Simple Financial Planning

When I first started my brokerage account, I was 19 years old. I knew little about the stock market and I knew little about trading strategies. My parents were strongly against me trading stocks and securities, but they eventually realized that the trading could be a good, albeit hard, way to learn about finance.

Learning how to invest taught me how to take calculated risks and most of all, it made me want to make money! Like people always say, money can’t buy you the world, but without money, you can’t buy a single thing in the world. So indeed, money isn’t the most important thing in the world, but it is one of the more important ones.
From the place where I come from, if you’re a young average male (means your Dad doesn’t have millions so much that you have enough spare cash to burn), you’d probably be in-debt due to school fees before you even get started working.

In such an environment, if you’re a guy, you’d probably be starting to feel the importance of money by the time you’re 21. As they say, females can always marry a rich man and get a lifetime ticket to riches (although it is not happening much nowadays), males can seldom say the same. As the male, you’d probably be the one making the money (and the decision) in a relationship.

Many are putting marriage on the KIV shelf because they simply do not have enough money to get married. Imagine, study debts, the cost of marriage and the cost of housing. Marriage would most probably bring about kids and the cost and commitment of having children.

Men should starting being financially independent at a young age, and by doing so means we got to start pro-actively learn how to make money work from a young age. This may include reading up and understanding how the different markets work, taking up lessons on entrepreneurship understanding how making calculated risk can give greater returns.
Please don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating risky investments. I am just highlighting the importance of investments. There are so many kinds of them from risky ones like forex, stocks and futures up to almost risk free bonds and fix deposits. It is up to the individual to analyze and decide what risk level he is comfortable with is and the possible returns such investments can yield.

Start learning the importance of investing young and be pro-active in expanding your portfolio as you grow older. This will ensure that you will be more financial prudent and you will make decisions (especially those that will require a large sum of money) better, because you understand how your money is working for you.