(New Delhi) “I used to be a business journalist by profession, I had a good income but I was spending it all on bags, shoes, clothes and spas. My goals were to earn from my investments, build my own property, and build a corpus for my business. Like me, most of my female colleagues were spending in a similar manner, while my male colleagues who were earning the same amount of money were investing and making money from their investments. It hit me, “What am I doing?” My male colleagues suggested to invest in stocks and recommended a broker. I opened a Demat account and put in Rs. One Lakh and bought the stocks that the broker suggested.
In 2008, the market crashed and I lost 90% out of that One Lakh. I was sad and I didn’t know what to do. I took a break from work and thought, “Now what?” As a business reporter, I had the privilege of meeting people who had created a lot of wealth: industrialists, venture capitalists and other professionals. I realised that they were investing independently. They were not dependent on someone else to tell them where to invest. So, I got a mentor and she started teaching me how to invest in the stock market without depending on anyone else. I started investing in the stock market and making money. I bought my own property and had a corpus to start a business. Gradually, I developed healthy money habits.
When I looked around, my female colleagues were still not creating wealth. Though they wanted to create wealth, they were just making tax saving investments, FDs or PPF. I thought to take that up as a mission! So, ‘Women on Wealth’ was created.
In the beginning, there were some tough times like when I had just Rs. 30 in my pocket or the time I walked several miles from Noida to my home in North Delhi. There were times when I had to pay an EMI on a property and had no money. But eventually I reached a point where I prepaid my entire loan. The journey wasn’t easy, but it was worth it. I’m very happy where I am.
Today we run training programs for women, teaching them how they can save money, get out of debt, build an investment portfolio, invest in the stock market, and reach goals which may look unreachable. That’s our mission: we want to help women create wealth. We have 3 centres, in Gurgaon, Saket, and Rajinder Nagar. We are a community with a core team of six people. Our mission is to impact fifty lakh women.
Apart from Delhi, we have also helped women in Pune, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Ludhiana. Over the last seven years, we have built many success stories. For instance, a woman managed to pay a Rs.10 Lakh debt within 20 months of doing our program, another bought land in her hometown; another opened a bakery. Some of the women are now the finance ministers of their house: their husband gives them their entire salary and they are the ones who are managing the insurances, income tax planning, and putting all the investments in place. They are also giving financial advice to their family members. Some women who were making losses in business have gathered the courage to shut it down and look at how they can make it profitable. One of them doubled her money in the stock market; another has increased it ten-fold. These women know that they have managed to save, invest and generate good returns; so their self-esteem has improved. They are perceived differently by their families.
Our programs run from having no charge to Rs. 35,000. You can enroll by just giving us a call, or by filling a form on our website and we will call you back. Our programs can help anyone who wants to save money, get out of debt, build an investment portfolio or start their own business. We welcome people to come and build a community. I think that’s important because we really believe we are better together; that’s our tagline.”
Read more about Women on Wealth here