MoolahWisdom#2: Having Money Dates

Welcome to Mula Wisdom series on the Mula Talks podcast with myself Nita Gupta and my guest who host Jermina. On this podcast we talk everything Mula from mindset to management to investing of it for a secured and comfortable life that you can enjoy today and in the future. With loads of real life experiences and lessons learnt, this is the Mula Wisdom series brought to you by Mula 4 Women, a financial literacy and empowerment community for women that makes finance simple, fun and easy to understand irrespective of your age, background and job community and now let's get started, hey everyone and we are here again with Mula Wisdom and again we have Jermina with us and the topic for today is money dates or money conversations. So welcome Jermina it's really an honour and a delight to have you and let's talk about what is money date and why is it important? Hi Mita, lovely being back here and continuing our conversations, I'm hoping women are listening and getting encouraged, the money date is something you can go with yourself, with your friend, with your spouse or with your parent. How lovely that I love the fact that you said with yourself also and that's really beautiful yes so true. I think that's very crucial and that's actually the crux of our whole conversation series and what you do or the money date is you select your place, you select the time, where you're comfortable, where you can be yourself so I would not suggest a public space and also be very clear that you are going to be discussing money, the money that is earned, the money that is saved, where is the money saved, what isn't being saved for and what is one really looking forward. I think it's a very crucial aspect, one assumes that in day-to-day conversation, especially between couples or you know in the case of single women who are still with their parents, one assumes that everybody knows, the reality is it doesn't happen as planned out, it becomes I would say in a way even a bookkeeping kind of a task where perhaps you actually discuss what each person is earning, how much are they saving, where are they saving, with total transparency and of course also openness, it's very easy to turn around and find forward saying 'Why did you do that, why did you do that' but you know, avoid those and it's about talking where a couple is really headed or where you as an individual or family are headed. It could be starting to make down payment coffees for the apartment you want to buy, it could be for you know, your child, your future child and his or her education, it could also be about the vacation you want to do three years from now, it could also be about the upgrade you want to give your existing house or it could just be, I mean retirement of course becomes a very important aspect of it and because if people will start in their 20s and 30s and I'm really hoping people are doing that, there are enough signs to show that it's happening but if women are doing that it'll be really great, it's to really plan out your future. Can you really put the many things you need to do in the next 20, 30 years in your list and prioritize how you're doing? But I started my money journey 30 years back, it was very limited you know because income was less, there were other elements like I am part of what is called the sandwich generation and by we are also because we have parents, typical middle-class parents before India boom, limited income and probably almost 1995% expenses and which is where they had limited savings and as they retired and had no income, it fell on us to support them financially. At the same time we were this generation who was earning better than our parents and who also did want to be dependent on their children like their parents were and which is where we were also simultaneously saving for our children, we are education or anything else and at the same time we were running our house and fulfilling our dreams and ambitions whether it was buying our house, planning those vacations and of course for retirement because remember I said we didn't want to depend on our children and which is where we became the sandwich generation, the generation which was supporting the generation before and after them and that put a lot of burden on us but over the few years as you maintain consistency in your investment keep those goals in mind it became easier and it also became at one point you perhaps had too many types of invests, you had multiple mutual funds, multiple bank accounts, you switch jobs, the company made you take a different salary account or you had multiple policies and at some point you realize it's all not gathered at one place. So I think one of the conversations that to have with the money date is truly bookkeeping of your finances, put everything in order, let a person who needs to know immediately next to you whether it's your parent or whether it's your spouse, know where the things are, designate a place in your house where these things are kept for quick and easy access. I mean you could be just saving for a vacation but God forbid somebody needs for the terrible accident. You have the money and you're not able to access it, how terrible could that be. You have a medical insurance but you don't know where that insurance is, how do you really you know manage the situation and that's when the money did become smooth. 100 percent, 100 percent. So tell me, Jermina from your own experience, then now that you said that you know money conversations are important or money talks are important. So you also in the last episode talked about you had these money conversations earlier with your own dad to say that listen and I'm not saving for your circumstances things, I'm going to be taking care of your education but the rest you have to do but those are conversations which you've had as a kid about money. How did you as you went through your journey in life, whether it was you know when you got married, whether it's your kids, how have these money talks happened in your family, is there a particular spot, is there a particular time, how do you go about? So like I said at one particular time we had invested in a house, the EMI was literally taking one salary, the other salary was running the house. So sometimes I kind of got angsty and said you know what child is growing up, before we don't, who would be grown up, I can't wait for the home loan to finish to do the investment. So I started making small amounts, I literally began at 1000 rupees a month, almost 20 years back to save for my son's education and I continued investing in it and after some time my husband saw that and he said hey I will also give you money for the same thing. So actually for the first three years of my investment journey and I know it may not be so common, it was I who was making the decision of where to invest and those managing it at a family level. So we here to ask you like, I mean obviously very uncommon to say that okay you were the one who started the investment journey and your husband probably followed after looking at you. So did you have money conversations or money talks in those earlier three years with your husband, was he open to it or was it which came out of his own initiative that he came and said that yes I also want to be a part of this whole thing or is it something which you brought on as a discipline in your family to say that no it's important to have money conversations, let's have it once a week, once a month, it was structured, was it unstructured, was it, oh it was open at any point we would just talk about money, how did it happen in your family? And how did it begin? I mean I think what is important for all our listeners and our audience to also understand because it's a very sensitive topic, money conversations are very very sensitive and so to pull somebody if they're not ready for it is the most impossible thing to do. So then how was it, was it because he was ready at that point in time your husband and that's why it was easier for you to have that conversation or was it because you thought it was important and you made a discipline for everybody to join in a conversation like that. I think the initial conversation was fairly organic because when we decided to invest in our house and like I said part of the down payment came from me and that first investment which I've grown to a bit by the time we invested our house, then I realised after three years of phone number being and like I said you know I see income grew, I realised I was used to spending a particular amount then I was getting a bit more and my immediate thing was that let me start saving for myself and the position was the first pay of the house loans. I wouldn't say he completely agreed to it but I said no I need to do this also and I started that and I think after a year or two and this is the beauty about staying invested when you see that statement after a year or two it definitely with growth looks a lot different than you thought it will and he was like okay this is good now even I will give you a little bit more so you add to that same investment for my son's education and we started doing that and for three years we were managing and of course I felt it was important for him to move where his money was going and we never had difficulties with those conversations so I would regularly show those were also snail mail days so you know you've got a monthly or a quarterly statement which he could also open and see after some point happy to say that the amount we were investing was growing and I was also actively reading a lot on finance and investments so it came my knowledge and at one point I said okay now we need to really go to a professional you are investing one to three thousand a month you can take your own decisions but it's a financial guy going to give you better advice do it better and we spoke to a couple of people and then we started consolidating because now we wanted to be more focused I think three years of paying home loans another two three years of paying home loan and also investing at the side gave us the confidence that we could continue doing more of it and actually set aside goals I can just recapselate what you said because I think it's so beautiful for our viewers the first thing you said was transparency I mean and I would question that to myself and to the viewers that being a woman you were transparent and your husband saw the benefit of that and chipped in by saying that okay I'll add to it if it was the reverse way I'm not so sure whether every man is so transparent and even if every man is transparent is the wife forth coming to add on to that whole thing or is she just a passive or takeer or something like that so that that's something which is very beautiful so I love the fact you know you said that transparency is important the second thing which I kind of understood was that at some point because you're aligned you could go to a advisor and say okay can we now start looking at consolidating our finances and growing them in a proper structured manner for the benefit of the goals that we're wanting to achieve I think that's again because you're aligned so that alignment between the two of you made it easier for you to take steps towards your financial goals or objectives that you were wanting to achieve whether it was your kids education or whether it was paying off your home loan so I think those were very very important things which came pretty easily to you as a family and because of which probably you didn't even realize that it's something and because I am at Mule and I see meet a lot of women I see that these are exactly the challenges which women face one it could be that they shy away from it because they feel they don't know say they may be safe in a complacent situation where they say that why do I need I'm in a happy situation why do I need to rock the boat or why do I need to exert myself or do anything where well I am being taken care of said they don't even try to have these conversations even if I know that there are a lot of husbands who want their wife to have that conversation absolutely but they're not ready for it or they don't want to do it right because this is your lack of that I don't need to really get into it but I think and what you said is that it's really important to have a seat at the table and to have a seat at the table means that you need to have knowledge otherwise people will dismiss us right as and especially I talk because again for women that don't be just passive people who are just taking in information or just depending on your husband or somebody or spouse and saying you know you'll be taken care of I think it's very important to me. We're a conversation part of one and I mean I think it's it's I mean I think it's awesome to have somebody like you will becomes like a role model for so many women out here to say it's not impossible right it's something which is very easy and it can be done organically one step at a time and slowly as a family start having conversations right about that thing so that's super beautiful then you brought up the thing of documents being important right so that you need to put your things in place you need to be your awareness has to be there would you want to talk about that by having these conversations early in time did it make a difference in your how you felt about it in terms of your feeling of security in terms of how you felt that you will be able to overcome life challenges and be able to because life can throw challenges at any point in time. Did it strengthen you internally and how was your feeling because of the fact that you felt that you are in control of not only your finances but as a family to a control in control of the fact. I think it definitely did and I think I must add over here that it was not just me but it's even my husband who I think is a role model and how to be transferred and I think you're very right a lot of my male friends say that they want to discuss this with your rights when I tell my friends that aren't you discussing this with your husbands and they say that I don't want to tell them because I don't know much but understand it it's not rocket science only rocket science is rocket science what is important in this whole documentation and keeping it right is I think it also helps you know how many you have I mean when I first started doing it I was surprised that over the years how things have got scattered when you start your career, your shift jobs, a bank account is open sometimes that bank account comes and says my domain investment go another bank account comes and your accountant will get you my initial investments were probably for tax reasons because I didn't have enough surplus and once it's this broker next time and somebody's uncle somebody's sister you keep doing that but when you start writing down you realize you have a lot sometimes you also realize you have forgotten some stuff which is where it becomes important to keep the documents in place I think today everything has got digitized so are you having one email ID and one mobile number where all of this is recorded so at least digital stuff keeps coming you know when it was snail mail it was I think better to monitor oh yeah while I be mature I want to retire today if you not recorded the right email or you're not accessing that email regularly you may miss it so it's even important from your day to day because you may have put a particular investment a bond or something and it's mature and one year it's lying without interest and without your knowledge so it's also not just a day to day and god forbid something which you don't want happens happens to you or your family you know where to reach for those fine access you may have saved for a goal and what if you can't reach because you don't know where it is because you don't know how to redeem things like nominations become important I would say when you make your file excel file don't just put your bank name bank account number also put the nomination details when I hope you are updating for life insurance try a person who you're on deals in life insurance and he was saying that there are so many insurances which are unclean there's so many bank accounts which are unclean because people have no and I think it's so important that when they're especially when the going is good when you're in a stable state of affairs to have that conversation around money because that's the time you're not in your vulnerable state right and that's the time when you have that conversation you know how deep I even the ocean or how safe you are right because I think you know you can gauge that and and you're able to have that conversation and say okay am I in a secure spot or I'm not in a secure spot because I mean I see in a lot of families that husbands have taken a loan wives are absolutely oblivious about it and yes for bed the husband passes away and suppose you there's a life insurance which the husband has left and the wife has no clue that the husband had taken a home loan and now the entire money which is the life insurance money goes to a settlement of the home loan otherwise they lose the home so there's so many such instances which happen because of a lack of awareness and because this conversation doesn't happen between the husband and wife right so it's so important so important to have a money conversation and money talks early on in life for everyone and and how do you think about financial security of women why I talk about this germina is because you see that a lot of women leave their careers when kids happen right and so at that time they start depending on their husband to take care of their them and their finances and they don't even try and have these conversations do you think it's important and from your perspective you've always been working you always had an income of your own what about women who stop having a job and and kind of start taking care of the family their kids and all should they be financially secure and how can they ask their husbands and demand if I may say so that they be financially secure what are your thoughts around that I think the fact that women decides to step out of the workforce stop working because of whatever family reasons is enough reason to say that she has given up for the family and that is where the family has to really support if she's not doing that then I think she's not getting her due thankfully the younger generation is more working that respect thankfully there is more awareness and I think the younger generation it goes both ways the men and the women where even the men realize that the women are giving up a career and you know they're taking up these responsibilities and they're supportive I think it's important to continue the money conversations there and just because you are no longer contributing to the income or to the family savings doesn't mean the women stops deciding on be a goal decision maker with her husband or when it's going because I don't think as a family your goals are changing you're still working towards that home or home loan you're working towards your child's education. I didn't divide you absolutely in fact I would say that you should probably even ask for some investments still to continue in your name you know being a housewife or you know looking after the family is an unpaid job I'm not saying have a conversation about a salary but I'm just saying get your due be very clear and of course that's also another reason that when you start earning you keep your savings from day one you know you may want to have that financial actually you may want to have that financial flex so money gives us rings in many ways then we can think of and it is where we need to save it earn it invested and jointly discuss it 100% so well said and especially I mean I've seen so many women who given up their careers and come to mid 40 for some reason they've had a split in their marriage and the woman is not earning suddenly she has no source of money she's like fighting to get her rights from the same family she's even saddled with her kids because of this whole again patriarch and set up where the wife or the mother will be always the charge of the kid and with zero money now she's at a stage where she cannot get a job she has no financial security because everything is in her husband's name and she has to beg borrow to take care of her own rest of her life and so I think having these money conversations early and I would even say having bring up agreements are not bad would you think about bring up because I mean it defines the rights of a woman early on in life that if you spend so many years together how will money be distributed between the two partners I think it also becomes important because law unfortunately in India is not favourable to women on a lot of counts it was set up probably by the British and in the early years when society was very different so take for example a simple thing like a Hindu male dying without a will the immediate is become his parents his wife and his children in equal share okay no issues with that the problem is a woman in the Hindu woman passes away her income or her wealth is left only for her spouse and children why not her parents you could die in your thirties and you know your parents who are hoping that you would look after them suddenly lose their cover and that is not what you want you had probably saved for them so you know these kind of inequalities are there in many many ways thankfully now oaths have taken cognizance and today at least male and female children have equal rights even that has been a fight and a struggle and even after that you still see parents using bills as a way to discriminate even if the law says it's equal so uncertainty is a many and especially for the women unfortunately the bias is in the incorrect areas and which is where we probably need to save more we probably need to be more aware and we probably need to be more in control so I would really urge women to also look at those aspects not discover them when the unfortunate incidents happen I think that's very important so well said so I think our conversation today has been again very very enriching and very very interesting and thank you for bringing all those perspectives from your own life and your rich experience that you share so money is not a taboo topic right let's all get it on the ground that money is not a taboo topic let's not talking money because it's so we need money from the day we are born till the day we die and yet such an important aspect of our life we keep silent about it and then as women feed fearful feel anxious feel scared that what if will something happens in our life let's start talking money and I mean I read a very beautiful quote which I would love to use to sum up to say that money is an opportunity to reach unity in marriage when couples work together they can do anything so I think isn't that beautiful that let's work together you know we've kind of come as a family we've got married let's have our financial goals and kind of try and achieve them together I think it should never be me versus you you know in a relationship it should always be me and you and the moment you bring it together life becomes so much more beautiful and I think money conversations are a huge part of making life beautiful so thank you germina for your beautiful beautiful perspective on this topic and we will engage with each other for our next conversation and until then thank you so much viewers for being here today thank you for joining us today we hope you found value in today's conversation and if you are ready to do something about taking charge of your finances today then feel free to drop us a DM on Instagram or visit us on our website www.mulaforwomen.com remember to follow this podcast and join us in the next episode as we talk about creating happy money making fun goals with your money and getting smart about indulging a little with money so tune in next week to mula talks podcast and remember to follow us on your podcast app and on instagram at mulaforwomen this is your host mita gupta signing off [MUSIC]