Start investing: 5 reasons how to secure your financial future

Women hold 71% of their assets in cash (aka not investing to build wealth), vs 60% held by men. Statistically, women are less likely to invest, and even those who do invest tend to wait until they are older to start. Women make up only 8% of investors. 

When it comes to investments or personal financial planning, most women still rely on their husbands/fathers. According to UN Women - the UN branch working for women's equality around the world - the main difference between men and women is - "surprisingly" - not education, but a lack of confidence to demand what is rightfully theirs, including equalising their income and managing their savings in shares or investments to cope with inflation.

Here are five reasons why you should start investing ASAP:

1. Financial independence & freedom

• It’s important for women to be able to achieve a sense of financial independence and freedom--regardless of marital status or marriage expectations

2. Women make good investors

• Research regularly shows that investment portfolios managed by women outperform those managed by men.
• Women have less ego, more patient, not overconfident, exert more self-control and more disciplined

3. Equality and wealth gap

• Women will generally earn substantially less than their male counterparts due to various factors including maternity leave and time spent raising their families
• With more and more women both investing and starting their own companies, the landscape will begin to shift. Women will naturally invest more in each other, further spurring change towards equality, and their entry into the markets could provoke extra growth.
• More women investors mean more wealth in the hands of women, and hopefully, the beginning of the end of our out-of-control wealth gap

4. Longer lifespan

• While life expectancy for both men and women has improved dramatically, women are still outliving men.
• Investing is the most tried-and-true method of building wealth for retirement, and since women generally have more golden years than men, logic would dictate that they would need a more in retirement savings. Unfortunately, many women are not able to achieve this goal, and women are 80% more likely than men to retire into poverty.

5. Accomplish financial goals

• Investing is unarguably one of the best tools for a woman to accomplish her financial goals
  

If you read this article to the end we hope we convinced you to start thinking about how to invest your hard-earned money so that in a few years’ time you’ll have built wealth for yourself.

Not sure how to start? Take our Money Makover Quiz to find out how are you doing with money and investments and see how we can help you to move further.