#MySarwaStory: Money advice & stories from the community – Natasha D’Souza

Money.

We think about it, want more of it, but choose not to talk about it.

Topics like saving, spending and investing seem alarmingly taboo despite their clear impact on our quality of life. A 2017 survey by National Bonds revealed that 85 percent of people in the UAE were not setting aside funds for savings, the primary reason being a lack of knowledge on “effectively managing their finances.” A Gulf News article last year revealed that nearly half of UAE residents are in debt, with almost 30 percent unable to save any money at all.

Saving money is crucial and the first step towards investing. So we thought, why not flip the script when it comes to talking about money? It’s time to have more meaningful conversations about money, not just about what it can buy, but how you can make it work for you, to get you where you want to go (and we’re not just talking about a trip to Bali.)

Here at Sarwa, we’re passionate about making your money work as hard as you. So we’ve teamed up with business journalist, Natasha D’Souza to bring you authentic, actionable stories to help you get more financially fit.

As our Sarwa Correspondent, each week Natasha will reveal the personal financial journeys of community icons, trailblazers and game-changers in our midst. Because in every individual success story, there’s a money story just waiting to be told.

This is #MySarwaStory.

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“If you save one dirham today, it will become ten dirhams in the future,”

is a phrase my mother often repeated to me when I was growing up. As a child of economic migrants, like most immigrant families around the world, when it came to money, my parents emphasized two main tenets: first, that I must make money (i.e. a steady income) and second, that I MUST save money.

Day in and day out, I saw the small and simple ways in which my mother and father saved. My parents, among the thousands of expatriate Indians that migrated to high wage economies in the seventies, built a life from very humble beginnings. Like most middle-class South Asian families, my parents’ biggest investment was having a home of our own, something my father hustled in his twenties to build even before he got married.

And like most Indian families, education was of paramount significance. Both my brother and I were encouraged to pursue the best education at world-class institutions, bolstered by the faith our parents showed by being willing to invest their hard-earned savings in us. All the sacrifices now made sense. The family vacations we had given up (we only traveled outside of the country every two years). The occasional new outfit I had to forego. Those sacrifices now meant that unlike many of my peers, I didn’t need to take a student loan to go to university (unlike many of my classmates who did and are still in debt).

That was one of my first guiding principles about money: the value of delayed gratification. Set aside money for what matters most, not for the here and now; for what you really need, not simply what you want (even if you can afford it).

The second guiding principle is something that crystallized much later: the importance of financial independence. Like many other women raised by working moms, seeing my mother as a financially independent woman who was an equal breadwinner at home, inspired the same ideal in me.

I saw how it not only gave her confidence and real-world smarts but also enabled her to be a source of strength for the family through difficult times, such as when my father met with a serious car accident on the job that kept him bedridden for six months. I was probably around three years old at the time and my brother, all of one. It was Mom who kept things feeling normal at home, going to work as usual, steering the family ship through choppy waters, never once faltering even though our household finances has been impacted since my father was on sick leave (labor laws were different back then).

Once I entered the working world though, I realized financial independence meant more than just making my own money. It’s about setting and working towards financial goals that will ensure you are financially secure throughout your life.

As a twenty-something, the notion of investing in the stock market would keep coming to my mind, but I kept brushing it aside, because 1) I thought I was still young and 2) it seemed complex and tedious (this despite the fact that I’d studied economics!)

“You see, this is why money is not just about the math, the numbers, and the logic. Our money habits are often deeply personal and rooted in our familial culture. I didn’t grow up in a household where my parents even mentioned the importance of investing. Saving, yes. Investing, no. It was something they only dabbled with much later in life and that too passively. Simple notions about investing, let alone sophisticated ones were not top of mind.”

Saving is incredibly important but it’s not enough. Investing is what shifts the pendulum towards building wealth. Once I hit my 30s, I made it my personal mission to start building my investing muscle. Like any muscle, it only grows the more you use and develop it, figure out your risk appetite and test it.

I think financial independence is important for everyone. It enables you to make certain decisions in life without anxiety but from a place of assuredness. In this day and age, when job security is non-existent, it gives you a firm footing when life throws punches your way e.g. sudden unemployment or when you decide to pursue a completely different path like a six-month sabbatical, launching a side hustle or investing in further education.

When it came to finding financial intelligence, at first I spoke to different professional financial advisors. But those discussions left me feeling more perplexed and afraid, as opposed to assured and empowered. Virtually every financial advisor I talked to was either condescending, commission-hungry or both.

As I started reading up online on investing know-how (Mint and The Daily Worth are fantastic resources!) and felt more personally comfortable with the subject, I knew I needed guidance from someone who was an active investor. So I did, what us perpetually curious types do best: ask people who’ve done it! I simply reached out to some senior executives I knew (incidentally men) who I’d had great working relationships with and asked them for advice. And it was like the floodgates opened. These were men in their 50s who’d experienced both the highs and lows of investing and they helped me focus on what my immediate first steps into investing ought to be and personally recommended financial advisors I could work with. Voila… all I had to do was ask!

You see, the irony is that as women, we are inundated with information about beauty, fashion, food, fitness, career, and endless motivation content.

For every 100 articles entitled “Ten tips for the best summer body” there’s only one or two pieces on “Ten tips to maximize your savings”

We need more simple, relatable, anecdotal advice about saving and investing.

My parents didn’t have access to that kind of information. When I started my investing journey, I couldn’t really find any local resources. That’s why I’m excited to join forces with Sarwa for the #MySarwaStory series. Financial savvy is an important skill and honing it is a lifelong process. Together, we want to democratize financial intelligence; and the only way to do that is by telling REAL money stories, not just those that make the headlines.