How good are you at planning?

Failing to plan is planning to fail. This saying we have heard so many times, yet most of do not even put the little effort required to plan. We are ready to plan for everything, but when it comes to our financial future we leave it to fate. We plan for buying a house, but have we worked on a plan for it, think…. Most of us just work on the minimum sum required and then depend on a bank loan and then only keep hoping you have your job intact so that you would be able to keep paying. Even for your children’s education, you will start collecting all your certificates to pledge or break to collect the money or go for the loan and then keep hoping things fall in place. Why don’t we start planning in advance? We plan for everything, so why not some long term financial planning.

When we have to go for a holiday, we plan months in advance, foreign exchange, visa, tickets, hotels, places to visit etc. but for basic things like home, child education or even marriage we do not plan our finances. We plan everything around it. I know of a few friends of mine, who on meeting me or even over phone, say good article, we have to start planning, but let some money come first. I know these persons find planning a drudgery, so they keep procrastinating. A little effort and everything would look simple. This happens with most things. How many of us plan to start doing exercises daily. Almost all of us, but only a few do it, since it requires effort. Same is the case with financial planning. If we plan in advance, the amount you need to keep aside a month would be very small.

You could start a SIP in a good mutual fund and watch your money do the work for you month after month, but you need to start. All it needs is a change in attitude. We just follow the advertisements, almost all banks advertise easy money and we start believing. But do you realize that after the loan, you are under so much stress, month after month. All this is just because of lack of planning. Most of us have gone through this phase and how relieved we were when the loan was repaid. The relief was not because you repaid the loan, but because you were able to get away from the forced commitment, which you had walked into because of lack of planning.

I think its high time you took financial planning a bit more seriously.