Today morning we almost missed our train. Probably because we started late from home and didn’t anticipate the traffic to reach the railway station.
2 Things could have happened here :-
1) We could have missed our train and would have to take another alternative like going by car or bus or flight. This would again be another hassle as fresh logistics had to be taken care of.
2) We would have to postpone our plan to go to our destination. But this was not an option as we had 5 days of program planned ahead.
Not to forget the stress and anxiety we went through in those 10 mins. Thankfully we were lucky and Stepped in the train at 7:38 am for a 7:40 am one
But you can’t get lucky all the time. Being at the right time at the right place matters and makes all the difference. We all can very well relate this incidence to our financial life.
The 2 most important mistakes that we do are :-
1) We don’t plan for our goals and the target amount required for achieving those goals. So it is not possible to anticipate how to reach there and in how much time and what is the target.
2) We delay our decisions that can actually lead us to fall short of the target amount as “Power of compounding” only works when we give time to our investments.
For example – Ram and Shyam are two friends Ram starts saving and investing for his retirement corpus at the age of 25 , starts with Rs. 5000 per month and gets retirement corpus of 5.71 crores at the age of 60.
Shyam starts later in life to build his retirement corpus, he starts at the age of 45 with Rs.10000 per month and gets only 1.37 Crores as corpus at 60 years.
The only difference here was time, so Ram was at the right place at the right time
Now, considering if we start planning for things early in life , for our financial goals, things will be way smoother and better. We would be able to reach our destination with so much ease and in a stress free way.
I will share 3 Golden rules of investing here :-
1. Start early
2. Save and invest regularly
3. Give time to your investments
We took time for granted as boarding a train is quite different to boarding a flight, you don’t have to be at station 1-2 hours in advance at the railway station. So, we kept doing our chores slowly thinking we have ample time .We didn’t anticipate the traffic , the schools have started and the traffic was slower than usual on the roads.
There is a Lesson in everything and I learnt the most important lesson with this incident.
No matter what, you got to be at the right place at the right time, this is what will matter and make the difference to your lives.
I am not complaining, just sharing aapke saath and THIS will also act as a reminder to self. Baaki, God is Kind and as Tikku jee says “Sab Changga Hai”
About the author: Gurleen Kaur Tikku is a Certified Financial Planner and devotes her time to her company www.hareepatti.com. She has done her Bachelors in Finance and Investment Analysis(BFIA) from College of Business Studies(CBS, Delhi) and MBA from IMT, Ghaziabad. She can be Contacted at [email protected]