Proper financial planning helps foster stable and peaceful families, asserts some members of Global Peace Women (GPW), an affiliate of the Global Peace Foundation that leads initiatives that uplift women’s dignity and value, empower families, and advance service-minded women leadership to foster peace in the home and society. GPW Paraguay conducted a webinar session on “Family Financial Planning” with Dr. Antonio Montiel, a family counselor, in October 2022. Dr. Montiel talked about family finances and introduced strategies and tools for finances with 290 participants.
Presenters for the Financial Planning Webinar hosted by Global Peace Women Paraguay
“A family is like a company with basic needs and goals to attend to,” said Dr. Montiel. Unlike any company, families also should consider their goals, reduce risks, and build a future safely while improving their quality of life. Family goals include education for children, housing, business, and retirement. “At the household level,” he said, “family financial planning is the first step in reaching our vital goals.”
According to Dr. Montiel, a sound financial plan should have the certainty of a prosperous future. He shared that the key to financial planning and financial education is making forecasts, prioritizing expenses, and empowering familial wealth. He further emphasized the need to make correct and intelligent decisions and shared strategies for family financial planning.
Strategies and Tools for Family financial planning:
- Start with a financial diagnosis.
- Examine the income source and how it is invested and spent. Also, examine potential areas for investment in the short, medium, and long term.
- Analyze to optimize spending to open space and welcome savings. Review expenses and dispense insignificant expenses.
- Review indebtedness level not exceeding 30% of one’s income. Minimize using credit cards and create a culture of buying cash at home.
- Establish goals, practice savings, and have healthy attitudes and routines when dealing with money
- Prepare a family budget with three sections: income, savings, and expenses.
Dr. Montiel recommended that families spend less to maintain planned savings and investments. He elaborated that controlling spending is “synonymous with peace of mind and the possibility of development and well-being for the family.”
Maria Lila Miranda Ayala, a participant in the family finance planning session, said, “Thank you for doing these types of training. Each of us makes the change, and together we do more.”
Webinars like this are vital in sharing information that can build up or maintain a family’s well-being. Healthy families require vigilance in many areas, both spiritual and mundane, so financial literacy is an important skill set for all members of a family. In turn, these families will have the confidence, creative freedom, and abilities to contribute to the greater society.
Sound financial planning enables families to achieve their goals and maintain peace and prosperity in their homes and lives. GPW and GPF believe in building peaceful families and plan to continue organizing events and webinars that foster peaceful families, communities, and the world.
Learn more about Global Peace Women and women’s peacebuilding leadership.
