Most of parents have been investing their money and getting a good academic education into their own children to study hard, get good grades and find a high-paying job with great benefits or a safe career since over the years. Their goal in life is just to provide a college education for their children, so that they would have the greatest chance for success in life. Did you ever realize that are our schools and colleges preparing for the real world which is lacking of financial education our children receive in school. Many of today’s youth have credit cards before they leave colleges, yet they have never had a course in money or how to invest it, let alone understand how compound interest works on credit cards. Simply put, without financial education and the knowledge of how money works, they are not prepared to face the monetary world that awaits them, a world in which spending is emphasized over savings. Although our children have been successful in their careers, they have not turned out quite as we expected. Let’s visualize a journey of imaginary real life of average-educated person.
A Journey at the life of average-educated person
If we look at the life of the average-educated, hard-working person, there is a similar path. As we child is born and go to school. Our proud parents are excited because we excel, get fair to good grades, and are accepted into a college. As we graduate, maybe go on to college and then do exactly as programmed: looks for a safe, secure job or career. Then we find that job, maybe as a doctor or a lawyer, or join the reputed organization or work for any government entity. Generally, we begin to make money, credit cards start to arrive in mass, and the shopping begins, if it already hasn’t.
Having money to burn, we go to social places where other young people just like us hang out, and we meet people, we discuss, and then, time to come getting we married. Life is wonderful now, because today, both men and women work. Two incomes are bliss. We feel successful, our future is bright, and we decide to buy a house, a car, a LED, take vacations and have children. The happy bundle arrives. The demand for cash is enormous. The happy couple decides that their careers are vitally important as they invest in their professional education and begin to work harder, seeking promotions and increments. The increments come, and so have another child and the need for a bigger house. At this level couple works harder; strive to get better employees, even more dedicated. We go back to professional institutions to get more specialized skills via job specific training programs so we can earn more money. Maybe we take a second job. Our incomes go up, but so have leveraged and the real home loan EMI is waiting on our new large home so as to save some taxes also. We make a lot of money, and we live in a huge house with lots of adult toys get to enjoy in our life.
We get our large paycheck and wonder where all the money went. We buy some randomly mutual funds, insurance policies blah blah blah…. and buy groceries with our credit card. Our children have grown at 5 or 6 years of age, and the need to save for college increases as well as the need to save for our retirement. Hence, we both have changed positions several times-for all the right reasons-but there are no pension plans vesting on our behalf. Our retirement funds are growing only through our individual contributions or mercy on our employers. That happy couple, born 35 years ago, is now trapped in the Rat Race for the rest of their working days. We work for the owners of our company, for the government paying taxes, and for the bank paying off a loan and credit cards.
Then, we advise our own children to `study hard, get good grades, and find a safe job or career.’ We learn nothing about money, except work hard all our lives. The process repeats into another hard-working generation. This is the `Rat Race’. Hence we feel trapped.
Conclusion
That’s what you heard and saw about a life of averaged-education person, no freedom, no abundance. It’s time for you to step forward and questions these beliefs. It’s time to de-programe your beliefs and re-programe your entire belief system regarding money and financial success. It is really time get out of the ‘Rat Race’ while investing and learning in your financial education at both accounting and investing and the most probably two of the most difficult subjects to master.
While working my professional life, I have noticed that there are a lot of accountants as my colleagues, bankers, and attorneys, and stockbrokers and real estate brokers who know a lot, and for the most part are smart people, but most of them are not rich as they little knew about either accounting or investing, subject so important in their lives. I wondered how they managed their own financial affairs in real life. Since our schools do not teach people what the rich know, we take advice from these people. Now I realized that I need to get myself out of the ‘Rat Race’ through getting time to invest in financial education trained as CFP.
Learning to set financial goals, goal based investing, effect of inflation and post-tax returns, retirement planning, own home vs. rent, repay vs. invest, risk vs. reward in equity investing, are some of the concepts that one needs to revisit. It is fun managing your own money. Remember it is your money, for your future. With this post, I have tried to show only you to how our financial lives are going in wrong track at each point in your life cycle. It’s time to take care of your finances and plan for it well. Be Prudent! Be prepared! Be Wise!
Suresh Kumar Narula is founder and Principal Financial Planner at Prudent Financial Planners. He has earned the professional CERITIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER and got registered with SEBI as Investment Advisor. He writes on personal and financial planning articles and got published in Dainik Bhaskar, Business Bhaskar and The Financial Planner’s Guild, India. He is also a member of Financial Planner’s Guild India ( An association of practicing SEBI registered Investment advisers) to create awareness about Financial Planning in general public, promote professional excellence and ensure high quality practice standards. Suresh received his an M.com from Himachal Pardesh University and an MFC from Punjab University, Chandigarh. He can be reached at info@prudentfp.in