A few years ago, I almost pressured my best friend into making regular contributions to voluntary retirement savings (3rd Pillar A). At every one of our meetings, I reminded her and asked if she had thought about it and was ready to start. I probably drove her crazy. She likes me, and I like her a lot. One day, she was probably fed up and agreed. She signed up for the insurance, struggled with herself for a while, and then started paying 100 CHF per month. She actually wanted to pay even less, but I managed to convince her that 100 CHF per month was doable.

What I failed to do was remind her to increase the amount. She stuck with the 100 CHF monthly payment, even though her salary would have allowed her to contribute much more. “Tempi passati.” Since she is quite a bit older than I am, she suddenly retired. She invited me over for dinner, and her kitchen was ultra-modern and brand new. I was amazed because her old kitchen was still in pretty good shape. She explained that she owed her new kitchen to my persistence. I didn’t understand at first. She told me that she had received a payout from the 3rd Pillar and used part of it to modernize her kitchen. The only thing she regrets is not having paid in more each month. I was astonished because I had long forgotten our discussions about the 3rd Pillar A, but the insurance hadn’t forgotten and had done its job.

I’m always amazed at how even very independent women pay little attention to their finances, especially their financial situation in retirement. I’m also surprised at how little the government invests in financial education for its citizens, particularly when it comes to women’s financial independence. I wish there were at least one mandatory evening per year, ideally one per month, starting from the 6th grade, where topics like money, investments, interest, and compound interest are discussed. It would be great if there were a game in every class where children made fictitious investments, and at the end of their schooling (not just the year), they could compare how the different investments had developed and why. This way, they could learn how to manage money in a playful manner.

Too often, I’ve seen highly intelligent and talented women with university degrees reduce their working hours to perhaps 80% after having their first child and then to 60% after the second child—never returning to 100%. This happens even when they earn more than the father of the child. Naturally, this has consequences for their savings in their pension funds. And since it’s no longer a given that people get married when they have children, such women may find themselves in difficult situations with completely inadequate insurance coverage.

I have friends who lived for years with children and a 40% work schedule, then separated from their husbands between the ages of 40 and 50, and were shocked when I roughly calculated their retirement benefits with them. The holidays are over—now it’s time to put down the crime novels and pick up some financial literature. How about reading something like Pirmin Hotz’s “On Greed, Fear, and the Herd Instinct of Investors”? How about taking a closer look at the 3rd Pillar A and considering whether you could contribute more? Or perhaps watching a TED Talk, (for example: https://www.ted.com/talks/anita_knotts?lng=de&geo=fr)