You wake up, you don’t feel well.
Your nose is stuffed and your throat hurts. Maybe you have a headache. You tough it out because you have a lot to do today and this week. But a couple of days go by and you still feel like crap possibly even worse. So you make the doctor appt.
At the appointment your doctor does all the routine tests. Checks your chest, eyes, ears and throat and comes up with the dreaded diagnosis—a cold. No quick fix. Your pissed. You would rather something a bit more severe so a prescription can be written and you can be on the road to recovery. You talk to the doctor and even though they don’t like to overmedicate, they offer the famous ZPAC or Zithromax. You couldn’t be happier. You get to the pharmacy as soon as possible and pop your first pill. Before it even hits your stomach you start to feel better….. Amazing.
If this is you, it’s me too.
I think it’s common that we all want the quick fix, no time to let things run their course. No time to put the work in, just give me the quick and easy solution.
In the example above, according to Common Cold Guide :
The full life cycle of a cold is usually between 7 and 10 days and the symptoms will last 3-5 days.
So, with or without the ZPAC we would have started to feel better started to feel better by the time we went to the doctor anyway!
So what does this all have to do with financial planning….
Well sad to say, Financial Planning does not have a quick fix. Financial Planning does not have a 5 day pill you can take to make it all feel better.
However there is good news too. Like in the world of medicine, the generic medication is probably good enough. It’s definitely cheaper…
What is generic medicine in Financial Planning?
- track your spending–make sure you have more coming in than going out
- build an emergency fund of at least 3 months of expenses
- pay down any bad debt
- invest for your retirement –401k, Traditional IRA, Roth IRA
- invest for any other goal that is more than 10 years away
- protect yourself and your family with the proper insurances
- get a Will drawn up
- keep your fees/expenses in all your investments/bank accounts low
If you do these 8 things you will start to feel better. You will take control of your financial health and your life. And as your income goes up, increase your savings amounts! You may start behind the 8 ball, but you can definitely catch up!
-Jared
