Question: How much of my income should I save? How much of my savings should I allocate for retirement, education, emergency funds and other future costs?—Allan Magtoto, corporate employee via e-mail

Answer: There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to these things. Personal finance is very personal and concerns like these are relative and subjective. Ratios and formulas are broad gauges and theoretical in nature. A more thorough personal analysis is the best approach to answering your queries and a professional financial planner is the best person to answer your query. It will be in your best interest if you see one.

I can give you some suggestions that may provide some broad stroke answers to your questions.

In my talks and seminars, I often talk about the 70-30 rule at great lengths. It means that for every 100 percent of your net income, you limit your spending to 70 percent and save and invest the remaining 30 percent. In the past, we have heard about saving 10 percent of your income and you will be OK. I’ve done the math and 10 percent will simply not cut it. Considering inflation, accumulating just 10 percent of your income will not be enough for the many life events that you will need to prepare for financially. However, 10 percent is indeed a good start especially for those who are having a difficulty setting aside money on a regular basis. As you get a better handle on your finances and as your income goes up over time, increase the percentage allocated for your savings and investments until it reaches the ideal rate of 30 percent. For the younger ones with no dependents yet, a higher percentage of savings will be a great idea and will allow them to get a much-needed head start in an uncertain future. The 30-percent savings can be used for the many events that we need to plan for.

For emergency funds, allocating three to six months’ worth of your expenses would be a great hedge against whatever emergencies you may have to deal with, including sickness or loss of employment. Many of us do not have emergency funds, which is unwise. I recommend you start with building your emergency funds first before tackling the other concerns. Once you have done this, then you are ready to start preparing for your other life events.

As to education, it is best if you can compute estimates of the escalation of tuition costs and match those with appropriate investment planning, which a professional financial planner should be able to help you with. Again, and for the interest of this column, I would give you a ratio that can be a good broad rule: allocate 10 percent of your income for future educational needs of your children. Savings for education should be invested properly so that the growth of the funds will overtake the rising cost of education. You may want to do regular investing for the next 10 to 15 years of the child, which should be able to cover future education costs. Pooled funds like UITF or mutual funds might be a good choice as an investment instrument, among others. If the funds exceed the actual educational costs of your children, you may want to divert the excess to other needs like retirement funding.

For retirement, 10 percent of your income is also a good theoretical ratio. Retirement, like most things in life is relative. If you plan to have a very comfortable and luxurious retirement, then it will take you more than just 10 percent of your income. However, a decent retirement should be able to be achieved with regular retirement investing for at least 20 years. Retirement is a long-term need so it is best financed by long-term investments like real estate, stocks, mutual funds, UITF and business ventures. The longer you prepare for retirement, the better it will be for you to grow your capital. Long-term investments will allow you to wait out the volatility of the investment environment. As a general rule, investments, though fluctuating, should go up over time.

Another 10 percent of your income can be for a general savings fund, which you can use for other plans like equity for your home, family vacations, seed for business capital. Just make sure that you invest your savings properly and you understand the relationship of risks and returns.

Let me reiterate that what I wrote here are merely broad stroke allocations and should only be followed as a general rule. We all have individual needs and preferences; therefore, we should have individual planning. Certain financial requirements may take precedence over others—a home might be a priority over retirement during the earlier periods of your life.

This column appeared at the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Posting the column I wrote for the January-February issue of Moneysense.

——————-

I am writing this column at the very last day of 2011, truly a blessed year for me and my family. I probably gave the most number of seminars, talks, lectures, TV & Radio appearances, counselling, blogs, columns and articles for 2011. Somehow there has been a great demand for financial literacy more than ever and I am so encouraged that Pinoys are becoming to be more and more aware of personal finance. I found myself in many places, from Baguio to Davao, even in Singapore, Hong Kong and Macau – all in the name of financial education. I’ve been through many conferences, campuses, churches… even coffee shops – the invitations keeps on coming and I keep on accepting.  I never tire of teaching, speaking and writing and I hold on to my belief that a more financially educated citizenry will result to a better nation.

While there were events that zeroed in on more technical aspects like investing, mutual funds, insurance and the like, bulk of the topics I tackled were about personal finance basics – money management, debt and getting started or how to get back on the road to a financially peaceful life. I used to belief that knowing the knowledge of finances will answer many of our queries in life but through the years I learned to accept that finance is more of behaviour rather than a skill. In my insolent ignorance, I thought that if we teach people the rudiments of knowledge based finances, they will achieve financial freedom. Yet, I can’t help but look at myself; with all the knowledge that I have acquired through the years, is my financial life getting really better? How come there are so many of us who are so well versed in finance yet our lives do not really mirror what we teach? And then I stumbled on a principle that opened up my eyes and I myself began to change for the better. Having a financially peaceful life is really 80% behaviour and only 20% knowledge. As the saying goes, it’s all in the mind and it’s all in the heart. The answer to many of our financial questions rely on our behaviour and not so much on our skills. Even if you are the best stock broker in the world and yet you do not save enough for you to invest, you will have nothing to show for. I like the old joke that says “ever wondered why they are called stock brokers? Because they are broke”… sorry, pun intended. By contrast, I have seen many prosperous individuals with limited financial know-how but they are well disciplined when it comes to their money.

Don’t get me wrong, financial knowledge is important but will only be useful if the behaviour is firstly ideal. As an advisor, I have listened to many stories of mayhem and mistakes, while some of them are born out of lack of knowledge, most of them are really about wrong behaviour. I have since altered the way I teach and the way that I write, while some say that I ‘dumbed-down’ finance too much, I beg to disagree – I just chose to focus on some essentials first before teaching the ‘nose-bleed’ stuff. Once the mind and heart is in the right frame, knowledge will follow naturally.

I urge the other advocates of financial literacy to re-think their strategies of putting much emphasis on knowledge first before behaviour, doing so will mean they can really make a difference to more people. It is not a move of compromise but a move towards effectiveness.

In 2012, I pray and by God’s will, that I get to teach, speak, guest, counsel and write more than my last 3 years put together and I will continue to sing the same tune, behaviour first then knowledge.

Here’s some nuggets of wisdom from one the world’s richest guy, Mr. Warren Buffet.