Hard yards to financial independence
Studying while working to pay the mortgage and raising three children by herself left Amanda Williams (Nga¯ ti Apa, Nga¯ ti Tuwharetoa) in survival mode, but she realised she wanted herself and her family to thrive.
Women earn less, are disproportionately impacted by divorce and domestic violence, do the lion’s share of childcare and are more likely to work parttime.
As a result, wa¯ hine have fewer opportunities to financially prepare for retirement through accumulating assets or KiwiSaver contributions, according to Te Ara Ahunga Ora Retirement Commission.
‘‘I’m in a position where I am a single mum and have been for over a decade now. And I’m not going to say that it’s been easy,’’ Christchurch-based Williams said.
‘‘At one point during that time I was raising three children on my own, I was finishing off my degree at the same time as trying to bring an income into the family, so I could also pay a mortgage.’’
It was an incredible achievement, but Williams said she was in ‘‘survival mode’’, absorbed in the challenge of raising a family and running a household and not thinking about longer-term financial goals.
‘‘All of a sudden you wake up and go, oh my goodness, what does my future actually look like?’’ she said.
‘‘I’m now in my mid-40s and seriously thinking, what is the next 20 years actually going to look like for me?
‘‘You want that in your teens, you want that in your 20s, you want our rangatahi [young people] to go OK, I understand what it means to have that financial freedom and these are my goals.
‘‘Especially for our mana wa¯ hine because we take on so many other responsibilities like raising a family, and that’s huge, so for us a lot of that discussion around finances tends to be secondary.’’
Williams is the principal adviser for women at BCITO, which manages apprenticeships for the building and construction industry. She is also involved with a programme by KiwiSaver provider Mercer called The Table, a digital platform aimed at helping women grow their wealth.
Surveys have shown that women are less confident than men in making financial decisions, and their financial knowledge is lower.
Williams said she was not taught when she was younger about what it meant to have financial freedom as an adult, and how to achieve that. She wanted other women to be given that opportunity to educate themselves.
‘‘The moment as wa¯ hine we lose that financial independence we are stuck, whether we like it or not, and it takes us years to crawl back.’’
One of the most important lessons she learnt was to ‘‘pay yourself first’’, to ensure she was putting money towards her financial goals before doing anything else with it, and not to have any guilt around that.
‘‘Make sure that even if you’re single or in a relationship that you’re always thinking about what your future looks like, because a lot of the time we do put things on the back burner.’’
It was important to be able to seek out people who had the ability to pass on financial knowledge, to get support, and to be able to have honest conversations around money without being judged.
‘‘Because we have the shame about some of our situations, we tend to not want to give the truth around what our finances look like, and therefore we just keep doing the same thing.’’
Williams said financial independence for her meant not only providing for her family,
and teaching them financial capability, but also ensuring she had financial stability when her children left home.
‘‘I can’t rely that somebody else is going to support me. That’s why KiwiSaver is so crucial, people really need to understand that it is almost like a gold nugget, it forces you to really think about what your future is going to look like.’’
It was also important to educate men about why it was important to support women, because it took a collective effort to bring about change, she said.