Last week, a prospect asked me, ‘Min, what’s the need of financial planning? My financial plan is simply to maximise my wealth’.

This reminds me of my parents’ financial plan (very different but also similar in a way).

As first-generation migrants, my parents had to start from scratch after arriving in Australia. They lived frugally and always saved as much as they could. Their financial plan was simple – ‘save as much as possible’.

If our financial plan is simply ‘maximise my wealth’ or ‘save as much as possible’, we’re forgetting the most important and finite resource to us all – TIME.

Money can be made and spent, it can be borrowed and lent. But time is fixed, we all wake up to 24 hours a day and we all have a limited number of hours on the planet. We often forget about the balance between money and time. We make choices as if time was infinite and money was the most important.

If you’ve been busy building a pile of money, do you know what that money is for or where the finish line is? How do you know you’ve crossed the finish line? What if you could slow down, get more time back, and enjoy the things that truly energise you?

If you save as much as possible and feel guilty when spending money, would you have more peace of mind if you know all your important goals have been taken care of and you’ll be OK. Would that give you the confidence to enjoy the nicer things in life without feeling guilty?

You see, real financial planning is not just about return on investments; it’s also about being intentional with the life we want to live and making the most of our money AND time.