Best financial course for women: 7 questions to ask before you choose

If you typed "best financial course for women" into a search bar, I want to start by honouring that. It takes courage to look at money directly, especially if you were raised to believe it was someone else's job.

I will not tell you which course is the best. There is no such thing as one best course for every woman, and anyone who claims to be number one is selling, not teaching. What I can give you is what twenty years in Swiss private banking — at UBS, at Credit Suisse and at a family-owned wealth manager in Zürich — taught me about what actually changes a woman's financial life. Use these seven questions on any course, including mine.

Why the choice matters

The OECD/INFE 2023 International Survey of Adult Financial Literacy, covering 39 countries and economies, found that women — and young women in particular — show lower financial knowledge than men. At the same time, the UBS Global Wealth Report 2024 estimates that more than USD 83 trillion will be passed on over the next 20 to 25 years, around USD 9 trillion of it between spouses. A great deal of that wealth will reach women. The right education decides whether it arrives as a burden or as freedom.

1. Does it teach you to read your own numbers?

Start with the Head. A serious course should help you understand your cash flow, your safety reserve, saving versus investing, compounding, and — just as important — what you pay in fees every year, in real money rather than percentages. Costs compound exactly like returns, in the opposite direction.

Look for a course that helps you calculate your Freedom Number: the figure at which you could say, calmly, "I am safe". Not a luxury number. A decision number.

2. Does it address why you have not acted yet?

This is the question most courses never ask. In my years in banking, the women who hesitated were rarely uninformed. UBS research (Own Your Worth, 2019) found that 58% of women worldwide defer long-term financial decisions to their spouses. Information had reached them. It had not moved them.

A course that only adds information to a woman who already knows enough will change little. Ask whether it works on the Heart: the beliefs about money you inherited, and the permission to own your wealth.

3. Does it train your Voice?

The biggest numbers in a woman's financial life are often decided far from any bank: the salary accepted without a counter-offer, the fee rounded down, the settlement signed to make the conflict stop. I call this the Silence Tax — what you pay, for years, for what you did not ask for.

Ask whether the course teaches negotiation, boundaries and the brave conversations about money with partners, family and employers. If it does not, you may end up with a beautiful plan and no one at the table to defend it.

4. Does it give you actions, not only content?

Hours of video are not the same as change. The best learning builds a Bridge — small, concrete, courageous steps between where you are today and the woman who leads her own money. Ask: what will I actually do in week one? Which decision will I have made by the end?

5. Is it honest about what it is not?

Education is not personal investment advice. Be cautious with any course that promises returns, recommends specific products without knowing your situation, or pushes you with countdown timers and "today only" pressure. A trustworthy course gives you judgement, so you can sit with any advisor or bank and ask clear questions: How are you paid? What would you do in my place? What would you not tell me unless I asked?

6. Who built it, and from which side of the table?

Look at the creator's real experience. Has she worked with money professionally, with real clients, through real crises? Has she also done the inner work she teaches? Credentials do not guarantee a good course, but they tell you whether the person has seen what happens when theory meets a divorce, an inheritance or a market fall.

7. Does it see your whole life, including your legacy?

Money is not one account. It is your career, your relationships, your retirement and what you pass forward to the next generation. Ask whether the course treats your financial life as one system — and whether it helps you talk about money with your daughters and sons the way you wish someone had talked to you.

How I answer these questions with the WIN Method™

I built the WIN Method™ (Women Invest & Impact) on three pillars that are worked together: Head, Heart and Voice. Everything looks fine with one or two of them in place — until an emergency exposes the one that was missing. The method is education and coaching, not investment advice, and it is designed so you walk into any financial meeting as the one who leads it. It was created for women, and it works for men too.

You may choose another course, and that is perfectly fine. What matters is that you choose with these seven questions in hand.

Your next brave step

Before choosing any course, find out where you stand. The free WIN Diagnostic shows you in a few minutes which of your three pillars needs the most attention. And if it feels like your moment, WIN Foundations, the online course, walks you through all three — with the warmth of a friend and the experience of someone who spent twenty years on the other side of the table.