Investment 101 for Indian Women: A step towards financial independence

“Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”
“Risk comes from not knowing what you are doing.”
- Warren Buffet

Investments are for everyone. Despite working and earning, many women in India are still dependent for their investment/financial decisions. Women are less likely to invest generally, and even those who do invest tend to wait until they are older to start. It is really the time now that women also need to start investing as soon as they start earning. Often women tend to think they don’t know enough about investing to properly grow their savings, and tend to wait to start investing until they feel they’re more financially stable.

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Why should women take their own investment decision and start investing as soon as they start earning?
For the simple reason that is to attain financial independence. It’s the most important reason why women should invest herself. We need to be able to achieve a sense of financial independence, only then we will be truly growing, both in terms of our career and our money.

How should you start investing?

1. Gain financial knowledge: Learn about investing, markets, accounting and more. It will help you make overall better financial decisions. It may look very exhaustive and a lot of work at the beginning. But trust me tonnes of financial knowledge resources are present on the internet and it really doesn’t take long once you understand the basics. You can take help from friends/family to understand better. It is important to gain knowledge from everywhere, but invest your money yourself.
2. Get your banking online: Internet Banking is an asset. It not only saves time, but with the aid of Internet Banking, investments can be made by few clicks alone. It makes investing a thousand times easier and hassle free. We can even open Demat Accounts without visiting the bank even once, thanks to the apps like Zerodha, Upstox, Groww. All you need are your documents like Aadhaar and PAN Card.
3. Start looking at Mutual Funds: Mutual Funds are a good way to get started with investing. Initially just keep the app installed and explore it whenever you get time. See the mutual funds with highest returns, go through the companies in which it has holding. Observe the charts for monthly, yearly performance. Once you feel familiar, start investing. Depending on your income and savings, you can start with any amount. The important things is to get started and not the amount. Gradually, when the understanding increases and when you see that the markets have dipped a bit, you can invest more in the same Mutual Fund.
4. Share Market Trading: The golden rule is to make calculated risks. First observe, see the charts for any stock over some period. Add some famous shares in your watchlist and analyse the performance. Understand the basic terminology like lower circuit, upper circuit, holdings, intraday. Watch the news around the famous shares and invest when you see the share is below currently than its normal range. And most importantly have patience. Do not make rushed decisions.
5. Traditional Investment Options: The easiest approaches to begin investing are the traditional approaches which are more long term like PPF, EPF, FD, NSC. These are good options always. Although they have lesser return in shorter period, but none the less, growing money anywhere is better than not doing anything at all.

My 2 cents on Financial Investment
Ideally, we should do all of these. However, it is really important to take the first step to financial freedom. So women, please don’t wait for years before you start investing. Whatever be your earning, start investing a little amount. You will feel confident. You cannot get rich with your money sitting in a savings account. It is important to invest in appreciating assets.

So ladies, let’s start our journey to true financial independence!