Ksenia Degtiareva

Repost from Luckily this article was able to already bring some impact and raise awareness🙌🏻

I want to touch somewhat an uncomfortable topic and it might not be a suitable read for sensitive people or people living in a totally happy world with rainbows and unicorns. Nor It's a professional text or advice, mainly it's how I feel from my experience.

I'd like to talk about female financial independence.

We still live in a mostly traditional society where we are naturally tending to form partnerships, marriages and families where men are main providers and breadwinners.

The main idea here is that a woman must always have something for yourself. If you're fully engaged in your career — contribute to the family budget, invest under your own account, get a savings plan that is protected from third parties.

If you're a housewife, still pursue your education and strive for self-development to get yourself a small side business or freelance work to save YOUR OWN money and invest under your own account and get third party protected savings on your name.

If you're that girl that is fully provided by a man, living luxury life and thinking that women who need to work are losers - well, ask him to give you money to invest and look out for third party protected savings.

Why doing so and having your own safety pillows? Why I keep mentioning third party protected savings?

Real life happens - men are not staying with us forever and it's just a matter of time. In case of the divorce and suing for splitting mutual assets, your investment and bank accounts are still under risk — hence third party protection is needed. Well, some financial planning is needed at first. I've met quite a lot of women who are "happily married" yet living miserable life: they don't have any work, experience, income and savings. Being completely dependent on their partners, they tolerate cheating and abuse, because they are so afraid to be left alone with nothing. It may sound cynical, but men can pass away under any circumstances (there's also a topic of having adequate life insurance), and you'll have to face the risk of starting from zero for yourself and your family.

Girls,

What are your real financial needs?

Prior to choosing your optimal investment tools, it’s worth reviewing your both short-term and long-term financial goals. One of the long horizon planning strategies has an analogy with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, expressed as levels within a pyramid: from the bottom upwards the financial needs are: wealth protection, low-risk wealth accumulation and high-risk investment.

∆ Wealth protection. It simply means debt reduction and insurance.
Firstly, when you are in debt (i.e. repaying a loan or a credit card debt), you’re most likely paying interest to your creditor and untimely repayment might trigger higher interest that can significantly drain your budget, multiplying the effect if you have several loans to repay. Try to reduce and get rid of your debt as soon as reasonable, so you can freely plan your further investments to gain return instead of generating return to someone else! Have you ever thought that by lending you money, the creditor invests in your debt and generates a return from your interest payment?

Secondly, insurance is a very important risk management tool that protects you from unpredicted financial losses - medical bills, car crash repair, income loss, business damage and so on. Any accidents like this can suddenly cause very high cash spending, which you might not have in the moment and have to pull out your investments or, even worse, get into debt, unless you have insurance to cover those losses. Consider medical insurance, critical illness insurance, life insurance for yourself and car/home/business insurance etc. for your assets. As an example of negative financial consequences, imagine a situation when a major income earner in a family has got a mortgage loan to repay in the next 10 years, but this person gets a critical illness (i.e. cancer, stroke) which disables him from working and getting income, or suddenly passes away. In both cases, with no insurance, his family will bear the burden of repaying the loan and dealing with consequences of income loss. However, with insurance, the family will be compensated by critical illness/death benefit that will help them to ease their financial situation.

∆ Low risk wealth accumulation. It’s the part where you review your long-term planning for the future: savings for retirement, education fund for your children and emergency cash fund. Since those savings are very substantial for your life in the long run, you shouldn’t really go into very risky types of investments. Consider fixed term bank deposit, life insurance products with savings elements (exclusive type of product in HK), conservative portfolio composed of bonds or funds that focus on low-volatility(risk) strategy. These investment options won’t generate very high returns in a short term (i.e. 1-3 years), but you will win big time from compound interest (interest on interest) since your money will grow at an exponential rate in the long run (i.e. 5 years and up).

If you’re having difficulties setting up your mindset for future goals and don’t feel motivated to save, think of an “anti-goal”. Would you like to live paycheck to paycheck at your senior years not being able to retire? Or put your children at life-long student debt so they can receive a decent education level to be competitive?

∆ High risk investment. When you feel comfortable funding your daily expenses and saving for the long term, you can consider to plan a budget for a higher risk investment, which is not necessary only in the stock market. It can be investment in derivatives (options, futures, structured products etc.), cryptocurrency, lending, business, property and so on. Engaging in a high risk gives you a chance of a higher gain, but at the same time you may bear a significant loss as well. You will need to determine your risk tolerance - meaning how much of a loss in percentage you can accept when you see your assets going down in value. This process takes learning time, and probably some lost money (consider it as your “educational cost”), but surely can be very rewarding and profitable.

3 lessons learnt from COVID-19

Experiencing these "unprecedented times" and getting used to the "new normal" definitely made us draw some important conclusions, especially considering the high cost of living in Hong Kong.

🔵Admit that you do really need to have an emergency fund.
This tip of creating a "safety pillow" for 3-6 month of your estimated living expenses can be seen and heard everywhere, and it is really relevant. Unfortunately, many people have encountered business income decline, pay cut or, even worse, job loss due to the pandemic situation. Emergency fund provides the budget for moments like this - it will buy you some time to cope with the stressful situation, cover the period of unemployment or income decrease, and think about your "Plan B".

🔵Learn that stock markets are volatile.
The spread of the virus in the first quarter of 2020 has triggered a dramatic drop in the stock markets - and it illustrates the risky nature of the investment. Investors have faced substantial losses (imagine if you desperately needed cash at that exact point of time and had to pull out your investments at loss!), however the markets were able to bounce back and recover after some time. It might tell you that it's probably better to focus on long-term investment that accumulates value over the years rather than trying to capture profit on a short-term (unless you're an experienced trader).
If you don't do direct investment in stocks - you can (and should) take a look at your MPF account, since the monthly contributions are invested in MPF funds (of your choice, actually). You might see your portfolio value dropping around February-March, but building back at the present moment, and it will eventually generate profit in the long run despite market downturns.

🔵Make sure your insurance policies are active.
Reviewing your budget and cutting unnecessary expenses is an important thing to do, especially during crisis time. However, people sometimes consider not renewing their insurance, including medical, to save some money, which might be a mistake. Apart from COVID-19, other illnesses, healthcare needs and risk of accidents didn't disappear, and uncertainty is still there. Medical expenses are quite high in Hong Kong, and the insurance is necessary to protect you (including your emergency fund and investments, actually) from the risk of unexpected financial loss. If your medical insurance is provided by an employing company - you might want to check whether the insurance is still there and what's the amount of coverage. Unfortunately, some companies have considered not renewing their group medical insurance due to the budget decrease, but the employees weren't always notified about losing their medical coverage.

Stay healthy and protected!♥️

🔴Financial planning specialist will review your current financial situation and assist you to set suitable budgeting and saving strategies. Yes, tips like “aim to save 10-15% of your monthly income” or “cut unnecessary spending” may seem very obvious, but do you really follow them?.. An opinion from a competent third-party will always help you to look at common things from a different angle and lead you into positive changes.

🔴You will get a better understanding of your investor profile and determine clearer goals. Financial planner will assess your investment objective (or help you to come up with one!), analyse your risk tolerance and desired investment horizon. Based on the results, your advisor will suggest the investment options that are the most appropriate for you.

🔴A specialist will make you take a look at your risk management: do you have enough insurance coverage for yourself, your family or business? Insurance is a very important tool to protect your wealth, considering high costs of living in Hong Kong, including (but not limited to) medical and hospitalization costs. After a proper assessment, a financial planner will propose a risk management strategy and advise you on suitable insurance plans.

🔴If you’re having a major event in your life such as a marriage or a newborn baby - congratulations! And welcome to the club of slightly higher financial responsibilities… Make sure you plan your child’s education fund as soon as possible to make the best out of a compound interest on your savings. Financial planner will advise you on the ways to achieve long-term goals for education and retirement funds, and make your future financially balanced.

🔴A special tip for Hong Kong - take a closer look at your MPF account. What?! Mandatory Provident Fund contributions both from you and your employer are a substantial part of your savings, hence you should take a closer look at your choice of MPF funds and their performance. If you’ve changed jobs, you might have multiple MPF accounts that need to be consolidated for a better return. Choose a financial planner that has a license from MPF Authority to help you smooth over your MPF.

“October: This is one of the particularly dangerous months to invest in stocks. Other dangerous months are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.” - Mark Twain

Surely, when you decide to start seriously sorting out your personal finances and learning about investment - it may appear quite daunting in the beginning, however it’s neither that complicated nor requires a very high budget to start. I’m here to help and guide you through! But let me introduce myself first…

My name is Ksenia, and I’ve been an expat for almost 10 years. I’ve left my homeland, Siberia, to study my Bachelor degree in International Trade and Business Chinese in Xiamen University. After completing my degree and working in Xiamen as a Business Consultant & Interpreter, I’ve decided to come to Hong Kong. My journey to Hong Kong has started in 2018, when I came here to study in Lingnan University’s Master of Science in International Banking and Finance Degree. Graduated with Distinction in 2019, I’ve started working with FWD Hong Kong as a Financial Planner and Wealth Management Consultant.

By joining the industry, my major intention is to improve people’s financial well-being, promote education and financial literacy, besides to do my best to help people in achieving their long-term financial goals. I constantly keep learning to enhance my personal skills and professional qualifications.

All my services are regulated activities in Hong Kong, therefore I have obtained licenses from:
Insurance Authority: Long-term Business (Life Insurance, Investment-Linked Assurance Schemes), General Business;
MPF Authority: MPF Intermediary;
Securities and Futures Commission: Type 1 Dealing in Securities, Type 4 Advising on Securities. [Completed Registration expected: August 2020]

I will be sharing short and easy to understand articles about personal finances, with consideration of Hong Kong specifics. Let’s learn together!