As part of the financial planning process, I find out what you would love to achieve in life. That may involve lots of different things; paying for your kids university fees, changing job, travel, moving house. Usually, to achieve these goals in life, you need money. But you enjoy life as it is and don’t really want to change things. But you also have all these things you want to achieve. That is why I am finding myself telling clients “You can’t afford it”. You simply cannot afford to carry on living the life you have and do all the things you want to do.
You could always earn more money. If you are an employee, it is likely that your ability to earn more is limited to what your boss thinks you should be paid. If your are salaried, working longer hours won’t pay you anymore. And I have yet to meet a client who managed to get a pay rise on the back of “my financial planner told me I need to earn more money to fulfill my dreams”.
The other option is take a second job. You could do an evening job to help put that required money away.
If you can’t earn more money to pay for everything, the other option is to realise you can’t afford it. You can carry on living the lifestyle that you really enjoy but you need to be aware that at some stage in the future, your priorities will change and you will not have the money to fund these changes.
Or you can realise that you don’t have the money to do everything and make the changes now. It will mean going without now but you will really benefit from it in the long run. The hard part is getting started. It’s saying to your friends that you’re not going out for that meal (seeing as people don’t talk about money, you don’t have to tell them that you are saving the money instead), or not going on that weekend away.
But when you go on that family trip to Australia or you are there to see your child receive their parchment when they’ve completed their degree, you will know that it is worth it. The hard part is taking that first step and making the change to your life now so you can have a better future.
What changes do you need to make to your life so you can have a better future? Drop me an email at steven@bluewaterfp.ie and let me know.