I was telling Rene Suhardono – our personal career coach, teman nongkrong and cela-celaan, of how people have been talking about ‘not having enough income’.
It bothers me and I said that should be Rene’s department. I manage people’s money, not necessarily responsible for how much and how they bring it in.
Rene’s response was as usual : cut-throat. He said he’s met so many executives saying that they don’t make enough money. He said that’s not his problems either. If somebody comes in and want to talk about expanding their career, he can help out. But if it’s not enough money… that’s financial problem.
Dang it… I was gonna refer people to you Ren hehehe dia lempar balik bola nya 
So guys… get to work!
When your career coach and your financial planner said that they don’t have direct impact on your regular income… you should!
Bring in the money and try to split this into the ratio :
FROM TOTAL NET INCOME
10% savings/investment
30% monthly loan installment
30% routine expenses
30% lifestyle expenses
Once you get the hang of having regular savings/investments, your career moves upwards and you make more money, you can revise this ratio into :
FROM TOTAL NET INCOME
30% savings/investment
30% monthly loan installment
20% routine expenses
20% lifestyle expenses
Most of our clients started off with the first ratio. Get yourself going with regular investment of minimum 10% from net income. After the 1st year, most of our clients are more interested to increase their investments, moving up their list of financial goals, achieving more of these goals, or even better revise their goals into something even higher in value.
Please, please…
Don’t make your savings/investment portion to be 50%!
Unless you’re my Dad
The interesting part is, as planners, we are only concern on keeping your 30% of income on savings/investment and 30% income on loan installment. The other 40% for routine & lifestyle expenses are all yours to manage. So I found myself freely switching between our lifestyle expenses whenever I want to. For example when I want to shop more, I will be cutting down on some of our meal expenses. When Azra wants to go for his drawing lessons, I’ll cut down on my spa treatment. When Don wants to splurge on more cups of Starbucks, he’ll cut down on his games & DVD. When I want to try on our latest finding of fancy restaurant… I’ll switch it from my shopping fund, which will still happen after my next coupon redeemed from our credit card rewards points. Lots of other not so important expenses that can be deferred.
You see, your expenses don’t matter anymore because the focus will be on your investments! Now tell me is that cool or what???
Your financial plan should work for you…
Give it some thoughts and let time works it out…
Believe me, it’s so liberating when you can spend some money for yourself and not feeling guilty because some parts of your income is working really hard to achieve the important goals in your life.
Finance Should be Practical!
Ligwina Hananto
