The Basics of Financial Planning for Hustlers

Alright. Financial planning. Financial gurus be-warned, some controversial opinions incoming.

So we all know the common basics of financial planning. Live below your means and save as much as you can. I totally agree with those. For most people those are enough to achieve modest financial freedom someday in the future if followed religiously. This means you will probably be able to cover your living expenses and have a comfortable life with good housing, clothing and food. But if you are reading this, you are likely a hustler trying to achieve either great business or career success. Most hustlers don't do modest, most hustlers want to make it big. So throw those common basics away and read the following paragraphs carefully.

The first basic principle of financial planning for a hustler is to know oneself. You have to know your character, strengths, weaknesses and financial habits. As we are focusing on financial planning, we will look more at financial habits. If you don't know your financial habits, its pretty hard to plan anything because your habits will get in the way. How do you know your financial habits? Track your daily expenses and income. If you do this for the next 6 months you will know who you are financially and finally get an answer to that unending question people ask themselves: Where is my money going? Good thing is that you can now do this with many apps. My favorite is Money Lover

Another basic principle is making a budget according to financial habits and not according to 'wishing to minimize expenses' alone. Look, you are who you are. If you can't kick the habit of spending a few hours at the beach bar 3 times a month, that's you. But maybe you truly can't afford 3 times a month but you can afford once a month. Put it in your budget. Maybe a weekly trip to the spa is too much but twice a month is manageable, put it in. We all have those things that we can't let go. As long as they are not harmful to you, limit them but put them in your budget even thou they are not 100% essential. That way you don't end up 'relapsing' to super spending due to following a really hard budget plan.

The third principle is to have a saving and investing strategy. Most people have a saving strategy only. As a hustler who wants to make it big, its hard to achieve financial success with a saving strategy alone. You are better off allocating at least half of your savings to investing instead. This is because as inflation grows, over several years your savings won't be that valuable anymore. Investing on the other hand brings a greater chance of more returns over time. Additionally if investing in appreciating assets like real estate and precious metals, your investment value grows with inflation. Investing is dependent on risk appetite. If you love risk taking then emerging assets like crypto are for you. If you are risk averse then areas like bonds will suit you better. Do your research.

There are 2 best investments for anyone who wants financial success: investing in themselves and investing in people who took people like themselves to their goals. Start investing in these areas immediately as its the best financial planning basic. Everyone who is financially successful might have done it through different businesses and countries but 2 things are constant. They continuously improved themselves and they found people who did great stuff for others and added them to their teams. Start learning more stuff everyday, be it courses or coaching or books. Build networks with potential 'kingmakers' by identifying their effectiveness while working in other teams or even charities. If you have some spare cash, pay them handsomely to become part of your team. Bill Gates has 100 billion reasons to be happy because of putting Steve Ballmer into Microsoft.

The last financial planning basics for hustlers is, remember compound interest applies everywhere, not only on money. Use it. We all know that if you put money into an interest giving bank account, if you leave it without ever taking it out, the interest in the 1st year, leads to some interest in the 2nd year which leads to more interest in the 3rd year and so forth. That is compound interest. This also applies to relationships, knowledge, reputation and even health. As long as you keep going positively in those areas, eventually growth will become exponential. And that's how 'overnight success' occurs. These people were most likely watering their seeds to success over time until they finally got most people's attention. If you master this well, you will almost certainly achieve your financial goals.

And its a wrap! As a hustler, you probably already know that the journey to success can be challenging. Hopefully things that you got here will lessen the hurdles on the way and enable you to achieve what you want faster and keep it. Lets keep running, fellow hustler.