Takeaway Point: A Money Club helps its members to increase confidence in personal financial literacy skills

In June 2014 I started a money club. We called the group Cents and $ensibility.

It was a spin-off from a ten-session money course called Money WAGS (Women’s Action Groups) conducted by a trained facilitator at WINGS. WINGS (which stands for Woman’s Initiative For Aging Successfully ) is a non-profit organisation.

I attended the money course to brush up my personal money management skills. Besides, after reaching middle age, learning about making a Will, appointing a Lasting Power of Attorney, preparing an Advance Medical Directive were matters that seemed more pressing than before.

When I think back on my school days when I joined an extra-curricular activity, these activities provided the emotional support that saw me and many of my friends through our growing-up years!

As an adult, participating in such clubs helps one not just in expanding supportive networks, they also enrich our lives in our Third Age.

Therefore, when someone from the group towards the end of the money course piped up and said, “We should form a money club!”, I thought: Why not?

We formed a money club which consists of 10 graduands from the previous Money WAGS course who decided they wanted to meet regularly and continue to learn and increase their confidence in financial literacy skills.

In no time, we also formed a Whatsapp group to interact daily:-), had decided on a stable venue and a fixed time to meet monthly. This was quite essential as we all had other commitments – fixing the time and venue would enable us to clear our schedule to come for meetings. We would make a commitment to our support group.

Subsequently, everything fell into place. We bonded over our food potlucks during breaks:) and planned money topics to discuss during club meetings. Our meetings were purposeful – gradually, we were not only growing in our working knowledge about money, but we were also coming together as a group of friends.

I remember some of the directed money topics at each meeting which we either rostered our members to facilitate or invited speakers to enrich us on. We embraced topics like cutting expenses, generating passive income ideas for retirement, budgeting, confronting money fears,  using the internet to search for information on other personal financial literacy topics.

We were having a lot of fun!

What more can I say? Our journey from those initial club set-ups (including a midnight mulling over which WhatsApp money club icon to choose..^^) to the Christmas  gathering we held last December to commemorate our 7 months of camaraderie, the changes we had made in our life management habits (not just in money managing skills) because of our support group will always be etched in our happy memories.

I really could not have hoped for a better company of close acquaintances to continue to pursue my learning goals and I find myself grateful to be a part of their learning too!

It has been an awesome ride!

So..what holds for the future?

Continued ‘get-togethers’, of course!

We will continue to hold them the following year – when we will use our money managing skills learnt in 2014 and actualise them in projects, such as visiting charity organisations to volunteer, in kind or in deeds( or both!) and kickstarting our entrepreneurial instincts to set up a stall at an annual charity bazaar. Last but not least, we will use the skills we have learnt to teach our families and others to build a more secure future for themselves.

To more good years ladies! Let us continue to hold one another’s hand in meaningful living! ❤️