I want all of my dear friends to read and get familiar with the so-called financial planning.
This is a short post. Please bear with me and keep reading.
Financial planning knowledge is as important to human being as the knowledge to…breathe. I now wonder why they dont teach us this basic knowledge at schools. I used to think that it was just about getting monthly salary, use some of it, save some of it in the bank, so later we can use it in case of medical emergency or for holidays maybe. It turns out to be a lot more than that. It mostly is about investments.
So, we are now working (or in schools, then we will work). Getting decent monthly salary. We try to save 20% of our monthly salary in the bank. The bank will multiply our money by a little interest rate. We do that for 35 years of our working life. We think it will be enough to support our future life (future kids’ education fund, future holidays, future medical/hospital/labour fund) and also to support us when we are retired (maybe for 10 – 15 years?).
The fact is it will not be enough. Because of what? Because of INFLATION.
The value of our money now (+ interest) will decrease in the future. What we have now (+ interest) will not be enough in the future. Some might say, “oh maybe in our future there will be no inflation like in the past (or maybe there will only be a liiiitle inflation) because the future economy looks like it’s going to be awesome”. No. The fact is inflation always happens, ruthlessly.
But we can deal with this inflation things. By learning about financial planning!
To learn more about financial planning, we can:
- read the book Untuk Indonesia yang Kuat by Ligwina Hananto for starters
- listen to Financial Survival talkshow on Cosmopolitan FM every Tuesday or Financial Clinic talkshow on HardRock Fm every Thursday
- read more about gold investments (Kebun Emas pdf maybe) ,or
- property investments (but we can’t afford it yet), or
- insurance (not really an investment, just a protection),
- or do businesses (many have done these. I’m not good at this),
- or saham/reksadana/etc (I dont understand these as well).
Like Mrs Hananto implied in her book, we have to master financial planning not only because we have to save merely ourselves from future bankruptcy, but also to save our kids and our relatives, and the rest of the social community. Because we are the middle class (Im asuming that I dont really have many billionaire friends), and a strong middle class is the key to get a nation’s economy moving. I mean, if we are unable to support ourselves in the future, then we might become a burden for our kids or relatives right? They dont have to carry our problems. They should have all chance to become the most of their own. By being the most of their own, they are most likely to be at best in holding up their welfare. And hopefully the cycle continues. No one falls again below the poverty lines, instead, we are able to help them.
