Embrace Your Financial Freedom: Treat Your Money Like Your Health!
Money Management Expert: Tend to your finances as you would to your wellbeing! - Manage Finances as Meticulously as You Manage Health!
By Dani Parthum- Reading time: Approx. 3 minutes
Many intelligent and assertive women often hesitate to make key financial decisions, such as retirement planning or fair partnership finances, despite not being uninterested. They might delay these decisions because they view money as unimportant, complex, or not their domain.
About the Author
Dani Parthum is an economist graduate, financial coach, blogger, and author, operating under the brand MoneyWoman. She empowers women to conquer their fear of finances and cultivate strategies for self-determined money management and wealth accumulation. Dani contributes regularly to Capital, writing a personal finance column.
Life's wake-up calls come in various forms, such as divorce, job loss, a partner's death, impending retirement, or personal crises. The trigger may differ, but the blunder remains the same: viewing one's finances as an insignificant side concern, which can lead to financial dependence on partners, family, the state, bank advisors, or plain old luck. This relinquishes control over one's life.
As a response to the thought, "I already prioritize my career, family, volunteering, and daughter's wellbeing. Now I'm expected to manage my finances too?" – yes. Money is a tool to shape your life, not a burden. Those who regard it as an afterthought or neglect it are indeed dependent on external factors, thereby surrendering their autonomy over their lives.
The book "At the Expense of Mothers" demonstrates the damaging consequences of this mindset: Most women in Germany are financially dependent on others.
Thoughtfully Tend to Your Finances: It's Self-Care!
Managing finances should not simply be an additional task on an already overflowing to-do list. It is self-care, self-respect, and a necessity. When asked what aspirations women have for their lives, how they shape them, and the role money plays in their lives – too few women have acknowledged that money is a means to shape their lives. For many, it's a tool to relinquish or fail to fight for.
Delegating significant financial decisions – such as retirement planning, personal insurance, asset accumulation, the allocation of household responsibilities and income distribution, part-time work post-childbirth, or a marriage without a prenuptial agreement – places a part of freedom and personal agency up for grabs. Is this what you want? It's your life!
Financial Adeptness Equals Freedom
Those who consciously manage their finances have the ability to say no, leave, or stay – voluntarily. They can take time off, pursue personal desires, support others financially, with no strings attached. From coaching experience, it's clear that financial and investment knowledge – acquired at any age – brings about life-changing opportunities for women: I can provide for myself, I decide over myself (and my children).
Disregarding money as a primary focus, whether due to conventional notions that it's unfeminine, selfish, or greedy, is misguided. It's essential for women to invest time in financial self-care and self-respect. Here's the essence, reiterated intentionally: If someone tries to convince you otherwise, they aim to undermine your potential for growth.
Regardless of time constraints – each of us having only 24 hours a day – consider reframing other obligations that encumber you: shrinking yourself to fit others' expectations, always being available, seeking approval. However, let go of financial responsibilities at your own peril. Nurture your finances as you would your health or a cherished friendship. Empower yourself to do so. You'll witness significant improvements in your life. Conversations about finances will become easier and more natural. You'll comprehend, ask questions, and make informed decisions. No more hesitation, no more guilt, no more negative emotions. And take action before it's too late.
Capital, a partner brand of the stern, offers additional content for Capital subscribers. To explore more articles from Capital, please visit www.stern.de/capital.
- Personal Finance
- Investing
- Women's Empowerment
- Wealth Building
- Financial Literacy
- Dani Parthum, a financial coach, emphasizes the importance of embracing financial policies as part of personal-finance management, just as one prioritizes their health and well-being, given her views on money as a tool to shape one's life.
- In her book, "At the Expense of Mothers", it's shown that many women in Germany are financially dependent on others, demonstrating the consequences of a community policy that may not prioritize financial self-care and independence, leading to a lack of personal agency.
- To cultivate financial adeptness and achieve true freedom, women should treat their finances with the same importance they do their personal health, health-and-wellness, and seek expert advice in areas such as asset accumulation, investment, and retirement planning, drawing on resources like Capital's employment policy content and Dani Parthum's financial coaching.
