Kim Krushell got a crash course in money management as a little girl. It had nothing to do with her own piggy bank. She learned by witnessing the struggles of her own mother and grandmother.
“My mother went through a divorce. My stepdad got a lawyer and she got emotional, and financially it was really hard on her,” Krushell recalled. “It took her a lot of years to come back from that.”
Krushell also saw her grandmother experience a divorce after 36 years of marriage.
“I got to see what happens when her credit card was cut right in front of me as a kid.”
As a result, Krushell is an equal partner in her household finances and has become a passionate advocate for women’s financial literacy.
“Women unfortunately do live in more poverty. Women are more challenged with finances so we really do need that extra leg up, and need to have those conversations about what we need to do with our finances.”
READ MORE: Why women need to plan their finances differently than men
Krushell and a group of dedicated volunteers have launched Women and Money, an initiative to educate Canadian women about finances; everything from buying a house to estate planning. In early February, Women and Money hosted a workshop to connect Edmonton women with financial experts. In the future, the group hopes to launch webinars and other events across the country.
“Men take advantage of what the banks offer. They take advantage of a lot of free seminars and this is why my girlfriends who are in banking were saying, ‘You know, we need to do something different. We need to reach out to women in a different way,'” Krushell said. “That is what Women and Money is really about.”
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