Most of the financial awareness programmes are targeted at men as they are still considered the decision-makers of the house. Many working women who plan to invest and manage their finances may face difficulties in accessing credible information. Questions like how to invest money and where to invest it need to be answered to make the investing journey easier for women.
Many people, including several working women, think of holding a bulk of their earnings in the savings account. The money held in a savings account generates meagre returns, which may be lower than the inflation rate over a period. It essentially means the money kept in a savings account loses value over a long time. To protect the savings from inflation, working women can consider investing in the financial markets. Investments in financial markets could help in delivering desirable returns over the long run provided you have invested in a disciplined manner. There are varieties of market-linked investments available in the market, ranging from tax-saving investments to long term investments. The question remains how to invest money or how to get started?
Here are 5 investment tips for working women
1. Prepare an investment plan
Investing money without a plan is like playing football without the goalposts. Allotting random amounts of money to different investment instruments can backfire without a proper plan. Start with a life goal in mind. Goal based investing is one of the most efficient mediums of investing. When you have a life goal, it is easier to ascertain the time required and the amount needed to achieve it. Once you know how much to invest and for what period, you can take into account other factors like age, occupation and liabilities to zero in on the type of investment.
2. Start early
The thought of saving for the future comes later in life. The scenario is relevant even for working women. Starting late in life has various disadvantages. The biggest drawback of thinking about investing at a later stage in life is the loss of compounding gains. If you start saving and investing early in life, even with a small amount, the seemingly small amount will compound over time and become a substantial sum over the long run. Another advantage of starting early is the availability of a greater proportion of the income for investing in the early stages of life. There are relatively lesser responsibilities in the twenties, which gradually increases with marriage and kids as one enters the thirties. It is advisable to start early and invest in long-term investment to create wealth.
3. Opt for tax-efficient investments
While investing in a financial product, the focus is always on the return on investment. However, while calculating, people often ignore the impact of taxation on the returns. The calculation is limited to the rate of capital appreciation over a period. The tax deducted from the accumulated corpus can have a significant impact on the final returns. It is therefore important to understand tax implications and invest in tax-saving instruments. A unit-linked insurance plan (ULIP) is one of the investment options with an exposure to markets linked returns that has remained unaffected from the long-term capital gains tax.
4. Invest systematically
One of the most critical factors for wealth creation is systematic investments. Working women can start with a small amount in the early stage of their careers, but it is important to maintain the investment’s continuity. When money is invested systematically in long-term investment options, one can achieve their desirable life goals.
5. Diversify
The golden rule of investing is to diversify investments across assets and instruments. Diversification helps in reducing the risks associated with an investment. Without adequate diversification, your investments will be overly dependent on the performance of a narrow band of products. The underperformance of even a few investment options will have an impact on the entire portfolio.
Conclusion
With the basic checklist in hand, it is easier to figure out how to invest money. Sticking to the broader points can help working women invest efficiently. A variety of life goals can be achieved with disciplined investing. It requires a plan and the patience to follow it to accumulate a substantial corpus over a period.
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