I happened to see this blog by a young university graduate. It was a financial blog in which he chronicled his journey of earning, saving and investing his money. He called it his $1 million Personal Financial Diary. His aim is to have a net worth of $1 million by 38 years old. When I looked at his net worth at 26, it was already at $102,000. Actually I considered it quite an achievement considering he just graduated and also taking courses (Chartered Financial Analysis). He was already giving tuition while schooling and managed to save at least $50,000 when he graduated.
Perhaps due to his background in finance, he goes very much in-depth into investing in stocks and shares. He is very good with financial planning for his life. In fact, he was so disciplined that he watched his daily spending, limited to $10 per day. In order to achieve his target of saving $500,000 by age 33, he also has to seek his girlfriend's understanding. No luxury items, no pampering, no holidays, not even movie shows! I really salute his girlfriend! She must have shared the same financial goals as him!
He has a very well laid-up plan for his future, like planning to have kids only at 32 or 33 years old, after his flat has reached the Minimum Occupation Period of 5 years. After which he will rent out his flat and stay with his in-laws as they can help take care of his child. He hopes to generate passive income of $3500 from his flat rental so he doesn't need to work so hard and can spend quality time with his family. He forecasts that they will be able to save at least $3500 monthly by then. He has already projected an estimate of his future expenses.
Actually in the past I would be so amazed by his meticulous planning. Of course there is nothing wrong in having a target and plan for your life but I learnt through experience that Proverbs 16:9 'In his heart a man plans his course but it is the Lord who determines his steps' is so true. I was never so intentional about planning my life when I was a fresh graduate. I was actually quite blur then. I never knew about financial planning. The closest I knew was saving up and planning for my wedding and home! After that when we still had leftover savings, we thanked God and went on to buy our first car! We didn't think too much about how much it cost to maintain a car in Singapore...we just went ahead to do it by faith, trusting that God will provide.
It was only after I stayed home that I started keeping track of our household expenses mainly because my hubby is the sole breadwinner and that I have more time now to do such things. But even so, I wasn't even planning our finances till retirement, not even for our son's future university education. Yet in my years of staying home, I realised that we were never in lack. In fact, God prospered us with just one income. And so we don't really plan for our financial future to that extent. We just go with the flow. We don't have any targets as to how much net worth to obtain by what age.
But what we do is we keep an open mind about wealth and riches. We will enlarge our vision, stretch our tents so that we can be a better receiver. We know that it is our Father's good pleasure to give us His kingdom so we enlarge our minds to accept the great plans He has for us. And yes, we continue to tithe and sow seeds into His kingdom because the spiritual law of seed time and harvest always works. When you sow a seed and water it, you can always expect a harvest though it may not be immediate (Mark 4:4-8).
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