A wanderer – someone who travels around without a specific route or destination.          

The wanderer wants to see the world, but they have other ambitions and goals. Their goal is to see what they can when they can, but without a set destination. They may just set out one day and see what they find without one ultimate location in mind. They travel aimlessly. They stay mostly in places that have basic amenities. Their travel does have purpose because the wanderer wants to discover new territory, but it is still aimless because they do not necessarily care where they end up.

An explorer – someone who travels to unknown places with a specific purpose.

An explorer is someone who loves to see the world. They have set destinations that they want to visit and they have goals. Set goals. They have an endpoint. They know where they are leaving from, where they are heading to, and how they are getting from point A to point B. An explorer may love to wander while visiting these new places. They know where they want to go and what they want to see and they make it happen.

Both the kinds of travelers enjoy their journey.

In the financial journey, a wanderer will find it difficult to sustain their lifestyle. Why? You would ask, well first, we have limited financial resources, multiple milestones in life to achieve and mind you limited time to earn the money required for these milestones. So sorry to spoil your fun, but we can’t really afford to wander or worse still be adventurous with your money.

So given the limited time and resources, it’s important that we actively engage and plan how the money is deployed.

So just like an explorer, when we travel, the first thing, we decide on the destination. Then based on the number of days available for the holiday, we choose the mode of travel and places to cover. Finally based on the budget available, we decide on the places to stay.

Same goes for investments, first decide your goals, what do you want to achieve – home, car, education, travel, jewelry, etc. goal could be anything. Second decide when each goal is to achieved or timelines for these goals. Finally based on the time and risk-taking ability, decide on the financial products. There are an array of debt and equity products. Have a healthy mix of all the financial products, some safe, some with risk. When you achieve a goal, you can replace it with a new one and continue the journey.

People can still choose to be a wanderer provided they have taken care of all the other goals in their life.

As for me, much as my heart would like to be a wanderer, my mind will not agree. So explorer it is.