Money can’t buy happiness but it can make being miserable a whole lot more tolerable.
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Believe it or not, we aren't here to make millionaires of people even if we were able to. Nor is our role to provide specific or individual financial advice.
However, you can either look at money as a way of achieving freedom and independence or as a great worry that you just cannot or will not get your head around. We want to steer a course through these extremes and, in so doing, just give in my primers some insights into the world of personal financial planning and management. With that, we hope, you can live life to the full and get on with being in your prime.
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50
to 70 is a very interesting time in terms
of personal finance and it contrasts very
greatly with other periods of life, even
if the path we are on is smooth and straightforward.
Where life is further complicated or thrown
off course by such things as illness,
divorce, bereavement, redundancy and so
on, then there are even more issues to
throw into the melting pot. However, as
with most things, if we try and grasp
the basics first and understand them,
then we can have some chance of grappling
with the detail.
Generating
and growing resources
The
first point to remember is that, unless
somebody knows something we don’t,
we all enter the world with nothing and
we leave with nothing. In the interim,
we obtain amounts of money or wealth and
we ultimately dispose of it. How much
we obtain and how we dispose of it and
for what purpose is what it’s all
about.
Assuming
that we don't obtain large chunks of money
in our early years through being blessed
with good fortune, then most of us spend
that time growing up and then working
and slowly building up resources of our
own. Generally, the needs of everyday
living mean that generating a surplus
is a very slow process, especially if
we have a mortgage, a family and possibly
a pension to provide for.
However,
gradually over time, things ease up slightly.
Hopefully, our careers progress, our salary
increases and our outgoings don't seem
to be taking up such a huge proportion
of our income. At long last we've built
up our stock of material possessions,
furniture, car, and so on. Although education
may still be costing us, perhaps there
are two incomes coming in. And so slowly
we start to have a small surplus.
Planning
for the future
We
are now into our forties. We may choose
to spend our money on lavish holidays,
or we may start tucking some away for
the future - but the choice starts to
be ours. We are now moving into the realm
of real financial planning and lifestyle
choices. We are saving and increasing
our wealth, bigger house, smaller mortgage,
pension plan, shares etc.
However,
there will come a time at which we are
likely to peak in terms of the accumulation
of wealth, possibly with retirement, and
we will start to ease down and use up
the wealth that we have worked so hard
for. So we must plan for that day. We
are now in in my prime territory. But at what age should we make
that decision?
Maybe
we are not ready to ease off? Are we in
a position to have the financial freedom
to make that decision? What has happened
to our personal and domestic circumstances
over the years? Has our life been disrupted
in ways we didn’t anticipate? What
is our health like? What are our employment
prospects?
Taking
control
The
variables seem endless and unknown. And
probably they are. But we can certainly
focus and home in on some of the key issues.
Or possibly, even better, we can organise
our lifestyle and our finances in such
a way that we can keep our options open
for as long as possible. Then we are in
control. And that is what we are
going to try to achieve, bit by bit.
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