Work-Life-Money : A millennial way
I'm a software consultant from a developing country India. I usually love technical stuff. I do read and write about them. Never thought, one day , I would write about "Money ".
I’m a millennial or you can say a 90s kid. Have not reached age 30. I could feel that while a millennial will be judging that why is he worried about money now. We have to go through our career a long way. We will have multiple opportunities to earn that wealth. Let’s enjoy , let’s go to that vacation now , let’s booze.
Hey , I’m not gonna tell you how to live your life now. Neither I’m gonna tell you be a miser.
While growing up in my lower middle class family, I was never taught about money. Literally , I studied in my school text book that, "Money is the root cause of all the evil."
Don’t think about money. Do your work, it will take care of your pay check.
I got my first job when I’m 20, right after my college. It’s kind of big deal in India if you get the job right after your college.
3 years just went by just like that. I realized my bank account didn’t reach that six figure(Indian Currency). Though I was earning in five figures per month.
I switched job, didn’t ask for a proper hike. Wasn’t taught about the art of negotiation. Huh, they teach many things in school and college. Guess what , they don’t teach the real life skill.
In my last job, which was in a start-up , I learnt a lot of things by myself and from the people around me. I want to share all of it with you.
Okay the first thing : Don’t complain , take the first initiative to solve your problem.
Let’s start.
1. Learn! Learn !! Learn!!! Then remove L.
How much time do you dedicate in a day to learn ? Or you say I’m busy , I’ve no time.
One day, you’ll get up from your bed and will get to know that you’re outdated. Your competitors have beat you. Market doesn’t value your skills any more.
For example : Google surpasses yahoo as a search engine today.
Ask yourself , what lessons you learned at end of the day or what new you learned today. What are you planning to learn in coming days? Work on that.
2.Three Books rule :
If you want to be expert in your domain, read at least 3 books about it. Start reading at least 10 pages every day. In the end of the month, you finished 300 pages. In a year, 3660 pages. A book has average 600 - 800 pages. Do the math. See you completed 3 books of your domain in a year.
3. Practice what you read :
There is no point of mindless reading if you don’t practice it.
For example: You read it’s good to brush your teeth before going to bed at night. But you don’t do it yourself. There is no benefit unless you practice.
4. 80 - 20 Principle :
In the era of technology, we have a lot of distraction in our life. 80% of those things don’t matter. You have to focus on those 20% of things which are productive and bring value to your life.
For example : 80% of the time, the YouTube videos we watch , bring absolute no value to our life. 80% of the time , our arguments with people on politics , world , movies and fashion also bring no value. Social media comments discussion/argument is a big No No.
Sometimes , we spend a lot of time checking on social media or scrolling internet feeds. But if we focus on only the feeds which are related to our work, it will save a lot of time. Also I would also suggest to limit our screen time out of work hours.
5. 50 - 30 - 20 Method :
This is one of the method which talks about money. Spend 50% of your salary on your needs , 30% on your wants and 20% save for future. If people ask me , I always say save as much as possible. Save 50% and then spend rest 50%. It’s not always possible though. You will have tough times . But you need to be tough during good times , so that you can help yourself in your bad times.
Disciple with money is most important skill you must practice everyday.
Pay yourself first.
SIP (Systematic Investment Plan) is the best way to do it. I’m not talking about only mutual funds here. As nowadays , due to extreme marketing, people always think SIP means mutual fund investment.
Systematic Investment Plan means a structured way into your financial goals and most importantly building wealth.
Do you know the power of compounding, the 8th wonder ?
We all know that we cannot be rich overnight. It takes time , whether you do job or business.
20-30% of our monthly salary accumulates to a large corups over a long time. A simple technique will help you. Decide how much money you want in next 10 years. Don’t say a lot. Think about a figure. Like a million(USD) or a crore (INR). Write it down on your journal. Divide the number by 10(years) then 12 (months). Now whatever the digit is you have to save that amount from your salary. Now you might have figured that you don’t even earn that much in a month. Does it mean that you will never reach your goal? Don’t worry. We did not even calculate the interest over 10 years or equities/dividends earned through a good mutual fund.
There are a plenty of online site or tools available to help you out with your financial plan for free.
Suppose you say still I cannot achieve my goal. One thing : 1000$ per month . 12,000$ per year. 120, 000$ in 10 years .
I think you’ll agree that 120, 000$ is far better than zero.
7. Commitment to the process :
What is that you really want to do with your life. You need to decide when you actually have time in your early 20s. It’s easy then. The goal is still achievable with your memory cells are fast regenerating. Not everyone is KFC founder who shines past 60. Why waste decades of your life doing something which doesn’t interest you? If you find what you like, then comes the commitment. Do you think it’s easy just because you’re doing what you like? It’s not that simple. It takes time and have process. You need to love that process.
For example : We all want that slim fit body. But then we need to workout everyday for at least 1 hour. Need to watch our diet. Need to stay away from that one vanilla scoop. Then it will show the result.
It’s not that I want to write more. It’s still a learning cycle for me. I am on a path to become a better version of today’s me. I’ll also tell you the same. Start today. Do at least 1% better than how you did yesterday. It will be 37.8% better after a year what are you today.
