Measure... Plan... Live your dream!

What if we got promoted and our salary rose to two hundred thousand from just forty thousand per month.  Within three months we will become debtors (may be, I should say again). In the first month we will rock everybody by setting up parties every weekend. In the second month we will settle all the debts we owe and on third month we will plan and get marketing calls. Then we will buy a luxury home, Audi or BMW. These all can’t be done with just two hundred thousand. So we go for a loan, but we easily get a loan with our last three months payslip. As a result, we will end up paying interest every month and get back to office with the fear of losing the job.

This is how it ends and begins on every rise we get. In reality we do not just plan what we really want. Everybody has a dream to chase but each day end up in going to the office. We have heard a lot like, ‘want to fulfil my responsibilities... food for my family, children’s education, home, debts... Is it all about earning enough money? If yes, then first we must measure the term enough.

Measuring is important. In reality we pay more for luxury than what we really need for chasing our dreams. In the hierarchy of needs - food, clothing and shelter comes first, dream comes after. So we should be clear on what we want good tasty food or luxury food? They are very much different from one another. Good tasty food can be cooked with quality provisions or can be bought from a good hotel. Luxury food means having anything on Hilton, ITC and paying for their brand names. The same applies for dresses, houses and anything we spend on daily. We must be clear about the basic only then we can achieve one after another. When we are not clear on what we need then we do not achieve love or belonging and easily go for divorce and things get worse.

So firstly, we need to measure what we mean by ‘enough’.  Then secondly, the most important thing is savings, just saving 10%, 20% or even 30% of every month salary. That is good, but the question to be answered is for what we are saving? In some cases we earn to save, for the future, which is very much accepted as uncertain.

Here too we must plan, out of 10% cut it like 2% for emergency, 5% for children education and 3% to do things we love most. Spend it before we exhaust or expire on things we love most and dream to experience. For this, we will never need a raise of some 425%.