Question-Week ending Sunday 09/08/02:
Think carefully based on our Pre-Poll Finance definition and choose the total amount of time you devote to Financial Management per month. Please read the Pre-Poll Commentary before taking the poll.
Pre-Poll Commentary:
In this week's poll, we will try to illustrate the importance of investing more time on your personal and household finances. For a point of reference, we will consider the term FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT to encompass many important aspects of your personal life including but not limited to:
Bank Accounts - Checking, Savings, CD's, Mortgages, etc.
Investment Brokerage Accounts - Stocks, Bonds, IRA's, etc.
Collectibles - Art, Coins, Antiques, etc.
Insurance Policies - Life, Home, Auto, etc.
Tax Management - Capital Gains, Estate Planning, etc.
It's most people's dream to someday be financially independent. We'll define that as being able to live comfortably, off the income produced by your assets that you have accumulated over the years. This dream can only be realized if you focus on obtaining and maintaining the knowledge necessary to achieve this goal. Financial Independence does not happen by accident. Even if you are fortunate enough to inherit what may seem to be a nice sum of money or property, you still need competent skills to hold on to what you inherited.
Financial skills take time, patience and persistence to acquire. You MUST PLAN and devote TIME each month to managing all aspects of your finances. You should also utilize some tools to help you manage and analyze your assets. A good place to start is using computer programs like Microsoft Money or Intuit's Quicken software packages. At the minimum, start by putting your checking accounts into these programs, so that you can maintain budgets and have precise reporting on your expenditures. You can then add your other investments into these programs.
If you don't find the time to manage your finances in a skillful manner, your chances of financial independence will diminish considerably. Take the necessary steps to being a competent financial manager. The security and peace of mind that you will gain from being in total control of your financial destiny, will definitely bring more happiness into your life.
This poll will end on Sunday 9/08/02. Watch for the results and summary on Monday morning 9/09/02.
Results:
- 31% reported they invest 2-4 hrs/mth on Financial Mgmt.
- 24% reported they invest 5-6 hrs/mth on Financial Mgmt.
- 17% reported they invest 10-11 hrs/mth on Financial Mgmt.
- 14% reported they invest 7-10 hrs/mth on Financial Mgmt.
- 12% reported they invest 1 hr/mth on Financial Mgmt.
- 02% reported they invest 12 + hrs/mth on Financial Mgmt.
Post-Poll Commentary:
It's reality check time. Everyone wants to be financially independent. But like anything you want in life, a great deal of planning and skillful execution of those plans must take place to get what you want. This all starts with a commitment of time.
Our poll results can give some insights on what activities take precedence over others. Our top vote for this poll was 31% percent invest 2-4 hours a month on financial management. In fairness if we used 3 hours a month as the top choice, that equates to an average of a whopping 6 minutes a day devoted to Financial Management. Going back to our TV watching poll a couple a weeks ago, 40% of our respondents reported watching TV for 3-4 hours a day or an average of 210 minutes per day. 210 minutes of TV a day verses 6 minutes a day devoted toward financial management. That's a 35 to 1 ratio. Is there something wrong with this picture?
As we state often on this website, time is the most precious asset we have. We most devote more of it towards the worthiest goals we have. If we want to be financially independent, we must find the time to focus more on planning and achieving our financial goals. TV time is a great place to borrow some major time from, to focus more on financial management. Hope this poll was meaningful to you.