Having Your Own Expectation For This Is So Important. Otherwise, Someone Else Might Decide For You.
A newspaper recently ran a story about a group of first year employees at a global investment bank. The position commanded an eye-watering £80,000 p.a. starting salary and the promise of untold riches for those who stayed the course.
It wasn’t easy money, though.
The junior employees were working 98-hour weeks, on average. That means that some weeks were longer still. Given that there are only 168 hours in anyone’s week, and we all need to sleep, that must take some doing.
How does that feel to you? A price worth paying for a financially rewarding career, or a recipe for life disaster?
WHAT WORK-LIFE BALANCE WOULD YOU CHOOSE?
It’s a privileged question to wrestle with because many people don’t have the choice.
But if you do have the option, it’s got to be one of the most fundamental money questions you could ask yourself.
If you hate your job and could find a different one, what is holding you back? What light at the end of the tunnel are you working towards that keeps you in the job you don’t like?
And if you love your job, why would you ever choose to retire?
IT'S WHAT FINANCIAL PLANNING IS ALL ABOUT
Even if you don’t feel that you’ve currently got much choice about your job, there will be something you could do right now, such as reducing your expenditure expectations, or making your portfolio more tax-efficient, that will give you more choice in the not so distant future.
At a fundamental level, personal financial planning is just an exercise in increasing your options, about making your money go further.
But before you can spend, save or invest money, you’ve got to earn it.
So, understanding your relationship with work and what it costs you to earn money is an absolutely essential part of your personal financial plan.
If you would like impartial help optimising your own work-life balance, please call us on 020 3488 9505.
The value of your investments can go down as well as up, so you could get back less
than you invested.
Tax and Estate planning is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.