we do not get everything that we want.  

There has been a large amount of publicity around the gender pay gap over the last couple of weeks and for the most part, I am in agreement with what is being said. However, I do feel that there is an element of this that people are missing. I am one of four children, three girls and one boy. I remember my mother saying when we were small to my brother, "enjoy these years when you are young as you will spend the rest of your life working with no break". Of course, being from a long line of very strong women including my mother, I very much jumped on this statement with her. Why was she not saying this to her three daughters? The response she gave, was that we may be blessed with children and would spend a period of time out of the employed environment, which will never happen to my brother because he is a man.

Now I have never had children so this gap has never happened to me, but I have seen it with my sisters, friends and clients. I have also seen the consequence this has had on their careers and their personal financial position. Part of this has been by choice, but some have no choice. A large number of women who have children are unable to work full time, they have no alternative other than to work part time, thereby finding men have advanced in their careers. So automatically they have larger incomes, which is only fair. If a man has continued to expand his experience and work hard for what he has achieved in his career, it is not fair to be paid the same as another man or women, who have not put the same years in as him.

I often wonder why people don’t think it is necessary to protect themselves.  Part of this might be because we all have to see a need or benefit in doing something.  So when it comes to being reluctant to put some protection in place with life cover, the problem is that YOU personally will never see the end benefit.   

What I find as being interesting though, is that people’s perception of life cover changes when they have had a personal connection with someone who has passed away.  A need is identified, the urge to protect becomes all the more real.  

Now I don’t want this article to lead you down a depressive tone for a Friday evening, as the whole point is to put a positive light on something that is not the most enjoyable of topics.  

There is a very old saying which is “there is nothing more certain than death and taxes”, but what if these could be combined together in a positive way?

Protection - what does this actually mean?  I have pondered on this quite a lot, as it does enthral me.  We all have a protective need in us, however, what we protect differs.  Some people are very protective over items like cars, houses, computers, phones or a very nice pair of Jimmy Choo shoes.  Alternatively your protective nature may come towards animals, not wanting them hurt or injured or even worse become extinct.  Others may be protective as part of their jobs, like the Police, Social Workers, Bodyguards or to a certain extent the Government. 

However, none of the above have a direct personal connections in your life.  These are all at arm’s length and although you would be very upset if something happen to them, it is nowhere in comparison to the people we love. 

What has always fascinated me is that by law we have to insure our car, our house and yet the people who pay for these items do not have to be protected.  I wonder why this is?