Most times, creating a balance between momentary spending and savings can be very challenging. There are scenarios where you bury yourself in worries about investing for tomorrow and end-up short-changing immediate needs.
There are also times when you may not meet up due to unexpected events. Trust me! It happens a lot. It’s a cycle that can only be completed when you apply the correct principles and focus.
We’ve talked about several ways to achieve financial freedom in previous topics. This article discusses how you can enjoy today and still be able to plan tomorrow responsibly.
The Concept of Wealth Creation and Successful Money/Life Balance
Wealth creation is probably one of the most searched topics on the internet. However, acquiring wealth while maintaining a healthy and happy life is not simple. It requires a whole lot of focus, determination, and balance.
If you can master these three things mentioned above, there’s no doubt about your happily ever after. We’ll start with balance.
How to create Money and Life Balance?
Balancing your life with your money requires knowing how much money to spend today to live a fulfilled life. On one side, it means how much to save for tomorrow to ensure a secure future.
It’s a hard nut to crack, but necessary.
You must be good with numbers. Successful people don’t spend without balancing. They always calculate the amount for expenditure and investment (savings).
Want to know the best rule for saving? 20% of your gross income. After deducting 20% for savings, you can spend from what’s left. That doesn’t mean it’s static. You can start with 20% and increase later when your income increases.
Making Savings a Priority
Prioritize savings and start from somewhere. Every year is not the same. There might be years when you save aggressively and others that you can’t. Maybe your income changed or some other circumstances.
Generally, saving for retirement, which is a long time into the future, requires planning. If you’re 30 and plan to work till 65, 20% savings might be good, but not when you plan to have kids. Sending kids to school and catering to their needs is not cheap, so you might want to increase those savings.
Consider a scenario when you started saving 1000 at 20 or 25. The total benefit from that 10,000 makes a big difference from saving the same amount at age 35. Saving and investing in time can lead you to retire early and live a fulfilled life later.
Start early with that small salary! Waiting may be dangerous. You know what they say about early birds.
Save More in Times of Less Expenditure Pressure
How about taking advantage of it now that you can save more? Especially times when you’re single and have less spending pressure. Periods of less expense present a great chance to save aggressively against tomorrow.
Invest! Invest! Invest!
Don’t only stop at savings. You can look for safe investment plans to put a percentage of those savings to yield some ROI.
Enough about the balance! Let’s look at what it means to enjoy life now.
How Should You Live Your Life Today while Planning for Tomorrow?
- Enjoyment Is Not Frivolous Spending
Enjoying life today is not about spending on frivolities but about looking for the things you need to live fully. Set a reasonable saving rate, and then enjoy the rest of your income without worrying about tomorrow.
Again, be intentional, focused, and disciplined. Yes, you heard it right!
- Discipline Yourself
Enjoyment and savings require a lot of discipline. Lack of focus makes you lose your way. When the focus is lost, you dwell on the ‘enjoyment’ of today while forgetting the rainy days that might be up ahead.
Then again, take care of yourself, or you may miss what today offers. The time you have now won’t come back tomorrow. So make the most of today while you remain focused on tomorrow.
Don’t forget it’s all about balance. You can’t get all you want from life if you do not master the act of balancing things, from opportunities to resources, time, and more.
Get Your Priorities Right
If you want to balance today’s life with tomorrow, prioritizing is the key. The answer to prioritizing correctly is to create a list. Yes! A list of what you want today and tomorrow. By saying tomorrow, I mean the future.
When you’ve listed all you want to do today and tomorrow, place them in order of priority. Place the one you want to do most first, continuing the same way to the last.
You may not be afford to do all today or tomorrow, so there’s room for adjustment and cost-cutting. That may lead you to seek ways to earn more. Earning more would mean you can do most of the things you want today and still do all you want tomorrow.
Conclusion
Financial planning takes a whole lot of time. As time passes, goals, income, needs, priorities, expenses, and even you change. Finding ways to balance time and money with expenditure is the key to living a happy life.
Above all, strive to earn more while saving more. It’s not an easy process, but we can become better at it with focused efforts.
You may also want to learn: Bad Money Habits to Drop, Good Money Habits To Build
