Daybreak - Daybreak Special: What do women really want? A 'f*** off fund'

Episode Date: October 31, 2024

*This episode was originally published on July 12, 2024 Have you ever heard of a 'f*** off fund'? Or better yet, do you have one?For the uninitiated, it is a sum of money that women should ideally set aside to get out of a difficult situation – think toxic job, abusive relationship or family situation, you get the drift. The term was coined by freelance writer, Paulette Perhach, in 2016. We recommend that you read her powerful essay on financial independence. The idea is for it to give you enough power, confidence and control to literally be able to say “f*** off” and walk away. You are probably thinking, ‘great in theory, but how do I actually build one for myself?’. We have got you covered. In this special episode of Daybreak, Chaitra Chidanand, the co-founder of Salt, a financial services platform for women, demystifies f*** off funds and how you can get one. Tune inSuggested readingA F*** Off Fund: the most important female prep, Reddit"The FOF has saved me and my kids a few times.  Health crisis. Unemployment. Violence.  S**t happens.  But just as important—having a FOF means you can act from a position of power, not fear, not subservience." Warren Buffett Invests Like A Girl? Forbes"Buffett has always said that it’s temperament--not intellect--that makes you a great long-term investor. When you look at studies that have been coming out in the last 10 years about how men and women invest, what you see is that women tend to naturally have this temperament that creates long-term investing success."For Women With Money Issues, an A.D.H.D. Diagnosis Can Be Revelatory, NYT'But because activities like planning or budgeting don’t usually give people with A.D.H.D. a dopamine hit, they can find it harder than neurotypical people to get started or stick to accounting activities. This results in extra costs — paying cancellation fees for missed appointments or late fees for not opening a bill on time, or losing refunds because we missed the deadline for returning an unwanted purchase.'For feedback, write to us at [e-mail] is now on WhatsApp at [phone]. Text us and tell us what you thought of the episode!Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Hi, this is Rohan Dharma Kumar. If you've heard any of the Ken's podcasts, you've probably heard me, my interruptions, my analogies, and my contrarian takes on most topics. And you might rightly be wondering why am I interrupting this episode too? It's for a special announcement. For the last few months, I and Sita Raman Ganesh, my colleague and the Ken's deputy editor, have been working on an ambitious new podcast. It's called Intermission.

We want to tell the secret sauce stories of India's greatest companies. Stories of how they were born, how they fought to survive, how they build their organizations and culture, how they manage to innovate and thrive over decades, and most importantly, how they're poised today. To do that, Sita and I have been reading books, poring over reports, going through financial statements, digging up archives, and talking to dozens of people. And if that wasn't enough, we also decided to throw in video into the mix. Yes, you heard that right. Intermission has also had to find its footing in the world of multi-camera shoots in professional studios, laborious editing, and extensive post-production.

Sita and I are still reeling from the intensity of our first studio recording. Intermission launches on March 23rd. To get an alert as soon as we release our first episode, please follow Intermission on Spotify and Apple Podcasts or subscribe to the Ken's YouTube channel. You can find all of the links at the ken.com slash I am. With that, back to your episode. Hello, dear listeners, wishing you a very, very happy Diwali.

It is the season to splurge, traveling, buying gifts, spoiling yourself, your friends and your families. But hey, it's all. also time to take care of your finances. So we thought it is a great time to revisit our blog-bastro episode on, pardon my language, the FI fund. It is for everybody, of course, but specially meant for all the beautiful women out there. Stay tuned. Why you? Yes, you need a Fri-Fund. Quit f-fitting around and build yourself for FD. Start your Fond today.

If you're wondering what's with these expletives on D.C. daybreak today, have these two hosts forgotten that their mic is on? You know what? This is too much. I am leaving. Please, please, please, please hang on and let us explain. You'll be hearing that word a lot in this episode because today we are talking about a very important and a very powerful idea for women. We are talking about the F of Fun. And to talk about it, we have a very special guest in our studio this week, Chetra Cedanand, the co-founder of Salt, a financial services platform for women. And this episode is for every woman out there, irrespective of your age, your background or your tax bracket.

In fact, we even got a few of our listeners to send in their questions for this episode. And if you're a man listening to this episode, do us a favour and share it with the women in your life. Also, hang in there because you might find a thing or two useful for you as well. All right. So this question is for all of us. Do you have a FI-Fund? and also what triggered you to start it? Motherhood.

Ah, okay. Yes. I think a few, two years, about an year and a half after my son was born, when I decided to move back to India and be a startup founder is when whatever little bit of savings I had left in the US, I invested it in the, actually, you know, bad idea, but I put it all in test. I mean, it turned out great for me because Tesla grew phenomenally back in that time period.

But it's not something I would advise anybody to do diversification is great. But yeah, that was the beginning of my FF fund. What about you, Rahil? I don't have an FF fund, I'll be honest. I wish I had one. And there have been points in my, well, pretty short career of four years where I wish I had one. I remember I had a pretty good job. I was happy and stuff,

but there was a point towards the end of it where I was starting to feel a little burnt out. And, you know, I've wimsically thought about maybe taking a break for like a couple months, two months, three months, kind of reassess, figure out what I want to do next. But I immediately realized that I don't have the kind of financial, like, runway to be able to do that

and wrote that idea of immediately. And I know I would like to have that option going forward. So I am. I'm, do I have a fund? I don't. But I recognize that I do need one. What about you think that? Same, actually.

The same. I don't have one. And it's quite alarming at my age because I'm also older than you. I've been working for 10 years. And there have been points where I felt like, oh my God, you know, it would be great to have had money in that situation. You know, I could just walk out of it. Like, I would have been more confident about so many things.

Like, for example, I bought a small piece of life. I took a loan. I'm still paying DMI for it. And I wanted to start an artist's residency back at home in Darjeeling. And it's been two years that you're just lying there because I don't have the money to build, start building. Should we talk about what is a f***? Yes, I think that is something we should get. So for context for our listeners, there was this essay that a woman called Pellette Per Hatch wrote back in 2016.

And she wrote about why all women need a fund. Okay, and basically what she said was that all women should set aside a certain amount of money so they have the freedom to get out of a difficult situation. So that could be a tough job, it could be a tough relationship, any sort of difficult situation. You should have the money to be able to do that. And that could possibly look different for different people. This was a really deeply personal essay that Snigda shared with me a couple weeks ago and it is so moving and so unsettling.

Yeah, so the essay starts out really. well, right? Like, it's so exciting because she's got a good job. You know, it's her first job. She's living in the city and like she's very excited. She's going out for fancy dinners, buying clothes, all of that. And then things get, you know, reality kicks in. And her boss turns out to be a predator and turns out her partner is abusive and she has so many bills to pay and she wants to work out of that situation but she can't because she does not have any savings. So the The essay is basically about how every woman needs a fund. And what's so scary about, you know, the whole thing is that it's so possible for that to happen to you.

Right? It's such a real kind of, you know, it's very relatable. Those are situations that anyone could be in. Most women would have been in similar situations. Yeah. And it doesn't, you know, the thing is it doesn't have to be so dramatic. Yes. Right.

Yeah. I think the problem is we all think that we think in terms of binaries. Yeah. That ultra-abusive partner or, you know, supreme predator, boss. But a lot of times it's somewhere in the middle. And you're still, to be able to even deal with that situation with confidence, even if you don't walk out of it, to tell that guy to fix himself or back off or change his ways, having that money, you know, saved off gives you the confidence to even deal with it.

may not even be walking off. So I think if we don't think of it as a binary situation, then we might all see that all of us have been in those situations, right? It's not like one or two people who've been in extreme situations, but everybody has had times where we've been like, gosh, I wish I could just tell this person off. Yes. And money in that sense gives you that power to be able to take those decisions for yourself and to have that autonomy, right?

Correct. Welcome to the Friday's special episode of this. Daybreak, I'm Snigda. And I'm Rahil. And once a week, Snigda and I come together to talk about things in business and tech

that interests the both of us. And it won't just be us. Depending on what we're talking about, we will also be bringing in a bunch of really interesting people onto the podcast. Today is Friday, the 12th of July.

By the way, once you're done listening to this episode, could you please do us a favour and fill out a survey we put together? We want to know what you think about F-R funds. You'll find it in the show notes along with some more interesting reads on the subject. And now on to the episode. We all know that we should have a one, but actually, you know, building it is so difficult.

It seems like to me, as someone who does not have one, it seems so impossible and so, like, I feel paralyzed at the thought of it, you know, because they say, okay, at least six months worth. Some people say six months worth of saving. Some people say, like, sorry, I mean salary. Some people say one year. some people say three years. So, you know, just thinking about that, I'm like, oh my God. So we have the right person with us in the studio today to talk about funds. Why you need them, how to set it up.

We have Chaitra with us in the studio. Chaitra, Chedanad, can you please introduce yourself for us? So I am a fintech founder. And I guess the most relevant aspect of my background is that I became a fintech founder because I was terrified of finance. Really? Yes. And I wanted to solve it for others who were like me, right?

I think money intimidates everyone. Every aspect of money intimidates us from credit to investing to earning to saving, etc. So really that was my motivation to become a fintech founder. My first company was simple, which is a buy now, pay later pioneer in India. My second company is Salt, which is a personal finance management platform aimed at women. I am from Bangalore. I grew up here. So let's get one question out of the way because it is very confusing. Is a FI fund the same thing as an emergency fund? Like, you know, emergency fund is usually for like a medical situation or some unexpected expense, right? Is it the same or is it

separate? You know, I think names are very important because what you call it is how you think about it intuitively in your mind and therefore a FFUFund is very different from an emergency fund. In fact, I would add another fund which we could do another podcast on some other day called the Live It Up Fund. So we can have three different funds that we allocate our monies into. So an emergency fund is something that you put away to meet your ultra essential expenses if, you know, there were to be an emergency. in that sense there is a little bit of overlap with the fund but you should think about it as completely different a fund is something that allows you to let's say you are in a situation

where you don't want to be in it could be in a bad marriage a bad relationship parents who you don't get along with in-laws or a job right and you want to do something about it. So the difference is an emergency comes up on you unannounced. A F-Fund, usually you have time to plan, like to avail it. So it has to be different in nature.

In that sense, what you do with the money that you put into that fund will be different. For an emergency fund, you would want it to be as liquid as possible. So you need both. In other words, you definitely need both. And you need to, if you're a young person starting, well, young or old,

it doesn't matter. You're, the youngest you're going to be is how old you are today. That's reassuring. So it doesn't matter whether you're 60 or 20. Start today if you haven't.

So it's, you know, there's so much to unpack there. We actually had a bunch of people send in their questions. And these are people from like across the gamut of careers of backgrounds,

you know, different stages of their career, different ages. Some have had success setting up funds, even though they may call it different things. Others are trying to figure it out and they know, they recognize that it's important for them to have.

They're trying to figure out where to start. So one kind of recurring question that we got is whether there is a magic number, right, with an F-F fund. I quit my really bad job last year and took a career break only after I had paid off my education loan and I had no financial liabilities. But my question is, for a woman in her late 20s living in metro cities like Delhi or Bangaloro, how much money we need to have as part of our fund? See, the way I think about it is not in turn. I think one of the biggest reasons why, you know, when I heard the two of you saying that I didn't,

I still don't have an FF fund is because I've heard both of you talk about a magic number that you want to get to. Yes. And that number feels so large that you just never end up starting. Yeah. It's like recently I went on a trek to sick him. and it was a nine-day trek, and it was to the base of the Kanchanzanga. I went, I did it.

It was ultra-challenging, but I did it, and it was very possible for me to do it. After I came back, I got to know that it's one of the ten hardest treks in India. Had I known it before, there's no way I would have thought that I would be capable of doing it, because in my head I have an imagination that to do the hardest treks, I need to have this level of fitness, And I will never live up to that level of fitness in my perception. But was I able to do it? Hell yeah. So I think the same thing applies when it comes to money or health.

Right? We think about the goal. So for a minute, we'll come to the goal. What is the magic number? There are some magic numbers. But I think the starting point should always be, what do I earn today? Or what do I get today?

The beauty about women is whether we earn money or we don't, meaning whether you have a job or not, all of us control money. Meaning a housewife is given a budget to run the house. That's her salary. She might not be able to save 50% of it like an employed person would. But we all know from our mother's stories that they have put away 10, 20, sometimes even 30% of whatever budgets they were running homes with if they were homemakers. So I think start with the input always. It's easy.

It's easy to start with what I have today. So to give you my example, when I was leaving the US, I had literally $2,000 in my bank account. And I was like, okay, what do I do with this $2,000? It was either Bitcoin or it was Tesla. I was like, ah, Bitcoin, I'm too scared. I should have done that. I've probably gotten a lot more. But Tesla worked out just.

So my $2,000 became $25,000 when I sold it. And that was the money that allowed me to start sought. Right? So don't think of it in terms of the goal. think of it in terms of input. And speaking of input, if you're earning a hundred rupees, you should not be spending more than 50 on your living expenses.

Right? Not more than 50%. And if that means that your rent is very high, move to a smaller place. Get a roommate. Figure out, move into your parents' place. Figure out a way to bring your living expenses under 50%. The second is 30% at least,

at the very least, you got to put away a savings. And 20% is for your comforts. So comforts include the holiday you want to take. Is that the live it up fund? It could be live it up. It could be for some of us it could be live it up. But for some it could be that's the way they live. Right.

So, you know, it could be the fancy dinner you're going with your friends. It could be anything, right? So that's only 20%. not more than that. Then once you have that basic framework and you abide by it, you don't have to worry for the rest of your life. Then coming to that 30%,

what do you do with that 30%? If you're just starting out today, it doesn't matter how old you are. If you're starting out today, break that 30% up for ease into a third, a third, a third. Meaning 10% put it into an emergency fund, assuming you're starting from scratch.

What is an emergency fund? Something you should be able to access liquidity immediately. So FDs, RDs, savings bank account, even some liquid funds. But if you don't want to do liquid funds, which feels too complex for you, forget about it.

FDs, RDs, savings bank account. Let that money go into that. A second 10% put it into your FDF fund. A FDFund is most likely something that you're not going to need in one year, six months, two years. You will at least usually have a two, to three-year horizon before you want to tap into it.

So invest that 10% in equities, invest it in, you know, large-cap funds because a two-to-three-year horizon is great for a large-cap fund. The remaining 10%, which should be for your long-term savings, your wealth creation, your alpha creation, take that money you can put it into small caps,

mid-caps, large-caps, like anything that is a little more longer term yield giving in nature. So think about your money from an input perspective and just get started. The thumb rule for an emergency fund is six months of expenses. So like I said, 50% of your salary should not, your expenses should not be more than that. That 50% number times six months is a thumb rule for emergency fund.

You can have a similar thumb rule for a FI fund, which is because if you want to say to a job, do a paycheck, right? If you want to say to a house that you're living in with your partner, six months of expenses is a good... Right? It's a good number. So I think six months is where you can start.

If you have dependents, like you have children or you have parents, that number can be... That multiple can be 50% times either nine or 12. Got it. Got it. But Chetra does, you know, being financially prudent always mean living frugally, like, how frugal should we go?

And, yeah, is there any scope for some kind of a balance there? Because it's also about here and now, right? Absolutely. And in fact, that is something that's very, very important to live it up or to live. So that 20%, that's why I was saying that, you know, if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're. you make sure that your basic expenses are not more than 50% of what you earn, then you can create that corpus of that 20% money that you can use to live it up today. And out of that 30% that you're saving, you can live it up tomorrow. Right. What will you do with your emergency

and funds? Once you reach that six, whatever, multiple, let's say it's one lakh rupees or let's say it's five-lack rupees for somebody, right? Once you reach that, all of your money should go into the live-it-up fund. So the last 10% that I was talking about should be a live-it-up fund. It can be you will live it up during retirement or you will live it up when you're 30, 40, it doesn't matter. So you should put away that corpus for that purpose. Chaitra, we had a question related to, you know, living frugally. I'll just play it here.

Okay, so my question is, do I need a side hustle for my emergency fund if my current income isn't cutting it and I don't want to sacrifice my lifestyle to save more? What do you think I should do? Okay, this is a loaded question. Yes. I don't want to sacrifice my lifestyle. It makes me feel very sad when I see a lot of young people who say this. because in that definition of I don't want to sacrifice my lifestyle is a lot of unnecessary choices,

exactly the kinds that I were just now talking about, right? Which I only do because of peer pressure, because I want to look a certain way, which is all things that I have imagined in my head. Our side hustle is great. Of course they are great. Do it. Do it for fun.

Do it because you're good at it. Do it because it will give you an extra income. And definitely don't splurge that on that I have, nonsensical things that otherwise you think that you need to spend on. So put it away. That's great. I always in favour of side hustles. But I think when you say that, oh, I cannot, I don't want to give up on my lifestyle.

Please double click on that. Ask yourself, what are elements in this that I truly do for myself? Continue to do those. Do more of those. Ask yourself, what are elements in it that I do because I want to appear a certain way in somebody else's eyes? Stop doing those. It will go a long way in improving your mental health.

an improved mental health will make you feel good about yourself. It will help you start making wise choices. Spend on yourself. It's funny you say that, you know, for me, I keep saying, I write it off as me being an emotional eater. So whenever I'm stressed out, I'll invariably order some nonsense on like Swiggy and Zomato or whatever and then feel terrible afterwards,

not just because it's, you know, trash and I'm borderline lactose intolerant and I've just eaten like a full magnolias, that banana pudding to myself, but also because I can't afford to do this so often in the week, right? But, yeah, you know, when you were starting out in your career, when you were like, you know, starting, were there these like financial missteps that you made as well?

Oh, hell, yeah. So financial, I think one of the biggest financial misstep I took was doing nothing because I wanted to do the perfect thing. Yeah, exactly. All of us. We can identify what is. And for many years, I've like a decade, more than a decade of, of my working life has gone in that mistake.

It's because, and the irony was I was giving financial advice to all others. I was happy in dishing out advice that, hey, put your money in Facebook. Obviously, it's going to do well. Put your money in Netflix. I'm a big customer of net. Like, common sense-based financial advice, I was dishing out. And a lot of people around me made a lot of money thanks to these, taking me up on these. but I was never confident enough to do it myself.

Right? So that's the biggest mistake I see people make. So your advice is don't think of your fund or just in general your financial health as like Iron Man. Start off with couch to 5K and you'll get there at some point. Yeah, just get started. Yeah. Second mistake I see people do is they think that they need to have financial knowledge

and therefore they don't do anything. Yeah. The best, you can never learn swimming, by watching YouTube videos about it, by reading blogs about it, investing in financial prudence is exactly like swimming. You have to get into the water to learn. You have to feel like you're drowning a few times

before, you know, you will start learning how to kick and move the right way. It feels like you're really talking to me right now. So start. Yeah. It's like Nike's line. Just do it. Another question that we got was how to set up, and you spoke about this briefly a little while ago, where, you know, without really calling it your F-R-F fund, women have been doing this for so long, right?

Whether that's stirring away, you know, keeping jewelry in a safe place or, you know, setting aside money and then using it when that rainy day kind of came along. But if you could tell me today, you know, if someone's taking a break from their career, or if someone's a homemaker, or if, you know, someone isn't employed actively. what are the ways in which you can set up an F-F fund of your own? See, the theory is the same, right? I mean, even the actions are the same. It is whether you're earning money or somebody else is earning money and giving it to you, it doesn't matter. As long as you have access to some money,

apply that 50, 20, 30 rule. If you're lucky, like, let's say somebody else is giving you money, then most likely you don't have your own living expenses, which means that 100% of whatever you're getting is available for you to invest. I think one of the biggest mistakes people have made, right? In our parents' generation, the equity markets were not mature,

so they could not make the money grow. I think today, if the biggest mistake I see people making is only saving and not investing. Because $100 today is not going to be worth $100 rupees three years later or definitely not 10 years later and 20 years later. So if you think that I'm saving money and feeling good about yourself for just saving, then it's pointless. Might as well spend it and enjoy your life today because it's not going to be worth it, right? Or it won't give you the returns that you need to be able to actually say off and move out. So it's very

important to invest. Whatever it is. I tell people that the mutual fund, you can start off an SIP with 100 rupees per month. So you don't, there is no, oh, when I get 5,000 rupees, I will start investing or when I get 50,000. No, start with 100 rupees. It's more important to build that muscle. So if you're under 18, start with your pocket money. Train yourself to have that 50, 30, 20 rule. If you don't need that 20, 20, for comfort, put that money, increase that 30% to 50%. If you don't need to spend on living expenses because you live with your parents, they take care of it. Put away 100%.

And it's very important for young people to invest in equity markets. There's a very big misconception of risk. Risk is there's no such thing as I'm a high risk person. I'm a low risk person. Nobody wants to take unnecessary risk. Everybody should take necessary risk. When it comes to investing, it's all about thinking. about the time horizon.

If I need this money within, like if I, there is a certain amount of money that I might need immediately. That is what we call as emergency fund. That is the money that should be in either your savings bank account, FDRD, etc. Then there's the second group of money, which is what we are calling the FF fund, which you might need in a few months, right? You have a few months horizon to draw down on that fund or to liquidate or withdraw from that fund. That is money that can go into index funds which are usually they, you know, they are not super volatile. Reasonably okay. Because then the time horizon there is two to three years. So think

in terms of time horizon. If it's two to three years, large cap, index funds, ETFs, great. If you have 10, 20, 10, 20, 30 years, that is your live it up fund or what we are calling a live it up fund. Some people call it retirement fund. Some people call it fund for my child. And some people call it fund for my child's education. You can give it whatever name you want. But that is the type of stuff that you should invest in high growth mutual funds. Because the time horizon allows you to take a higher risk.

We got this question from a young Indian student who's living in Europe. She lives with her boyfriend and she's just starting out with a career in art. Former young professional and I live in a different country to my family and I live with my partner. And so I think it's quite wise for me to set up some sort of a fund for myself. But like I said, because I've only really been earning money for less than two years now,

I worry if this is the right thing for me to do if I should perhaps invest my money and try to make more money off of it. But at the same time, I'm quite anxious about doing so because I'm afraid to lock up my money in some sort of an investment where it would be inaccessible to me. Look, you can't create money. If you can't, you have to find ways to save it, right? And I think the problem is that we always think about it in terms of, hey, I only have $25,000.

I have to live in this place where I have to pay $15,000 rent. I'm only left with $10,000. If I order three times on Swiggy, that consumes half of my salary. So honestly speaking, first step is even if it's 5% of whatever, you're earning, if it's 10% of whatever you're earning, put that away as into an investment. Make your

SIP for that. Put it away in a mutual fund. If you don't want to start with an emergency fund, it's okay, start with a mutual fund at least. I'm not saying that there's only one way to do it. Find your own way. Even for the European person who is think about money saved as like, for instance, let's say

she buys a dress, then she goes and returns it because she doesn't like it. She gets that money back. Put that into, you know, put that into an ETF or an index fund. So start finding ways in which, like this Magnolia example that you were talking about earlier, one of my friends said that she actually did this during COVID because she was sitting at home and she was, you know, stress ordering. So she just decided that, you know what, every time I feel like ordering on Swiggy,

I will go add all the items to the cart or on Amazon. or NICA, but I won't click checkout. I do this. Instead, because that gives me the joy of having, it fools my brain into thinking that I have shopped for these things. But I don't click on checkout. Instead, I go and take that same amount of money and I put it in these stocks. Oh, wow.

And she earned a 10x return on that because of course during COVID, the stock markets did really well. Right. So find these hacks for yourself. It could be $10 or 10 euros that this girl lent to her friend who returns that 10 euros. Start with that. Yeah. I have a question actually related to that. You know, and this is a very personal question because not all of us grow up developing financial skills, right?

What are some of the things you can make up for starting late? Invest more in equity and find the kinds of funds that are good quality funds. Don't invest only looking at the returns. Talk to a few friends, see where they're putting money. But don't go for single stocks. Don't go for that, oh, my friend is good at stock tips and I will do Bitcoin or I'll do stock tips. No, do the prudent ones which are these kinds of tried and tested, great track record, decent growth, mutual funds.

So what happens if you end up using the fund, Chaitra, What next do you have the same approach or, you know, to building it again? Yes. Or something changes? No, it's the same approach. It's, think about it. I'll draw an analogy because I like analogies personally. That's how I consume the world.

Think about it as fitness, right? What do you do for fitness? You generally eat healthy food, meaning you eat home-cooked food. That's one simple step you can take. You can reduce the intake. You can make your dinner. a little lighter. You can do

100 steps after every meal. You can do 5,000 steps in a day. You can do 10,000 steps in a day. Let's say you've been doing these things. These are the equivalent of your emergency fund and FI-Fund in terms of health.

Right? Some shadi is coming up. Diwali is coming up. You indulge yourselves. What do you do after that? You just go back to this. You don't do anything. You don't have to go on a starvation diet or anything.

Just come back after the after the holiday that whether it's two weeks, three weeks, one month, doesn't matter. Come back and restart the same routine. When you think that, oh, after this, I'll have to do something extra, that is too much of a burden on your mind. Don't take that burden. Just come back to the same routine. Yeah. Okay.

So, Chaita, I have a question about how easy it should be to access this money, right? Would you recommend investing all of it or do you think that a certain amount of it should be like cash savings, you know, easy to use? See, the thing is I feel, this again, everybody is different. My personal view is that a fund should grow. If it doesn't grow, then it's not going to give, because my needs are going to change with time. And inflation is going to eat into all my savings. So, emergency money, which is small portion of money,

which is six months of my expenses, should be in depleting. Like, basically anything that's in cash or cash equivalents, you're losing money on it compared to inflation. It's devaluing over time. So for a f***ing fund, you should not put it in anything that's devaluing. Put it in something that grows.

And that's why I said think of it as a two to three year horizon. Okay. And start putting it in large-cap type funds. Right. So when we thought of this topic, We put out posts on social media, asking people to send in questions. And a lot of men were very intrigued by what a f*** fund is, right? Most of them, they said that they also need one, which is fair, of course.

But, you know, somewhere immediately, some of them were like, wait, does my partner have a secret fund that I don't know about? And another person also asked if they should actually help their partners build a fun. So my question is, should men help? Or should they just stay away from it? Of course they should help. Why shouldn't they help? If they're willing to help, let them help.

But they should stay away from asking and probing. Tell me where it is. Can you give me your credentials? How much have you saved up? Let them leave that aside. But see, I think it's interesting that, you know, with the very end, we talk about men. Because one of the most important needs in financial wellness, in a woman's life

is being able to have a money conversation with a man in her life. The man in her life could be father, brother, husband, boyfriend doesn't matter. The authority figure. Usually it's a man.

Sometimes it's a mother. So having that money conversation, I think, is the first barrier that women need to break even before anything else. I mean, actually, I should have

shouldn't say even before. Start doing whatever you can do, dabbling, doing whatever. But have this money conversation. Don't postpone it. There is no, again, there's no perfect money conversation. Don't be afraid of it. It's something especially younger, if you're not married, do not get married without having a money conversation. If you're in a serious relationship, don't get more serious without having a money conversation. I'm not saying it's something you should talk on your first date, But definitely, you know, as the relationship progresses, get to know each other's ideas about money. Because it's very important to know. Exactly.

This is a great note to end this episode on. Thank you so much, Eitra, for joining us. And to our listener who's still here, thank you for sticking around. I hope you like this episode. Please tell us what you think. You can write to us at podcasts at the ken.com. It is the hyphen k-k-en.com. Also, please do not forget to take the survey.

It is all in the show notes, along with some interesting reading suggestions. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of the Ken, India's first subscriber-focused business news platform. What you're listening to is just a small sample of our subscriber-only offerings. A full subscription unlocks daily long-form feature stories, newsletters and podcast extras. Head to the Ken.com and click on the red subscribe button on the top of the Ken website. Today's episode was hosted and produced by Rahal Philippos and I, Sinkda Sharma, and it was edited by Rajiv Sien. Also a huge shout-out to Aditi and Kavipriya and the rest of our fantastic design team here at the Ken

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