Niina Stolt /Studio Onni

The early 90s recession hit Finland very hard. My father was one of the lucky ones to keep his job during the bad times, but eventually he lost it in 1995. That was twenty years ago. Even at the tender age of 16 I realised that even if you are very skilled and eager to work you can lose your job and become unemployed. You can’t always decide circumstances in your life even if you can influence many things.

That time I noticed that even if your income drops you have bills to pay and lifestyle to support. Ever since, I’ve been thinking how I can have an income even if I can’t, or don’t want to, work. I decided that I have to have an additional income that is not related to the work what I do. This is why I started to study investing.

Since then I have been investing in almost everything: stocks, mutual funds, gold, real estates and businesses. Real estate is the love of my life. Investing in businesses has been the most difficult one and there I have made my biggest losses.

What the losses have taught the most is humility. Even if you get experience every day, you have to start many times with a clean slate in your life. With this attitude you don’t expect anything but you check everything. This way I have tried to be better prepared for the potential risks if they materialise.

As a woman I think it’s even more important to think how I will survive financially in the future. But I’m happy to say that my ‘euro’ or ‘pound sterling’ as a female investor is as valuable as male’s. Financial independence will give us the equality we need. So we women should really make use of being smart with our money!

See you in March in London,

~ Terhi

Terhi Majasalmi is women’s wealth coach, investor, author and public speaker. She is the founder of an online wealth coaching service ‘Vaurasnainen‘ that aims to make 10,000 Finnish women wealthy. Terhi is a regular visitor to DrivenWoman and runs our Wealthy Woman Workshops. The next one is on Thursday 19th of March. Find out how you too can become a wealthy woman and book your tickets here.