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Discussing finances and investing is close to taboo in most families, but that’s not the case for grandmother Vicki Price. Instead, she actively encourages it.
Having spent more than 30 years investing, the 76-year-old has made it her mission to openly discuss which investments and asset classes have worked – and importantly, which haven’t – with the women in her family.
For many families, discussing money can feel awkward or taboo.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
Price has overseen her own share portfolio on behalf of herself and her husband since she was in her late 50s, so she feels well-equipped to drive the family conversations.
While she admits it was a case of trial and error in those early days, she’s since learned the benefit of leaving investments time to mature, and how to research companies she wants to invest in over the years.
Vicki Price, 76, has made it her mission to educate her family about investing.
“I’m the one that pushes things along after a bit of research, sharing what I’ve learned with my two daughters, my granddaughter and my sister,” Price says.
For years, family group chats and get-togethers have quickly turned to the topic of who has been investing in what, and what the returns have been like.
“It’s not so much about me giving advice, but more about sharing what each of us are investing in, and what returns we’re achieving.”
Price started investing out of necessity in the beginning, hoping she could build her retirement savings. “When we reached our early 50s, we didn’t have much saved as we had been raising kids, so I was looking to build the nest egg.”
Price started out with a CommSec portfolio, but now uses Stockspot to invest in exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Others in her family invest in silver, property and shares. Over the years, her investment portfolio has experienced steady growth.
Price says her husband doesn’t have much interest in investing, so leaves her to make the decisions.
“I always do my homework, researching all the big investment companies and looked at their returns, and I could see you were just a small cog in a big wheel, and I didn’t like that.”
Over the next decade, women are expected to inherit and control approximately 65 per cent of the nearly $5 trillion set to change hands in the largest intergenerational wealth transfer on record. This will see women become the primary decision-makers for family budgets and wealth creation.
So, it’s perhaps not surprising that a growing number of women are turning to investing, now accounting for 42 per cent of investors with active holdings – up 18 per cent over the past three years.
Despite ongoing efforts to close the gender gap, women still trail men in finances. The average Australian woman has $428,000 in net wealth, compared to $597,000 for men – a 40 per cent gap. This comes down to factors such as lower workforce participation, the gender pay gap and more time spent out of the workforce raising children, along with superannuation disparities.
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This year has seen all previous Australian ETF inflows records broken, with investors channelling $15.8 billion into the asset class in the September quarter alone, according to ETF provider Vanguard Investments.
ETFs have taken off because people want a simple way to invest without the stress of picking stocks, says Chris Brycki, founder and chief executive of Stockspot.
People know they’re not betting on one company, they’re buying the whole market, he says, adding that ETFs are designed for patience.
“You can have good years and bad years. The magic happens when you stay invested through the full cycle. We recommend a time horizon of at least three to seven years for the best chance of success.”
- Advice given in this article is general in nature and is not intended to influence readers’ decisions about investing or financial products. They should always seek their own professional advice that takes into account their personal circumstances before making any financial decisions.
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