Money Doesn't Grow on Trees: Lavanya Mohan's Guide To Navigate Personal Finance

Money shouldn’t be a source of stress, and personal finance shouldn’t feel like a second job. Whether it’s budgets, bank accounts, taxes, investing, or insurance, this book breaks it all down in the context of your life. We’re tackling everything—from Instagram-fueled spending habits, to negotiating pay checks, to bad money decisions in relationships, to planning for kids, and even plotting a great escape from the 9-to-5. Plus, there are expert insights and real-life anecdotes that make all those 'big, scary' financial concepts feel like things you can understand, and—dare we say—enjoy. No jargon, no condescension—just practical personal finance wrapped in stories, pop culture references, and the occasional meme.

Here's an excerpt from Lavanya Mohan's Money Doesn't Grow on Trees

Sometime in 2016, when I was working as a Chartered Accountant in Practice in Chennai, a client requested me to conduct an 'educational' session on the basics of finance for a group of women. I agreed, expecting to talk to women from similar backgrounds who were just getting started with organising their finances. 

That, however, was not the case. I ended up talking to women whose names and signatures commanded conglomerates and carried a great heft of money, power, and influence. Some of their handbags were—and continue to be worth more than my annual income. But all of them, it seemed, shared a common insecurity for numbers. 

Finance, financial statements, and all associated terminology overwhelmed them. It didn't help that whenever they sat in meetings, they held themselves back from asking for clarifications about their own company out of fear of being pushed over or being subjected to condescension from senior male members in the room who employed financial jargon with ease. 

That women in power go through the same motions that the rest of us do was very telling for me. If women in the uppermost echelons of society were having issues comprehending money, then what about the rest of us? Historically, women have always been left behind when it comes to matters of money. While plenty of women do have and operate their own bank accounts, they are rarely included in conversations about financial planning. 

A survey run by a Life Insurance Company on financial awareness among women revealed that 59% do not independently take decisions on their finances. The survey also stated that 89% of married women depend on their spouses for financial planning. This isn't to say that marriage is a deterrent to a woman's financial independence, but that men make the crucial financial decisions of the household by default. If it's not the husband making investments or buying insurance, it's the father or the brother. Insurance, mutual funds, long-term savings aren't discussions that we have. 

The financial discussions that we do have, are relegated to managing the grocery budget (the survey even said that for 39% of its respondents, financial planning was restricted to just this). Additionally, a great percentage of women continue to be reliant on their spouses/parents for money (it's been established that India ranks very poorly in terms of women's participation in the workforce). And even working women—as high as 59% in urban India and 65% in Tier 3 cities-don't take financial decisions independently. All of this snowballs into not only widespread financial illiteracy among women, but also ensures that it is difficult for women to become truly financially independent. 

But perhaps the most significant struggle when it comes to women taking charge of their finances are the social consequences of our failure. Gender has nothing to do with investment decision-making. Men make financial mistakes all the time. But when they fail, the social consequences that they face are rarely as damning as the ones that women face when they fail. We're constantly told to stay in our lanes, take care of our homes, and leave the 'money business' to the men—even if they don't know any better. 

It is empowering to know how money works— irrespective of your gender—but it is especially important for women to have this knowledge. We save differently, spend differently, and have very different financial goals. We live longer but end up with more and sometimes permanent—breaks in our caree₹We run out of money much quicker than we expect to. And we fool ourselves into thinking that we won't 'get' money. 

Well, it's time to go get it. 

Extracted with permission from Lavanya Mohan's Money Doesn't Grow on Trees; published by Simon & Schuster India.