The Importance of Starting Early with Financial Education in Our Lives

• In this story, I have called out the significant importance of why we should start early on our financial education and how we could start with three ideas

In all parts of our lives, the need for money is ingrained whether we accept it or not, or even whether we appreciate it or not. The majority of people spend their lives through earning and spending based on their needs, desires, and wants.

Yes, we realize over the years that money is not everything, and there is more to life. But until we get to that point as individuals, we go through and grind through earning, spending, and fulfilling the necessities of our lives. What if we all can gain wisdom with financial matters in the early parts of our lives so we can reach that tipping point of making enough wealth (let me warn you, “enough” is a very subjective word) and then getting on to make further progress with lives? It could be many things based on peoples’ preferences.

For example, some may prefer spending time on their passion or interest areas like running, cycling, or hiking across the world. Some may want to spend time on NGOs in bringing necessary changes in the communities and peoples’ lives. Some may want to spend enough time worshipping and religious activities. End of the day, the very purpose of life is to do things that can take one to a deep living and appreciate the beauty of life. So, how can one get to that tipping point early in their lives?

Here are the three fundamental ideas that you could start with.

Understand the very purpose of financial goals

Every human life is unique in this world. Some may have enough wealth, but their thirst to earn more would never reduce for all the good and valid reasons. Some may not have enough, but they may be content still. So, a good starting point is to understand where do we see ourselves when it comes to wealth, how much we have, and how much we want to build. Again, it may depend on many things like taking care of personal financial responsibilities, donating enough to the needy ones, building companies to give jobs to others, and many more.

Once we understand where we see ourselves the most, we could then start putting a financial plan together to direct the course of our lives. I learned about putting a personal financial plan when I was 35 years old. I recognize now, it was too late, but I don’t have any regret because, I understand clearly what is my goal of life now, how finances play a part, and how I shall make my life more beautiful and fulfilling. The sooner one starts with financial planning, the greater the rewards of lives, in walking towards the best of the living moments. “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill could be a great start in not only becoming financially successful, but following our life dreams.

Reading Finance books

In our lives, to do anything, we need the knowledge to start with while we also need efforts and hard work, but the foremost is knowing, understanding the concepts of what it is that we want to do and how we could do. While there are many ways to gain that knowledge in this “information overloaded” world, books could be a great way to start. For example, reading the book “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki brought great wisdom for me when it was about understanding the basic financial constructs of building and managing wealth while we want to come out of the rat race.

Understanding how investing works

The most important quality for an investor is temperament, not intellect. You need a temperament that neither derives great pleasure from being with the crowd or against the crowd — Warren Buffett.

Many people in the world go through the life process of earning and spending most of their lives without realizing they had a purpose for their lives. Once when they understand that, the first thing that keeps them in check is the finance part. Some may have accumulated good wealth when they get that wisdom, and some may have not. So, it is very crucial to start saving as much as possible by looking into your budget of income resources and expenditures. You could put the rest of the money into some good investment options that could passively work along with you to help make better wealth.

Reading the below books can help one to get better with becoming better investor to build wealth over long term

• The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham
• The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America by Warren Buffett

Final Thoughts

To summarize, to make our lives more meaningful, fulfilling, and rewarding, the best thing to do would be to understand it from a financial angle and follow the above ideas to start the journey. I bet you would not regret it.

Note: You could refer to this article to understand how you could deep dive on personal financial planning