Financial Planning - Just Get Started

If you're already in your sixties and you have never done any previous financial planning, you might not have the luxury of implementing appropriate financial strategies at a slow, deliberate pace. But if you are younger, you have much more time before you reach retirement age. This means you can go at a more reasonable and realistic pace.

This does not imply that it's okay to procrastinate. After all, how many successful marathon runners show up late to the start of the race or take a snooze at mile 12?

Of course, many people claim they only procrastinate about doing the things that they don't like to do. To them I must say that's the only time procrastinating matters! Leaving work on time to get to happy hour doesn't mean you've solved a procrastination problem. Only when you're early to the dentist's office have you begun to solve your procrastination problem.

In financial planning terms, this means that moving slowly and steadily will get you all the way to the finish line. It's not critical that you figure out a way to do absolutely everything right in the next 30 days. Rather, you just need to be moving in the right direction all the time.

So get going now, at your speed. You can choose to go faster when you are ready to. But get going today, because procrastination is very expensive. On the other hand, starting early provides huge advantages, which include developing appropriate spending habits while you are still impressionable.

You've undoubtedly heard the expression "It's tough to teach an old dog new tricks." It's hard to move down from a McMansion. But when your housing comparison is living in a small space with a roommate who doesn't smell quite as well as he should, living alone in a decent apartment in an okay neighborhood will make you happy.

So that's the positive spin. I hoped it gets you going. If not, here's the brutal reality approach: Waiting costs you big time-it's nearly impossible to catch up. If you wouldn't like your coach subbing you in at the top of the ninth inning down ten runs and shouting "Go get 'em-we need this game!" then don't wait until you're a few years old to start saving for retirement. It's the same thing.