Living for Today

Denying yourself of life’s little pleasures can lead to success in personal finance. Living frugally requires a lot of sacrifice which explains why many don’t engage in such. The temptation of splurging money is so hard to resist that the concept of saving for tomorrow is easily forgotten. Those who continue to choose to live for today justify their lifestyle by saying that “Life is to short, you’ll never know when you’ll go so might as well enjoy now than regret”. But what IF (and that is a big if) you’re bound to live longer than others?

The table from Reuters below shows that as of 2004 the average life expectancy of a Filipino is 70.7 years old. That is 68.6 for male and 72.8 for female. It also shows that the life expectancy extends by 2% every four years (translation: People will live longer!). So if you are 20 years old today, then by the age of your retirement (which is forty years from now), you are expected to live for another 27.9 years (with the life expectancy reaching 87.9 years by that time). That is assuming of course you’ll only be on the average (but there is also a chance that you may even outlive that).

This is why we need to plan for our finances now. An aging man with no wealth to stash is a pitiful sight don’t you think? Imagine having to live the full of the 27.9 years after retirement with meager or no resources at all!

Ric Edelman in his book “The truth about money” wrote it perfectly:

“You will be on this earth for 40, 60 or 80 more years. You can choose to live month-to-month as you have been living, or you can choose to live better. Give up you materialism for a few years, reduce your needs for now, and one day, you’ll be able to exceed your current lifestyle. All it takes is a little effort each day, and a lot of days.

There isn’t any magic to this, no get-rich scheme. And while you may be afraid of how much time it will take to succeed, that’s nothing compared to how much time is really left in your life. So what if it takes you 10 years to get out of debt? You’ll still live have 30 or 50 or 70 years to enjoy after that.”

Your lifestyle will always be a choice, are you living for today or do you want to enjoy the luxuries for tomorrow? It’s your call.