Can Money Planning DECISIONS (Not The Returns) BRING JOY To You?
Posted on January 08, 2022 by Richa Puri, One of Thousands of Money and Finance Coaches on Noomii.
You consider your feelings in such small decisions like buying a mobile phone, why would you not consider them while spending, saving or investing...
In spite of all the traditional financial advice being focused on separating your emotions from money and its planning, it hasn’t helped anyone protect their financial plans from their emotions… And we all know that –
Best of plans can fail, if your emotions get the better of you!!
It’s very important to recognise that, we are emotional beings and have emotions towards almost everything around us. Trying to separate emotions from something means, acting while suppressing the emotions that are trying to stop us. I feel, that is just like pushing down a steel spring using lot of pressure. The spring will bounce back with equal force as soon as the pressure gets a little loose. And it can have the potential to derail even the most robust plans.
Rather than trying to separate the emotions from money, I would rather say, understand your emotions towards money. As, you can only control what you know, what you don’t know will control you. – Harrish Sairaman
What do I mean by this?
Try to remember what you thought when you bought your phone or car?
The mere thought of using the phone or diving that car made you feel happy i.e. brought joy to you. Before you even started using the thing, you experienced joy (& excitement)!
Have you ever wondered about the emotional outcomes of your money planning or investment decisions?
Just imagine, you got a big bonus and invested it all as Lumpsum in mutual funds (for a 5-year term), but next day the stock market fell by 5%…
How would you feel –
- Demoralised with a deep sense of loss
- Dismiss it as a short-term thing as your investment is long-term
- If you are feeling the former emotion in point 1, Lumpsum investing will never bring joy to you.
Hence, it would be wrong decision for your investment portfolio. For you, most of the times, preferred mode of investing would be SIP – Systematic investment plan. As SIPs average out your costs and experience less fluctuations in capital due to gradual investing. However, if you in the latter category, point 2, lumpsum can be a good decision after reviewing other factual information about Lumpsum.
Similarly, if you are someone who wants to see their money grow at fast rate, you will be very frustrated by keeping your money at low rate in fixed deposits. You will experience negative emotions like frustration, dissatisfaction & restlessness.
There are several other behavioural and emotional factors that will decide the success rate of your financial plans and the real return on your money planning decisions. Investing without understanding your own relationship with money has high probability of leading to some kind of emotional turmoil.
All your money decisions have the potential to affect your emotions. When you always consider your feelings in such small decisions like buying a mobile phone, why would you not consider them while spending, saving or investing money?
Get in touch with me to know, how I can help you to become fully aware of your emotions towards money and use them to guide you towards improving your money planning as well as your life experience. Remember first step taken is half done!
