Why “Happy Ever After”? Why on earth not?
If we mean, “Why do we want to be happy ever after?” well, the answer is two-fold. First, because it’s a lot better than being unhappy ever after.
That’s the simple answer.
The second answer was because I realised it was possible to be happy about money ever after.
I can’t promise that you, or I for that matter, will be happy in all ways possible for ever from now on. I can’t guarantee you won’t fall and graze your knee. I can’t promise that a boyfriend won’t let you down. I can’t even promise that sometimes you’ll have to do stuff you don’t like doing. That’s just the way it is, and actually it would be bad to think you could be “happy” all the time. A little bit of hard work and difficulty makes the good times seem better.
But we can take money out of the picture. There is an amount of money that leaves all of us not worrying about money any more, where the income coming off that money is enough to cover all our spending and to grow in line or ahead of inflation. When you have that much money in a portfolio, you should never have to worry about money again.
And then you can focus on the things that make you really happy, and not the things that make you money. That’s why “Happy Ever After”.
If you mean, why am I writing “Happy Ever After” now, it’s because over 20 years of working in finance, I’ve learned that most people in the world don’t know these things. That some of the world’s biggest asset managers operate on these numbers – but don’t bother telling anyone else. It’s because I didn’t know any of it when I started out, and I’ve realised over those years that very, very few other people know it too.
And if you mean, why RIGHT now, it’s because my older daughter is off to university without the first clue about what money is, how to get it, how much she needs, how to save it, invest it… and all the other things she needs to do. I promised to write her a book about rainbow unicorns and fairy godmothers when she was little, and was always too busy working to do it.
While what you’re reading now isn’t what she had in mind, I think it will make her happier for longer than any fairytale.