Make Your Bucket List An Inspiration To Do Well

There are a few things that all of us would love to do, see or achieve during our life time. However, “when” and “how” to do these things can be quite a challenge for most of us. Hence, it is always a great idea to prepare a bucket list as that helps in prioritizing and living life to the fullest. 


Hemant Rustagi 
Chief Executive Officer, Wiseinvest Advisors

A bucket list helps you look beyond your ‘To-do-list’, which usually consists of those things that you do as a part of your routine life. For example, investment goals like creating a corpus for child’s education, marriage, buying a house and planning for retirement form a part of it.

A bucket list usually has two types of goals, that is, those that are self-indulgent like holidaying at an exotic location or buying a latest gadget, and those that are more purposeful, like further studies. Since it may not be possible for you to focus on all of them, the key is to prioritize them and make the list achievable. Remember, making your bucket list achievable does not mean compromising on your dreams. In fact, it helps you avoid including impossible indulgences in the list. This is crucial as unachievable bucket list can be counter-productive. Simply put, instead of being an inspiration, it can make you feel depressed and compromised.

Similarly, “when” is as important as “what”. For example, in a situation where you have to decide between buying a car or going for a desired trip, you may have to prioritize one over the other. In fact, even if you prefer to buy a car, you may still like to opt for the trip if it is for an adventurous sport as you may find it difficult to do that at a later stage.

As is evident, a bucket list is important as it involves goals that inspire you to do well in your life. It is not to say that things you do for your loved ones are not motivating enough for you to do well in life. The difference being that bucket list goals help you recharge your batteries and inspire you to excel in life.

To ensure that your bucket list is not vague, you must list out everything that you would like to be a part of it. To simplify this process, make your bucket list goals a part of your overall investment plan and provide for them like any other goal.

Therefore, the next step should be to ascertain how much money you will need for the goals in your bucket list and assign a time horizon and a target to each one of them. It is important to ensure that the target for each of the goals in the bucket list is worked out in a manner that there are no shortfalls.

For example, if one of the goals is to travel to a specific place after a defined period, inflation has to be considered while working out the cost of travel as well as other related expenses. It is equally important to execute the plan in a cost-effective manner. For example, planning for the trip well in advance can reduce the cost considerably as you can get attractive rates for airline tickets and hotel bookings.

While planning creates a road map, it is equally important to choose the right investment options. Mutual funds can be an ideal investment vehicle as they offer variety, flexibility, potential of higher returns and tax-efficient returns which can help you design a suitable portfolio to achieve the goals in your bucket list.

"A bucket list usually has two types of goals, that is, those that are self-indulgent like holidaying at an exotic location or buying a latest gadget, and those that are more purposeful, like further studies. Since it may not be possible for you to focus on all of them, the key is to prioritize them and make the list achievable."