Did you make a sound financial decision before you retired? Well, to tell you the truth I did not. That is why until today I have to work hard to rebuild my life and to make it happier before I depart from this world.
There are people who make mistakes with their lives and were able to rise from the mire of financial difficulty. Those who retired and plan carefully and thoroughly their retirement are happier now and live comfortably with their families. I have learned my lesson when it comes to money and financial decisions.
Before I retired I had many plans for the future but they were just in my mind. I was not able to jot them down and follow them religiously so that I will be happier in the episode of my life, that is, post-retirement. What I did with my money was not planned. I wasted it on a business that I do not have much knowledge about. The people around me are my family and extended ones that just advised me to do business which I thought was a good idea and sound advice. Eventually, all my money was gone and my family and I suffered a lot through the years.
Even today, I am still in a predicament because of my past financial blunder. I was really sorry for my family and myself that until now I have not really fully recovered from what I did in the past. Still struggling to make both ends meet. My only consolation is that I can still work and can still save money for the future.
As such, my experience of not planning about my retirement may be a moral lesson for others to be prudent when it comes to money and also to be frugal even though you have a lot of money in the bank to spend for your whim and caprices.
These days are a little bit difficult for many because of job loss due to the pandemic and we are thankful that we receive some financial aid from the government so that we could get by every day. However, with the unstable economy, jobs that are offering low salary, and other problems that beset us may make us more emotionally unstable at times.
On the brighter side of this pandemic situation, we can stay together at home because of the quarantine and lockdowns, bonding with family members is a great consolation for us. At home, we can also work and earn some money to sustain ourselves.
Another thing that consoles me is some pieces of advice that I have read from a book while I was browsing some books at a bookstore. There were only a few of them and luckily I was able to write them down for a gentle reminder about financial activities. Below are some of them:
- Pay in cash. Most of us have credit cards for sure and I am one of them. I do not have any bad intentions regarding owning a credit card because I, myself, had benefited from it in the past and I was able to buy things that I cannot afford to purchase with outright cash on hand. And I was able to purchase things for my family which they badly needed because of my credit card.
However, I made the mistake of not paying the minimum payment for my monthly bill, that accrued monthly interest which eventually I could not pay anymore because of the staggering total amount to be paid. I regret those days that I had to pay it with my retirement money until I closed my credit card account.
I was also devastated to find out that my business was mismanaged and that I eventually closed shop to prevent further financial losses. The moral of the story is that you should not always be confident in people, even those who you treat as part of your family and those close to you. Everything was a mess and I did not receive any profit from my small business. And I even incurred some debts which I also have to pay from my retirement fund.
My past life was really horrible and now I contemplate on my wrong actions which I will not do anymore.
- Burn that plastic card (don’t carry it with you). It was my grievous blunder to overuse my credit card and not pay the minimum amount for my monthly bill. The moral is that if you have a credit card, do not bring it with you all the time. I suggest that if you have cash, pay your purchases with your money and not with your credit card.
When we bring our credit cards, we tend to splurge needlessly because you can buy and anything with your credit card without limits. If you cannot control your urge to buy that you become a shopaholic, then think twice and manage your money wisely. You may end up paying thousands of dollars for your purchases. And that will surely hurt you financially. Credit cards are good, the only thing bad is when you cannot control using it exceedingly.
Save money to buy something (even cars). I think this is the best financial advice that I could think of. When you save money, you are able to prepare yourself for future emergencies, and also you will be able to pay in cash without accrued interest and that also saves you more money. Saving for the future could make us financially independent and comfortable in life.
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