Читать книгу More Straight Talk on Investing - John J. Brennan - Страница 36

As I noted in Chapter 1, when people ask me how to go about setting up a financial plan, I usually offer them four words of advice: “Live below your means.” Simply put, to live below your means, you must not spend more money than you earn.

Living below your means is the ultimate financial strategy. Actually, it's more—it's a way of life. If you want to be able to invest and accumulate wealth to help yourself or others in the future, you simply cannot spend more than you earn. Living beneath your means and becoming a saver are so critical to your financial success that I'll talk about it here and again in the next chapter. And I'll discuss some tools and techniques to help you do it.

Effective saving isn't just tucking away as much money as you possibly can. It's also knowing where to put your money so that it will earn a reasonable rate of return and be there when you need it.

A friend whose firm is one of Vanguard's large corporate clients frames the concept as follows: “When I'm talking to our employees about the importance of saving and investing, I urge them to think of themselves as ‘personal financial entrepreneurs.' We're all financial entrepreneurs, running our own financial operations, first in our working years and later in retirement.”

As a financial entrepreneur, you'll want to create an income statement. In business, that's a summary of how much profit (or loss) a company had during a certain period of time. For you, it's the same thing. Your personal income statement would list your revenues (e.g., your pay, plus any investment income or gifts you receive) and your costs. The costs would include your fixed expenses (e.g., taxes, mortgage, insurance premiums, student loan payments, car payments, and the like) and your variable expenses (e.g., food, clothing, entertainment, charitable donations, and discretionary items).

When examining your income statement, if there is money left over after expenses are subtracted from revenues, you'll have a net profit that is available to invest. If you have no net profit, and in fact are borrowing to maintain your lifestyle, you are operating at a loss.

Living below your means is tough in a materialistic culture in which advertisements constantly play to our egos and the media provides endless images of “the good life.” But the unsung benefits of being a saver are priceless. You'll have enviable peace of mind because you won't have to worry about making ends meet. You won't feel wistful about your goals because you'll know you're traveling steadily toward them. And you'll know that, if need be, you're in position to withstand unexpected financial challenges. Let's face it: Unexpected financial needs occur in everyone's lifetime. People get laid off from their jobs, incur extraordinary medical expenses, or need to offer financial assistance to a family member. If you're a saver following a plan, you can weather those challenges far better than people who spend every penny they earn.

But what about the “good life”? Don't savers miss out? No, they don't. They simply gain control. Living the good life isn't just about material possessions—it's also about possessing financial flexibility and broadening your options, and, importantly, about having things to which to look forward. Accumulating capital is the reward if you choose saving in the saving/spending trade-off.

If you have a job and are earning money, the most fundamental financial planning question is this: Are you going to spend it all on current needs and wants, or will you set your living standards below what you can afford so you can save some of what you earn? Even if you can afford many things, the reality is that you cannot afford all of them. Before you decide how you'll spend your paycheck, decide how much you want to be setting aside for saving and investing.

Two additional thoughts on saving:

1 It's never too late to become disciplined about saving, but the sooner you develop the saving habit, the easier it will be to achieve your goals.

2 It's a good idea to reevaluate your savings habits from time to time, particularly when going through major transitions in life.