Mar 26., 2020   /   Life Journey Tips - An Epiphany A Day

We Need To Be Financially Independent!

We all need to be financially independent. Here I am talking about the importance of how we all, especially women, should make sure we save up some funds individually along with common family funds.

 1. What is the “Importance” of being Financially Independent:

This might seem like a small and very obvious thing but for me its huge. I will like to expand on it, as to why I am emphasizing on it so much.

After completing my engineering degree, I took up a few IT consulting projects. Together with my husband, I successfully ran an IT business  for more than 15 years. In the end, I  personally still had “Zero” bank balance.

As a family and as a couple, we did have assets and bank balances but I personally did not save up anything. All good, no issues really.

But then I wanted to start my passion project – launch my jewelry brand. I realized all the money is common. I could not really pull out anything without a proof that things will work out soon and the way I predicted.

It was not so bad on the surface, but made me feel horrible.

Result was, I had to start over. I took up more IT projects and started building some new cash-flow for the new business I wanted to start.

2. Need to plan our financial independence:

See, we are earning and we think we are financially independent. That is not enough. Just like how we plan financial security for the family, we need to do it for ourselves too, in a very subtle way, if not the whole nine yards.

The point is, early on everyone (specially we women, who are so naive ….) should know that as a family we all are “one”. In this oneness, there should be a little bit of “me” there. Just in case that me needs some breathing room. Just so it can survive and be creative.

So, if you guys are at the phase of your life that you have already learnt the lesson like I have, I guess you will be nodding your heads and agreeing with me. If you are starting out and are where I was few years ago, then hope I can make you think a little. You can just have some “me” funds set up on the side so you can call some of your own shots, if need be.

Don't lose yourself on the way!

 3. Make sure family understands our needs:

Guys, just remember, we should not feel guilty about it. This is for sanity and is very important aspect of our life, we cannot ignore.

Making the family also aware of our needs, be it financial or any other, keeps things stress free from the get-go.

Hope you take this seriously. Idea is not to cause family issues, in fact it’s the opposite. It will also protect family future by not keeping all funds in one common bucket – managed by two different people – complete backup!