by Annie H. Liko

Created on: March 11, 2009

Drowned in the hectic everyday life, few of us do seriously take time to reflect on our future. We live as if tomorrow will come and go and life goes on and on. We splash money on unnecessary expenses, we build up our life surrounded by debts, we take our loved ones for granted and by the time reality hits us, it can sometimes be a little too late to regret on what should have been done and what shouldn't have been.

We have labored long and hard throughout our life but still money never seems to be enough. Even with that obvious knowledge, we still refuse to see the need to put aside certain amount for rainy days. Every pay day, without fail, we will be joining the queue at the bank to save a few dollars but before the end of the month, we will be back in the queue again to withdraw out that same few dollars. Our bank account serves only as a transit point - salary banked in today and immediately later, that money will be out. We waited for one whole month to get that cash into our hand and then in just a matter of minutes, it's gone.

Should we continue to ignore thinking about our future and taking some serious steps to at least contribute towards a better one, what will happen if out of the blue, one of our loved ones needed money for emergency medical treatment? Where will we run to if suddenly the company that we've worked for decades decided to cut its manpower and we are one of those unlucky few who have to pack and go? What will happen if disaster strikes and all our properties vanished in a snap of a finger?

Many of us belong to the majority group who never go far beyond our retirement years. We spend what we make right away. When our employment time is up, there is still not much money left even though we have spent most of our adult life working and we are then forced to depend on our children to support us for the rest of our life. Our children, whom by that time will already have their own family to take care of, their own life commitments as well as their own retirement to plan for; will have to be further burdened down with our up-keeping and our medical bills just because we ourselves were not responsible enough to seriously think about the future and making any concrete plan while we still could. A lot of heartaches can be avoided later in life simply by:-

SETTING UP OUR FINANCIAL GOAL

Having less money doesn't mean we cannot create our own "safety net". Even though the amount will not be as much as we would like it to be, it's still better to have something to hold on to rather than nothing at all especially in desperate times.

APPRECIATING OUR LOVED ONES

We will never know if tomorrow we will ever wake up to another day. Always bear in mind that our life is not in our hands and we are here on borrowed time.

LOVING OURSELVES

Most of us live on the spur of the moment; we recklessly indulge in activities or substance that can harm our body over times. We will not be the only one suffering if we are to be hospitalized or bedridden just because who take our life for granted. Our loved ones will also bear the brunt whereby they will be robbed of their precious time and money for taking care of us because of our own selfish attitude.

It doesn't hurt to glance into that crystal ball occasionally and make the effort to budge a little bit more on our future plan. We will have fewer worries if only we take the time to evaluate on what is most important to us before it's too late.

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