by Karen Cheong

Created on: April 06, 2007   Last Updated: October 23, 2009

It's not difficult. I'm sure everyone can achieve it. It just needs discipline, some knowledge and maybe a little luck too.

What is financial success ? It's not the amount of money one has. It's having enough money to buy you the things that are important to you in life - time to spend with your loved ones, to do the things you truly enjoy, to give it away to those who need it more ... When seen in this light, it's easier to impose the discipline needed to get there.

Why discipline ? If you spend money today buying whatever you want, you won't have that money in the future. Most people work hard for our money. Don't spend all of it today ! Especially not on things that won't be around tomorrow, things that eventually disappear or are not worth anything in the future like the latest car, TV, handphone. Save some of it. Over time, it will grow much more than what you have put in. It's called compounding.

And don't go into debt, not for things that will not be worth anything tomorrow. I read a cute tagline once. It said : Shopping is spending money you don't have, on things you don't need, to impress people you don't know. Credit card debts are rising. And it doesn't help the credit card holder. To quote another line I read : If you are in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging. Cut spending ! Start repaying.

Why discipline ? You need to invest your money to make it grow. And to do that, you need to learn something about investing. People are willing to spend 8-12 hours a day at work, working for money, but not willing to spend just 1 hour learning to make money work for you. There are so many ways of making your money grow : you can invest in stocks, buy properties to generate rental income, start a part-time business etc. But it takes time to learn about them. It doesn't make sense to work so hard for your money, sacrificing time and other dreams to earn it, and then turn it all over to someone else to manage it for you. You don't even need to know that much.

why luck ? Well, I guess bad things happen to some people. Jobs can be lost etc. But it's important to be able to get out of bad situations. And good luck ? Some believe some people are luckier than others. I like to think we're more in control than that. That there are opportunities ( "good luck") available for everyone. We just need to learn to recognise them when they come. And that goes back to discipline in learning how to recognise them and discipline in having the money and time to grab the opportunities when they come !

PS : The article is mine but the information here has been summarised from the many different books on financial planning I've read. I started with almost zero knowledge and a lot of confusion about all the financial advice available. While I hardly qualify to be an expert, I think I've improved along the way, and better off for the time and money invested so far. As I said, it's not difficult. If I can do it, so can you !

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