Kim Krushell – Women Need to Plan Their Finances for A Better Life

Kim Krushell is the president of EP. Rees Inc. which is a startup organization. It has developed Save Assist and Lending Assist in conjunction with iomer and Witten LLP. Kim is also a financially independent woman who started her life just like other Canadian women. She didn’t have the financial strength back then to start her own organization but she didn’t run away from the challenges which she faced in her life and her career. She might be one of the prime examples of Canadian women who worked her way up to her own business. She exclaims:

I saw how my mother and my grandmother had to struggle with the poor financial condition after they got divorced. The scenario is quite common because most of the married women are dependent on their husbands for their finances. Even when they are capable of doing a job and earning a good amount of money, they don’t do so as they tend to spend time caring for their children and believe that their life will always be happy. But it is not like that and they get to face this truth when they are divorced. I was more attached to my mother and I could not bear watching her live in poverty because when my mother separated from my father, she had to manage her own finances.

When she was married, she didn’t even have to think about the management of her budget because she would just ask for money from my father and would cover the expenses. But after separation, she had to manage her finance even when she didn’t know how to. She had to suffer because she was not a financially independent woman. As time went on, I could not just stand watching her tackle poverty all by herself. Thus, I told myself that I had to do something I became an equal partner in managing the household finances. I think that women unluckily really live in more poverty than men. Women get more challenges with their finances. The reason is due to some women are unable to go for high education and thus, they would not able to get a good job, or some of them even end up with being a housewife. For this reason, women really need to have proper knowledge about what they have to do regarding their finances.

Women often think that they don’t have to worry about their finances because they have their husbands to rely on. Let me tell you, this is no excuse to cover your weakness and you should never think that you live happily for the rest of your life by just depending on your husband or family. There will be a time when you will have to manage your own finance and it is better to be prepared for it than be ignorant at present and suffer when you need to be strong. An important reason why women are weak in finance is that they don’t get enough education or even awareness about finance. Most of the times, women think that once they are of the right age, they will be married and will have a supportive husband to take care of all the issues. You should not delude yourself with such thoughts because even if you have a caring husband, it will not be easy for him to carry the burden of household budget all by himself. Rather than letting him handle the budget, you can be there to support him as well.

I have experienced some troubling circumstances because both my mother and grandmother didn’t know the importance of being financially independent. I can easily remember the time when my mother had to work hard to meet the ends and it is a situation I don’t want any woman to experience. In order to avoid this situation, you have to understand how finance works.

Now, you might think that financial concepts are quite difficult and you don’t have sufficient education to understand but that is not right. Let me correct, finance is a subject about wits and undoubtedly, you can have mastery over it even if you lack sufficient education. You can at least be capable of managing your budget all by yourself without having to struggle. There are a lot of ways how women can learn how to manage their finance.

However, the most important part that I want other women to know is to be financially independent. For being financially independent, you can either work or just invest your money. I wouldn’t tell which one to do because it is your choice and both have their own benefits and drawbacks. But for starters, you can begin with a job and gain relevant experience in the market until you are capable of investing your money. It is the most sensible approach because most of us don’t have the required resources to invest money right when we start. Starting your own business is a great way of being financially independent but it has a lot of risks and you can mitigate them only through experience and sufficient knowledge about the market. Thus, before you start your business, you should gain a lot of experience and develop your ideas which are worth your efforts and your money. It will be a long journey and there is no doubt in that but you have to stay firm.

In the past, women were not only degraded but also were not given opportunities to gain education and pursue their careers. But now, we have the chance to do what we really want and even though there a difference between wages for men and women, the difference itself should not be that troubling. At present, no one is really going to stop you and you should also not step back from the opportunity that is awaiting you. Gaining education has become quite easy and you don’t have to basically study finance only to be financially independent. You can pursue any field while being a financially strong woman. For instance, in your free time, you can visit my own platform.

With the support of enthusiastic volunteers, I have launched Women and Money, which is a website with an initiative to give the proper education to Canadian women everything they need to know about finance. With this website, I believe that I could reach out to women and educate them about finance in a way that they could understand. The reason is obvious, women need to know about finance in detail so that they would able to plan their finances for a better life. At this platform, you will get to know what finance really is about and what you can do to manage your finance in a better way. For instance, if you haven’t had the chance to understand finance, you can start with the basics and if you already have proficiency in it, you can get to the professional tips. They will help you in gaining better financial management skills and be a financially independent woman.

Lastly, I would like to say that you should not be afraid of your circumstances. I understand very well that life can be quite tough and getting past some situations proves to be impossible but you should remember one thing that you can do anything, and there is no doubt in that. If you put your mind on something and really try to achieve it, you can do it. Honestly, I think that you can do anything because your life is not over yet and anything in which you put your hard work, you can obtain it. And being a Canadian woman, you have to be financially independent and you can do that with enough time and efforts.”

Lisa Miller – Women Who Earn Their Own Money Get Healthier Marriages

Lisa Miller is a famous publisher and journalist. She has been working in the field for a long time now and she exclaims:

“A report that has encouraged me to become a financially independent woman was an awesome report made by Anna Aizer who revealed that the poorest women have to experience domestic violence in their marriages rather than women who could earn their own money. The reason is not only because women who also doing work outside would have less time to be at home, and thus, they would be vulnerable to getting domestic violence. Anna Aizer was encouraging me with the fact that women who earn their own money have the power to leave the house anytime they want. This power has a direct influence on the behavior of their spouses.

As a woman who is working in publishing and journalism, I am familiar with numerous professional and young women. They are ambitious and smart, and they are financially independent. Some of the women are writers, editors, business owners, lawyers, medical students, management consultants, artists, and even psychologists. It means that you can achieve success regardless of your field and all of these women have a thing in common. All of them were raised in such a way that they knew what they had to do and what to expect from society. They wanted professional success and that is why they started to invest their efforts in their fields from the very start. It would be surprising to realize that most of the women in Canada are working and they have proper employment. They are capable of making money and utilize it according to their requirements. In comparison with the previous times, women have more freedom now and they have more power than ever. What they need is the right direction only and they will be able to make a bright future for themselves.

Today, women are living in a world where they don’t only have independence but also power. They are approaching their duties in ways which were never seen before and it would not be wrong to say that it is kind of a revolution in itself. In order to understand why women seem to be inefficient in managing their finances, I underwent a few studies. The very first study is from 2006 and the results of the study revealed that men desired only attractiveness in females and they didn’t care about intelligence. According to them, intelligence was only a trivial thing in a woman and what mattered was attractiveness. Since the test revolved around studying the behaviors of men, it indicated that men didn’t value ambitions in a woman when they got to realize that they were exceeding their own. It was again exhibited in the fact that men didn’t want to have dinner with women who were more ambitious than them. On the other hand, women liked those men who were intelligent and were also supportive. They sought out those men who possessed the abilities to help them in raising their children. It indicates that men prefer those women who are more attractive than intelligent and that is one of the reasons why most of the women don’t busy themselves with managing finance.

In addition to it, it has also been determined that when a wife seems to outearn her husband by over fifty-percent then she is more likely to quit her job and work to eliminate the difference which has been developed between her and her husband. Maybe this is the reason why I am sensing anxiety from all of my young friends whenever they talk about being married – the second-guessing, the wavering, and the ambivalence. For a long time now, we have been taught that women are born to be married and live in a house with their husbands, and of course, raise children. That is one of the most important reasons why women fell do distressed and anxious whenever they talk about independent and earn on their own. They believe that it is their duty to stay bound and in the house where they really belong. From the very start, women are taught to act within their bounds or otherwise, they will not be able to find the right and noble suitor. However, does that really matter? Men still divorce women and once their marriage falls, they have no choice but to live on their own in poverty. It has become common for me to hear about all those women who are subjected to domestic violence and brutal beatings just because their husbands are stressed and they have to vent their anger out on something or someone. Why is that women have to stay in the shadows? A root cause of domestic violence is that women have become completely dependent on their husbands and for even their own finances, they have to ask for money.

When women are not controlling their finance, it already gives the opportunity to their husbands to dominate them. And men take advantage of this situation where they are cornered and don’t have the reason to beat their wives. Although you are married, you have a responsibility or duty to yourself as well and you can fulfill this duty by working. By working and managing your finance, you can be financially independent and it will give you the ability to stand against your husband when the time comes. From a positive perspective, when you are earning, you can also support your husband. By analyzing this report along with others, I have come to understand that women who are capable of supporting themselves financially live better and healthier lives and marriages. Since they contribute to household finance and save money for themselves as well, they don’t have a need to ask for money from their husbands.

Reading this report has made me realize on how important for women to become independent in finance. Even though none of us expects this domestic violence to happen in our lives, but yes, we should prepare ourselves for the worst. By becoming a financially independent woman, you can have that power to do and decide what you want in your life.”