That may be true, but financial success doesn’t have to equate to fancy French pastries, including millions in savings, lavish spending, complex investment schemes, and expensive guidance. The key to financial peace of mind is similar to a simple, humble, but totally satisfying pumpkin pie recipe. All you need is some care with a few key ingredients.
Recipes and tips for financial success
Know what you are going to cook
Have you ever tried to make a recipe that you have never tasted or seen a picture of before? It’s very difficult. It’s very difficult to create something if you don’t really know what it actually is.
Financial planning is no exception. You need to envision the future you want to live in.
And your future doesn’t have to be the same as everyone else’s. Actually, do you want to know the secret? My family doesn’t really like pumpkin pie, so I make lemon meringue. Your financial goals don’t have to be the same as everyone else’s. The important thing is to have goals and objectives that make you happy.
Make sure you have all materials and tools
It’s much easier to follow a recipe if you know the ingredients and tools you need and have all of those components on hand.
The elements and tools needed for financial success include:
- Income (expenses less than income)
- your values
- save properly
- Invest
- protect yourself from risks
- Some people know how
The recipe is below. The NewRetirement Planner is a complete recipe book for financial success. We will take you step by step towards the future you desire.
Read the entire recipe before starting
What lesson do you remember from learning to cook as a child? Read the recipe all the way through before you start.
Following a recipe requires a series of steps, but it may not make sense unless you understand the end goal. Also, if you cut corners early during the baking process, you may end up with a disastrous dish. If you don’t chill the butter, you’ll end up with a thick, greasy batter. If you remove the pie from the oven too soon, the custard will become runny.
The exact same thing applies to your financial life. You want to understand how to gather all the necessary ingredients and mix them in the right proportions, in the right order, and in the right technique to achieve the financial success you desire. You need a lifelong financial plan.
Create and maintain your financial plan with NewRetirement Planner.
Your Budget: Like Puff Pastry and the Foundation of Financial Success
How much you earn, how much you spend, and how much you save are the true foundations of your financial success. It is the crust or foundation of the financial pie.
You need to feel like you’re not only on track to achieve your long-term financial goals, but also in control of your daily and monthly finances.
Maintaining a budget today and planning for future spending needs is critical to financial success and the key to financial peace of mind.
Investing: Keep saving
So, if we can continue the analogy, investing is like baking a pie. If you don’t put the pie in the oven and wait for it to bake, you won’t be able to eat it. Baking a pie is magical. When you leave the gooey dough in a hot dish, it transforms into a silky custard with a crunchy texture that’s sure to please any pie lover.
Also, you don’t have to constantly peek into the oven and make adjustments while the pie is baking. Once you put it in the oven, you should forget about it.
You can adopt the same strategy for investing. Ideally, you just put your savings into sensible investments and wait for your money to grow. If you have a long enough time horizon, especially if you keep your investment strategy simple, you can ignore market highs and lows and just let the market take its course. Many experts recommend a portfolio of index funds to buy and hold for the long term.
Note: Pumpkin pie is just one part of the Thanksgiving feast. Also, depending on your investment goals and financial needs, index funds may be just one asset type in your overall portfolio. Here are some resources to help you determine the dishes, optimal baking times and temperatures you need to be financially successful.
Optimal asset allocation at different ages
Is a retirement bucket strategy right for you?
Asset allocation example
I combine the pros and cons
Manage your debt: To be financially successful, you need to make the right substitutions in the recipe
What is the debt analogy in the pumpkin pie recipe? If you don’t have all the ingredients you need when you start a recipe, you may have to substitute debt.
Sometimes recipe substitutions produce pleasant results (substitute Chinese five spice for cinnamon), and sometimes disastrous results (substitute salt for sugar). The same goes for debt.
Taking on debt to help you get ahead: Things like college debt, a mortgage to buy a house, and a car loan can help you get ahead financially (especially since a mortgage can be more of an investment than a long-term debt) ). .
However, having other debts can undermine your financial health and make it impossible to move forward financially.
understand the risks
A few years ago, a few days before Thanksgiving, our oven started acting up. It starts up and then randomly shuts down. I called the repair person and they had an appointment. I researched what the problem was and frantically ordered parts from Amazon, but they didn’t arrive in time. In the end, we played around with it and just barely managed to actually cook the turkey and all the sides by turning the oven on and off every 10 minutes.
But I wish I had a double oven, a spare.
To be financially successful, you need to have a backup plan for things that can go wrong, such as inflation, long-term care needs, and the ups and downs of the stock market. However, since you can’t imagine and plan for everything that could happen, here are some additional tips.
Don’t forget the whipped cream: prioritize what’s important to you
Budgeting, investing, debt, and risk can all be quite stressful. But money is not just a burden. In fact, money can buy happiness, especially if you use it to accomplish things that are important to you.
You want to create a financial plan that allows you to live according to your values and what makes you happy. After all, I don’t know anyone who really loves pumpkin pie without whipped cream (or even ice cream). You need whipped cream in your financial life too.
Share it with the people that matter to you
What’s the real point of baking a pie and cooking an entire Thanksgiving feast? It’s about sharing it with the people who are important to you.
There’s one thing some people regret on their deathbeds. It’s that I haven’t been able to spend enough time with the people I love. So prioritize how you spend your time with the people who are important to you, whether it’s sitting together around the same table or on a holiday call.
In addition to how you spend and allocate your money, the real secret to financial success is planning how you spend your time.
