Pause to Unpause: Know Your Numbers

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Many of us were never really taught about money, how to manage it, understand it, how to make it work for us. Which makes it tough to feel confident about it.

It is easy to simply drift when it comes to money or bury our heads in the sand altogether. Perhaps leaving financial decisions to a partner. Not really knowing what we spend. Putting off thinking about retirement because it feels too far away or too complicated. Never quite understanding our super. Being too embarrassed to ask questions we feel we should already know the answers to.

This can leave us more vulnerable than we realise. Divorce. The super gap. A partner's sudden illness or death. A bad investment. These are just some of the reasons why women over 55 are the fastest growing demographic experiencing homelessness in Australia. And did you know 1.6 million Australian women have experienced financial abuse by a partner? It doesn't always look the way you'd expect. Sometimes it's very subtle and hard to name, sometimes it just feels like an unequal relationship where you don't quite have a seat at the table when it comes to money.

So many of the things that derail women financially arrive subtly or without warning, and so many of us are less prepared than we think.

Many of us were never really taught about money, how to manage it, how to understand it, how to make it work for us. Which makes it tough to feel confident about it.

But being good with money isn't just about numbers. Financial confidence is about…