This article does not pretend to give you any special knowledge, but it may help you learn something useful about your life. Without extra water, just in case.

Four years ago, I took a course that was supposed to remove negative attitudes about money and expand the boundaries of money management. And it really worked. A lot has changed in terms of money. But there was something else. In one of the tasks, it was necessary to calculate how much money I will earn in my entire life.

And, I will tell you directly: the result upset me very much! There was not about $1 million for a lifetime, it was 70 million rubles at that time. Less than half a million were produced. And the optimistic version with an increase in salary at that time predicted a little more than $1 million for life.

It was a sobering blow! After that, I made a template for calculations and began to recalculate about once a year. It is especially relevant if there have been changes in income in the past time. A lot has changed since then.

Just counting is not enough. At the same time, it is important to write down your thoughts about the results obtained, so that you can compare them with your future self.

But in order to know how much was earned, you should write down all your expenses and income. I have my own table for this, which I have been keeping since 2011 (I can show you a template for it too, if you want). You should start keeping yours if you haven’t already.

Link to template

The life income table has a description of how to fill it out. There are cells for information, there are for numbers that you need to change to your own, and in the cells with a red font you will get the results. They may not be accurate, but perfect accuracy is not necessary here. General understanding, order of numbers is required. Moreover, the next time you count, the results may change significantly.

What is it for? I’m sure you have dreams and goals. Buy a car, an apartment, a game console, a new top-of-the-line phone, go on a trip around the world, fly into space, pay for your children’s university and many others. etc. And they all cost money. Make a separate table with them and calculate how much you need to do all this. And compare with what you managed before. Is it possible to do everything before retirement? And for life? If not, how much revenue should be raised to make it all happen?

So you may have a new goal that will allow you to realize the rest.

All these calculations helped me a lot in life. Let them help you.