Finance: a feminist issue ?

Apart from being free from the shackles of our parents’ choices and rules in adulthood, understanding and managing your personal finance makes a huge positive difference in our lives.

To do so requires us to be financially literate. As university students, it is never too early for us to understand our financial needs and prioritise them accordingly.

Together with Taylor’s Girl Up and guest speakers Mathura Kannan, Junior Director of Simply Empowering and co-founder of Malaysian Social Enterprise Ascendance, and Harsha Ravindran, a successful 18-year-old social entrepreneur, founder of StartMyName.com, and co-founder of Ascendance, this two-hour workshop introduced fundamental steps and practices for university students to kick start their road to financial freedom.

(Source: @taylorsgirlup Instagram)

Finance is a feminist issue and has been proven through recent studies of males having access to all financial resources compared to most women and certain marginalised groups.

This resulted in serious repercussions such as higher debts and therefore, the inability to sustain oneself as explained by Yumitra Kannan, President of Taylor’s Girl Up.

The first speaker, Mathura Kannan shared five key financial habits that have proven to help manage financial aspects in life, one of which is Budgeting.

Budgeting alone helps build the habit of saving and that alone, saves many wallets of university students.

“We need to take the initiative to really understand the different aspects of personal finance such as insurance, investments, loans, taxation, and credit cards,” said Mathura Kannan. Harsha Ravindran who spoke next shared her experiences growing up to be the social entrepreneur she is today while pursuing her degree at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

She emphasised how setting a goal will help us shape our perspective.

“Make sure your thoughts, words, and actions are constantly aligned with your goal,” said Harsha.

Most people tend to be intimidated by the magnitude of the goal, but that can easily be resolved by taking small steps according to Harsha.

Spend extra five minutes on a subject or adding an extra penny into your savings each day.

These small but significant steps will take you closer to achieving your goal.

To watch the full webinar, head over to their Youtube channel.