Alumni and founder of Ladies Finance Club Molly Benjamin is on a mission to help women everywhere find financial freedom.

Early on in her career, while working at the Bank of Queensland, Molly noticed there was a significant gap between men and women when it came to matters of financial literacy.

“When I eventually moved to London, I continued working in banks and that’s where I really began to see the scope of the issue,” she says.

“A lot of my girlfriends were bad with money, including a lot of the women I was working with, and we were always just living paycheck to paycheck.”

After digging a bit deeper, Molly found research confirming that modern women live longer, typically take time off work when raising children, don’t invest as much as men and thus retire with less.

“We’re not investing, we take time out of our careers to have children and it feels like we’re penalised when we retire with less super, which means we have a lot less control over our lives when it comes to that point when we decide to retire,” she says.

Molly decided to act, so she started running small events in her living room with her girlfriends.

The group would invite experts to attend each session and explain different financial concepts.

“It would be a case of, ‘you bring the wine, I'll do the pizzas, and let's talk about this money stuff’,” says Molly. “As it turned out, we outgrew my living room very quickly.”

Within a few short months, Molly was running sold-out information and coaching seminars in the heart of London which helped hundreds of women find their feet financially.

When her sister Briony was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma (read Briony’s story in the Spring 2021 edition), Molly decided to move back to Australia.

It was here that her business Ladies Finance Club was born.

Molly Benjamin with her new book, Girls Just Wanna Have Funds

“I started everything again from scratch when I moved back home, and now we’ve had more than 35,000 women come through our program,” Molly recounts.

Ladies Finance Club (LFC) helps empower women to control of their financial futures by facilitating masterclasses, podcasts, resources, networking groups and more.

In November, Molly took LFC on a roadshow to 13 different locations around Australia and spoke to 1,300 women about the power of investing.

Recently she celebrated the launch of her first book, Girls Just Wanna Have Funds.

“As we often say, the world of finance can be so male, pale and stale,” Molly jokes. “We’re about making finance fun, making it accessible and helping women understand that anyone can start their own money journey, be it in their 30s, 40s, 50s and beyond.”

Molly says that shifting one’s mindset about money and wealth is a great place to start on the path to financial freedom.

“Ask yourself, are there some beliefs about money that you’re holding on to which aren’t serving you well, for example something like ‘rich people are snobs’ or ‘if I have money I’m going to turn into a bad person’,” she says.  “Once you understand your own beliefs about money, you can reframe them.”

For those who are ready to forge a financial pathway, you can find your new tribe at ladiesfinanceclub.com.