Savings for the nation’s future

I found it an eye-opener that popular Hollywood actress Chrissy Metz was quoted as saying financial decisions as simple as buying a laptop reduced her to tears of panic. Like many movie stars and successful people, Chrissy too had struggled financially before hitting the jackpot. Financial planning is something that is on a lot of minds in Bahrain as we all strive to balance rising cost of living with the need to save for the future. Women of today are especially vulnerable to a hesitation when it comes to rigorous fiscal planning despite the fact that they have access to wider education and better career opportunities than my mother’s generation. This is perhaps because we live in a more consumerist society where there are more temptations to buy more things. I am not saying men are not just as susceptible but the fact is that in the olden days, Bahraini women held the purse-strings and ran their home economies efficiently while the men sailed the seas, powering Bahrain’s maritime economy through trade and the pearling industry. In Bahrain, women are powering entrepreneurial ventures and increasingly they are influential in the national economy. According to the statistics released by the Labour Market Regulatory Agency as of the end of 2014, the percentage of Bahraini Women in the Workforce has reached 35.3 per cent of the total Bahraini Workforce for both private and public sectors. They must translate this into yet another meaningful victory – by inculcating the habit of fiscal prudence in every home and making it a national trait, by bringing up our future generations of sons and daughters to learn this habit of planning for a prosperous future based on today’s hard work. But in order to do this systematically, we must strengthen the parents’ role with educational inputs. Schools must begin financial education for children and teach them that it can be intellectually stimulating, emotionally gratifying, and socially rewarding. We have all heard of the saying that many drops of water make a big ocean. Every household’s savings will make for a stronger nation.