Financial Planning in your Forties
THE 5 STAGES PEOPLE GO THROUGH BEFORE ACCEPTING THEY ARE IN THEIR FORTIES AND NEED TO GET THEIR FINANCIAL ACT TOGETHER
DENIAL:
• Even though they struggle every month they deny they have trouble budgeting;
• They hide the receipts, they justify that extra double mocha are you havin a joka china, they love paying by plastic, sure it’s the only item they reuse;
• They state their age in years and months just like when they were 8 (actually, ahem, I’m 39 and three quarters). Therefore they don’t need to think about life cover/mortgage protection etc;
• Children and University? That’s years away (when you have reverted back to an 8 year olds method of counting then it is a long way off).
ANGER:
• ‘Why didn’t anyone tell me that getting married means THE REST OF MY LIFE’. You look forward to retirement more (that boat you are going to sail far, far away on), but you don’t have a plan. Your heart starts pounding, did I leave it too late? You then think about your WILL more and more (for some unknown reason);
• You glare at your kids as now that idealistic goal of going to ART COLLEGE yells ‘hands up it’s a robbery’.
BARGAINING:
• ‘Okay so let’s call it a truce’ you say, ‘I may have reached a point where I gotta be thinking ahead more’. You encourage your child’s near fatal attempts with a hammer and nail. ‘It’s not because of the potential zero University expenses’ you cry out as wee little Dicasso (yes remember your hopes and dreams when you named him?) has permanently damaged his fingers and so will never realise his dream;
• You take a job you hate because it has a ‘good pension plan’;
• You now realise that the retirement plan of the job you hate that you took because it had a good pension plan is crap;
• The job you took to swallow the pension that swallowed the…
DEPRESSION:
• You reflect on therhyming in the last sentence under ‘bargaining’, they warned you about that ‘OLD LADY’ in school, she was the one that started this;
• You also realise that ‘rhyming’ is not a word you will ever spell correctly and that saddens you to the core.
ACCEPTENCE:
• You chew the ear off a friend who always gives you good advice.
• You take their advice on board.
• You now look at other people who are turning 40 and realise you don’t look half as bad as them.
• You are now a little smug in yourself…well get over yourself (okay I will give you a little longer to do a shuffle) and spread the word to all those other hearty forty years a warrior peeps.
Sound a tad familiar?
Now skip steps 1-4 and go straight to 5, plan that 40th, call in to see your financial advisor today.
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