Managing Expectations; Personal Quarterly Earning Reports

Managing Expectations, Calvin's Way.

Life is much easier when the pressure is off your shoulders. You hear it in sport commentaries when the underdog will have a go since they don't have the must-win expectation tagged to the favorites. So, what's best when you set your budget? Under-promise. Over-deliver.

There are two personal financial statements in the quarterly personal finance report :
1. Balance Sheet which will show your net worth, whether you're increasing in wealth or becoming poorer;
2. Income Statement which is your realized monthly budget.

Companies have quarterly financial reports to release, and we should too. Our earnings announcements should be in the months of March, June, September and December where we take a picture of our financial condition for the quarter and reassess our goals. After every release comes expectation of how the company (you) position itself for the next quarter. Personal finance is pretty predictable in normal circumstances; we will get your income bi-weekly or monthly. If we set our annual goals and break it down quarterly, we should at least quarterly fulfill what is expected of ourselves. But, take a step further by outperforming on a quarterly basis in cutting our cost/expenses and constantly increasing our net worth. We should have high expectations of ourselves to perform better if things are going well economically.

Can we meet our own target performance? If we can, then it was expected. If we under-perform, investor (your) confidence lessens. If we over-deliver, it's good. Management (you) get a bonus of becoming richer due to good performance.

The awesome thing is, this can be a family event like how companies have conference calls. We can hold an earnings announcement and conference calls as a family. Children should very much know whether their parents are in debt, since debt is passed down to children.

Are you an able manager to push yourself and your family to prosperity? Of course you are, if not then who else? I guess the one expectation that you can't manage is your own. Personal finance is a must-win game.