What Keeps You Awake At Night?

We gathered together a group of eight mothers aged between 35 and 44, to discuss where money fits into their lives. We discussed looking after their families as well as planning for their own personal futures and some interesting points emerged.

Firstly, they were all working overseas and travelling in their 20s and did not contribute money into super, therefore, they are now almost a decade behind. They are very conscious that they don’t have enough.

In this age group with young children, these women are excellent at budgeting, so they know exactly what the cost of living is and whether or not they can actually save money. This time in their life is one of the highest expenses with mortgages, school fees, daycare fees, rising utility bills and growing children.

One of the group was a single mother with a primary school age child who was working and studying at University. She said that she has had to learn to be as strict with her time as she is with her money. She said she knows that she is in this space until she finishes her degree and her income will increase with the first job after university. This pathway is not the easiest however she is determined to make a better life for herself and her child.

When I asked what were their greatest concerns, all of the women were most concerned about supporting themselves after the age of 65. We discussed that women are now living well into their 90s and will be in retirement longer than they were in the workforce. These women are worried about not having enough money at that time in their life and living in poverty.

They were trying to work out how much money they needed to contribute to super, once the children were more established. The conundrum was whether to put more money into super or pay down their mortgage. Given that interest rates are now at record lows and mortgage repayments are far more affordable, they still have a large mortgage because of house prices.

One of the comments came about that if she put $20 a week a salary sacrifice into her super that would help. I said that would add close to $1500 per annum including the government co- contribution into super. If that $1500 goes in and compounds every year plus any employer contributions over the next 20 years she will slowly build up her super while paying down the mortgage.

Other concerns centred around health and how to take care of themselves so that they don’t get run down looking after their family. The topic of self-care is important because they have to set aside time to exercise, cost associated with any kind of gym membership, any kind of personal expenditure such as beauty money or haircare.

One woman commented on how women mentally multitask; they constantly think about everything in their life all at once and try to organise the various functions in some kind of checklist or to-do list.

They also commented that their partners help with their share of the work involved, but don’t actually do the planning to get the work done, nor do they actually work out the budget for the house. This constant mental activity can also be stressful because women feel as though it’s their job to get everything done.

We discussed the importance of a really good nutritious diet for themselves in the family and fitting in mental and emotional health activities for themselves. One commented that if I go down the whole lot comes with me and I can’t afford to get sick.

When they were talking about their finances and how to take care of themselves in the event of any difficulty arising or relationship break up, one said that if that happened to her, she would just get on with it and cope. In that situation, women are not always prepared and don’t always take the lead to cover themselves.

We looked at some solutions for all these concerns.

Firstly, women need to take care of themselves and meet as a support group and friends more than once or twice a year. They literally need to organise real time out to emotionally and mentally regroup.

They also need to look at their financial situation and put into their budget a small saving into superannuation for themselves is important, not just employer contributions. We also looked at the option of setting up a side income such as an online business that they can begin now.

One of the greatest issues coming through now are women over the age of 65 living in poverty and some are homeless. Many of these women did not work much in their lifetime income did not have compulsory super until the last 20 years.

Setting up an online income now and keeping it going for extra income for the family in the meantime is a great step up for a retirement income in years to come. The secondary income can also be contributed to their super (within the super caps).

So, the main issues confronting women in 35 to 45 are their caring responsibilities and financial accounting for their families. They are very conscious of not having enough money said aside for their retirement and earning enough to be able to contribute to super over the next 20 years. Safety and security financially is the priority and paying down the mortgage is the main focus of their financial thinking over the next 15 years.

They are worried about the lack of lifestyle in retirement if they don’t start planning now. They are also very interested in learning how to do their own investing for the savings that they managed to accrue.

‘The one thing I do feel a lack of confidence in, simply because I don’t have the information, is how to grow any kind of investments when I get the money accumulated’.

Basically, women want to know what to do with what they’ve got. Since they don’t have enough information, they I don’t feel they have the confidence to do it themselves. They know they’re good at budgeting and know that is with a bit of effort they could make some savings towards financial independence.

The two key factors that became clear from this discussion was that women must take good care of themselves, both mentally, emotionally and physically with regular exercise and a good diet as well as find assistance with the financial future now.