Prepare for Retirement

We talk about so many thing to become successful but the core basics come down to Financial Wellness, not the number crunchers but just the basics…

We believe that financial illiteracy single handedly is eating away all of us from the inside.

We talk about finance and financial matters every single minute of the day and yet we all think that finance is for others and not for me. I believe that even the 2 year old knows a lot about finance. Now the question is HOW?

Does a 2 Year Old know more about Leveraging than you do?

Have you not noticed that the child is leveraging almost for everything. You give a candy the child stop’s crying, and so on.

Leverage….the most essential but the least understood of the concepts

Today the concept of money has changed and it has changed drastically. There was a time when studying hard, getting good grades and eventually a good job was all there was to be content and lead a happy life. Hell…most of our parents did that and told us to do the same. But we all have to realize that our parents were telling the truth…their truth, the truth about their times. The question is that what has happened to that truth. Times change and with time the version of the truth also changes and that is called evolution.

Whose truth are we living?

Their version of truth relies on the fact that they all lived in an industrial age and when the Berlin wall came down and the  World Wide Web went up the age changed without most of us knowing it.

During the history of mankind humans have evolved from the stone ages to agrarian age,  and few more and finally over to the present information age. Yes friends….I know it’s a shocker for lot of you that we did not even realize when we went from industrial age to information age. This all happened not very long ago and this time we have the dates when it happened. This happened when the Berlin wall came down and the world wide web went up.

Most of our parents have lived through the industrial age, where all that matters was good grades, good job, good pay, great retirement. Now how many of you have attended a retirement party? Surely at least one..

Retirement Parties

The last two retirement parties I attended was a couple of years ago…..

First :- My mom’s friend was a teacher in a Govt. School in India. The day she retired there was function held at school with lot of merriment and speeches from her colleagues. After which she was escorted home by not less than 100 people in procession…. a decorated Gypsy (That’s a type of Geep / Car – for my foreign friends) and a band playing in front. Once home there was this huge gathering with lunch and many other things.

Second :- My father-in-law retired with more or less the same fan following but well we had dinner that night instead of lunch..lol.

Now why do you think all this was happening. Today if I have to retire I would be more sad than happy. They were happy because now they would stop working but the Government would still reward them for their efforts in form of pension.

Today most of us who are working know that the concept of pension is rapidly vanishing from private sector first and now from Govt Sector as well. The Govt. jobs are now more of ad hoc basis with yearly contracts. The question is why such a sudden change…..

I say because our Govt suddenly woke up from a deep sleep and realized what is happening around the globe. US is suffering from the effects of this and in near future this effect will multiply exponentially. Just imagine from the point of view of the Government……

• how many people retire every day?
• what would be average pension and how much money the Govt.shells out every month?

How long can this go on. The effects are tremendous..where is this money going to come from..( our pockets in form of taxes).…..

The retirees were happy because now they were financially free and finally they do not have to work for money. The best part of retirement is that now they can do what they want to do when they want to do. The money is there in form of pension.

The sad part is when are we going to realize that very soon we will be sitting in their chair with no backing from anyone apart from what saving we have. More on that later…

The concept of financial freedom is new because we are living in a new age which is in its infancy. It’s a whole new ball game.

We all went to school, we all studied more or less the same subjects.

The Language of Money

Just consider the language English. It starts from nursery but its takes a child 5-6 years before it is understood another few years before comprehension comes in and few more years before it settles down properly but few of us still struggle  for a long time.

Money is a language….

Yes friends money is a language which if not learned in time may have drastic effects on our lives. It does take the same amount of time to learn as any other language and the earlier we start the earlier we learn the language and off we all go happily towards our own FINANCIAL FREEDOM.

So if you spend a little while thinking about your financial freedom and financial literacy I think I would have achieved my aim here.

The first step towards progress are the most difficult ones and they start with the thought process…