These one-liners can help you understand so much about something that sometimes paragraphs, pages and even stories can’t convey. That’s why they are so significant in any walks of life. Let’s dive deep into 9 such quotes on Financial Planning and decode what they exactly mean. I am sure along the way, you would get at least 1 or two takeaway or actionable that could help you pluck that leak in your money management or change your financial life for the better.

No One Has Ever Achieved Financial Fitness With A January Resolution That’s Abandoned By February – Suze Orman:

Beginning of the year is the time of resolutions. Most of the people who want to change anything in their life, usually make a resolution at the beginning of the year and start working on it. However, the majority of them give up on their resolutions before the start of February.

Do you think this is the right way to bring about any desired change? I am sure you would agree with me that it isn’t. You need to stick to the resolutions and see through it during the times when you feel like giving up. That is the only way to achieve the desired results.

Similarly, if you are to achieve financial fitness, success or freedom, you need to stick to your decision of achieving it. Not giving up is more so important in achieving results in your financial life. Simply because attaining financial fitness, financial freedom or financial success is made possible only if you understand that:

• It is a long term, on-going and continuous process
• It requires patience on your part. Your initial efforts might yield almost no to very little results
• You have pursue it relentlessly despite seeing no visible results

Financial fitness is very much like the growing up of chinese bamboo tree. Chinese bamboo tree has a seed, when planted and watered regularly, it will do nothing for the first 5 years. It won’t even come out of the ground level, not even a little plant. After a period of about 5 years, when the tree starts to grow, it reaches the average height of 90 feets within just 1 week.

You need to be fairly patient while working at your financial fitness, knowing that it’s a long term continuous process and keep working towards it relentlessly to achieve the desired results. Trust me, if you can see through the initial turbulent phase, the results you would achieve would be astonishing!

Everytime You Borrow Money, You Are Robbing Your Future Self – Nathan W. Morris:

This is arguably the best quote I have ever read on why you and I should never borrow money. Those who have achieved financial success advises strongly to live well below your means and next few quotes will explain the significance of living below one’s means.

Living below your means implies spending less than what you are earnings. Now if you realize, borrowing money means spending your future income in the present! This is quite contradictory to the concept of living below one’s means.

The current state of the financial service industry, the advent of technology makes borrowing too easy and accessible to almost everyone. ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’, ‘Credit Card Spending’ are the trends prevailing in the market. However, if you notice, these ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ offers are mostly available on discretionary, life-style related spends! It’s because these giant corporations want to increase your purchasing power for the time being to push sales of their products and services.

No, I am not against these ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ & ‘Credit Cards’. I just want you to make sure you are not spending the money which you haven’t earned yet! Quote No. 4 would act as a guide in deciding which purchases to be made using these trap-like trends.

I’d Like To Live As A Poor Man With Lots Of Money – Pablo Picasso:

What would you prefer? Live as a rich man having very little money or live a simple life having lots of money?

In this day and age, with the advent of the internet and social media, people are so much obsessed with looking rich rather than actually working on becoming rich. This quote from Pablo Picasso is a reminder for you and I to start working on actually becoming rich rather than focusing on the glittery world of social media and the internet and trying to look rich.

How can one become rich is fairly simple and explained in 3 easy steps below:

1. Earn maximum income by leveraging all the resources at your disposal
2. Live below your means, try to make the habit of living within 75% of whatever you make at max.
3. Use the difference from step 2 to make more wealth by making the money work for you.

Some people might argue that what’s the point of living life this way. If you are among one of them, then read the next quote. It will help you better understand the idea of living life at its fullest.

Frugality Isn’t About Cutting your Spending On Everything. It’s About Choosing The Things You Love Enough To Spend Extravagantly – And Then Cutting The Cost Mercilessly On Things You Don’t Love – Ramit Sethi:

This quote is very much self explanatory requiring little thought from me. Still I would like to make some points on how to decide on things that you love.

Majority of people decide what they love based on what’s trending, what other people are doing, or what other people would think of them if they do or don’t do something and so on. In short, their decision making about their own life is mostly based on external factors. They are more outward directed people.

Instead what I understand from my personal experience is that you should be making decisions about your life based on internal factors by looking within yourself. Few points to ponder upon are as under:

• Your principles in life
• Your life value
• Your passion and priorities

These are great starting points to set that required base for your financial life. Let’s look at one more quote which would explain why you need to be frugal about things you don’t love!

Stop Thinking About What Your Money Can Buy. Start Thinking About What Your Money Can Earn – J. L. Collins:

Each and every human being on earth has two precious resources available at his disposal. Time and Money. By utilising your time, you earn money. While there is a limitation on time i.e. no one can get more than 24 hours a day, there is no restriction on Money.

It is for this reason that you need to shift your mindset towards money. A big shift from being merely a spendor or consumer to becoming an investor. By becoming an investor you can leverage your money to work for you. Remember, money has no limitations. It can work for you 24*7, throughout the year with getting tired and sick and even without asking for leave and perks.

We all are spendor and consumer for we can’t survive without consuming a number of products and services. The crucial thing to keep in mind is to minimise the consumption based on 3rd and 4th quotes so that we can have enough surplus money to work for us as investments.

Investing Isn’t As Nearly Difficult As It Looks. Successful Investing Involves Doing A Few Things Right And Avoiding Serious Mistakes – Jack Bogle

Let’s decode this quote in 3 segments viz. Difficult or not, The right things and the blunders

How Difficult Investing is?

Besides the two obvious reasons which we will look into as the next two points, I believe that investing is made to look way more difficult than it actually is by the giant players and their stake-holders. (Read the full article on ‘The Truth About Investment Management Revealed’ by CLICKING HERE)

Why so? I am not sure. However, everytime I give it a hard-long thought about it, I can come up with one thing. I can think of a strategy used by Britishers to establish their supremacy on Indian soil i.e. ‘Divide and Rule’. Same way, these giant players in the financial service industry are using the strategy called ‘Confuse them and Sell’. I may be completely wrong in my conclusion and hence I leave it to you to decide. Instead what I will discuss how easy investing is if you do a few basic things right and avoid serious mistakes in the next sections

The Right Things To Do:

Everything with which we are unfamiliar looks difficult at first. However, if one can figure out by acquiring right knowledge and skills, that very thing looks doable. Right? So, what are those ‘right things’ to do in order to make investing look easy and doable? Here they are:

• Acquiring basic knowledge of various asset classes and how they work. Just basic, you don’t need a doctorate degree to figure it out.
• Understanding various investment risks.
• Now, formulating a strategy for your investing journey based on your investing or financial goals, keeping in mind the basics of asset classes and investment risks and congruence with your life principles, values and priorities.

That’s it. You are good to go as long as you avoid serious mistakes.

Blunders To Avoid:

Not following any of the right things to do is the first and basic blunder to avoid. Apart from that following are common mistakes that can seriously hurt you as an investor.

• Shiny Object Syndrome: Chasing every investment product that is there from time to time.
• Peer Pressure Investing: Investing in something because your colleagues, friends and relatives are doing so.
• Obliged Investing: Investing just to oblige a friend or relative.
• Tips and Hacks: Following every tip and hack on investing across media and from ‘the so called experts’ could be detrimental to your investing success.

In short, avoid everything that is not a right fit with what you have decided as a result of the above right things to do.

Those Who Are Looking For Risk-Free Returns Are Likely To Find Return Free Risks – Warren Buffett:

This is the best quote I have ever read about investment and risks. You and I both have been taught during our school days that every investment carries one or the other risk. Still after growing up, people forget this basic fact and look to play safe by trying to avoid risks.

Another point I would like to bring to your notice is that Risks and returns have direct relation. In simple words, higher the risk, higher the probability of returns and vice versa. So, by trying to avoid risks you are minimizing the chances of higher returns.

Further, there are various kinds of risk associated with investment. If you try to avoid one risk, it will automatically expose you to the other risks. E.g. Most Indian prefer playing it safe and hence avoid investing in equity asset class and prefer secured and guaranteed investment avenues like a Bank FD. This is a classic case of avoiding Market or Volatility Risk by not investing in the equity asset class and getting exposed to risk of Inflation. (Read the article ‘Investment Risks Simplified’ to understand investment risk by CLICKING HERE)

The logical thing to do rather than avoiding risk is to understand the risks and be prepared to manage it by having a strategy or plan in place.

A Portfolio Is like A Bar Of A Shop. The More You Handle It, The Smaller It Gets. – Wall Street Adage

You know where it’s coming from. The shop gets smaller and smaller every time you use it or handle it. But the investment portfolio is not there to be used, it’s there to grow. Then how is this bar of a shop formula true in case of a portfolio?

Well, it’s relevant. Just like you use the bar of a shop only when you want to get clean, you need to look at the portfolio just when it’s required to. Checking it frequently won’t make it grow!

So, a strategic approach is needed to handle the portfolio. Here, Jack Bogle’s few right things to do would be handy. Having the right strategy at the start of the investing journey would act as a guide to handling portfolio.

More strategic approach would prevent frequent chopping and changing in the portfolio by emphasizing the fact why something is there in the first place. With this let’s jump to the last of the 9 quotes.

Money Is A Terrible Master, But An Excellent Servant – PT Barnum:

Before you read any further about this quote, I want you to spare a few minutes to think about how many activities and decisions you do and take are directly or indirectly guided by money!

If you have thought thoroughly, you would agree that starting from the moment that alarm rings till the time you sleep, about 60% of the activities and decisions are directed by money. If I don’t wake up now, I would be late at the office (guided by earning money); While going to the office, you see an amazing car passing by but you can’t afford to buy it (guided by not enough money).

Now think of Mark Zuckerberg or Warren Buffett. How many activities and decisions they take on a daily basis would be directed by money? You might be thinking well, they are billionaires and hence they can do whatever they want without worrying about money.

You are right, they are billionaires. But self made billionaires unlike many others who have inherited a huge chunk of wealth. The only difference between self made millionaires/billionaires and you and I is that you and I are working for money and money is our master and has the power to dictate terms. Whereas these millionaires and billionaires have mastered the game of making money work for them.

Like them you and I can also make money work for us even if we don’t have much money. Time is at our disposal and we can utilize the time to build something which would earn money for us. Once we have money, we can make it work for us using few ideas about saving and investing money from these quotes. It’s just figuring out the way to make money work for us and then begin to work towards it till we master it.

Final Thoughts:

Financial success is all about earning maximum, spending frugally, saving and investing the difference to generate optimum return. I have put together these quotes covering major aspects which would help you have the right steps towards your financial well-being.

I would love to hear your thoughts and views about the same in the comments. And don’t forget to share the article with someone whom you care for and  who might benefit from it.