In life, there are three kinds of “What Ifs” and I am sure at some point in your life you have experienced both of them.  We have to plan for the “What Ifs” of life.

Photo courtesy of: http://zandas.net/what-if/

The first “What If” is looking back at your past and thinking what if you made a different decision or followed a different path, and maybe to some extent feel nostalgic or have some regrets.

Can you imagine what your life will be now if you learned how to handle your finances earlier and you didn’t incur bad debt due to consumables? What if you learned about investing in mutual funds, take for example in Philequity Management, Inc., since 1994?  What if you started investing in stocks using COL Financial since it was established in 1999?

Whoa, get a hold of yourself.  It’s okay to be melodramatic for some time but you need to stand up.  Learn from your past mistakes. Plan your future and move forward.  That this is the only way to go.

The second “What If” is dying too soon.  Some people when they are undergoing challenging time, have a tendency to complain about life, think about giving up on life and even think that it is better to die.  But did you know that dying is more expensive than living?  According Loyola Memorial and Atienza Funeral, average typical cost of dying is 200k++ Php and can even go up as high as 1.5M++ Php.

So what happens to you when you die?  More so, what happens to the people you leave behind?

Unlike what actors in the movies say, reality is, your family cannot just roll you in a carpet and dump your body in the lake.  Of course, you need to buried or cremated.  Your family need to come up with a decent amount of money to give you the last respects you deserve.

Basically, you need insurance to support you family when you die.  The insurance you get can also help your family to pay for the estate tax of all your assets which includes but not limited to real estate properties, savings accounts, paper assets, etc.

You can also get memorial plan, including memorial services, memorial lot or columbarium for your own peace of mind that your family need not worry about what to do in the event of your death.

The third and last “What If” is living too long.  You might think am I confusing you that I just said earlier that it is a problem to die too soon but then living too long is also a problem.  Did you know that in the Philippines, the average life expectancy for male is 69 years old and female is 75 years old?

Let’s take a scenario, what if you are a female who retired at the age of 60 and only have retirement funds covering you for 15 years, what will happen if you live beyond 75 years old? A few solutions: continue working even if part-time, depend on your children for your expenses, delay retirement, move to the province where the cost of living is cheaper.

I remember Kim Kiyosaki sharing in one her books about overhearing a couple’s conversation in a bar in Hawaii.  The couple are one-week old retirees who are enjoying a vacation in Hawaii and when they did the math, they realized that their retirement fund is not enough.  Can you imagine instead of feeling free and enjoying their retirement they suddenly felt a heavy weight on their shoulders?

This is the whole point of your investments where you can get passive income through your paper assets, rental income from your properties, royalties from your books.

So I encourage you to start now, start today with getting your finances in better shape, then buy insurance from a trusted agent and diversify your investments in order to avoid the “What Ifs” of life.