Interest rates are rising, the cost of living is soaring, and most of us are finding that the money in our pockets isn’t even stretching to the end of the month. So why is Holly Mackay, founder of investment site Boring Money, launching a new initiative to help women save for the future?
Holly’s new service, Visible! is created for women in their forties, fifties, and sixties and, although the stock market is volatile and money too tight to mention, she says that now is the ideal time for women in this demographic to take stock of their finances.
‘There is this truism that women engage less with investments than men – and it isn’t getting any better,’ she explains. ‘The gender investment gap is the size of the GDP of Switzerland. It shouldn’t be like that in 2022.
‘We can all see a fall in our disposable income. And I think we have to be realistic about that. But we still have to take that first step and start somewhere.’
The audience for Visible!, she says, are women ‘caught in the middle’ who have lost out when it comes to savings – particularly for retirement.
‘They didn’t have the final salary scheme because they weren’t of that era. But they’re also not part of the era that always had automatic enrolment and workplace pensions and digital investments at their fingertips.
‘They are struggling with really busy lives. People are so time poor – juggling work, juggling families. There’s a lot going on, so they don’t have time.’
Closing the gap
Holly believes that by providing a community of female finance experts who talk about the ‘why’ of saving and investing, rather than focusing on products alone, she can help give women confidence to close the investment gap.
‘When we talked to 500 founding members, it became really clear that they needed help with money because they were going through a divorce, or they were trying to help their parents deal with care homes and navigating the whole financial consequences of that.
‘Or they were saving for children and thinking about school or university fees,’ Holly explains.
‘There’s always a why behind money And I believe that we’ve got to talk about the why, rather than jumping straight to the products you can invest in.
‘Because normally it’s all about “here’s a bloke standing in front of a graph talking about the oil price” or there’s some chap on the telly talking about emerging market equities.
‘If Visible! can give women a resource that makes them feel they’ve got enough understanding to start and to make sensible decision, then I think that’s how we start the change.
‘It’s about getting people to take the first step.’
The investment gap figures
Many surveys and studies have shown the width of the gap between male and female investors when it comes to investing. Some of the most shocking numbers include…
3,300,000
This is the gap between the number of male investors and the number of female investors in the UK. Boring Money’s recent survey shows there are an estimated 6.4million female investors compared to 9.7million male investors, meaning 3.3million less women hold investments or private pensions. That is the equivalent of three times the population of Birmingham.
45%
The percentage of women who feel that investing is too risky for them, according to global research by BNY Mellon.
29%
Fewer than 30% of women have traded and invested in stocks and shares online, compared with 47 per cent of men, according to a recent survey from Capital.com.
£599m
Men have £599million more in their pensions, Isas and investment accounts than women – equivalent to the GDP of Switzerland, according to the Boring Money survey.
£39,000
The average female private pension is £39,000 smaller than that of men, at £99,000, according to the Boring Money survey.
Although the stock market has fallen in recent months, Holly says that makes now a good time to start.
‘I try and use the analogy that the stock market’s on sale. No one likes looking at a pension, that used to be £1,000 on a statement, and is now £800.
‘But actually, for people with longer-term timeframes. It is now that is precisely the right time to start the investing journey.
‘So I would argue that this is precisely the time when women need to start investing, and that women need to start paying into a pension.’
Pension priorities
If one thing comes from Visible! Holly hopes it will be an increase in the number of women starting, or saving into, a pension, making the most of the tax breaks the government offers to those who save for their old age.
She says: ‘There are so few occasions in life where you get a freebie top-up from the government, right? That is a key benefit that we need to shout about more, not enough people know that.’
Holly adds that the enormous sums bandied about when it comes to pensions make it hard for women to get started.
‘It’s like you have to have hundreds of thousands of pounds in a pension or you’re a loser. These numbers are really upsetting. But I think it’s like anything, like any fitness challenge, you’ve just got to start somewhere.
‘I say, can you put £100 in a pension if you haven’t done it ever before? Just £100. And that’s your target. That’s the first step.
‘But I think so many people just don’t take the first step.’
Read Holly Mackay’s blog at Boring Money
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