Things To Consider While Working- (2)

      iii. Keep your Family intact.
Whether you got married before you were employed or after, recognize your family as the bedrock of your life building. It is a foundation that you cannot ignore if you must build a solid house of your life. This is to say in a plain language that your family should not ignored. Because of the enormous responsibility bestowed on one upon marriage, it is often recommended that a would-be couple should be fully employed in one form of work or the other so that they can both be earning income to sustain the upcoming family. No doubt, it is very important to have a means of livelihood before going into wedlock; it gives you some financial independence to nature and maintain your home among others. This has delayed many would-be couples from getting married and more often than none, has created a problem after much waiting to get a good job before marriage; many of such intending couples got separated or snatch by someone who is ‘ripe’, not necessarily in age but in wealth, money and all that, leaving the other party ‘hopeless’. This is common with ladies especially matured ones for fear that they may eventually be the looser if anything should happen to the relationship later in life.

It is not uncommon to find a situation, in which the couples have not gotten a sustainable means of livelihood, went ahead and got married; at the end they have a successful home. Whereas there are cases of couples that not only have the means of livelihood, they came from a wealthy family background that the issue of money is not a problem, but yet have a broken marriage few months after tying the nuptial knot. It is very important that a couple should get employed before going into marriage; however, this is not the only condition for keeping the marriage. There is need for divine direction and guidance.

Let’s drive our boat back to the track, keeping your or family while working, is very important. What appears to be a digression in our early explanation of whether or not an intending couple should be fully employed before marriage has to do with many problematic couples tracing the root of their problem to getting married When there was no means of livelihood or in the case the wife alone was the one working before the marriage. After the marriage, the husband then gets a job, and a very good for that matter, that now brought about many changes has opened the eyes of the man to now the inadequacies of the woman he married to when he was an applicant seriously looking for a job.
Whatever is your lot, whether you got married before you got a good job or after, you must have a peaceful and well nurtured family? Note that the work you are doing now that is taking all your energy has a limited span. It is only your family that has no life span; no wonder in taking the marriage vow, it is often said until ‘death do us part’. While work is very important, don’t sacrifice your marriage for your work. Your work life must recognise the important position of your family.

iv. Plan
It is important to plan, and start planning early in life. Planning cut across many areas in life. If for instant, you have financial planning, family planning, retirement plans. These three among other plans are no doubt very fundamental. It is therefore useful and of cause relevant if we can have a brief stopover to consider them interns.
Financial Planning; help[s you to make efficient use of your money without spending more than what you have. It helps to keep you out of debt.

From day one of your working career you should cultivate the habit of financial planning. You plan essentially because you don’t have essentially to take care of your needs you have now and would want to make provisions for the raining day. One thing about life is that you can never be satisfied with money all the time. The more you have the money, your needs increases and the more you will love to have. This is why planning is essential.

The money you earned or received is channeled through two main outlets; it is either you spend it or you save it. This is where you begin to make the choice about your money. If you decide to spend you can do that in a number of ways; if also you decide to save, you could do that using different vehicle of savings. Also you may decide to spend the whole money and no savings or you save all and no spending. These are the extreme and not too common. Except you have other sources of income, what you earned cannot be all saved; you will definitely have the need to spend on some basic necessities. It is however possible for you to spend you’re earning/income without provision for savings especially when your income is below subsistence level, not enough to make ends meet. Planning your spending however helps to make judicious use of your money. To do tis effectively, a prudent planner would want to be guided by answering the following questions: (i) do I want it? (ii) Do I need it? (iii) Can I do away with it? Trustfully observing the financial plan either by an individual or by a family would help to avoid some financial pressure and crisis.

Family Planning is to deliberately choose the number of children a couple wants to have and the spacing of one child to the other. A lot has been said about the need to embrace family planning not only to prevent sexually transmitted infection (STI) but also for economic consideration.

Right from day one when the young couple consented to the vow “for better for worse, till death do us part”, the expenditure graph has taken a new and upward shape. From being double husband and wife to now adding extended families from both sides (i.e. husband and wife) which in this art of the world, are still prevalent; within months of contracting the marriage, the fruit of the union is manifested in additional number to the family. The multiplier effect on the family finance can better be imagined as the new entrant into the marriage has to be taking care of in the provision of necessities of life: food, clothing, housing, security, education.

Before now, it is a fashion in agrarian society to have many children from many wives. Apart from seeing it as a measure of social status in the society, having many children and wives easily give the much needed helping hands in the farm,

Things are changing fast. The agrarian society is giving way to urban centres. People are moving away from rural farming to urban industrial centres. With this migration and its attendant challenges, people are very much conscious of having to produce the number of children their resources could take care of. To live well and take proper care of your children, you must plan the size of your family early enough.

Retirement Plans is the third aspect, this is simply referring to a deliberate plan put in place while working that will take care of one’s need when one is out of work, either by retirement due to old age or by reason of any other impending factors.

Apart from saving towards retirement, there different types of investment vehicles that you can go into which would help to take care of the period of retirement.

Adapted from the book Planning  A Blissful Retirement by P. Tai Adediji. pg.20-26