To be an entrepreneur you have to be a little mad for sure. You leave a 9-5 job and take on a 8am to 11pm job. You have uncertainties. You live with the fact that 95% of start ups fail in the first 5 years. You are censured by the family for “giving up certainty” …and worse you hurt your personal finance! So here is a checklist for women. Assuming that your husband is a businessman – manufacturing, trading, consulting…does not matter, but a businessman, these are the things that you SHOULD audit / monitor. The businessman himself will NOT. He will pretend that he does not have time. Great. It is time for the spouse to step in and ensure that your husband is doing the following…

1. Your husband’s income will now be VOLATILE – a business is like equity. You can’t have a regular 7% growth. You will have 22%, 0%, -14%, 67%….kind of income on a year to year basis. On a month to month basis it could be worse. So you need to prepare for this, and manage your expenses. One thing you can (should) get your husband to do is to take a “salary” from the business and keep it in a Liquid fund or in an Ultrashort bond fund.
2. Force him to withdraw on a monthly basis – most business people like to keep some “buffer” in the business. Terrible idea. Keep the buffer in a liquid fund, so that your husband’s business does not keep all the cash like a demon. It should not become a working capital guzzler. So take a salary yourself or force your husband to put away money in a liquid fund on a regular basis.
3. Create assets and income streams outside the business. It is necessary for preparing for some uncertainty. You should constantly ask “what if…goes wrong”. Creating a separate source can be very useful. I heard about the wife of a flower seller becoming an IFA. Now the flower business is gone and both are in financial services. Income is in 8 digits. Phew. Do not underestimate the side hustle.
4. Take over the personal finance mandate – your husband will tend to ignore or even worse pretend that it is happening on auto mode. Take charge. Today.
5. Constantly ask yourself “how to retire”. A small prop business is not the easiest to sell. Your kids may not be interested – remember you do not have a provident fund.
6. Rejig your portfolio – your husband had a nice secured job (which acted like a debt fund) so your portfolio had a lot of equity. Now your husband’s life has become like equity, so he should have more debt in his portfolio. Your IFA should be able to help you in this. Please be alert to this. Your whole life – your husband’s business, your job (if any) + your portfolio should create some stability in your cash flow.
7. Be alert to your insurance – term insurance, medical insurance, critical illness…remember you do not any longer have any “group” cover available to you and your family.
8. If you do not know enough about personal finance, please learn asap.