Thursday, October 30, 2014

Is handling your finances that complex?




Warren Buffet, arguably, one of the biggest and most successful investors of all times, says that managing wealth and investing money does not require more than fundamental school education. 


On the other hand, most of us shy away from this subject, considering that we may not be qualified financial planners ourselves. The fact is that we don't need to be. 

Financial Planning is not at all complex, provided you can clearly differentiate between your financial need versus greed, and possess some fundamental sense about numbers (which you would have acquired by Class 10). 
You absolutely do not need any financial degrees, you do not need to inherit great wealth, and you don't have to be lucky. I had none, and I am a proud author of a bestseller on personal finance (From the Rat Race to Financial Freedom). 

What you really need to get wealthy is only rudimentary financial knowledge. On top of that, you would surely need the following traits to get wealthy:
  1. A strong reason : Why do you want to get wealthy? What do you want to do when you have enough wealth? How much is "enough" for you? You need to answer these questions for yourself and your life. And I can tell you that these questions can be objectively answered fairly easily.
  2. Planning : You would need to plan out your wealth - how much corpus you need and by when can you accumulate your corpus - you would need to have a trackable plan which can take you to financial freedom - a state where money is no more deciding what you do in life.
  3. Discipline and commitment to execute the plan: This is where most of us struggle. We do not lack knowledge or the ability to acquire knowledge; we lack the commitment to get the results. It is easier said than done. It is not a cakewalk to stay disciplined and committed for, let’s say, 20 years at a stretch. Hard work, skills, strategy, plan - all re important, but consistency is the king !!
  4. Getting innovative :  Getting innovative with your corpus to strive for better returns on investments, finding smarter ways to save your expenses, discovering more avenues of income, getting smarter on saving taxes and thus increasing your in-hand income - are some of the ways that can help you get to financial freedom faster.
Your goals and dreams in your life are the key to drive your discipline, commitment and execution. If you have a clear mission of your life, everything else will fall in place. As I often say to my readers - If the dream is big enough, facts do not count!!
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