Best of Ojeagbase

Strategies for planned retirement

We are still on the first step of my six-point agenda for planned retirement. And the point I was making in the last instalment was that you must decide not be a liability to others in your old age. When you take that decision, it will change your thinking.

Instead of thinking that others owe you a duty to provide for you, you begin to hold yourself accountable for what is not working in your life. And what that does for you is that it forces you to begin to look for a way to turn things around because you now realize that it is your responsibility to do so. You’re now the boss. The buck stops at your table.

Now, let’s get back to when you take that crucial decision not to be a liability in your old age. Taking that decision alone will not conjure the Aladdin’s lamp to miraculously fall on your lap. Such magic lamps only exist in the Arabian Night stories where a boy who acquired the magic lamp and a magic ring could summon two jinn to fulfill all his desires.

But you are not living in the land of fairies. You are right here on planet earth where harsh realities exist that you must face squarely or you become their victim.

The one wonderful thing that decision you’ve just taken will do for you is that it will cause you to see what needs to be done. That is, the task at hand; the obstacle between you and what you want that must be removed so that you can get to where GOD wants you to be.

Let me digress a bit. Talking about obstacles and overcoming them, imagine GOD saying to the Israelites in the wildnerness that He had given them Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land; but that they must “begin to possess it, and engage him in battle”? [Deut 2:24]. Why must they have to engage in a battle for the land that GOD had already given to them?

Think deeply about that for a moment. It will give you a clue about the challenge that is confronting you right now. You see, the good life is available for you. But, friend, you must roll up your sleeves and do what YOU have to do in order to enjoy it!

And that brings us to a hurdle that most people wish does not exist in life. But the hurdle is immovable. You either understand its nature and master how to leap over it or it will prevent you from making progress financially.

What is this hurdle?

When I stated in my previous article that “you must start [planning for your retirement] by opening a savings account and start operating it; and then, move money from your savings account into investment account and start investing it wisely, which means you must be financially literate,” I could hear a loud protest to this recommendation from some quarters.

“Does this man know what he’s talking about?” was the cynical objection. “How could somebody who is not working or someone whose salary is not enough for him to ‘manage’ open a savings account? What will he be putting there?”

That’s it right there: the hurdle I was talking about! The hurdle is your mistaken notion that you must first have enough money before you start to save and invest. That’s where YOU and most people are getting it wrong.

Friend, listen to me and listen carefully. Any man [or woman] who does not learn how to over-ride this objection will never be financially free. Believe it or not!

If you’re waiting until you have enough money before you start to save and invest, you’ll probably wait forever. And planning for your retirement will be an impossible task.

So what is the answer to the problem?

There are two viable and reliable answers to this question. One answer is for someone who is working while the other is for someone who is jobless.

For the jobless, the only dignifying way of crossing this hurdle is to understand how to create a legitimate cash flow and sustain it.

I’ll explain how that can be done in my article next week. But let’s look at how someone who is working can start saving and invest towards retiring gloriously even if the person considers what he’s earning as meagre.

Believe me when I say no one ever earns “enough money.” That is one lesson that being financially literate will teach you. Every money you earn must be committed to earning more money for you perpetually.

Even when you stop working, the money you earned while working must continue to earn more money for you. Otherwise, you will soon be broke if your money is flowing out of your bank account without creating a channel for it to flow back into it.

And also note, no one has all the money in the world to buy everything they wanted. Not even Bill Gates, until recently the richest man in the world! I know. I know. You think I’ve over-stretched the fact. But I’ve actually just made a factual statement.

Yes, Bill Gates can buy a whole lot of things that you cannot buy now, or even think of buying, because he has so much money than you do. But the truth is that Bill Gates does not have all the money to buy all the things he desires. Not even Mexican Carlos Slim, the current richest man in the world. Ask them when next you see them. No one ever does, however rich they may be.

And that leads me to the greatest secret I’ve been waiting eagerly to share with you. Once you learn this secret, and you can put it to work, you will automatically take control of your finances. This is one of the secrets that I discovered that helped me to stabilize my own finances.

Here is the secret. Please take note of it and commit it to memory. Our desire is what controls our spending. If you can control your desire, you can control your spending. And if you can control your spending, then you will automatically be able to save, no matter how little you’re earning.

This is how I put this secret to work in my own life. Like every human being, my desires are many. But I recognize that I cannot have all of them at once. So I go for the ones that are within my reach and express deep gratitude to GOD for giving them to me while I keep working towards the ones that I don’t have yet.

That way, I’m never under any kind of financial pressure. My motto these days is: until you can afford it, don’t pine for it.

In order for you to benefit from this secret, you must break away from all the habits and every other thing that pull you towards spending everything you earn and compelling you to borrow more to supplement it. When I say everything, I practically mean everything.

The only thing that you don’t have control over is sickness. That’s a life or death situation. And you should do everything you can to stay alive where you can. But beyond that, you should resolutely say ‘no’ to any other situation that wants to force you to spend all the money that is coming into your hand.

Once you enforce that discipline in your spending, you will soon be spending less than you are earning. And that is the beginning of wealth building, which will make it possible for you to retire on your own terms.