— by Teddy Lesmana —
Have you ever realized if you have already reached the age of 30 years old ? If the answer is yes, it does look like you must focus on something meaningful in your life instead of just wasting your time for something useless.
Due to technology and internet, we always get distracted most of the time. Social media, emails, and phone calls consume most of our daily productive time even without we are realizing it. Believe it or not, we often just go with the flow and then shocks that we have reached the age of 30.
Once you reach the age of 30, it does not mean that there is no more partying, hanging out all night, and enjoying yourself. But rather different for somebody who already reach the ideal mature age of 30. Why on earth the age of 30 years old is so much important ? The answer is each seconds, minutes, hours, weeks, months, or even years of your life is equally important. The point is how do we know that our life is going to the right direction? Do we waste every second of our life doing something useless or productive? This is the most absolute idea of why you should have these #8 things in life by the age of 30.
Here are some of those 8 things in life that you should have had once you enter the age of 30 …
- Ideally, You should have been financially independent
Once you reach the age of 30, ideally, you have had a secure job or found your passion in life that will help you to reach the financial independent. No matter what you are doing. Whether you are a manager, a senior engineer, a CEO, an entrepreneur, or even a well known author, as long as you like what you are doing, you are in the right track for achieving the financial independent.
Financially independent means that you don’t depend on someone else such as your parents, for instance. But if you’re lucky and successful on what you are doing, you might even help your parents for covering their expenses.
So, this kind of needs really apply to someone especially who already had his/her own family with kids. Instead of having a main job, sometimes due to the family needs, a part time job could be also important and necessary to have. In that sense, you might not have so much free time anymore since you have to do several jobs at once by the age of 30.
2. You should have had great money management habit
Whether you earn $1 millions dollars per month or $100 dollar each month, if you have bad money management habit which associated with bad spending habit, you will end it up with nothing left in your bank account. Some analysts say that it is not how much you earn but how much you save that does matter. This is critically true and important to watch your spending habit once you arrive at the age of 30 years old.
We have to be able to start budgeting our income each month carefully and precisely. Although it sounds easy and straight forward and probably most of us have already known that, but it is hard to implement that each day. By creating a spending list in the beginning of each month, it may help us to watch our spending. For instance, if we could cut off the budget of our daily lattes / cappuccinos at Starbucks cafe each day by simply buying a coffee powder instead, we could save hundreds of dollars each month.
After making a budget and commit to it, we also need to have a saving goal each month for our long term goal, such as paying mortgage to the bank, children education plan, etc. If you could discipline your self to do it each day, by the age of 30, you will be surprise how much money that siting on your bank account.
3. You should have had an emergency saving account and pension plans ready.
By the age of 30, you should be able to have a decent amount of saving in your bank account or any pension plans. It sounds like a superficial ideal dream world. But it does not mean it is impossible to achieve that. For me personally, I always remembered the story of a homeless guy who applied a job at Microsoft as an office boy. Although by the end of the day, he did not get a job, he could leverage his sales skills and the left over money that he had and turned it into profitable business. After 3 years, he could established his own business selling tomatoes and becomes a successful business man. That story kept on reminding me that making money is not difficult these days. However, saving money requires will power and conscious mind.
4. You should not have had any debts by the age of 30.
“You must gain control over your money or the lack of it will forever control you.”
― Dave Ramsey
Just like Dave Ramsey says, we must gain control over our saving and not just spending it out and end it up with a lot of debts. However, debt is not always correlated with something negative. Many successful entrepreneurs start their business by borrowing money from the bank. However, they have already had a proper plan of how to pay back the loan. The same thing’s applied if you plan to apply for a mortgage to the bank. You must have a proper job with stable income each month. Otherwise, the bank will not approve your mortgage application.
If you are one of them who do not think how to pay back your loan, you should think of ways to get out of debts as soon as possible before you reach the age of 30 years old. Do you know why ? The answer is pretty simple and yet very intuitive. It is because you will have more responsibility than what you had before the age of 30. You might not have a lot of freedom and options when it comes to the family supports and long-term security plans if you have so much debts, since most of your money will be spent on paying the minimum payment of your credit cards debts.
5. You should have had your own property/house/apartment.
Although most of the skills and earning capabilities of each person are different and unique, but logically by the age of 30 years old, you should be able to own your own house/at least apartment.
Just like what Brian Tracy mentioned on his popular book “Secret Habits Of Self-Made Millionaires”, Many people are deeply in debt and the idea of saving 10% of their income, off the top of each paycheck, is too difficult for them even to consider. In this case, which is quite common, I recommend a gradual process of learning to save money where you begin by saving 1% of your income and living on the other 99%.
For example, if you are earning $2000 per month, make a decision today to save $20 per month, or 67 cents per day. You can then live on the other $1,980. Save money in the long run by going down to the bank and open up a separate account, your “financial freedom” account. Money that goes into this account only flows only one way- inward. Once you put money into this savings/investment account, you never, ever take it out or spend it for any reason. It has only one purpose: to enable you to achieve financial freedom as soon as possible. Once you have become comfortable living on 99% of your income, increase your monthly savings rate to 2% off the top. Within one year, you will find yourself living quite comfortably on 10% of your current income. Continue this process until you are saving 15% and then 20% of your income, off the top. You will not even notice the difference in your standard of living because it will be so gradual. But the difference in your financial life will be absolutely extraordinary.
If you apply the method that Brian Tracy teaches, believe it or not, owning your own property/house by the age of 30 is not something unreachable, but would rather as a reward of your saving habit before the age of 30.
6. You should have had some investment besides your main job.
Investment is something that is important once you have developed a great saving habit. Although it is important, but many people are not aware and more reluctant to focus on that. Just like exercising everyday or writing a book, it is good for the future, but nobody really takes it seriously. Investment could be anything. Some people invest their money into deposit account. Some others prefer to invest on property, stock markets, currency exchange and gold. You can imagine if you did invest on gold/stock markets/property when you were 20 years old. After 10 years, by the age of 30, your investments should be double or even 10 times the initial amounts.
By following the advice from Brian Tracy, by the age of 30, you will find yourself living quite comfortably on 10% of your current income and the rest of your income will be invested.
7. You should have had a great long-term and income insurance plans.
Although nobody wants to spend their money on insurances, it is highly unlikely that you can predict the future. The amount of losses is by far much more expensive than the insurance fees per month itself. The insurance itself also should cover any accidents, robbery, fire, income/job loss and most importantly possible death.
The insurance here is to minimize the losses. Although it won’t cover the whole things, but at least it will give you peace of mind. You don’t have to worry about your property or even your saving account because everything is covered.
The insurance becomes more and more important especially once you reach the age of 30. It is because you have family and kids to support. If there is something bad happen to your life, your family would be in danger. The family responsibility is the main difference between your life before the age of 30 and once your are 30 years old.
8. You should have had great pension plans.
Each individual wants to live longer with good health. However, the opposite is true. The longer you live, the less healthier you are. Once you arrive at the age of 30, you should have had a great pension plan not only for yourself but also for your wife and your kids. Don’t think that this pension is just a long term matter that is not important and relevant these days.
Some people even wants to retire earlier in their life. Sounds funny?
Isn’t it great to retire earlier?
Since they want to enjoy their life without waiting until they get older and less healthier. Therefore, the faster the pension plans settled, the higher the chances to enjoy your pension plans and hard work earlier.
Who doesn’t want to enjoy their life without constantly worrying about money, job security, and health. There are so many bank institutions these days which offers the pension plans even if you’re not retired yet.
All in all, We cannot turn back the clock, hence, don’t regret that by the age of 30, you might not be able to achieve these 8 things in life and ended up in debts. Do whatever you can as long as you are still able to work, healthy, and productive to achieve your goals in life.
Stay productive and positive!