Published by Taylor Financial Group
In years past, we’ve had many focus groups and advisory board meetings. We’ve also had several Valentine’s ladies’ luncheons. But we’ve never had an event quite like our 1st Annual Galentine’s Chat & Dinner, which combined focus group discussions with great company and delicious food into one amazing evening! We were fortunate to have many of our loyal female friends and clients take time out of their busy lives to join us, and here are some of our main takeaways.
Women Can (and Should) Become More Engaged in Their Financial Matters
Women have a longstanding habit of disengaging when it comes to financial matters. This likely stems from a combination of factors. Many women are fearful of taking the financial lead because they don’t feel comfortable enough with their level of knowledge, or they don’t understand some of the jargon that often gets thrown around by financial advisors. It’s also common for women to think that financial planning and all that comes with it is just boring, so they’re not interested in learning about it. But, these are simply not good enough reasons for women to be disengaged and uninvolved in their own finances. In fact, statistics show that 90% of women are or will be solely responsible for their finances at some point in their lives. They also earn less money than men, possess less in savings than men, receive less in retirement and Social Security benefits than men, and on average live 5 years longer than men. There are far more reasons why we should be engaged, than there are reasons why we shouldn’t.
What are we going to do about it? We’ve already begun making changes to our website and all of our marketing and educational content, to eliminate jargon and replace it with friendlier, easy-to-understand, and interesting language. We are currently holding our Women & Investing Workshops (and plan to expand these). We will continue writing our weekly women-specific blogs on life and money, and creating inspiring challenges, like our recent Gratitude Challenge. We will also be looking into ways to combine fun activities with financial education, to help get rid of the stigma that financial education is boring. It’s not – and we’re going to prove it to you!
Young Girls Need Financial Education Too
But it’s simply not enough that we are educating and empowering women to take control of their future, especially once they’re already established and living “in the real world.” The need for education is present far sooner than that. We should be teaching our daughters and granddaughters the importance of financial matters and helping pique their interest in subjects like math and science and economics, topics that most girls tend to shy away from. Twenty, thirty, forty years ago, you could say there were some valid excuses for the lack of financial knowledge amongst women and girls – we didn’t have as many educational resources available to women, and men were the financial leaders by default. But, now, we have no excuses. We need to do more to encourage young girls to become involved so that, when they become women, dealing with and taking control of their financial matters will be just as routine as going to the gym or making sure they’re eating right.
What are we going to do to help? We are already discussing how we can implement some of the great ideas that our Chat women offered. For example, we will be looking into holding events that women can attend with their daughters, granddaughters, nieces, and friends. We’re also researching how to initiate a young girls’ investment club, and/or other girls’ clubs to encourage participation in subjects like math and science. In fact, Debbie’s son, Bobby, who is the President of his Freshman Class, is working on establishing a “Girls Who Code” Club and on finding a female classmate to be co-chair of the club. Lastly, we are getting connected with the local Girl Scouts chapter to offer a financial workshop for young girls to fulfill the requirements for the financial literacy badge. We are hopeful that our efforts are going to make a huge difference for young girls everywhere.
Overall, we learned a whole lot from our 1st Annual Galentine’s Chat, and we also ate a whole lot of really good food at Café Panache. We believe every good brainstorming session deserves the reward of a delicious meal. Thank you to all who joined us! And stay tuned for some new initiatives headed your way.
Sources:
Prudential, Women & Money Study, 2014-2015
Investment News, Women and Retirement Planning, 2017
CNN Money, Fresh Evidence Women are Better Investors than Men, March 2017
CNN Money, Why Women Lag Behind Men When It Comes to Money, April 2017
Business Insider, 5 Charts Show How Much More Men Make than Women, March 2017
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