A Step Into The World of Investing

I've decided to start investing this year. Small amounts, monthly, put away early. I'll be placing my investments in an Islamic index fund (Indonesia). To my knowledge, there aren't any Islamic index fund in the U.S. but Islamicity.com lists Islamic mutual funds available for Muslims in the U.S. and also the IMAN Fund.

When I compare other funds to the index fund, it doesn't look attractive enough since other's are performing above the index. But, my intention is to start something bigger. I have two kids, one on the way. They're 8 and 5 years old. My hope is to implant habits for them to invest throughout their lifetime as I did not have parents that encourage me to invest early on. InshaAllah, they have many years ahead of them. Who knows what fruits it may bear in 30 years...

Financial Team Assemble!

Financial Team Assemble! Image: Marvel Avengers

 The one thing I've learned from past experiences of working in teams is that the best team assembled are those that include diverse talents. Step 28 suggests your team should consist of a tax advisor, credit counselor, financial planner and lawyer. Kiplinger suggests a dream team of a financial planner, investment adviser, estate-planning lawyer, and an accountant. The two only showing a slight difference depending on where you are with your money, one being in debt and the other with solid finances and ready to invest.

 It all sounds good when personal finance books suggests that you should build a team as if we're all Tony Stark's with money to burn, thus often forget to mention the costs associated with it.

 Spoiler: it's not cheap.

 Now, don't take this the wrong way. I'm not trying to sell the idea to readers that they should spend their hard-earned money on professionals. I'm having a hard time to convince myself to do that actually. So, this is actually me, trying to convince myself.

 According to the article from Kiplinger, financial planners come at a cost of $200-300/hour. There are online financial planners such as LearnVest offering combined services of financial planning plus technological support that starts from $89 one time fee, plus a $19 monthly fee. If I take the "5-year planner" plan, it would be $299 + $19/month, or about $527. That's probably the cost of a "free phone" plus a year contract phone plan or maybe a gadget. So, gadget vs financial planner.

I'm going to consider my happiness on making this decision. I'll categorize this financial planning purchase as a one-time, one-year subscription experience purchase. Am I sold on it? Not yet. I think I'll focus on how I budget my first year and what I achieve.

Spend Less And Earn More, You Should. Yes.

Luke Skywalker and Yoda. Star Wars

Eid Mubarak everyone. I have been gone for too long, but I have not forgotten! My new job is a little too crazy for me and during the holidays I had to catch up with a new book that I'm really excited to be working on (though it turns out to be a really big project) with some editing on Du'a, A Definitive Guide to Supplications from Al-Quran.

Anyways! Let's get things started again with step 25, revisiting your finances and documenting your desired spending. We talked about taking control of our own finances mean being the Chief Financial Officer of our money. It's a weird position to be in since we're also occupying position of manager, accountant, producer (of income) etc. The gist of a CFO in personal finance is either to cut spending or raise income. Ideally you'd like to do both, but both never occur on a continuous basis. You don't get a wage increase every month or year. So, the only option is to look at spending. Once your income increase, you either can keep costs the same (more money left!) or costs increase by spending on higher priced needs or wants. It all depends on your goals and time frame to reach it. You are cutting spending on certain things because you have a reason to cut it, to achieve a goal by the end of the week, month, months, year, and 5 years.

Whilst browsing, I found an interesting CFO mentoring website that got me wondering if there are a personal finance mentor program. There probably is, but at cost. The next best thing to a mentor might be a family member who might not mentor, but can tell it like it is. Another potential, is the local Islamic center to have more discussions about money and build a support program that meets weekly, bi-weekly or monthly.