What to Expect in Your Finances During the Earning Phases of Life?
Preparing Financially for the Decades – Part 2
In the previous installment we covered the financial implications found in the learning decades. In most (and I mean normal) cases, you rarely have enough to get by or satisfy your life in the learning decades. In decade-1, everything you do and have is on your parents’ dime. In decade-2, you want to spend so much more and you feel like your parents should do more, yet they give you financial restrictions. These restrictions begin to drive the thinking that you need a job or a way to earn some cash of your own. The problem here is that the majority of your time is spent learning (and it should be). In decade-3, you finally start what we call career-work which is 40 hours a week work. You begin to make some real money, but you have big expenses since this is the start of you having and creating your own home environment away from your parents. That brings us to the earning phase (decades 4-7). Let’s discuss.
Decade 4 (30-39) – Solely Responsible for My Financial Outcomes
In decade-4, one starts to get the hang of handling his or her own finances. She or he begins to understand that they are solely responsible for their financial outcomes. In other words, they have been weaned off their parents financial backing and no longer have their safety net, so to speak. In decade 4, a person is standing on their own financial feet from this point forward. Again, this is the normal progression that should occur, but as you know it doesn’t quite happen that way in our reality, hence the reason for this lesson.
In decade-4, a person learns that they simply can no longer waste money, but have to be purpose driven in their finances. It’s in decade-4, where a person gets a clear understanding that not just he or she is depending on their financial outcomes. At this stage, a person begins to realize how important it is to be financially stable; someone else is now depending on his or her financial outcomes.
Decade 5 (40-49) – Seeing A Light At the End of the Financial Tunnel
In decade-5, one begins to see the light at the end of the tunnel financially speaking. What we’ve noticed is that a person at this stage of life (40s) is beginning to get beyond the lack of cash and abundance of debts that we experience in the preceding decades. While we are not completely out of the woods yet in decade-5, one can begin to see better financial outcomes.
Allow me to paint a picture for you. A person in decade-5 is cautious with making unnecessary purchases. A decade-5 person is thinking of financial outcomes that are long term and not short. Generally, in decade-5, student loans are paid off. One has fewer credit card debts and loans in general. All big financial mistakes like bankruptcy, repossessions, bad investments, and get-rich quick gimmicks are usually all behind us in decade-5. I bring this up because the majority of us fall for these negatively impacting financial opportunities, but when you’re expecting them to come, you can do something about it.
Decade 6 (50-59) – Making Room for My Financial Future
In view of decade-6, I sum it up this way. Decade-6 is when one makes room for her or his financial future. Booma asked me, what do you mean by this? Well, because at this stage of life, you have 5 decades or 50 years of experience behind you which also means you have less than 50 years in front of you. Therefore, you no longer put off tomorrow for what you should do today. [1] You no longer have time to wait to get your finances in a better position. In decade-6, you’re now at the place you once (in decade 3-4) were dreaming of and making future plans about.
However, as you know, what’s ideal is not reality. That being said, don’t put off aligning your financial goals with your action plan. What we expect to see in decade-6 is to begin living our greatest life financially that we’ve ever had. In decade-6, one adjusts to the income he or she has generated and uses it to create the life desired. With this thought, begin making room for your financial future.
Decade 7 (60-69) – Get Out of the Habit Trap
In decade-7, it’s so easy to fall into the habit trap. Before you ask what that means, I will give you an example first. You’ve heard a person say that they didn’t know what to do with themselves once they retired and thus went back to work? The reason this occurs is because a person didn’t have a plan nor a plan of execution for after retirement. They find themselves feeling like they have nothing to do because their habit for more than 40+ years has been to work some type of repetitive job. There’s a habit that’s formed that must be broken like an addiction. A similar habit trap can occur financially. One has saved all their life for this moment and the habit is to continue to save for the proverbial “someday.” BTW – that word “someday” is equivalent to “no day” or never.
The solution to this however is to make a shift from the habit of saving wisely financially to spending wisely financially. This is the time you’ve been waiting for. It’s here. It has arrived and is now your time to be enjoyed.
In decade-7, you are no longer planning on retirement, instead you are working on retiring from mandatory labor. By this time, most of every major expense you’ve ever had has been paid. Now you find yourself no longer a slave to your you debts, but, rather financially speaking, living your best life ever. Have a plan in place so that you will not fall into the financial habit trap.
Before we move on to the returning phase of life as it relates to one’s finances, I’d like to remind you of the purpose for these lessons on the decade calendar. You see, Pamela and I have made many of the missteps we’ve mentioned in this content. However, we made a decision not to allow those missteps to derail our plans. Notice, we have a plan. You need a plan. The plan guides you when a misstep occurs. Otherwise, once you take a wrong step, you will not know how to get back in step. There is no shame in making a plan no matter which phase and stage you’re in as long as you have one. This is your life and it is your business.
Question: can you think of any one whose misstep in the earning phases of life you would never wish to follow after?
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Find out more about the Family plan here.Reference #1: Proverbs 6:1-4 NLT, Bible.com, accessed March 14, 2022, https://www.bible.com/bible/116/PRO.6.1-4.NLT
All Scripture references used by permission, see our Scripture copyrights.
