Anna aims to empower smart, modern and independent women through meaningful and practical content.
This week, the team from media network Affiliate Hall caught up with Anna Haotanto, founder of The New Savvy, to see what top financial tips she has in store for women. Anna and her team have been using the channel to provide customized financial advice to ladies across Asia. It seems that many believe in her mission. The women-focused website has 200,000 monthly page views and their Facebook page has 45,000 fans. They have been featured extensively on major media outlets like CNBC and Forbes.
For over 10 years in the financial scene, Anna always believed that ladies require dedicated and custom financial advice as compared to their male counterparts. Sensing the need to empower smart, modern and independent women through practical content, she launched The New Savvy, a global web portal that aims to provide definitive financial and career advice. There is a differentiating factor; the content is designed exclusively for women.
“Financial literacy and women empowerment is still lacking, especially in Asian countries,” she explained, “Women are not managing or investing their money enough. It doesn’t help that there are very few or no media outlets that cater to them.”
Her strong sense of purpose was apparent in the weight of her words. The discussion quickly took on a more serious undertone as the conversation shifted towards empowering women.
“Can you share more with us what are some of the top financial tips for women?” asked Teddy from Affiliate Hall.
Retirement savings
“I think the number one tip for women, especially in their thirties and forties, has got to do with their savings. It is not only women on modest incomes who fear not having enough money for retirement. Many affluent women do not have enough money in their retirement plans to maintain a comfortable life during retirement. Sadly, as a woman, you may still earn less income than men. The good news is, women tend to have higher investment returns on average,” replied Anna.
“The best thing to happen to women is the do-it-yourself investment trend. By applying a more conservative investment strategy and discipline, women are on their way to a more comfortable retirement,” she added.
“Many Asian women pay into mandatory retirement accounts through work, but these savings alone is not going to be enough to fund retirement. To find out your shortfall, plug your financial situation into a retirement savings calculator. In step two, most women need to cut expenses and save more.
Develop a budget and identify places where you can become a spendthrift. Choose one of the many smart asset allocation tools online or offered by your broker to determine the best mix of stocks, bonds, alternative investments and cash for your risk profile.”
Picture: Anna Haotanto, Founder and Managing Director of The New Savvy.
Life Insurance
It seems when it comes to talking about her niche, she has a knack of using simplified language to bring her points across. Anna remained pleasantly upbeat as she shared her second tip.
“If you have dependents, life insurance can ensure their financial needs are taken care of if you pass on. The two main types of life insurance are term and whole life policies. A term life insurance policy allows you to set the duration of the policy. You may decide to end the policy when your children complete college. This would ensure that their college is paid for if you were to pass on while they are still students,” she said.
“A whole life policy is in effect until you pass on. Because a payout will be made at some point, the fees are higher for life insurance. A whole life policy can be used as collateral against a loan. If you were to pass, the insurance payout would first pay for any loans secured by the policy, and then the beneficiaries would be paid. Like retirement planning, the first step is to do a needs assessment based on the age of your dependents and how long they will require support for.”
“Once you have determined how much money your family will need if you were to pass on, you can choose the correct policy terms.”
Health insurance
Her third tip involves insurance as well. This time, she spoke slower, as though wanting her audience to capture in more detail what she has to share. It turned that she has personally witnessed women who struggled with illnesses and were unable to cope with crippling medical fees.
“Asian women have different health care needs today. While much healthier on average than their Western counterparts, Asian women are at a higher risk of cancer and other lifestyle diseases. Even the healthiest among us should have critical illness insurance coverage in addition to our mandatory government coverage. Ensure you have a disability and emergency medical coverage. Some countries do not provide mandatory coverage until 40 years of age or later, so you will also need more thorough coverage for the intervening years. Many insurers have a special woman’s health insurance plan. Be sure to know exactly what illnesses and ‘female cancers’ are covered. If you have a history of cervical cancer in your family, you want to ensure your policy has you covered. Start by reviewing women’s health insurance needs.”
About Anna and The New Savvy
Throughout her career, Anna Haotanto realized that many of her female peers did not know how to manage their money; they were simply just saving their funds or allowing their partners to handle the financial security of the household. Anna also noticed a lack of media and outlets that were dedicated to teaching women how to empower themselves financially, particularly ones that weren’t filled with technical and financial industry jargon. She created The New Savvy as a financial and career portal for women with engaging and simplified content to facilitate the financial knowledge of women as they move through their career and life milestones.
The site features investing advice specifically tailored according to the financial climate and habits of women in Asia, focusing on Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines.
For more information about Anna and The New Savvy, visit The New Savvy’s official website.
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Media Contact
Company Name: Affiliate Hall™
Contact Person: Serene Teo Siat Ling
Email: shine@affiliatehall.com
Phone: 66339409
Country: Singapore
Website: http://www.affiliatehall.com